Violetta Sutton (Topoleva) has completed all of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. In March she successfully defended her dissertation Society, Language, and Carnival in the Comedies of Ludovico Ariosto and will be awarded with the degree at the convocation ceremony, on June 5, 2013.

For her doctoral dissertation, she examined Ariosto’s comedies focusing not only on their structure, content, language and their reception and influences throughout the centuries, but also on social-historic context in which Ariosto’s comedies were composed, staged, and printed. While applying the theory of carnival in the comprehensive analysis of Ariosto’s comedies, she outlined Ariosto’s innovations made in his comedies. She plans to examine Ariosto’s comedies furthermore and eventually publish her research.