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1
Coleman, Christina. "Chaucer and narrative strategy." Thesis, McGill University, 1993. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=68078.
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Many of the stories found in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer are adapted from other sources, a common practice amongst Medieval authors. But Chaucer often draws attention to his derivations by explicitly naming a source for the stories he uses. This strategy is employed in different ways. In Troilus and Criseyde, a false source is cited, but in the Clerk's Tale, Chaucer names the actual source of the story. In this thesis, identification and close examination of Chaucer's source materials reveal his changes to the derived texts, and an analysis of the role of the narrator in each case demonstrates the different narrative strategies he employs. Although Chaucer is clearly using different strategies in the two works, both raise questions about final authority over a text. These questions are the central issues explored in this thesis.
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Langdale, Glyn Allen. "Eloquence and imagery : the function of Fra Angelico's frescoes in the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30100.
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Fra Angelico's fresco cycle of the lives and martyrdoms of SS. Stephen and Lawrence in the Chapel of Nicholas V (1447-49) communicate in a style which seems to be rhetorical in the sense that they employ numerous strategies which appear to aim at persuading viewers of the truth of the ideological notions the frescoes convey. This fact encourages one to consider the specific pressures which the context of the frescoes' production may have exerted. Commissioned by a pope who had the training of a professional humanist - and who, as a humanist, had interest in the efficacy of rhetoric - these frescoes convey their messages with a persuasive pictorial 'eloquence1 which, in some respects, corresponds to or plays off on humanist definitions of eloquence. The following study attempts to explain what messages these frescoes were meant to communicate, and how their manner of communication is rhetorical. The rhetorical style becomes a method of conveying old ideas in new ways, and may have made the messages more resonant in the context in which they were meant to function.
A paucity of primary documentation on the frescoes makes this type of evaluation difficult. Problems in identifying the frescoes' intended audience and working on the troublesome ground between the rhetorical nature of written and pictorial texts also complicates this' investigation. Nevertheless, by considering the problems and aims of Nicholas Vs pontificate, and by closely examining the subject matter, organization, and expression of the frescoes, some indication as to their probable function may be gained.Arts, Faculty of
Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of
Graduate
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Norman, Taryn Louise. "Queer Performativity and Chaucer's Pardoner." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2006. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/NormanTL2006.pdf.
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McKergow, Ian. "Language and morality after Ockham : a study of Chaucer's engagement with themes in Jean de Meun." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=23725.
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William of Ockham's (1285-1349) influence on medieval philosophy has been generally acknowledged. Little, however, has been written on the possibility that his work had an effect on the arts. His radical reversal of traditional epistemology and ontology raised new questions which had great implications for poetry. This study seeks to establish the extent of his influence on one poet, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1345-1400), by examining Chaucer's engagement with Jean de Meun (c. 1232-1305) on the theme of language and morality.
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Ditoma, Vincenzo. "Domenico Di Giovanni, detto il Burchiello : tra dissenso e ansia d'infinito." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=33885.
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Burchiello's poetry has traditionally offered many difficulties of interpretation, and too often been neglected because of its obscure language.The present work sets its goal not only to restate the validity of the metaphorical dimension in Burchiello, but also to offer an angle through which one can consider his poetic production as the signal of somehow a spiritual anxiety.
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Youmans, Karen DeMent. "Chaucer and the Rhetorical Limits of Exemplary Literature." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279341/.
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Though much has been made of Chaucer's saintly characters, relatively little has been made of Chaucer's approach to hagiography. While strictly speaking Chaucer produced only one true saint's life (the Second Nun's Tale), he was repeatedly intrigued and challenged by exemplary literature. The few studies of Chaucer's use of hagiography have tended to claim either his complete orthodoxy as hagiographer, or his outright parody of the genre. My study mediates the orthodoxy/parody split by viewing Chaucer as a serious, but self-conscious, hagiographer, one who experimented with the possibilities of exemplary narrative and explored the rhetorical tensions intrinsic to the genre, namely the tensions between transcendence and imminence, reverence and identification, and epideictic deliberative discourse.
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McNamara, Rebecca Fields. "Code-switching in medieval England : register variety in the literature of Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Usk and Thomas Hoccleve." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669980.
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Breitenstein, Renée-Claude. "La rhétorique épidictique de François Rabelais." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=19675.
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This study participates in a tendency of Rabelaisian criticism to consider the Pantagruelian text as a weaving of borrowed forms which rcho surrounding discourses. On thrse grounds, we argue that epideictic rloquence, which comprises praise and blame, forms up a network of recognisable passages. This corpus, which, frora the Gargantua to the Quart Livre, brings together pieces eclectic as much in claim as in structure, is tackled from a generic perspective and analysed in light of their common rhetorical components: dispositio, elocutio and inventio. In accordance with the aesthetic of imitation, which informs the making of texts in the Renaissance, Rabelais recasts models available from his predecessors. However, these textual reshufflings, whether it be a matter of early XVIth Century literary compositions or rehabilitated classical works, is effected through parody. But while the re-evaluation through laughter, in the cases of the Gargantua and the Pantagruel, concerns the occasional poetry of the rhetoriqueurs, parody is brought about within the genre itself in the Tiers and Quart Livres, which comprise paradoxical encomia only. Our interest here is in the modes of parody and the conditions for the provoking of laughter in which can be seen the will to reinvigorate a genre, which had by then become strictly codified. From the first two books to the last a certain way of thinking is being established. With conceptual space allowing such great breadth, the paradoxical encomium introduces into epideictic rhetoric contradiction and equivocation, thereby freeing that genre from its formal constraints. This propensity to paradox is significant for the rhetoric of praise and the textual representation of man. And yet, it is through the parody of the epideictic genre and the often grotesque figures it engenders, that Rabelais participates in the oratory genre, - an anthropology indeed, and, as such, a tool to conceive of man - which conveys the highest conception of the human.
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Pemeja, Paul. "La poésie dans l'œuvre de François Rabelais /." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79970.
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One can see many poems in the five books of Francois Rabelais. These pieces in verse are sometimes inspired by the "Grands Rhetoriqueurs", or by poets of the like of Clement Marot or Mellin de Saint-Gelais, contemporary to the author. Rabelais reverses and parodies the forms he imitates; likewise these very codified poetic forms are often particularly well-suited to parody. In this case, analyzing the co-text proves to be essential when judging parodies that are often ambiguous and more ludic than they are satirical. Moreover, the poetry encases itself into the work, which in turn follows models of comedy and parody: the comic-epic and the Menippean satire.Far from being a whim on the part of the author, or a mere nod in the direction of his friends who were poets, Rabelaisian poetry surprises the reader by its variety, which provides a fascinating portrait of the vitality of the poetical debates of the period.
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Morin-Asselin, Michelle. "Thélème, une nouvelle Jérusalem?" Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21243.
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The works of Edwin M. Duval, especially The Design of Rabelais's "Pantagruel" will act as a springboard for our proposition that Theleme is a New Jerusalem. Through textual analysis of biblical texts and those of Rabelais, we intend to bring to light their intertextual relationships as well as that of certain works pertaining to a New Jerusalem which were of importance during the sixteenth century, namely those of Joachim of Flora, Calvin and Torquato Tasso.We will begin by presenting a compilation of what has been established about Theleme to date. Following this, we will present Duval's arguments culminating in his two conclusions: firstly, that Pantagruel is a "Christ-Redeemer" for the race of Giants, and secondly, that Pantagruel is an epic of the New Testament. We will then take these conclusions one step further by proposing that just as the New Testament ends with the Book of Revelation, the Rabelaisian cycle Pantagruel-Gargantua is also brought to a close with the advent of a New Jerusalem.
Next, we will present a historical overview of the founding of abbeys up to the time of Rabelais in order to counter the claim that Theleme is an anti-monastery or a counter-abbey. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Regetz, Timothy. "Lollardy and Eschatology: English Literature c. 1380-1430." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1404582/.
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In this dissertation, I examine the various ways in which medieval authors used the term "lollard" to mean something other than "Wycliffite." In the case of William Langland's Piers Plowman, I trace the usage of the lollard-trope through the C-text and link it to Langland's dependence on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Regarding Chaucer's Parson's Tale, I establish the orthodoxy of the tale's speaker by comparing his tale to contemporaneous texts of varying orthodoxy, and I link the Parson's being referred to as a "lollard" to the eschatological message of his tale. In the chapter on The Book of Margery Kempe, I examine that the overemphasis on Margery's potential Wycliffism causes everyone in The Book to overlook her heretical views on universal salvation. Finally, in comparing some of John Lydgate's minor poems with the macaronic sermons of Oxford, MS Bodley 649, I establish the orthodox character of late-medieval English anti-Wycliffism that these disparate works share. In all, this dissertation points up the eschatological character of the lollard-trope and looks at the various ends to which medieval authors deployed it.
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Bosman, Jan Petrus. "Social identity in Nahum : a theological-ethical enquiry." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1406.
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Lansing, Sandra Joyce. "From thought to style: Emerson's interplay of ideas and language." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1997. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1404.
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Jones, Oliver M. "The Matters of Troy and Thebes and Their Role in a Critique of Courtly Life in Chaucer and the Gawain-Poet." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279137/.
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Both Chaucer and the Gawain-poet use the Matters of Troy and Thebes as material for a critique of courtly life, applying these literary matters to the events and actions in and around Ricardian England. They use these classical matters to express concerns about the effectiveness of the court of Richard II.
Chaucer uses his earlier works as a testing ground to develop his views about the value of duty over courtly pursuits, ideas discussed more completely in Troilus and Criseyde. The Gawain-poet uses the Matter of Troy coupled with the court of King Arthur to engage in a critique of courtly concerns. The critiques presented by both poets show a tendency toward duty over courtly concerns.
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Shelton, Jeff Scott. "From College to Career: Understanding First Generation and Traditional Community College Transfer Students' Major and Career Choices." PDXScholar, 2013. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/1408.
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While the connection between major choice and career goals seems logically obvious, research exploring this process is limited, particularly concerning how socio-economic class, based on parents' educational levels, influences the choice process. An important initial step in understanding this larger process is to explore how SES-based differences affect the process of choosing a major, a career goal and the way in which students link their major to a possible career.
This study utilizes a comparative interview design to explore the lived experiences regarding major and career aspirations of first generation and traditional college seniors who have transferred from a community college to Portland State University. This study considers a first generation student to be any student that does not have a parent that has graduated from a four-year university in the United States. A traditional student is any student that has one or more parents who have earned at least a four-year degree in the U.S. Using a conceptual framework based on Pierre Bourdieu's work on social reproduction, this qualitative interview study examines how social and cultural capital as well as habitus influences first generation and traditional community college transfer students' choice of career, major and the link these students make between the two.
This research found that the majority of students, both first generation and traditional community college transfer students, gained domain specific information that helped them with their major and or career goals from mentors such as, professors and academic advisers. However, Traditional students received "life advice" and encouragement from family members and employers that helped them to stay on track and gain inside information regarding their career choices. Traditional students used their past and current work history to assist them in strengthening their chances at realizing their career goals. Many traditional students planned to use the degrees they earned at college to advance within fields they already were working in. In comparison, it was only after they started college and settled on specific majors that first generation students looked for work experiences to help explore possible occupational outcomes. Another major difference between the two groups of students was that traditional students linked their majors to multiple jobs in an occupational area while first generation students linked their major to specific occupational positions.
While there has been a large amount of research in the United States using Bourdieu's theory to examine how micro processes of language and teacher's expectations are utilized to maintain social stratification in K-12 education, there has been little research done on the micro processes that occur in college that lead to the reproduction of social class. This thesis illustrates how family background-based advantages that lead to differences in students' K-12 success actually continue after they enter higher education. By drawing attention to the importance of how family-background impacts major and career choices for community college transfer students after they arrive at the university, this thesis contributes to Bourdieu's explanation of how education at all levels contributes to the reproduction of a socially stratified society.
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Zobaran, Felipe Teixeira. "Antropofagia no sítio : insólito ficcional e identidade cultural em Peter Pan, de Monteiro Lobato." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UCS, 2016. https://repositorio.ucs.br/handle/11338/1403.
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Este trabalho busca analisar como Monteiro Lobato concretiza seu projeto de construção de uma literatura infantil brasileira, em obras constituintes da coleção do Sítio do Picapau Amarelo, especialmente através do livro Peter Pan, de 1930. A personagem homônima original do escocês James Matthew Barrie apareceu pela primeira vez em uma peça de teatro em 1910, em Londres, e tornou-se um clássico contemporâneo, largamente adaptado e traduzido, inclusive pelos estúdios de animação de Walt Disney. Lobato, que era tradutor, escolheu não apenas traduzir a obra de Barrie, mas apropriar-se dela no universo do Sítio; nos livros do brasileiro, a história do menino que não quer crescer é contada pela personagem Dona Benta a seus netos; a partir daí, diversas propriedades ficcionais do original britânico se manifestam em muitos momentos na obra infantil do paulista. Esse recurso é consoante com uma prática defendida pela geração de escritores do modernismo brasileiro de 1922: a antropofagia. Embora Lobato fosse dissidente do grupo, e apesar de sua prosa para adultos ter sido pouco modernista, sua literatura infantil se mostra extremamente similar àquilo que o grupo de Oswald de Andrade e Mário de Andrade defendia. Com base em Lajolo e Ceccantini (2008), Zilberman (1982), Vieira (2008) e White (2011), este trabalho busca mostrar como se dá o entrecruzamento antropofágico da obra de Barrie com a de Lobato, e como o paulista construiu sua literatura nacionalista para crianças. Em Peter Pan de Lobato, há dois universos mágicos e sobrenaturais que se sobrepõem: o Sítio e a Terra do Nunca; o escopo analítico deste trabalho passa, então, por teóricos do modo literário insólito / fantástico, como Todorov (2007), Roas (2014), García et al. (2007), e outros. Além disso, busca-se analisar a visão do Brasil que o escritor paulista conseguia vincular à sua literatura infantil, pensando em identidade regional, nacional e no contexto de globalização, com base em Hall (2005), Said (2011), e em considerações sobre região e nação. A conclusão é que Lobato era um tradutor cultural que conseguia trazer aos leitores do país, pioneiramente, histórias antigas e novas que eram produzidas no exterior, vestindo-as à brasileira, digerindo-as de maneira antropofágica, e que sua influência ficcional é visível até os dias de hoje, no que diz respeito à formação de uma identidade brasileira moderna.Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2016-11-30T15:13:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Felipe Teixeira Zobaran.pdf: 2350229 bytes, checksum: e21ade58b573958d1a70ac720aabfacf (MD5)
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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq
This thesis aims at examining to what extend Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato brings out his children's literature project in the books of the Sítio do Picapau Amarelo series, focusing especially on the novel Peter Pan, released in 1930. The original story by Scottish playwright James Matthew Barrie first appeared in a play in London in 1910, and became a contemporary classic, widely adapted and translated, including film versions by Walt Disney studios. Lobato, who was a famous translator, chose not only to translate the work of Barrie, but to absorb it into his own fiction; in the Brazilian books, the story of the boy who does not grow up is told by the character Dona Benta to her grandchildren; from there on, several fictional properties of the original British story manifest in many instances to the children of São Paulo. This feature is in line with Brazilian modernism writers of 1922, who defended Antropofagia (literary cannibalism), that is, a sharp reinforcement of the Brazilian identity in literature, by absorbing foreign aesthetics and transforming them into something original. Although Lobato was a dissident of that group, and even though his prose for adults was not very modernistic, his books for children are similar, in some ways, to what Oswald de Andrade and Mario de Andrade were producing in the early 1920’s. Based on Lajolo and Ceccantini (2008), Zilberman (1982), Vieira (2008) and White (2011), this paper shows the intertwining fiction of Barrie and Lobato, and how the Brazilian books get to defend a sort of nationalism. In Lobato’s Peter Pan, two supernatural worlds converge: Sítio do Picapau Amarelo and Neverland; thus, this paper analyses both fictional worlds based on fantasy literature theories, such as the works of Todorov (2007), Roas (2014) and García et al. (2007). Moreover, this analysis seeks to define Lobato’s view of Brazilian identity, based on Hall (2005), Said (2011) and theories of nationalism. The conclusion is that Lobato was a cultural translator, who could bring to the country's readers old and new stories that were produced abroad, making them very Brazilian, by digesting them in a cannibalistic way. His fictional influence is, actually, visible until today, as it helped in the formation of a modern Brazilian identity.
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Smith, Tamytha Cameron. "Personal Passions and Carthusian Influences Evident in Rogier Van Der Weyden's Crucified Christ between the Virgin and Saint John and Diptych of the Crucifixion." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2006. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc5245/.
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This thesis examines Rogier Van Der Weyden's two unique fifteenth century Crucifixions, The Crucified Christ Between the Virgin and Saint John and The Diptych of the Crucifixion, in light of Carthusian beliefs, practices and relevant devotional texts. The specific text used to support this examination is the Vita Christi by Ludolph of Saxony, which in part deals specifically with the Hours of the Passion. Ludolph's text is given visual form in Rogier's paintings and supports the assertion that Rogier and Ludolph were connected by a shared belief and worldview. Key aspects of Rogier's life, supported by original documentation- familial ties, associates, patrons, use of finances, and his close involvement with the Carthusians-- support this assertion. Other models of connections of belief, evidenced through artist's work, are corroborated in the work of Grunewald, Sluter and Durer.
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Thomson, Matthew Paul. "Interaction between polyphonic motets and monophonic songs in the thirteenth century." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4230a588-2359-4ac3-bd87-59c0e4ce775a.
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Interactions between polyphonic motets and monophonic trouvère song in the long thirteenth century have been characterised in a number of different ways. Mark Everist and Gaël Saint-Cricq have focused on motets' use of textual and musical forms usually thought of as typical of song. Judith Peraino, on the other hand, has explored the influence of motets on a range of pieces found in manuscripts that mainly contain monophonic songs. This thesis re-examines motet-song interaction from first principles, taking as its basis the 22 cases in which a voice part of a polyphonic motet is also found as a monophonic song. The thesis's analysis of this corpus has two central themes: chronology and quotation. In addressing the first, it develops a music-analytical framework to address the compositional processes involved in these case studies, arguing that in some of them a monophonic song was converted into a motet voice, while in others a motet voice was extracted from its polyphonic context to make a song. It also emphasises, however, that chronology is often more complicated than these two neatly opposed categories imply, showing that different song and motet versions can relate to each other in ways that are dynamic, complex, and often hard to recover from the extant evidence. The conversion of song material for motets and vice versa is placed within a larger context of musical quotation and re-use in the thirteenth century, showing that many of these case studies play with the pre-existence of their song or motet material: some transfer their voice parts from one medium to another in a way that consciously foregrounds their previous incarnations, whereas others mask the pre-existence of the voice part by absorbing it into new textual and musical structures. The thesis closes with a consideration of the wider implications of the motet-song interaction it analyses. It examines the generic boundary between songs and motets and suggests a model of generic analysis that centres on the complexities of manuscript transmission. Finally, it considers the use of refrains within its corpus of motets and songs, demonstrating that these short passages of music and text are often quoted in ways similar to those analysed in motets and songs earlier in the thesis.
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Hoyer, Steven. "Intention and interpretation." Thesis, McGill University, 1993. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=68104.
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This thesis is in two chapters. Chapter one is about intentions. Literary theorists have, by and large, dismissed their relevance to interpretation, so it will be useful to consider what exactly is being ignored. Therefore, I devote chapter one to a clarification of the nature and role(s) of intention within the interlocking network of basic propositional attitudes. I argue that intentions incorporate both a functional and a representational dimension, triggering actional mechanisms and structuring the process of practical reasoning.Chapter two is about interpretation. I open the chapter with an examination of extreme conventionalist theses, arguing that their success depends on an unjustifiably strict demarcation between intentionality and textuality. Appropriating aspects of Donald Davidson's work in the philosophy of language, I argue for the recognition of linguistic communication as a form of intentional action. I then defend this thesis against more moderate conventionalist theories to offer a viable approach to the interpretation of literary works.
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Anger, Suzy. "Victorian hermeneutics and literary interpretation /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9374.
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Johnson, Sarah Louise. "The melodies of the Cantigas de Santa Maria in the Códice de Toledo." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708621.
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Meir, Amira. "Medieval Jewish interpretation of pentateuchal poetry." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28842.
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This dissertation studies parts of six medieval Jewish Torah commentaries in order to examine how they related to what we call Pentateuchal poetry. It examines their general approaches to Bible interpretation and their treatments of all Pentateuchal poems. It focusses on qualities we associate with poetry--parallelism, structure, metaphor, and syntax--and explores the extent to which they treated poems differently from prose.The effort begins by defining Pentateuchal poetry and discussing a range of its presentations by various ancient writers. Subsequent chapters examine its treatment by Rabbi Saadia Gaon of Baghdad (882-942), Abraham Ibn Ezra of Spain (1089-1164), Samuel Ben Meir (1080-1160) and Joseph Bekhor Shor (12th century) of Northern France, David Kimhi of Provence (1160-1235), and Obadiah Sforno of Italy (1470-1550).
While all of these commentators wrote on the poetic passages, none differentiated systematically between Pentateuchal prose and poetry or treated them in substantially different ways. Samuel Ben Meir, Ibn Ezra, Bekhor Shor, and Kimhi did discuss some poetic features of these texts. The other two men were far less inclined to do so, but occasionally recognized some differences between prose and poetry and some phenomena unique to the latter.
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Turner, Seth. "Revelation 11:1-13 : history of interpretation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2005. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:57efe3b3-7c61-412f-9001-5269860a896d.
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The thesis provides a descriptive survey of the history of interpretation of Revelation 11:1-13. Prior to 1000 AD it aims to be comprehensive, but after this date concentrates on Western interpretation. Ch. 1 - Prior to 1000 AD. Rev 11:1-13 is examined in relation to the wider complex of traditions concerning Antichrist and the return of Enoch and Elijah. The commentary tradition on Revelation is examined, including an extensive reconstruction of Tyconius. The passage is applied in two ways: 1. to two eschatological figures, usually Enoch and Elijah. 2. to the Church from the time of Christ's first advent until his return. Ch. 2 -1000-1516 Exegesis similar to that of chapter 1 is found. There is new exegesis from Joachim of Fiore, who believes that the two witnesses will be two religious orders, and Alexander Minorita, who reads the entirety of the Apocalypse as a sequential narrative of Church history, arriving at the sixth century for 11:1-13. Ch. 3 -1516-1700 Protestants interpret the beast as the papacy/Roman Church, and the two witnesses as proto-Protestants prior to the Reformation, often interpreting their 1260 day ministry as 1260 years. Catholics respond by applying the passage either to the eschatological future or the distant past. Ch. 4 -1701-2004 Protestants continue to see the 1260 days as 1260 years, although this interpretation declines markedly in the nineteenth century. Both Catholics and Protestants apply the passage to the distant past of the early Church. Historical critical exegesis introduces a new exegesis, where John is regarded as having incorrectly predicted the return of two individuals shortly after his time of writing. Applications to the entirety of the time of the time of the Church increase in popularity in the twentieth century.
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Nicol, George Grey. "Studies in the interpretation of Genesis 26.1-33." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8fff7ce7-9a50-4011-9f54-5776c84aa36a.
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These Studies in the interpretation of Genesis 26.1-33 are concerned with a relatively brief and well defined section of biblical Hebrew narrative, and following an Introduction are divided into two parts reflecting literary and historical interests respectively. The Introduction takes note of the current interest among Old Testament scholars in the literary interpretation of the biblical materials and, after opting for an approach which will take account of both literary and historical-critical enquiry, outlines the procedure which will be followed. No logical priority is claimed for literary analysis, although it is considered appropriate that it should be pursued prior to any historical enquiry. In this way, it has been possible to avoid any suspicion that literary analysis of the type pursued here is a further development of the historical-critical method. Part One (Chapters One - Four) is concerned to construct a literary interpretation of the text of Gen 26.1-33. The interpretation consists of three main studies of the Isaac narrative which are followed by a brief discussion of certain aspects of the method involved. This interpretation has developed in the main from a reflection upon the relationship which appears to exist between the promise made to the patriarch by the deity and the surrounding narrative material. Beginning from a literary-structural analysis of the Isaac narrative, it has been possible to observe that a number of relationships of a literary and structural nature exist between the promise and the surrounding narrative materials. The exploration of these relationships discloses a series of tensions between the promise and the narrated events which in one way or another seem designed to bring the fulfilment of different aspects of the promise under threat, and each of these tensions are resolved in turn in the narrative. Thus, even even if the events narrated appear to run counter to the direction of the promise, it is in the exploration of this dialectic which is set up between promise and those narrative events which tend to threaten the fulfilment of the promise that the beginnings of a satisfactory literary interpretation of Gen 26.1-33 is to be found. The literary interpretation of the Isaac narrative is carried out in three stages. In the first stage (Chapter One), the extent of the material under consideration is narrowed down to Gen 26.1-33, and other material (notably Gen 25.19-26) is excluded. Once the narrative structure has been analyzed in terms of divine promise, threat, and (partial) resolution, a further brief examination of the narrative context of the other divine promise sections in Genesis 12-36 shows that the literary technique of juxtaposing these same three elements has in fact been applied more widely, even if it is most clearly evident in Gen 26.1-33. An analysis of the role Rebekah plays in the wife-sister episode shows that she is clearly a subsidiary character, and that in the narrative Abimelech the Philistine king of Gerar and Isaac's antagonist throughout is the character closest in importance to Isaac. Indeed, in many respects the narrative appears to explore the relationship which exists between Isaac and the Philistine king. A number of literary features which enhance the impression of unity which has already been gained from the structural analysis are examined. In particular, a number of narrative transformations are seen to take place between the beginning and the end of the narrative. These are largely concerned with the situation of Isaac in relation to Abimelech. At the beginning of the narrative Isaac comes to Abimelech at Gerar and is dependent on the latter's good will for his wellbeing. But at the end of the narrative, Abimelech comes to Isaac at Beersheba, in order to participate in the blessing enjoyed by the Patriarch. In the second stage (Chapter Two), the structure of each of the episodes which combine to form the Isaac narrative is examined, using a form of structural analysis used by Bremond in relation to the fairy tale, but which is also appropriate to the analysis of other simple forms of narrative. This examination, which I have used to determine whether the individual episodes maintain a comic or tragic function within the Isaac narrative, is carried out without prejudice to the assumption that the narrative is a unity at some level. One of the impressive features of the Isaac narrative is that the Patriarch does not achieve his good fortune at the expense of Abimelech and his people, but the Philistines also prosper, and it is seen that this effect has been achieved by means of paradox. The discussion of the individual episodes leads to the conclusion that the ability of the narrative as a whole to generate meaning is greater than the sum of its parts. In the third stage (Chapter Three), I have attempted to construct an appropriate 'narrative background' against which the text may be understood. This exercise involves the careful observation of such signals as are raised in the text and appear to direct one's attention to materials elsewhere in the tradition, and particularly among the narratives of Genesis 12-25, which may combine to serve as a background against which the Isaac narrative may be understood, and which might properly enrich one's understanding of the text. This undertaking begins from the point that no text may be properly understood from within a vacuum, and that while it is proper to begin such a literary-structural investigation as has been undertaken in this Thesis from a detailed study of the text itself, it has been considered necessary to go on from there and to provide a richer understanding of the text. The formation of a 'narrative background' is to be distinguished from the method of 'narrative analogy' (Miscall, Alter) so far as it takes the canonical ordering of the narratives more seriously. Part One is concluded with the discussion of a number of methodological issues in Chapter Four which forms an attempt to say something about the aims and validity of the analyses set out in Chapters One-Three. There is no concern, however, to resume systematically issues which have already been raised in the earlier chapters. In Part Two, I have addressed some of the more usual historical concerns of biblical studies. The first main part of Chapter Five is concerned with the form-critical discussion of the Isaac narrative. An examination of the form-critical studies of Lutz. and Coats is followed by an analysis of the structure and content of Gen 26.1-33. The analysis is then filled out by a broad discussion which is informed to some extent by the earlier discussion of Chapter One, particularly by the degree to which the various episodes were there seen to be related to each other. The fact that, apart from vv 1-6, the episodes all required assumption of information provided by one or another of the preceding episodes in order to appear coherent suggests that the unity of Gen 26.1-33 is perhaps more than the result of a collector stringing them together in terms of the common theme "Isaac and the people of Gerar". This observation sets an obvious limit against the usual formcritical criterion which holds that the most original units were concered to narrate only single episodes. Throughout this discussion the results of current studies in folklore which have led to much uncertainty concerning the stability of oral transmission so that it is no longer possible to be so confident in the antiquity of the pentateuchal tradition were taken for granted. The traditio-historical question of priority is examined, and it is concluded that Abraham is in fact prior to Isaac.
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Bennett, Richard. "Variations : influence intertextuality, and Milan Kundera, Jean Rhys, and Tom Stoppard." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26254.
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This thesis is in three chapters. Chapter one is about Harold Bloom's theory of the Anxiety of Influence. Bloom's argument is that literary history is shaped by the anxiety of "strong" poets at their belatedness. I show that he depends upon a subjective interpretation of literary production in order to defend a rigidly traditional canon.Chapter two deals with theories of intertextuality, principally those of Julia Kristeva and Michael Riffaterre. As alternatives to theories of influence, neither proves satisfactory. Both founder on the contradictory goal to explain all literature, at the expense of recognizing literary diversity.
Chapter three concerns literary variations. These are texts which are deliberately premised on pre-existing texts. I focus on three examples from this class of literary texts which is not satisfactorily dealt with by any of the theories I consider. I pursue a less wide-ranging approach in order to unearth important features of literary variations.
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Kilian, Monica. "The exile's experience : an examination of the poetry of Hilde Domin and Waclaw Iwaniuk." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26855.
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This thesis examines the effect of the experience of exile on the German poet Hilde Domin and the Polish poet Waclaw Iwaniuk. Their involuntary exile, their departure from their respective native cultures and languages has affected them profoundly, both as individuals and as poets. The exiled poet lives in the conflicting world of the exile: on the one hand, he attempts to maintain his close ties to his native language and culture, while on the other hand, he is constantly assailed by the demands of his new and alien environment. He is thus plunged into a crisis of identity. This thesis examines this crisis by concentrating on the aspect of language as a reference point of the poet's identity.
Through a close examination of a selection of the poetry of Domin and Iwaniuk, I have attempted to discover how they express their personal experiences of exile, which problems they are most concerned with, and, finally, how they attempt to solve these problems. Their poetry expresses similar concerns, such as feelings of insecurity, instability and loss, as well as a wish to recover a sense of security. Both Domin and Iwaniuk are aware of the danger of becoming poetic nonentities in their exile, because their link with their native language is threatened. Recognizing the poet's power to find security in his language (which in turn enables him to reassert his identity through his poetry), they both attempt, in different ways, to preserve their identities as poets by writing. Domin is on the whole more successful than Iwaniuk in defining herself through her language. She believes that language is an inseparable part of her, which naturally finds its expression through her writings. Iwaniuk, on the other hand, is more self-conscious about his language; the preservation of his native language as his poetic tool takes the form of struggle. This fact is not only reflected in the content of the two poets' poetry, but also in its form and style: Domin's language and poetry seem generally more spontaneous and harmonious, whereas Iwaniuk's language and poetry appear to be chiselled intellectually, as if it resisted the author's efforts.Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
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Graham, Catherine (Catherine Elizabeth). "Standpoints : the dramaturgy of Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60621.
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The political popular theatre which has developed in the West since the 1960s challenges the current hegemony in Western cultures by attacking its basic models of knowledge, yet little critical attention has been paid to the dramaturgies particular to this form. An application of the Possible Worlds theory, the concept of ludic framing, and feminist "standpoint" theory to the Irish stage plays written by Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden after they left the "legitimate" stage, shows how the dramaturgy of this theater is a critical part of its strategic challenge to the status quo. This analysis shows how D'Arcy and Arden foreground the encompassing Theatre Possible World, within which the performance takes place, in order to cast doubt on the natural character of generally accepted meanings, and to induce the audience to consciously choose the frames within which it makes sense of action.
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Petersen, Jeffrey J. 1981. "Playful Conversations: A Study of Shared Dynamics Between the Plays of Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10155.
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vii, 130 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, playwright and educator, has blazed a trail in American theatre, opening new avenues for female playwrights. In 2005 Vogel's student Sarah Ruhl burst onto the scene with her play The Clean House. As one of the most produced playwrights of 2005, Ruhl has been celebrated as the new voice of American theatre. There are similarities, as might be expected between teacher and former student, but some of the similarities suggest something more: a dynamic shared between Vogel's and Ruhl's plays which suggests an ongoing theatrical conversation and may suggest directions for future American drama.
Committee in Charge: Dr. John Schmor, Chair; Dr. Jennifer Schlueter
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Murray, Jessica. ""Notes for the Manual Assembly"." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1157616/.
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A collection of poems that seeks the balance between imagination and reality that Wallace Stevens calls for in art, with a preface exploring Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just through the work of two contemporary poets.
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Bailey, Catherine Diana Alison. "Mending the web : a thematic study of Xu Dishan’s fiction." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25343.
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This thesis is a thematic study of the work of the early Twentieth Century Chinese writer Xu Dishan (Luo Huasheng) (1894-1941). The title, "Mending the Web," is at once a reference to a specific story by Xu and an indication of the importance he placed on spiritual values in a changing world. His work represents a modest search for a solution to the dislocation of his society - his own attempt to mend the broken web of modern China. In his work Xu promoted personal solutions and individual salvation rather than the whole scale transformation of society. He stressed the importance of working for change within a given framework - he was a reformer, not a revolutionary, a moderator searching for a synthesis based on universal values rooted in both the Chinese and Western traditions. The values upheld in his fiction are uncompromising - one must follow one' s conscience, accept duty and responsibility calmly, show charity and forgiveness
and, above all be true to oneself.
Xu1s stress on personal and spiritual solutions marks him out from the majority of his iconoclastic contemporaries who advocated wholesale social change. In Chapter One, I try to provide an historical and ideological context for Xu, a comparative background from which to examine him in relation to his contemporary writers and the times in which he lived.
The value Xu placed on a unifying framework, or a sense of order to replace chaos, is made apparent in Chapter Two, where I discuss his quest for values and the romance and mythopoeic modes which inform much of his work. In particular I look at the quest themes which influence the structure and message of his stories, concentrating primarily on an analysis of "Yuguan" and "A Daughter's Heart" based on an extrapolation of the "monomyths" of Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye. I examine the influence of Christianity on Xu's work, his emphasis on a strongly moral vision and his search for an affirmation of life and the individual's potentiality for goodness.
In Chapter Three I analyse Xu's attitude to life and fate in relation to his use of the coincidence motif which acts in his stories as a catalyst and test for action. The coincidence makes the world small, and thus provides a testing ground for characters' actions. A vital element in this is the concept of baoying or requital, whereby an individual is responsible for his or her actions and is judged accordingly. Xu believed an individual has a responsibility to make the best of an unknown fate, but still to work within given limits to have an influence for the good. A strong moral grammar informs Xu's work, providing a framework for judging the acts of his characters.
In Chapter Four I look at Xu's use of female protagonists to embody his philosophy of life. Women like Yuguan and Chuntao represent Xu's ideals in their most specific form, embodying that sense of affirmation and hope so central to Xu' s work and offering models of human potentiality, an optomistic vision of life as it could be.
In the conclusion I touch on the role of morality in Xu's fiction. His work is deeply moral in orientation and offers an interesting contrast to that of his contemporaries equally engaged in writing fiction for a purpose. Xu's concern for spiritual values was almost unique among writers of that period. His fiction is primarily a fiction of ideas and his themes and messages dominate. He was searching for a solution to the dislocation of his society, as were his contemporaries,
but he did not suggest a radical social transformation
but rather to work within the existing framework. He looked for personal solutions, believing in the innate capacity of the human being to change for the better. He advocated change, but stressed that it must first come individually,
through the development of self-knowledge, on a modest scale, before the world can be transformed. His solution was modest yet profound, and filled with hope.Arts, Faculty of
Asian Studies, Department of
Graduate
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Loevlie, Elisabeth M. "Literary silences : saying the unsayable: an exploration of literary silence in the works of Pascal, Rousseau and Beckett." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365530.
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Marais, Susan Jacqueline. "(Re-)inventing our selves/ourselves : identity and community in contemporary South African short fiction cycles." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016357.
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In this study I focus on a number of collections of short fiction by the South African writers Joël Matlou, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb and Ivan Vladislavić, all of which evince certain of the characteristics of short story cycles or sequences. In other words, they display what Forrest L. Ingram describes as “a double tendency of asserting the individuality of [their] components on the one hand and of highlighting, on the other, the bonds of unity which make the many into a single whole”. The cycle form, thus defined, is characterised by a paradoxical yet productive and frequently unresolved tension between “the individuality of each of the stories and the necessities of the larger unit”, between “the one and the many”, and between cohesion and fragmentation. It is this “dynamic structure of connection and disconnection” which singularly equips the genre to represent the interrelationship of singular and collective identities, or the “coherent multiplicity of community”. Ingram, for example, asserts that “Numerous and varied connective strands draw the co-protagonists of any story cycle into a single community. … However this community may be achieved, it usually can be said to constitute the central character of a cycle”. Not unsurprisingly, then, in its dominant manifestations over much of the twentieth century the short story cycle demonstrated a marked inclination towards regionalism and the depiction of localised enclaves, and this tendency towards “place-based short story cycles” in which topographical unity is a conspicuous feature was as pronounced in South Africa as elsewhere. However, the specific collections which are my concern here increasingly employ innovative and self-reflexive narrative strategies that unsettle generic expectations and interrogate the notions of regionalism and community conventionally associated with the short story cycle. My investigation seeks to explain this shift in emphasis, and its particular significance within the South African context.
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Logan, Frank Daniel Hermitage. "Poiesis : an Eriugenian interpretation of Chaucer's Troilus and and Criseyde." Thesis, McGill University, 1990. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=59894.
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This thesis deals with the interpretation of art, set against the background of the medieval Christian Neoplatonism of John Scotus Eriugena. For him, art and philosophy are regarded as the handmaidens of meaning. Therefore, although this thesis begins with a consideration of Eriugena's Periphyseon, it develops into a discussion on aesthetic theory, and ultimately into one on poetic theory. The object of this discussion is to account for meaning in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde according to Eriugenian poetics.The essence of art will thus be pursued within the parameters of the Neoplatonic scala natura. In this way, the whole poetic interpretation of Chaucer's poem is grasped as a mirror of the ontological exitus-reditus pattern. In understanding the poem this way, this thesis comes to immediate terms with the medieval concept of the imago Dei, and understands the likeness of mankind to God to be primarily one made by virtue of language.
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King, Noel. "Anxieties of commentary : interpretation in recent literary, film and cultural criticism /." Title page, table of contents and abstact only, 1994. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phk532.pdf.
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HSIAO, CHING-SONG GENE. "SEMIOTIC INTERPRETATION OF CHINESE POETRY: TU MU'S POETRY AS EXAMPLE (CRITICISM)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/188120.
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To interpret a poem is to comprehend a complete act of written communication. And to comprehend such an act, the reader must break the codes in which the communication is framed. Thus, poetic interpretation becomes the study of codes--or semiotics. Poetic codes exist at pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, and phonic levels. The decoding requires the reader's linguistic skills, literary competence, and personal experience. It involves an initial reading and a retroactive reading. At the first step, the reader attempts to supply elements missing in the text. Yet trying to interpret the text literally, he encounters problems in pragmatics, semantics, syntactics, or phonics, and is unable to grasp a coherent sense of the poem. Those problems give rise to a retroactive reading. At this step, the reader looks for a higher level of understanding where a unity of meaning can be identified. And by explaining the clues in the text according to his linguistic and literary competence, and revising his understanding on the basis of his new findings, he finally discovers a kernel concept, on which the whole text can be seen as a single unit, and every element, which first appeared to be puzzling, has a significative purpose. This semiotic model of interpretation has proven to be very fruitful in the explication of Tu Mu's poetry. It also enables the reader to appreciate the poetic discourse more thoroughly. Some of the ideas advocated by the model may also serve as principles for the translation of poetry. For example, in reading a poem, the model requires a search for unified pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, and phonic patterns, which convey the kernel concept. Thus, in translating a poem, the translator should also try to re-produce in the target language such unified patterns so that the reader may grasp the same kernel concept as contained in the original discourse. The model stresses implicities of poetry. Hence the rendition of a poem should preserve the implicities of the original text in order to invoke from the reader a response similar to what would be induced by the original poem.
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Wetzel, Rebecca L. "ADAPTATION AND INTERPRETATION: A STUDY OF THEATRICAL BANDE DESSINEE." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1563987098560659.
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Greenlee, Christine Lund Koch. "The Constantian orations : a contextual analysis of self-presentation in Libanius' 'Orr.' 59, 11, 61 and 31." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15923.
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A total of sixty-four orations survive from the hand of Libanius. Four of these speeches were delivered under the reign of Constantius II (AD 337-361) and thus form a distinct chronological cluster in the Libanian corpus. The Constantian orations include Or. 59 To Constantius II and Constans (AD 346-9), Or. 11 The Antiochikos (AD 356), Or. 61 Monody on Nicomedia (AD 358), and Or. 61 For the teachers (AD 360-1). This study adopts a diachronic approach and analyses the historical and literary context of each Constantian oration with a particular focus on Libanius' self- presentation. The study suggests that Libanius' self-presentation was characterised by adaptability and versatility; it shows Libanius exploring a range of different genres and communicating with attentiveness to context and audience. The thesis also argues that Libanius' attitude to and engagement with Constantius' court fluctuated significantly from the delivery of Libanius' panegyric in the mid- to late 340s where Libanius supported Constantius after his defeat in the battle of Singara, over Libanius' encomium to Antioch in 356 where Libanius emphasised the strong connection between the Emperor and the city following the devastating reign of Gallus Caesar, to the delivery of For the teachers in 360-361, where Libanius publically voiced his criticism of the Emperor's cultural and religious policies after Libanius himself had lost imperial funding. Furthermore, the study displays the continued importance of oratory in Late Antiquity and emphasises the central role of sophists both as commentators and mediators in society.
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Phillips, Malcolm. "Experiment and representation : the domestic surreal in contemporary British and American poetry." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14707.
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In order to counter what I regard as premature and reductive formulations of a 'native' British postmodernism, I identify a specific tendency in contemporary writing which I name the domestic surreal, and which I trace through the poetry of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Roy Fisher, Christopher Middleton, John Ash, Peter Didsbury and Ian McMillan. Through close reading and a comparative approach, I uncover key preoccupations with idiosyncratic perception, shared experience, urban space and poetic play. I also describe a network of allegiances and influence among these writers which reveals the domestic surreal to be one of the contemporary manifestations of an imaginative tradition which stretches back through the Surrealist and Cubist movements to Baudelaire and Rimbaud. For the poets of the domestic surreal, engagement with an aesthetic tradition is inextricably linked with their response to contemporary conditions. Drawing on dialectical and poststructuralist perspectives, I propose that the domestic surreal attempts to resist the constraints of social and aesthetic consensus in Britain and America in the period following the Second World War.
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Al-Abdulrazaq, Mohammad Ahmed. "The role of strangers in Victorian novels: A psychoanalytical study of their repressions, functions and aspirations." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2014. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1400.
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The aim of this study is to examine the stranger characters in three Victorian Novels, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. The exploration of the characters is based on the analysis of their psyche to understand how they are utilized by the Victorian writers. The study highlights how the fictional strangers can assist in the course of the action of the novel and function as a stimulus by which the actions and thoughts develop plausibly and feasibly. Utilizing the views of Freud, Erikson and others the study will allow for an understanding of the Victorian cultural unconscious, which reflects the contemporary supremacy of men over women. The study will investigate the strangers’ consciousness and portray their psychological conflicts as a representative of the Victorian age and as a forecast of the contemporary individual’s identity crisis. The study concludes that the involvement of strangers gives coherence to the plot and helps readers to understand and learn from the story.
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Pryor, Caitlin. "Vanishing Act." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc801936/.
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This dissertation is comprised of a collection of poems preceded by a critical preface. The preface reconsiders the value of discontinuous poetic forms and advocates a return to lyric as an antidote to the toxic aspects of what Tony Hoagland terms “the skittery poem of our moment.” I consider poems by Wendy Xu, Kevin Prufer, Sharon Olds, and Stephen Dunn in depth to facilitate a discussion about the value of a more centrist position between the poles of supreme discontinuity and totalizing continuity. Though poets working in discontinuous forms are rightly skeptical of the hierarchies that govern narrative and linear forms, as Czesław Miłosz notes in The Witness of Poetry, “a poet discovers a secret, namely that he can be faithful to real things only by arranging them hierarchically.” In my own poems, I make use of the hierarchies of ordered perception in lyric and narrative forms to faithfully illuminate the collapsed structures of my own family history in the shadow of Detroit. I practice the principles I advocate in the preface, using a continuous form to address fractured realities in a busy, disordered age when poets often seek forms as fragmented as their perceptions. These poems are distinctly American, but because there is no true royalty in America, our great cultural and economic institutions—television, music, film, magazines, and big business—take the place of the castle (the book’s emblem) while Michael Jackson ultimately rises as the commanding dead king whose passing prompts contemplation of the viability of popular culture, family, history, and geography. The fallen structures that litter the work are many: the twin towers, chess rooks, bounce castles, nuclear families, the auto industry. However, the sole structure cohering the whole is that of a lyric voice whose authority is derived through lived experience and presented in rich, continuous poetic forms.
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Ingham, David Keith. "Mediation and the indirect metafiction of Randolph Stow, M. K. Joseph, and Timothy Findley." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25819.
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In order to explore the range of indirect metafiction as presented in three exemplary novels, this dissertation begins by examining how the assumptions of "realism" on the one hand and "postmodernism" on the other relate to the paradigmatic triad of story-teller, story, and audience. From this context emerges the view that the range of metafiction is determined by how it reveals the processes and nature of fiction according to a spectrum of mediation: that of the writer between his "raw materials" and the text, that of the text between writer and reader, and that of the reader between the text and his interpretation.
Indirect metafiction (or "pretend realism") mediates between realism and postmodernism, revealing without breaking the illusions of realism.
Each of the next three chapters, after initially placing the key novel within the context of the author's work as a whole, discusses in detail a novel whose metafictional focus is on one of the three mediations. Accordingly, Chapter II focusses on Randolph Stow's The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and on the way it reveals the mediation of the author by presenting a writer's fiction as a synthesis of his personal and literary experiences. Chapter III notes how M. K. Joseph's A Soldier's Tale (1976) reflects the mediation of the reader by depicting a writer's interpretation and literary redaction of an oral tale. And Chapter IV shows how Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words (1981) demonstrates the mediation of the text by presenting a writer whose text "crystallizes" the illusions of fiction, then undercuts and exposes them. The analyses of the key texts employ both postmodern and traditional critical approaches, demonstrating them to be complementary; by noting the interpenetration of metafictional and traditional import and significance, the analyses also highlight the mediary nature of indirect metafiction.
The fifth chapter draws theoretical conclusions from ideas in the practical chapters: from metafictional revelations through the paradigm of mediation comes an "anatomy" of fiction, delineating its elements; from a sense of how the mind "structures" experience through "fictional" representations of both "reality" and fictional texts comes a "physiology," a sense of how fiction works through language. This discussion leads to definitions of realistic, unrealistic, and self-conscious fiction, and of metafiction, both direct and indirect; the dissertation concludes by remarking on the inter-relations of language, "fiction," and "reality."Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
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Scowcroft, Ann. "Escaping the hegemony of the written word : Canadian women writers and the dislocation of narrative." Thesis, McGill University, 1989. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61803.
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Léger, Ariane. "Le maître à écrire selon Valéry, Pessoa et Jaccottet /." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=115622.
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The main objective of this study is to understand how Valery, Pessoa and Jaccottet created or recreated the figure of the master. This figure has truly made its entry into the literary scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it contributed to impose a profane and more egalitarian vision of writing. In the writing of the three authors studied, the master is still seen as a strategy to develop a concept of creation, since it allows the writers to define their poetic. It is therefore a matter of maitres a penser (literally "thinking masters") or, better yet, maitres a ecrire ("writing masters").For Valery, the desire to make Mallarme his master is best explained by his search for mastery. Even if he is eager to understand what makes Mallarme an exceptional creator, Valery's quest is hindered by Mallarme's refusal to explain his poetic. This resistance seems to encourage Valery to make the creative act a major concern of his work.
By coming up with a "non-existent coterie" made up of imaginary writers, and by recognizing one of them as his own master, Pessoa hopes to fill the gaps in his literary filiation. In the concert of voices that compose his work, it is yet the master himself which undermines the very legitimacy of the master, and that is why Pessoa finally gets rid of his invention.
Finally, Jaccottet creates his masters for the learning they could provide to him: in Jaccottet's unique story, the character of the master fails, allowing the poet to take his distance from assumptions related with the romantic vision of creation; then, a "good master" whose agony is described by poems becomes a model whose wisdom is inseparable from a kind of ignorance.
The presence of the master generates a story elaborated from the writings of these writers: the development of their poetic requires not only the creation of a master figure, but also its removal. Ultimately, the maitre a ecrire is not only one who induces writing in a unique way, but also the one which should be written in order to succeed.
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Davies-Browne, Bankole P. "The significance of parallels between the 'Testament of Solomon' and Jewish literature of late antiquity (between the closing centuries BCE and the Talmudic era) and the New Testament." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2685.
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The TSol is a Christian composition of late antiquity which narrates the story about how King Solomon built the Temple of God with the aid of demons he subjugated. Comparative analysis between the TSol and Jewish literature of late antiquity (between the closing centuries BCE and the Talmudic era), and the New Testament is primarily to establish any literary dependence and explore the nature of contact between the TSol and these materials; and also to isolate Jewish elements in the TSol. The Jewish materials discussed are the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Pseudo-Philo, certain Qumran documents (11 PsApa and the Copper scroll), Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Songs, rabbinic literature, and certain Aramaic incantation texts. My research has shown that parallels do exist between the TSol, the Jewish literature discussed and the New Testament. The parallels between the TSol and the aforementioned literature are twofold: verbal and conceptual. Verbal parallels occur in the form of technical terminology; quotations, allusions and echoes. The second type of parallels appears in the form of motifs, themes, structural elements and ideas. These parallels seem to dominate in my analysis. There is no need to explain the parallels between the TSol and the literature discussed in terms of literary dependence. I have attempted to demonstrate that these parallels in most of the literature are indicative of indirect influence through shared use of the biblical tradition: motifs, stories and themes regarding King Solomon; a common fund of oral tradition(s) regarding Solomon's magical power over demonic world; shared literary language, milieu, and cultural conventions. Moreover, the author of the TSol seems to have recycled Jewish materials pertaining to Solomon and related motifs in his work. Apart from the New Testament, the best case for a direct influence of a Jewish work on the TSol is Tobit.
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Hoedekie, Nelson G. U. (Nelson Gustaaf Urbain). "Naar analogie van schaduwen aan de wand : een wijsgerige interpretatie van 'de schaduw als kunstwerk' aan de hand van Plato's grotvergelijking." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/53511.
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Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, 'shadow' is investigated as an object of thought and (analogically connected to this) of perception. This dialectical process is structured through means of a series of experiments and Plato's allegory of the cave, which is interpreted as a process directed towards selfconciousness. This process is further explained through thinkers such as, Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. The purpose of this study is to break with the self-evident way in which 'shadow' is 'normally' treated and to bring back about a sense of astonishment for it.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word die 'skaduwee' as waarnemingsobjek en (analogies verwant daaraan) as denkobjek ondersoek. Hierdie dialektiese proses word gestruktureerd met behulp van 'n aantal eksperimente en Plato se grotgelykenis, wat geinterpreteer word as programmaties van die proses van selfbewuswording. Hierdie proses word verder toegelig aan die hand van denkers soos Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. Die doel van die ondersoek is om die vanselfsprekendheid waarmee daar met die fenomeen van die skaduwee omgegaan word te deurbreek en weer verwondering daarvoor op te roep.
NEDERLANDSTALIGE SAMENVATTING: In deze thesis wordt de 'schaduw' als waarnemingsobject en (analogisch verwant daaraan) als denkobject onderzocht. Dit dialectische proces wordt gestructureerd met behulp van een aantal experimenten en Plato's grotvergelijking, die geïnterpreteerd worden als een proces gericht op zeltbewustwording. Dit proces wordt verder toegelicht aan de hand van denkers zoals, Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. Het doel van het onderzoek is om de vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee met het fenomeen van de 'schaduw' omgegaan wordt, te doorbreken en er opnieuw verwondering voor op te roepen.
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Fisher, Susan Rosa. "A genre for our times: the Menippean satires of Russell Hoban and Murakami Haruki." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25047.pdf.
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Vrba, Marya. "The literary dream in German Central Europe, 1900-1925 : a selective study of the writings of Kafka, Kubin, Meyrink, Musil and Schnitzler." Thesis, Swansea University, 2011. https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42396.
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This thesis examines the literary dream in selected works by Kafka, Kubin, Meyrink, Musil and Schnitzler, with a particular focus on the redefinition of subjectivity through dreamlife. The introductory chapter contextualises these case studies in the broader field of oneirocriticism, emphasising the dream's ancient role as fixtional template and its specific significance in the destabilised environment of German Central Europe during the early twentieth century. Alfred Kubin's Die andere Seite (1909), which uses the 'other side' as metaphor for both oneiric and artistic experience, reveals the inherent dualism of the literary dream and its close relationship with creativity. In Robert Musil's Die Verwirrungen des Zdglings Tdrlefi (1906), the protagonist serves as the model for a new type of self-determining subject who draws on the knowledge of dreams and irrationality. Franz Kafka's texts reveal techniques for integrating the dream into fictional worlds that are already dreamlike through the prevalence of (literalised) metaphor and free association. Gustav Meyrink, in Der Golem (1915), shares Kafka's interest in concretised metaphor, but also explores the dream's associations with occult practices, used as a defence against the threatening claims of science. Finally, Arthur Schnitzler's literary dreams offer a direct confrontation with psychoanalysis and a dismantling of nineteenth-century ideals of gender and bourgeois love. Overall, it is argued that the literary dreams by these authors hold varied responses to fragmentation of the Ich in the face of psychological 'vivisection', theories of relativity, and the collapse of old social orders. The dream, as a nightly 'psychosis', crystallised the pervasive fears of self-loss during this period; however, in its perennial role as micro-narrative, it also provided a site for re-construction of the subject. The incorporation of dreams in fictional lives served as a metonymical guide for the integration of un- and subconscious experience overall.
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Selby, Don. "Bridging the gap? : a critical reading of Bhabha, Said and Spivak's postcolonial positions." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0001/MQ43947.pdf.
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Ocaña, Karen Isabel. "Synthetic authenticity : the work of Angela Carter, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26748.
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This thesis constitutes an investigation into contemporary writing--both fictional and philosophical. More specifically, it is a comparative analysis of the work of British novelist Angela Carter, and French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in the light of the concept of synthetic authenticity. It is divided into three chapters, "Becomings", "Events", and "Machines", and each chapter presents the work of both Carter and Deleuze and Guattari, respectively, in light of one of these topics. Chapter Two, however, focuses closely on Angela Carter's first novel, Shadow Dance, as it relates to the concept 'event'. And Chapter Three focuses on Carter's novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, as it relates to and differs from the schizoanalytic notion of desiring machines.
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Bourgon, Julie. "Création, éthique et vérité : Broch et Blanchot ; suivi de, En trompe-l'oeil." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ37193.pdf.
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