El género epistolar en la prensa como visión ciudadana de la esfera pública en Colombia

A partir de un análisis temático inductivo, este artículo explora la visión ciudadana sobre la esfera pública expresada en las cartas de los lectores de los diarios El Tiempo y El Heraldo de Colombia. Los resultados muestran cómo la identidad colectiva de los lectores apareció en forma transversal en las cartas, para dar cuenta de una comunidad de adultos que se autodefine como “colombianos de bien”. El análisis reveló dos unidades de significado: posturas sobre la administración de lo público y antagonismos en la esfera pública, centrada en el conflicto político con las guerrillas. A través de estas se pudieron hacer visibles los llamamientos vívidos de los lectores al gobierno, funcionarios públicos, actores al margen de la ley y a sus compatriotas, para movilizarse para exigir cambios sociales largamente esperados.

The magical transformation contest in the ancient storytelling tradition

El concurso de transformación mágica, esquema narrativo difundido en la tradición popular, se presenta en dos variantes principales: los hechiceros que compiten pueden metamorfosearse en varios seres o crear esos seres por medios mágicos. En cualquier caso el concursante ganador da a luz criaturas más fuertes que superan las de su oponente. La segunda variante fue preferida en el antiguo Cercano Oriente (Sumeria, Egipto, Israel). La primera se puede encontrar en algunos mitos griegos sobre cambiadores de forma (por ejemplo, Zeus y Némesis). El mismo esquema narrativo puede haber influido en un episodio de la Novela de Alejandro (1.36-38), en el que Darío envía regalos simbólicos a Alejandro y los dos monarcas enemigos ofrecen contrastantes explicaciones de ellos. Esta historia griega racionaliza el concurso de cuento de hadas, transfiriendo las fantásticas hazañas de creaciones milagrosas a un plano secundario pero realista de metáfora lingüística.

"A noite branca", between the Documentary and Fictional: the Silenced Account of the Blue Division

The article explores the ambiguous phenomenological status of the novel A noite branca (The White Night) by Francisco Fernández Naval, published in Galician in 2012. This ambiguity is produced by the discursive hybridity of the novel and by the vague ontological status of facts narrated and by several characters. The clarification of the strategies of the said ambiguity, and the originality of the subject, in the whole of Galician narrative about the memory of Civil War and Postwar can tightly evaluate the literary merits of the novel.

Commentary on Pope v. Curl (1741)

Decision of the Chancery Court concerning the unpublished correspondence of Alexander Pope, in which Lord Chancellor Hardwicke draws a distinction between the ownership of a letter, as a physical document, and the right to authorise the first publication of that letter, a right which he concludes remains with the author of the same.
Drawing upon the Public Records Office Archives the commentary explores the background to, and substance of, the decision, the nature and significance of epistolary correspondence in eighteenth century society, and subsequent related commentary and case-law. The commentary argues that the decision is of particular significance in the development of the concept of the author's text as intangible property.

'That Puissant City': John Milton's Roman Sojourns 1638-1639

John Milton’s sojourns in Rome (1638-9) are attested by his comments in Defensio Secunda, by the minutes of the English College, by Latin encomia which he received from Roman academicians, and, not least, by his Latin letter to Lucas Holstenius (19/29 March 1639), and several Latin poems which he composed in the course of his residency in the capital city: Ad Salsillum, and three Latin epigrams extolling the praises of the virtuosa soprano, Leonora Baroni. Read together, these texts serve to reveal much about Milton’s participation in, and reaction to, the ‘Puissant City’, (History of Britain, Bk 2).

The present monograph presents fresh evidence of Milton's integration into the academic and cultural life of seventeenth-century Rome. It argues that his links with two Roman academies: the Accademia dei Fantastici and Accademia degli Umoristi constitute a sustained participation in an academic community paralleling that of his independently attested performance in Florentine academies (on which I have published extensively). It also investigates his links with Alessandro Cherubini, David Codner, Giovanni Batista Doni, and the Baroni circle hymned in three published anthologies.

Chapter 1: Milton and the Accademia dei Fantastici investigates the cultural climate surrounding Milton's Ad Salsillum by examining two of that academy's publications: the Poesie dei Signori Accademici Fantastici di Roma (Rome, 1637) and the Academia Tenuta da Fantastici a. 12 di Maggio 1655 (Rome, 1655), the latter celebrating the creation of Fabio Chigi as Pope Alexander VII on 5 April 1655. Read in a new light, Milton’s self-fashioning, it is argued, takes its place not only alongside Salzilli’s encomium in Milton's honour, and his Italian sonnets in the 1637 Poesie, but also in relation to other poems in that collection, and the academy's essentially Catholic eulogistic trend. The chapter also provides fresh evidence of Salzilli’s survival of the illness described in Milton’s poem by his epistolary correspondence with Tomaso Stigliani.

Chapter 2: Milton and the Vatican argues for links between Milton’s Latin letter to Holstenius and a range of Holstenius’ published works: his edition of the axioms of the later Pythagoreans gifted by him to Milton, and his published neo-Platonic works. This is achieved by mutual appropriation of Similitudes in a series of Miltonic similes, the anabasis/katabasis motifs in a reworking of the Platonic theory of the transmigration of souls, and allusion to etymological details highlighted in Holstenius’ published editions. The chapter also reveals Milton’s alertness to typographical procedures and, by association, to Holstenius’ recent role (1638) as Director of the press of the Biblioteca Vaticana.

Chapter 3: Milton and the Accademia degli Umoristi argues for Milton’s likely participation in this Roman academy, as suggested by his links with its members. His three Latin epigrams in praise of Leonora Baroni, the only female member of the Umoristi, have hitherto been studied in relation to the 1639 Applausi in her honour. In a new reading, Milton, it is suggested, invokes and interrogates Catholic doctrine before a Catholic audience only to view the whole through the lens of a neo-Platonic Hermeticism (by echoing the phraseology of the sixteenth-century Franciscan Hannibal Rosselli) that refreshingly transcends religious difference. Crucially, the hitherto neglected L’Idea della Veglia (Rome, 1640) includes further encomiastic verse, sonnets to, and by Leonora, and details of the conversazioni hosted by her family at the precise time of Milton’s Roman sojourns. Milton may well have been a participant. The chapter concludes in an assessment of his links with the youthful prodigy Alessandro Cherubini, and of his audience with Francesco Barberini.

Chapter 4: Milton at a Roman Opera analyses the potential impact of ‘Chi Soffre, Speri’, which he attended on 18/28 February 1639, mounted by Francesco Barberini to inaugurate the recently completed theatre of the Palazzo Barberini. A detailed analysis of the opera's libretto, music, and theatricality casts a backward glance to Milton's Comus, and a forward glance to Paradise Lost. It also assesses Milton’s musical interests at this time, as attested by his links with Doni, and his purchase of works by Monteverdi and others.

Chapter 5: Milton’s English Connections in Rome develops the work of Miller and Chaney by investigating Milton’s co-diners at the English College in Rome on 30 October 1638, and by analysing his links between David Codner (alias Matteo Selvaggio), and the family of Jane Savage, Marchioness of Winchester, lamented by Milton in 1631. It also assesses his potential relations with the Englishman Thomas Gawen, who ‘accidentally sometimes fell into the company of John Milton’ (Antony Wood).

"Secretary in Fashion" and "Love-Letters": a study of socio-cultural and pragmatic-linguistic features in the late 17th century English language

Epistolary manuals are conspicuous historical documents for the pedagogy of letter writing; however, their actual usage as manuals by letter writers is unknown. "Secretary in Fashion" by Serre (1668), an epistolary manual, and "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister" (1684), an epistolary novel attributed to Behn, both give insights into epistolary conventions. Their inception and nature is interesting, considering their historical context. Despite the Restoration of Charles II, 17th century England was in a confused political state; as a result, texts regarding social convention or politics interested contemporary readers (the novel is inspired by a scandal of Lord Grey, an ardent Whig opposing Charles II). Past epistolary studies focus on 18th rather than 17th century manuals; the latter is typically used as supplementary information. Similarly, past epistolary fiction studies focus on 18th century texts; moreover, linguistic studies on Behn and the novel are deficient. Thus, this study addresses the research questions: 1) What are the socio-cultural and pragmaticlinguistic features represented in "Secretary in Fashion"? 2) What are the socio-cultural and pragmatic-linguistic features represented in "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister", and do any of these features correlate with the features represented in "Secretary in Fashion"? How far do the characteristic linguistic features of "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister" correlate with the practices recommended by the manual? Both texts were qualitatively analysed from an historical pragmatic perspective, which observes the potential effects of the socio-cultural and historical context. Also, as the texts concern shared discourses, comparisons were made with Gricean and Politeness Theory. The results show that the manual is a typical 17th century epistolary manual, aligning particularly with the "Academies of Complements", as it concerns the social conventions of the gentry. The novel mainly upheld instructions on form and matter; deviations occurred due to the amatory nature of some letters, and the narrative force affecting the style. Unfortunately, neither research question elucidates the actual usage of manuals. However, this study does show the epistolary practices of two writers, within specific contexts. It reveals that their 17th century English language use is affected by socialisation, in terms of social conventions concerning social rank, age, and gender; therefore, context varies language use. Also, their popularity reveals the interests of the 17th century society. Interest in epistolary-related texts, surely piques the interest of the modern reader as to why such epistolary-related texts were interesting.

O Palácio dos Câmara "aos Mártires" : um caso excecional da opulência seiscentista

Um dos edifícios de tipologia palaciana que se destaca na iconografia da Lisboa antiga corresponde ao desaparecido Palácio dos Câmara, condes de Vila Franca (1583) e de Ribeira Grande (depois de 1662). Situava-se na colina de S. Francisco, uma área de ocupação aristocrática da cidade, frente à igreja de Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, a leste do Paço dos Duques de Bragança e a norte do Corpo Santo, onde se erguia perto da margem do Tejo, o também já desaparecido Palácio Corte Real. Porventura ofuscada pela grandiosidade destes imóveis, a historiografia olisiponense não tem prestado a devida atenção ao palácio dos Câmara que, no entanto, deve ser encarado como um dos mais significativos palácios urbanos da primeira metade de seiscentos. Com base no cruzamento de fontes iconográficas, judiciais, administrativas e epistolares, o presente estudo dá conta dos aspetos da encomenda, da autoria e datação envolvidos na sua construção, procurando, acima de tudo, caracterizá-lo do ponto de vista tipológico, espacial e distributivo, por forma a entender as opções arquitetónicas, os padrões de gosto e as vivências do espaço interior protagonizados por um dos mais destacados membros da nobreza titular portuguesa.

"Je ne vous dirai point, mon très cher fils" Correspondance de Catherine de Charrière de Sévery 1780-1783

This dissertation examines the principles of education imbued in a three year correspondence between an eighteenth century woman and her teenage son from the French speaking region of Vaud, current day Switzerland. Despite her great respect for the literature and ideas of the new pedagogues of the Enlightenment, especially J.J. Rousseau and Mme de Genlis, Catherine de Charrière de Sévery maintained the traditional perspective of education of the Ancien Régime. To explore the concepts of education and instruction through the epistolary practice, this research is based on the corpus of 107 letters that Mme de Sévery wrote to her son Vilhelm between 1780 and 1783. Additional documents - among them Mme de Sévery’s diaries - from the particularly rich archival holdings of this aristocratic family have been used to complement her correspondence. Most previous studies on family correspondence have dealt with mothers to daughters, or fathers to sons, whereas this research is centered on letters between a mother and her son. The location of this family – Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud – provides a particular regional perspective due to two factors: immersion into a region uniformly Protestant, and the dual-influence of Germanic and French cultures. The study analyzes the educational principles that appear throughout Mme de Sévery’s letters by comparison with three literary works of the 18th century: a familiar correspondence, the Lettres du Lord Chesterfield à son fils (1776); the fundamental education treatise by J.J. Rousseau, Émile, ou de l’Éducation (1762); and a pedagogical treatise written by Mme de Genlis as an epistolary novel, Adèle et Théodore, ou lettres sur l’éducation. Using letters as the main tool to guide her son’s upbringing, Mme de Sévery highlights the moral and family values that are most important to her and leads him to find his place in society.

De lettre intime à lettre ouverte dans Lettres à l’Indigène de Joël Des Rosiers

Dans la première décennie du XXIe siècle, à l’ère des nouvelles technologies de communication électroniques, le courriel est devenu le moyen par excellence pour envoyer et recevoir du contenu privé, remplaçant dès lors l’envoi de lettres papier. Dans ce contexte, pour quelles raisons un individu souhaiterait-il partager ce contenu privé en le publiant ouvertement, publiquement, de plus, dans un format papier, le rendant désormais disponible à l’ensemble des lecteurs désirant en consulter le contenu? Pourtant, telle est la genèse du recueil Lettres à l’Indigène de Joël Des Rosiers dans lequel l’auteur fait don de lettres d’amour qui « deviennent alors des objets communs que partagent la destinataire et l’homme qui lui écrit, le livre et le lecteur » (LALI, p. 7). Ainsi, c’est par la réappropriation d’une pratique épistolaire ancienne que cet ouvrage rend compte d’une écriture intimiste dans laquelle lettres intimes et lettres ouvertes se côtoient. Les lettres intimes comportent plusieurs ressemblances avec les lettres conventionnelles, mais s’en distinguent sur certains points. Les lettres ouvertes, quant à elles, s’apparentent davantage aux publications libres que l’on retrouve dans les divers périodiques papier ou Web, ainsi que dans les divers blogues. Dans les deux types de lettres, nous voyons quelle est la place du destinateur et celle de l’Autre, nous présentons les différentes constructions de l’espace liées à chacune des formes de lettre et nous dévoilons les diverses stratégies formelles qui laissent voir un jeu entre les sphères publique et privée. Nous démontrons ainsi de quelles manières ce recueil questionne l’intimisme du XXIe siècle, ainsi que la pratique d’une écriture intimiste dans le cadre actuel.

Mundos Prohibidos: El Poder en el Discurso Epistolar de Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Juana Borrero

This dissertation analyses, through a theoretical framework and a critical approach, letters of Cuban writers Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and Juana Borrero. While love letters have captured the interest of some scholars, such as Claudio Guillén, Cintio Vitier and Alexander Roselló Selimov, the conflict that the analysis of non-literary texts poses has prevented further research in this field. Therefore, I propose a systematic method of analysis encompassing but not limited to evaluating letters based on their purpose, intent, interpretation, and temporal and spatial composition; analyzing the perspective and function of epistolary entities, and examining the textual signs that distinguish the epistolary forms from the literary forms. With this analytical tool, I examine a selection of letters of Gómez de Avellaneda and demonstrate that the writer displaces her identify from the autobiographic self to the epistolary self, in order to manipulate the perspective of her addressee. Caught between the Neoclassical way of thinking and the Romantic aesthetics, her assertive discourse, also reflected in her epistolary work, contributed to the incursion of women writers into the social and professional life of the nineteen century. Following the same method of investigation, an analysis of letters written by Borrero proves that, by building a world of delusion, hallucination and fantasy the writer brings to prose what first generation of female modernistas had done in poetry. In both cases, my focus is on the strategies that turn these letters into instruments of power, process that transformed the love-letter paradigm and forever renovated the women epistolary genre. This dissertation further explores the possibility of initiating a cycle in the study of personal letters to uncover a forgotten genre, mission that might build a bridge to embrace the new forms of written communication that scholars have already begun to explore in contemporary literature.

De lettre intime à lettre ouverte dans Lettres à l’Indigène de Joël Des Rosiers

Dans la première décennie du XXIe siècle, à l’ère des nouvelles technologies de communication électroniques, le courriel est devenu le moyen par excellence pour envoyer et recevoir du contenu privé, remplaçant dès lors l’envoi de lettres papier. Dans ce contexte, pour quelles raisons un individu souhaiterait-il partager ce contenu privé en le publiant ouvertement, publiquement, de plus, dans un format papier, le rendant désormais disponible à l’ensemble des lecteurs désirant en consulter le contenu? Pourtant, telle est la genèse du recueil Lettres à l’Indigène de Joël Des Rosiers dans lequel l’auteur fait don de lettres d’amour qui « deviennent alors des objets communs que partagent la destinataire et l’homme qui lui écrit, le livre et le lecteur » (LALI, p. 7). Ainsi, c’est par la réappropriation d’une pratique épistolaire ancienne que cet ouvrage rend compte d’une écriture intimiste dans laquelle lettres intimes et lettres ouvertes se côtoient. Les lettres intimes comportent plusieurs ressemblances avec les lettres conventionnelles, mais s’en distinguent sur certains points. Les lettres ouvertes, quant à elles, s’apparentent davantage aux publications libres que l’on retrouve dans les divers périodiques papier ou Web, ainsi que dans les divers blogues. Dans les deux types de lettres, nous voyons quelle est la place du destinateur et celle de l’Autre, nous présentons les différentes constructions de l’espace liées à chacune des formes de lettre et nous dévoilons les diverses stratégies formelles qui laissent voir un jeu entre les sphères publique et privée. Nous démontrons ainsi de quelles manières ce recueil questionne l’intimisme du XXIe siècle, ainsi que la pratique d’une écriture intimiste dans le cadre actuel.

Estudio, edición crítica y traducción del "Memoriale virtvtvm" de Alfonso de Cartagena

Alfonso de Cartagena (1385-1456), possibly the most representative figure of the courtly, political and cultural dimension built around Juan II, was the third son of the famous convert Pablo de Santa Maria, Burgos’ rabbi and, later on, bishop of that same town. He started his career as governor of Cartagena’s cathedral, afterwards he was named dean of Santiago and Segovia, canon of Burgos and, after his father’s death, bishop of Burgos. Alternatively, he played a vital role in Castile’s national and international politics, as an ambassador in Portugal’s court, at Basel’s council and before Poland’s and Germany’s kings. His work, written both in Latin and Romance, either as an historian, treatise writer, theologist or translator, is quite broad; his literary connections were strong either with Italian humanists or with those who were fond of the language arts from Spain. The first part of this Thesis seeks to provide a wide enough perspective of the author, for which we place the emphasis on the most distinctive aspects of his life. Therefore, we divided the introduction in three sections: a biographical overview, his work and, last, a study on the Memoriale uirtutum itself. Thus, regarding the first aspect, we focus on the course of his life (§1.1), where we can highlight his university education, which isn’t restricted to his training as a jurist, but we also observe that his mental vitality takes him to develop certain inquisitiveness for Moral Philosophy or Latin, which leads him to study Grammar and Rhetoric; this would allow the influence of studia humanitatis to emerge, although he never got to learn the Greek language, as we can deduce from the epistolary confrontation between him and Leonardo Bruni. We also focus on the significance of his Jewish past, upon the defence of the converts during the massacre experienced in the XVth century (§1.2), and on his presence at Basel’s council (§1.3). Despite the fact that his work as a diplomat begins during the missions in Portugal as an emissary of king Juan II, he will get recognition owing to his legation in Basel, not only among the European ecclesiastics, but also among the scholars from Italy; the importance of Basel’s council in Cartagena’s life goes beyond his official work there, either as defending the Castilian interests, or as an active member of the purely conciliar functions, since it also had a huge impact in his intellectual growth. During this time period, Cartagena establishes a friendship with Pizzolpaso, Bishop of Milan, writer, humanist, and friend of Leonardo Bruni. As a result of this type of relationship with men of such high cultural standard, he re-awakens the study of the Classical antiquity among his contemporaries, developing a huge interest in the Greco-Roman masterpieces, which will bring him closely to the highly-regarded Spanish humanists of the XVIth century...