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Durante siglos, los palacios han sido símbolo de lujo y poder de las familias aristócratas, dejando perplejos a cualquiera que los viera, donde su función ha consistido en ser más que un espacio de residencia, sino también un icono en la ciudad donde se encontraban. La ciudad de Ferrara está compuesta por varias de dichas obras arquitectónicas, haciendo de ella un lugar de gran relevancia dentro del país italiano. La evolución de la ciudad mediante las adiciones que se han ido generando han proporcionado un catálogo de edificios palaciales que hacen de los ejes principales de la ciudad un lugar emblemático. Para abordar la situación, nos centraremos en una serie de obras literarias que nos pondrán en un contexto previo al análisis territorial de la ciudad y a los cinco casos de estudio que nos ayudarán a comprender la relevancia de los palacios dentro de una ciudad. El análisis de la ciudad, mediante su evolución histórica, permitirá entender los grandes sucesos que han influido en Ferrara hasta llegar a su estado actual. A su vez, los casos de estudio ayudaran a conocer el valor intrínseco que tienen estas obras arquitectónicas y como han influido en la composición del tejido urbano. La investigación de este trabajo servirá para destacar como estos palacios funcionan como lugar de referencia e interés dentro de la propia ciudad mediante los símbolos característicos de la época del Renacimiento., For centuries, palaces have been symbols of luxury and power for aristocratic families, leaving anyone who saw them in awe. Their function has been more than just a living space; they have also been icons in the cities where they were located. The city of Ferrara is composed of several such architectural works, making it a place of great significance within Italy. The city's evolution through the additions that have been made has provided a catalog of palatial buildings that make the main axes of the city an emblematic place. To address the situation, we will focus on a series of literary works that will place us in a context prior to the territorial analysis of the city and the five case studies that will help us understand the relevance of palaces within a city. The analysis of the city, through its historical evolution, will allow us to understand the major events that have influenced Ferrara up to its current state. Likewise, the case studies will help us understand the intrinsic value that these architectural works hold and how they have influenced the composition of the urban fabric. The research in this work will serve to highlight how these palaces function as a point of reference and interest within the city itself through the characteristic symbols of the Renaissance period.

La literatura decimonónica española es abanderada de la mayor regeneración en las letras castellanas desde su etapa barroca. El cambio de siglo trajo consigo la llegada de los primeros textos de modernidad a España, produciéndose un estallido de corrientes postrománticas que se alejan de la deriva realista y naturalista imperante. Se adoptan los ademanes de las principales figuras de la poesía europea, y de la mano de los – mal llamados – modernistas, se inicia una lucha en contra del academicismo. Figuran entre ellos: los hermanos Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel de Unamuno o, el padre de todos ellos, Rubén Darío. Adscritos la mayoría de ellos a la corriente simbolista francesa, sus primeras obras son el caldo de cultivo de un imaginario arquitectónico que pretende alejarse de la vida frenética de las grandes urbes. De ahí que en sus versos aparezcan parques decadentes, laberintos de recuerdos o galerías solitarias donde refugiarse y ahondar en las verdades del alma. Un pensamiento que sobrevuela las mentes de artistas de todos los ámbitos, incluido el pintor granadino José María Rodríguez-Acosta, quien logró plasmar en la construcción de su carmen-estudio algunas de las ensoñaciones más exquisitas escritas en verso. Una atalaya blanca rodeada de jardines de la memoria, que esconden un infierno cavernoso oculto bajo las raíces de la colina. A su vez, los altos cipreses nos elevan para mostrarnos el gran complejo de la Alhambra; reflejo de un conjunto de tradiciones insoslayables presentes en los espacios imaginados por Rodríguez-Acosta. Una arquitectura surgida desde lo más hondo del alma del poeta, que logra reconciliar el clasicismo con la rebeldía modernista., Nineteenth-century Spanish literature is a standard-bearer of the most significant rejuvenation in Castilian literature since its Baroque period. The turn of the century brought with it the arrival of the first modern texts in Spain, sparking an explosion of post-Romantic movements that departed from the prevailing realism and naturalism. They adopted the gestures of the leading figures in European poetry, and, led by the so-called “modernists,” they began a fight against academicism. Among them were the Machado brothers, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel de Unamuno, and the father of them all, Rubén Darío. Most of them adhered to the French symbolist movement, and their early works served as a breeding ground for an architectural imagination that aimed to distance itself from the frenetic life of major cities. Hence, their verses featured decadent parks, labyrinths of memories, or solitary galleries to seek refuge and delve into the truths of the soul. This thought hovered in the minds of artists from all fields, including the Granada painter José María Rodríguez-Acosta, who managed to capture in the construction of his “carmen-estudio” some of the most exquisite daydreams written in verse. A white watchtower surrounded by gardens of memory, hiding a cavernous hell beneath the hill’s roots. At the same time, the tall cypresses lift us to show us the grandeur of the Alhambra complex, reflecting a set of unavoidable traditions present in the spaces imagined by Rodríguez-Acosta. An architecture that emerges from the depths of the poet’s soul, reconciling classicism with modernist rebellion.

En las artes, la literatura y la arquitectura hay temas que se tratan de forma interdisciplinar por su importancia e impacto en la sociedad y en el pensamiento. El sujeto ha sido su caso de estudio en numerosas ocasiones, debido al interés que brinda un estudio sobre el inconsciente del individuo, un estudio, en definitiva, sobre uno mismo. La exploración de Franz Kafka sobre el sujeto se ve reflejada no solo en su lenguaje literario, sino también en su lenguaje arquitectónico. Todo recurso utilizado en sus obras trabaja en perfecta armonía para crear un imaginario narrativo y espacial que acerca al lector a una comprensión de lo que para el escritor eran la naturaleza y las tribulaciones del sujeto. Para entender el origen teórico del imaginario de Franz Kafka se analizan los conceptos filosóficos en las obras de Arthur Schopenhauer y Friedrich Nietzsche, dos filósofos que indagan en la implicaciones existenciales, estéticas y morales del sujeto. Siendo una influencia para el escritor, sirven como punto de partida para muchos de los temas en sus obras, especialmente en El proceso y El castillo, donde se exponen temas como el poder institucional o judicial o el tormento que sufre el individuo, los cuales quedan plasmados en la arquitectura que les acompaña. Este trabajo, entonces, es una exploración de las temáticas y arquitecturas en la obra del proceso y el castillo, hecha a través de la filosofía expuesta por Arthur Schopenhauer y Friedrich Nietzsche., In the arts, literature and architecture there are topics that are dealt with in an interdisciplinary way due to their importance and impact on society and thought. The subconscious has been their case study on numerous occasions, due to the interest offered by a study on the unconscious of the individual, a study, in short, on oneself. Franz Kafka’s exploration of the subject is reflected not only in his literary language, but also in his architectural language. Every resource used in his works works in perfect harmony to create a narrative and spatial imagery that brings the reader closer to an understanding of what the nature and tribulations of the subject were for the writer. In order to understand the theoretical origin of Franz Kafka’s imaginary, the philosophical concepts in the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, two philosophers who investigate the existential, aesthetic and moral implications of the subject, are analyzed. Being an influence for the writer, they serve as a starting point for many of the themes in his works, especially in The Trial and The Castle, where themes such as institutional or judicial power or the torment suffered by the individual are exposed, which remain embodied in the architecture that accompanies them. The following work is an exploration of the themes and architectures in the work of the process and the castle, made through the philosophy expounded by Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche.

El presente trabajo de investigación se centra en el análisis del comportamiento humano en torno al dispositivo arquitectónico de la escalera. La intención, con ello, es volver a redescubrirla desde el plano del hábitat y lo doméstico. Se propone una revisión sobre todos los aspectos empíricos posibles que atesora este dispositivo y que son susceptibles de influir en la vida diaria de las personas. Reflexionar sobre las cuestiones fisiológicas y psicológicas que surgen al experimentar un espacio escalonado e insistir en la idea de la experiencia por encima de la del objeto, será el leit motiv. El punto de partida, es intentar alejarse de las experiencias generalizadas y las costumbres normalizadas ya adquiridas por la sociedad, así como de todas aquellas premisas que puedan resultar demasiado turbias o incompletas, para plantear con “ojos de recién llegado”, observaciones que quizás abran el camino hacia un nuevo campo de estudio y, con ello, unas mejoras y adecuaciones más apropiadas para la vida cotidiana de las personas en torno a la escalera. Seguidamente al marco teórico y analítico, el estudio sobre el empirismo de este dispositivo, se centra en la obtención de información a través de la puesta en práctica de dos ejercicios de campo: la observación y la experimentación, tanto propia como ajena. Un trabajo que, además, se ve apoyado por una amplia colección de fotografías y fragmentos de historias de la vida entre peldaños., Award-winning

In Dwelling in Possibility: American Literature, Architecture, and Domestic Innovation, 1850-1900, I read fictional houses as material culture objects whose design, fabrication, and patterns of use make visible changing social relations at particular historical moments. Challenging teleological accounts of nineteenth-century domesticity as a coherent precursor against which modern experimentation defined itself, I locate innovative transformations of domestic space that emerge from and alter particular architectural forms and the social practices they generate and maintain. To flesh out the social and architectural context of literary lodgings, I have assembled an archive of materials from Historic American Buildings Survey photographs to U.S. Census data on changing residential patterns. My four chapters distinguish emergent forms of dwelling that imagine new, but not necessarily positive, possibilities for remaking social relations within existing domestic spaces. My first chapter argues that the titular house in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables (1851) is a converted boarding-house that refashions an extendable family unit out of intimate, mixed domestic-commercial space. In Chapter 2, I examine how Tom Sawyer’s interactions with light in McDougal’s Cave raises questions about the power of narrative to domesticate the truly innovative during encounters with the unknown in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). My third chapter contends that the pueblo-cottage-haciendas in Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona (1885) envision a multicultural California even as their repeated seizure indicates a dooming inability to repel an Anglo-American incursion. Finally, I argue that the middle-class cottage owned by free people of color in Charles W. Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars (1900) iterates the class and racial hierarchies its plantation-style architecture was designed to enforce. By taking overlooked details of dwelling seriously, my project

In Dwelling in Possibility: American Literature, Architecture, and Domestic Innovation, 1850-1900, I read fictional houses as material culture objects whose design, fabrication, and patterns of use make visible changing social relations at particular historical moments. Challenging teleological accounts of nineteenth-century domesticity as a coherent precursor against which modern experimentation defined itself, I locate innovative transformations of domestic space that emerge from and alter particular architectural forms and the social practices they generate and maintain. To flesh out the social and architectural context of literary lodgings, I have assembled an archive of materials from Historic American Buildings Survey photographs to U.S. Census data on changing residential patterns. My four chapters distinguish emergent forms of dwelling that imagine new, but not necessarily positive, possibilities for remaking social relations within existing domestic spaces. My first chapter argues that the titular house in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables (1851) is a converted boarding-house that refashions an extendable family unit out of intimate, mixed domestic-commercial space. In Chapter 2, I examine how Tom Sawyer’s interactions with light in McDougal’s Cave raises questions about the power of narrative to domesticate the truly innovative during encounters with the unknown in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). My third chapter contends that the pueblo-cottage-haciendas in Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona (1885) envision a multicultural California even as their repeated seizure indicates a dooming inability to repel an Anglo-American incursion. Finally, I argue that the middle-class cottage owned by free people of color in Charles W. Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars (1900) iterates the class and racial hierarchies its plantation-style architecture was designed to enforce. By taking overlooked details of dwelling seriously, my project

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The Gothic genre is most commonly defined according to a diverse range of character types, themes, and devices of plot, mood, and setting, and this diffusion has made its application as a unified description a contentious one. This thesis develops a cohesive vocabulary for describing Gothic literature, and applies that vocabulary to a series of novels whose categorization has proven controversial, due to the ambiguities of the popular perception of the Gothic genre. Derived from a close reading of four iconic Gothic texts - Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" - and from various perspectives of Gothic criticism I argue that the archetypal setting of Gothic works, the edifice, plays a central role in Gothic literature through its role in creating the fundamental Gothic properties of verticality, interiority, and pastness. I then argue that Peake's Gormenghast series - comprising Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone - demonstrates in the first two novels this centrality of the edifice to Gothic literature and in the third novel the fact that the physical edifice is not a compulsory component of Gothic literature, but rather acts solely as the most effective expression of the underlying Gothic properties and the point whereby they interrelate. Furthermore, I demonstrate that these properties are applicable not only to the works of the genre itself, but to the critical perspectives that are used to explain it.

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The enigmatic, polyglot Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ... has fascinated architects and historians since its publication in 1499. Part fictional narrative and part scholarly treatise, richly illustrated with wood engravings, the book is an extreme case of erotic furor, aimed at everything—especially architecture—that the protagonist, Poliphilo, encounters in his quest for his beloved, Polia. Among the instances of the book's manifesto-like character is Polia's tirade defending the right of women to express their own sexuality, probably the first sustained argument of this type, which lifts the book's erotic theme from the realm of ribaldry to the more daring one of sexual politics.