Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The laudario of Iacopone da Todi (1236-1306) challenges the reader's perception of literary and dramatic aesthetics due to its poetic form, common dialogical settings, and para-linguistic modes of communication. His laude have been systematically defined as lauda drammatiche, even if most of his readers would probably concur that they do not always conform to the canons of drama. The purpose of this thesis is to examine significant traces and aspects of dramatic form in Iacopone's laude. In the following five chapters, I examine the laudario from various perspectives. The first chapter articulates the points of divergence between Iacopone's laudario and the traditional models of lauda up to his time. It discusses its distinctive ballad form and places the laudario within its religious and historical context, with emphasis on the penitential practice of the Flagellanti and its potential impact on the Franciscan lauda. In chapter two, I assess the laudario's textual version for evidence pertinent to a potential staging of the individual laude, basing my investigation on John Austin's theory of the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary speech acts, as well as other developments of speech act theory and additional principles of performance. In chapter three, I examine the laudario for traces of a live presentation, applying Paul Zumthor's notions of oral performance. This section of the thesis focuses on issues involved in the oral transmission of the text, on traces of audience presence and participation in performance, and on the concept of mnemonics in general, both auditory and visual. Chapter four investigates the lauda as an instrument of Franciscan preaching that reflects persuasive and non-linguistic strategies of representation pertinent to the preaching models of sermo modernus. In chapter five, I narrow the emphasis to the link between drama and the major liturgical practices: the Eucharist and the lay Planctus Mariae. My intention is to determine the genesis of the most dramatic work of Iacopone, Donna de paradiso. Finally, I categorize the laude according to the extent of their dramatic features
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Samia Tawwab
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Toronto
OpenAlex ID: W2557658058