Jane Tylus, a professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at Yale University who also has a teaching appointment in the Divinity School, gave a lecture titled “Saying Goodbye in the Renaissance” at South College on Monday as the fourth annual Elizabeth Mazzocco Memorial Lecture.

Her lecture examined the ritual of goodbyes and departing during the Renaissance through analysis of several pieces of art and literature, as well as firsthand letters from this period.

“Whatever it is that has been the current inspiration for this project, it is one that takes as a question the nature of goodbyes. Taking leave of not only one’s own life, and death, of others, but also of one’s work. By life I don’t just mean the lugubrious definition that is death, but the life which everyone has departed from, such as when one leaves home, or all that is familiar,” Tylus explained.

She continued, “In short, how do men and women of the Renaissance say goodbye to writings, rituals and works of art, and how does the emergence of Protestantism change this phenomenon in significant ways based on its very different conception of the relationship between the living and the dead?”

Tylus utilized Saint Catherine of Siena from the 14th century and her written works to further elaborate on Renaissance era’s nature of goodbyes.

“Catherine haunts her last letter as the ghost that she will have become… and she speaks of already conversing with the dead,” Tylus said. “The fact that Catherine is looking back here over her life at all [within this last letter] crosses the threshold and spurs others toward an act of collection. It’s interesting because Catherine is someone who said relentlessly in her letters ‘never look back to look at the plow.’”

“Catherine’s last letter is an uncharacteristic reflection on where she has been and where she is now, and where she is now is uncertain. In this moment of desperation, before death will claim her in less than two months’ time, she asks that her writings be gathered as a means of revitalization of, and adoration of a community, where here she has none,” Tylus said.

Robert Sullivan, the head of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Massachusetts, said, “This lecture series is a great series and every year the speakers are incredible, but this one was one of the best I’ve seen yet. Professor Tylus was very accessible and easy to understand.”

Melina Masterson, a lecturer of Italian at UMass, also found the talk “accessible and easy to understand by most people due to the lecturer’s great visual aids and explanations.”

“This was the most interesting and engaging talk I’ve been to in a long time,” said Cara Takakjian, a lecturer in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures who also praised  “the turnout from the Five Colleges and the Language, Literatures and Culture community.”

Jacqueline Hayes can be reached at [email protected].