Revue Romane. Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures - Online First

In this paper we return to the question of the use of te, the Italian personal pronoun, as subject instead of complement. According to scientific literature, the diffusion of te in substitution of tu as the subject of the clause is attributed to the spoken variety of language.

We aim at verifying this hypothesis and to further document the use of te as subject using existing corpora of both written and spoken language.

The research considers old and new issues (for example the diffusion of the coordinative phrase io e te instead of io e tu, on which see Blasco Ferrer, 1992 ) and intends to represent the phenomenon in quantitative and qualitative terms.

In the conclusions it is stated that the phenomenon, even better represented in the spoken versus the written, seems diachronically stable, and sensitive to diatopic factors. The most significant results of the current research consist in having evaluated the presence of the phenomenon separately in the different constructs in which it occurs, and in having identified other contexts of attestation.

The purpose of this article is to study the intertextual play in four novels grouped under the label « MARIE MADELEINE MARGUERITE DE MONTALTE » by the Belgian author Jean-Philippe Toussaint. The theoretical tool to study this phenomenon is the theory of intertextuality and the intertextual typology in particular, extracted from Gérard Genette’s Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré (1982) and Tiphaine Samoyault’s Intertexte, Mémoire de la littérature ( 2001 ). The main question the study raises is what function the intertexts occupy in the tetralogy. The article distinguishes between a diegetic and a metaliterary function. The study shows that the intertexts, mostly allusions, only play a minor role in the diegesis. However, several allusions occupy a metaliterary function. Through these, the author debates literary questions. The author’s attitude is playful: He gently mocks the authors behind the intertexts and enters into a dialogue with them at the same time.

This article studies the discourse in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French periodical press on the topic of translations of travel writing. It reveals that travel reviews were arenas for discussing the political and ideological value of translating travelogues into French, notably from English. In the context of the Franco-British conflicts at the turn of the century, the French press perceived translations of British travel writing as potential patriotic tools that allowed different ways of countering or subverting British global influence. Paratextual elements of translations, the translator’s prefaces and notes, appeared to be particularly important in this respect. By analysing the periodical discourse on travel book translations, the article shows how travel writing was constructed as a politically invested genre.

La poesía satírico burlesca de Juan del Valle y Caviedes (Porcuna, Jaén, 1645-Lima, 1698), fiel a la configuración lírica de finales del siglo XVII, está muy ligada a la plaza pública y a las circunstancias y acontecimientos producidos en ella. Por ello, el presente trabajo analiza en algunos textos de Caviedes la representación poética de los mulatos que habitaron la ciudad de Lima en dicho periodo. Después de revisar las lecturas de Hill (2007)  – que estudia estos textos como “poemas de casta” – se presta particular atención a los modos de representación – y valoración – de este grupo de sujetos marginales desde la perspectiva de un contemporáneo.

This paper aims at reading Hergé’s major work in the light of Sloterdijk’s theory of spheres and Agamben’s reflexions on adventure in order to examine the place and function of the island in the adventures of Tintin, a hero without insulation. Much attention is given to the boundery topology of adventure in our discussion of the ontological transitions (human, animal) taking place on the threshold between in and out and of their anthropogenetic significance. We defend that every adventure story is a variation on the anthropogenetic one, and that Hergé and Sloterdijk diverge on the matter of island and insulation.

This contribution is an investigation of the distribution and nature of a structure found across Northern Italian varieties, a reflex of Latin habere to which a locative particle g has been added, within the contexts of the relation between microvariation and gradual language change. A detailed morpho-syntactic description forms the basis for an analysis that suggests a probable path of univerbation of the two elements. Driving the analysis is the consideration of the original semantic features of the Latin element from which the locative particle has developed, in particular of the order of their weakening.

Las sátiras contra Felipe III y sus ministros fueron una parte fundamental de la poesía del conde de Villamediana, especialmente en los últimos años de su reinado. Su audacia no conoció límites. En uno de sus sonetos mitológicos utilizará el mito de Hércules y Ónfale para acusar a Felipe III de ser un esclavo sin voluntad para reinar, una auténtica capitis deminutio que ponía en duda su condición de rey, cristiano y hombre.

This article deals with the processes that Castillo Solórzano uses to write serious mythological fables (of Ovidian origin) within the parameters of the aesthetics of the grotesque and deformed, essential ingredients of satirical and burlesque literature. These processes are related to the classic imitatio and the structural disposition of the text, and also related to formal twist, « agudeza verbal » in the words of Gracián, which allow parodying the rococo style of Góngora influence. For a better expository clarity they are exemplified with the Fábula de Adonis, which Castillo Solórzano takes directly from Ovid, and which serves for other similar works of burlesque romances in the seventeenth century.

This article explores the function of mockery and laughter in the short novel “El celoso hasta la muerte” by Alonso de Castillo Solórzano. I interpret this text as a “novela de burlas” or comic novella, a specific type of narrative in which mockery is a central device. The analysis pays close attention to the mechanism of the “canned laughter” that reveals the function of ridicule and the role of both the victim as scapegoat and his victimizers. At the end, this short novel reflects the literary sensitivity of the aristocratic audience to whom it is addressed: a small group of noble families and friends that the author met during his stay in Valencia.