• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.43-71
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• 2012

In this article, we recognize the cross-cultural communication between Greece and Spain through El Greco's pictures. The Greeks of Crete kept to their culture and continued to look to the declining Byzantine Empire for spiritual and political guidance. For two centuries after the conquest, the strength of the Byzantine tradition had become the moral and spiritual sustenance of the conquered in Crete. The basic contribution of Cretan intellectuals or artists such as El Greco of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the forging of connecting links between the Hellenism of the old Byzantine East and the rising, youthful Hellenism of the Renaissance West. In this way, Crete served as an important halfway point between East and West. The saint Mary Magdalene was symbol of Christian penitence, which represents the penitential life personified and became widespread during the Counter Reformation, when new emphasis was put on the value of prayer and repentance in the forgiveness of sin. In Spain, the Penitent Magdalene was popular and El Greco painted many versions, which at the first time, were reflected by Tiziano, on the contrary, at the time of Toledo, were recreated by his own style. Although El Greco was converted to Catholic in Spain, his faith in Greek Orthodox Church influenced on his original painting world. El Greco had never painted a picture whose subject treat with the emphasis of identification between Mary Magdalene and Mary, younger sister of Martha.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.19
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• pp.149-179
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• 2010

This article is concerned about the symbolic meaning of the transvestism Renaissance perspective through analysis of Triumph Over Persecution work and The Merchant of Venice, and Jealous Ioan Tornese. The transvestism is frequently present in the comedies of the golden age. A woman author Maria de Zayas has a special interest in female identity with critical and defying view. Also the subject of the transvestism in Spanish literature originated in Italian tradition. In Italian literature, there were two types of disguised women, who urge for love and warrior-heroine(amazon). Both types are also listed in Spanish literature. The dress-crossing heroine of Triumph Over Persecution displays a type of heroine, who corrects a male prejudice and reset a harmonious order. Shakespeare is also one of the Renaissance writers under the influence of the Italian Renaissance novel. Heroine of Merchant of Venice symbolizes a triumphant challenge against the blocks of the patriarchal system. In spite of the social system blocks, cross-dressing women may receive in the patriarchal scenes without problems. Based on the notion of paradox and irony, the Italian novel reflects popular psychology of the time when the link between the internal identity and social outside puts into question. The cross-dressing Torneses' wife, symbolizes the mockery or renaissance deception. Their deception emphasis on an ironic way in the point view of inhuman man who consider women material belongs to the man without any free-will. The costume of the characters make it possible to change their original identity into the other. From this point of view, we can say that the transvestism in these works could be interpreted in two ways: first, the destruction of the traditional categories of women's identity and second, the burlesque contempt on the patriarchal renaissance society.