Dissertations / Theses on the topic '1907-1986 Criticism and interpretation'

Chapter I. Emma Lou Diemer, currently Professor of Composition at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is an excellent representative of the mainstream of twentieth- century American music. Born in 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, she began composing at an early age, motivated by her improvisations at the piano. She received a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from Yale and a Doctor of Philosophy from Eastman, all in composition.Diemer's career has encompassed teaching in the public schools and at the university level, working as a church organist, and performing publically on all of her keyboard instruments. Her compositional output reflects this diversity. In 1959, she was the only woman in the first group of young composers to be awarded Ford Foundation Grants, for which she was assigned to the secondary schools of Arlington, Virginia. During this time, the simpler works for the bands and choirs resulted in requests from publishers and commissions from many sources, for choral works in particular. These have since become her largest category of compositions. However, she has also written some twenty-six chamber and solo works for piano. This body of music, which reflects both her many influences and her unique style, constitutes an outstanding contributionto her art.Chapter II. Her earliest works reflected her stated models, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Gershwin, in their programmatic titles, energetic rhythms, and full keyboard sound. In them one can see her affection for low sustained resonant tones and for Prokofiev-like brilliant high register sounds. She frequently used chord structures in thirds, but employed a deliberately atonal harmonic framework.Chapter III. At Yale, she fell under the neoclassic influence of Hindemith. Her forms tightened and her harmonic language centered on tonics and key schemes resembling traditional modes. Features seen in the early works became pervasive: motivic melodic construction, ametric and syncopated rhythms in a strongly metric context, ostinatos in all registers, imitative textures, structured fugues, and a Bartokian control of harmony by intervals, particularly the fourth and fifth.Chapter IV. With the solo piano works, she melded the neoclassic structured language with her earlier romantic style. Ideas once again flowed directly from improvisations, while she also wrote her first large twelve-tone work.Chapter V. In the 1970's, she combined the sonorities of the electronic world with intrinsically pianistic techniques, including the new sounds of the avant-garde. Rhythm returned as pulsing beats, contrasted with free and aleatoric sections. Neoclassic motivic development generated dramatic forms.Chapter VI. Diemer integrates many techniques, new and old, into a highly successful and personal style, one which places ultimate value on expression and communication. Retaining a strong tie to the past, she is a cautious explorer, rarely breaking new ground, but eventually encompassing even the most advanced trends into wonderfully effective works.

Bessie Head's fiction reflects the author's consciousness of power as the definitive force in the South African context. By considering Head as a social realist, the thesis relates sociological evidence to authorial interest and demonstrates Head's treatment of the power issue in her three novels, When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. Biographical data, particularly Head's unique, though socially marginal position as a political exile, a Coloured, and a woman are also applied. The thesis covers three areas--politics, race, and gender. The first explores the nature of power in South African politics within the time-frame of the present, past, and future. The second which focuses on the institution of apartheid examines racial relations between the blacks and whites and also among the blacks, with attention given to the dilemma of the Coloured. The third section discusses sexual politics, looking at male-female relationships in both traditional and contemporary societies.

The corpus of this project consists of the five volumes of Simone de Beauvoir's memoirs: Memoires d'une jeune fille rangee, La force de l'age, La force des choses I, La force des choses II and Tout compte fait. In this study, we have considered the difficulties of self-analysis and examined the limitations and demands of the genre of autobiography.
A memoir is not simply the reconstruction of the author's past, but a personal interpretation of this past which often includes discrepancies between the narrative and the reality of his or her life. The autobiographer's primary objective is not to deliver the historical facts of his or her existence, but to show a self beneath the person that appears to the world. In our research, we have found that the value and truth of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography arise from her creation of a character she sees as embodying her own distinct personality.

The poetry of John Ciardi, a versatile and prolific man of letters, has not received adequate critical attention. Through an examination of his poetic canon, using traditional elements of poetry, this dissertation establishes his unique poetic voice. Attention is focused on his Selected Poems, but representative poems from his full canon are examined.Chapter One reviews critical writings relevant to establishing Ciardi's poetic voice, introduces texts to be examined, and sets forth criteria for analyzing his poetry.Chapter Two identifies Ciardi's poetics and places him as a poet in the realistic tradition. His poetics stress four elements essential to good poetry: rhythm, diction, imagery, and form (wholeness). Much of his analysis is orthodox; however, as subsequent chapters demonstrate, some analytical terms are used in a special sense by Ciardi.Chapter Three positions Ciardi as a personal poet, dependent on family experiences for his subjects and settings. Ciardi's poems tend to succeed when autobiography plays a large role. Chapter Six also considers the relationship of imagery to common themes.Chapters Four through Seven deal with techniques of poetry. Chapter Four on rhythm shows how Ciardi successfully creates a vernacular language by manipulating a basic iambic line by using metrical and non-metrical devices.Chapter Five analyzes how diction is affected by grammar, sound devices, and etymology. Effective diction is precise, appropriate, resonant, and authentic.Chapter Six categorizes frequently-used images into four groups: nature, family, war, and religion/art. This chapter demonstrates the close relationship between imagery and his persistent themes: depersonalization of twentieth-century people and salvation in interpersonal relationships and art. Ciardi's most successful poems use fresh images from "unimportant" experiences, from which humanistic values are derived.Chapter Seven addresses the wholeness of the poem, including the "sympathetic contract." The poems tend toward a formal ending, frequently following what Ciardi calls a "fulcrum." Ciardi's composite voice is rich with unexpected images, flowing in a rhythm reminiscent of iambic speech. Ciardi's vision is expressed in a unique poetic voice that deserves to be included in the canon of contemporary poetry.3
Department of English

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the function and the modulations of the figure of Rimbaud in the works of Rene Char, from 1927 to 1988 approximately.
This analysis, which traces the passage---from the latent to the manifest---of the figure of Rimbaud through Char's works, is situated at the junction of two series of texts, one "interior" (Char's writings on Rimbaud), the other "exterior" (twentieth-century interpretations of Rimbaud). Intertexuality, understood to mean the influence of Rimbaud on Rene Char, emerges as a reading, that is a "critique" of Rimbaud, the elaboration of a "Rimbaldian" text of which Char himself is the legatee.
What is designated in this thesis as the "metaphore Rimbaud" in the work of Rene Char refers to a process of aesthetic conceptualization rooted in the figure of Rimbaud. The "conceptual metaphor" (a notion borrowed from the works of Judith Schlanger) constructs rather than describes an interpretation. The metaphor is thus a means of intellectual invention, a heuristic act and an instrument of investigation. For Char, the metaphorical Rimbaud is the space into which he projects and imagines the work to be created. Thus, the figure of Rimbaud, through a working and reworking of discrepancies and margins, is gradually transformed by the poet and becomes, finally, a true metaphor, that is, a conceptual hypothesis which is supple and ample enough to accommodate all of Char's poetry.

Much of W. H. Auden's most brilliantly evocative poetry was written during the 1930's. His skill in catching the tones, the topics of his time, and his ability to evoke its moods and its social turbulence are unequalled among those of his generation writing of political unrest, international crises and revolution. It is no surprise that the word "Audenesque" has become part of the language of literary criticism describing a particular poetic style. Yet it was his poetry of the '30's that Auden later in his life revised and/or repudiated, creating textual problems involving basic critical issues related to literary interpretation, readers'responses to much-revised poems, and to the way that textual scholars approach the determinate relations among poems as first printed and subsequent, altered versions that are also authoritative. Traditional textual criticism cannot address all of the problems caused by Auden's extensive overhauling, nor can it provide evidence that some of Auden's harshest critics--the British Scrutiny group headed by F. R. Leavis and American critics Joseph Warren Beach and Randall Jarrell--may have dismissed him as a major poet too soon. But a method of textual treatment called versioning--the presentation of the complete texts of two or more different stages of a literary work--may be the most useful and efficient method of textual treatment for authors like Auden, and for readers and critics who might wish to assess the significance of Auden's revised works by comparing them with original texts.
Department of English

This thesis examines four major works of Enchi Furaiko in terras of themes, style, and plot development. In these works, Enchi created three "types" of female characters: the vengeful woman, the lovable woman, and the elderly woman facing death and aging. She attempted to show how it was possible for these women, all repressed by a society, to release themselves from suppression to express their hidden, real selves. In exploring these issues, Enchi drew heavily on her knowledge of the Japanese classics, especially The Tale of Genji and late Edo fiction (including Kabuki), creating a literary world in which the classical and the modern, the past and the present were conflated. Unable to express their true selves within the constraints of a repressive social order, her characters seek self-expression and Eros through the intervention of mediumistic, spiritual, and supernatural forces. In Enchi's works, when the characters released spirits united with their Eros, they realized their essential femininity. An analysis of four of Enchi's major works clarifies these themes and Enchi's literary world. Chapter One examines The Waiting Years, the work which established Enchi's reputation as a powerful novelist. Though marred by a lack of realism in the supportive characters, The Waiting Years succeeds in portraying a "vengeful woman" who expresses her essential femininity through revenge. A well-controlled, repressive style, influenced by that of The Tale of Genji and late Edo fiction, reinforces the theme of revenge and repression. In contrast to this vengeful woman, Tale of the Mediums, which is analysed in Chapter Two, deals with the "lovable woman." This type of woman uses her spirit force to express her suppressed love. This chapter attempts to explain how Enchi employs complicated stylistic devices and a plot in which historical facts and fiction, present and past, and illusion and reality are conflated, in order to describe an ideal love. Tale of the Mediums, which can be called Enchi's work of Heian literature, creates a highly sophisticated and even a slightly artificial literary world. Chapter Three focuses on the novel, Wandering Souls, which is part of the larger trilogy also called Wandering Souls. In this work, the heroine is neither a vengeful nor a loving woman. Although she is involved with men, love, and sex, she is forced to face the realities of aging, death, fear and loneliness. These harsh realities force her to release her hidden self from the forces of social suppression and from the barrier of her public self. Her self-expression takes place through the fusion of reality and illusion, in a world associated with that portrayed in The Tale of Genji. The Mist in Karuizawa, Enchi's most mature work, is the subject of Chapter Four. All of Enchi's major concerns are brought into focus in this work. Using an imaginary classical work as the center of the novel, Enchi develops two additional narrative lines to create a sophisticated, layered plot. The heroine is an elderly woman facing aging, death, fear and loneliness, and her self-liberation takes place in an illusional world created through reference to the Japanese classics. In this work an ancient high priestess symbolizes the essential quality of femininity, the unity of spirit force and Eros, and through a supernatural relationship with this priestess, the novel's protagonist also realizes her essential femininity and life force. This thesis, through the four works that are examined, can be considered an attempt to shed light on the question how Enchi's women characters express their hidden, real selves; it also attempts to assess Enchi's place as a modern Japanese writer.
Arts, Faculty of
Asian Studies, Department of
Graduate

The issue of sexual and racial identity unfolds in a paradoxical light in Genet's works. Identity as a fixed essence is both deconstructed and maintained. His enigmatic portrayal of identity is addressed from a theoretical perspective which combines seemingly contradictory positions, namely essentialism and deconstruction. Such a theoretical stand claims that although identity categories are not fixed essences and consequently can be deconstructed, they must be maintained as political categories in order to deal with oppressive systems which construct essentialist-based identities. Through Genet's presentation of identity as a body performance, race and sex are deconstructed. At the same time, he illustrates how male dominance and racism maintain identities as fixed categories.

This thesis challenges the assumption that Chaucer is the father of the living English poetic tradition. Nobody would deny that poetry existed in a form of English before the fourteenth century, but it is commonly assumed that linguistic and cultural changes have made Anglo-Saxon poetry a specialist area of concern, of no use or interest to modern poets. It is demonstrated that during the nineteenth century, advances in linguistic and textual scholarship made Anglo-Saxon poetry more widely available than had been the case, probably since the Anglo-Norman period. Knowledge of Anglo-Saxon literature is subsequently communicated to poets, particularly after the subject is institutionalized in English departments at British and American universities. Chapter One charts this rise in awareness of Anglo-Saxon poetry and considers its effects on several nineteenth-century poets (William Barnes, Henry Longfellow, Alfred Tennyson and William Morris). Major studies then follow of Gerard Hopkins, Ezra Pound and W. H. Auden and the uses that they make of Anglo-Saxon in their own poetry. It is argued that through these writers Anglo-Saxon has had a more important impact on modern poetry than has been thought previously. Moreover, Anglo-Saxon is often included as part of a poetics that might be called 'modernist'. For each of the three poets under study, the nature of their contact with Anglo-Saxon poetry is determined from documentary evidence (whether at university, or via secondary literature), and different stylistic debts are examined by close readings of a number of poems. No previous work has attempted a detailed analysis of the uses to which these three writers put Anglo-Saxon poetry. This thesis offers such an analysis and synthesizes the different approaches to Anglo-Saxon in order to provide an overview of this phenomenon in nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry.

This thesis argues that the term Kailyard is not a body of literature or cultural discourse, but a critical concept which has helped to construct controlling parameters for the discussion of literature and culture in Scotland. By offering an in-depth reading of the fiction of J.M. Barrie - the writer who is most usually and misleadingly associated with the term - and by tracing the writing career of Ian Maclaren, I argue for the need to reject the term and the critical assumptions it breeds. The introduction maps the various ways Kailyard has been employed in literary and cultural debates and shows how it promotes a critical approach to Scottish culture which focuses on the way individual writers, texts and images represent Scotland. Chapter 1 considers why this critical concern arose by showing how images of national identity and national literary distinctiveness were validated as the meaning of Scotland throughout the nineteenth century. Chapters 2-5 seek to overturn various assumptions bred by the term Kailyard. Chapter 2 discusses the early fiction of J.M. Barrie in the context of late nineteenth-century regionalism, showing how his work does not aim to depict social reality but is deliberately artificial in design. Chapter 3 discusses late Victorian debates over realism in fiction and shows how Barrie and Maclaren appealed to the reading public because of their treatment of established Victorian ideas of sympathy and the sentimental. Chapter 4 discusses Barrie's four longer novels - the works most constrained by the Kailyard term - and chapter 5 reconsiders the relationship between Maclaren's work and debates over popular culture. Chapter 6 analyses the use of the term Kailyard in twentieth-century Scottish cultural criticism. Discussing the criticism of Hugh MacDiarmid, the writing of literary histories and studies of Scottish film, history and politics, I argue for the need to reject the Kailyard term as a critical concept in the discussion of Scottish culture.

This thesis addresses the impact of religious conversion on the later works of Eliot and Auden, and the manner in which they responded to each other as they developed a Christian poetics. Following an introduction which discusses the nature of their relationship as well as their basic theological positions, Chapter One examines their postconversion criticism, and particularly their stance on what is typically formulated as "the problem of belief in poetry," which focuses on how ideology influences a work's creation and reception. Chapter Two considers their transitional poetry, wherein their new religious beliefs figure prominently and their anxiety over the potential conflict between artistic and spiritual values is most acute. Chapter Three looks at their major postconversion poems and specifically at how Eliot's and Auden's understanding of the Incarnation informs their views on time, history, language, and literature, as embodied by these works. Chapter Four centers on their drama, initially comparing their early plays---written when Eliot was a Christian but Auden was not---to show how they employed similar techniques to further different ends, before turning to an examination of Eliot's later verse plays and Auden's libretti. I investigate the ideological motivation behind the adoption of these different dramatic forms, as well as the specific ways in which they affect how belief is conveyed. Throughout the dissertation, the effects of Eliot's and Auden's conversion upon their reputations and the difficulties facing modern Christian artists in general are given particular consideration.

This dissertation politically analyses the principles of literary evaluation (here called "axiology") argued and applied by the English critics Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams, and Terry Eagleton. The paradoxical fact that all three claim to be working within a Marxist framework while producing mutually divergent rationales for literary evaluation prompts a detailed examination of Marx and Engels. Moreover, since Caudwell and Eagleton acknowledge Leninism to be Marxism, and, further, since Eagleton and I both in our own ways argue that Trotskyism--as opposed to Stalinism--is the continuator of Leninism, the evaluative methods of Lenin and Trotsky also become relevant. Examined in light of that revolutionary tradition, however, and in view of the (English) critics' high political self-consciousness, the latter's principles of "literary" evaluation reveal definitive political differences between each other and with Marxism itself, centrally over the question of organised action. Thus, each of the chapters on the English critics begins with an examination of the chosen critic's purely political profile and its relationship to his general theory of literature. Next, I show how the contradictions of his "axiology" express those of his politics. Finally, with Hardy as a focus, I show the influence of each critic's political logic on his particular "literary" assessment of individual authors and texts. The heterogeneity of these critics' evaluations of Hardy, the close correspondence of each critic's general evaluative principles to his political beliefs, and the non-Marxist nature of those beliefs themselves all concretely suggest that none of the three English critics is strictly a Marxist. I do not know whether a genuinely Marxist axiology is inevitable; however, I do admit such a phenomenon as a logical possibility. In any case, I argue, this possibility will never be realised unless aspiring Marxist axiologists seek to match their usually extensive knowledge of literature with an active interest in making international proletarian revolution happen. And, since it can only happen if it is organised, the "Marxist" axiologist without such an orientation will be merely an axiologist without Marxism.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

This dissertation approaches the work of South African/Botswanan novelist Bessie Head, especially the novel A Question of Power, as positioned within the critical framework of the postcolonial paradigm, the genius of which accommodates both African and African American literature without recourse to racial essentialism. A central problematic of postcolonial literary criticism is the ideological stance postcolonial authors adopt with respect to the ideology of the metropolis, whether on the one hand the stances they adopt are collusive, or on the other oppositional. A key contested concept is that of universality, which has been widely regarded as a witting or unwitting tool of the metropolis, having the effect of denigrating the colonial subject. It is my thesis that Bessie Head, neither entirely collusive nor oppositional, advocates an Africanist universality that paradoxically eliminates the bias implicit in metropolitan universality.

Empreendemos, neste trabalho, uma análise de seis textos críticos sobre a obra do pintor pernambucano Cícero Dias. À luz do referencial teórico da Análise Crítica do Discurso (ACD), especificamente do modelo tridimensional de análise do discurso proposto por Norman Fairclough (2001), identificamos, nas críticas que compõem o corpus de nosso trabalho, a modalização enunciativa, a intertextualidade, a interdiscursividade e o ethos a fim de verificar que imagens da obra do pintor são construídas por esses textos. Para empreender essa análise, situamos Cícero Dias no cenário da arte brasileira e fizemos um breve apanhado da sua vida e das fases de sua obra. Além disso, investigamos a natureza e a origem da crítica de arte no Brasil assim como fizemos reflexões acerca do papel social da crítica e do crítico. Nosso estudo levou-nos a concluir que a crítica de arte, na medida em que orienta o olhar do interlocutor, constitui-se em mais um instrumento formador de opinião que tem atribuído aos críticos o poder de dizer e a autorização da sociedade para dizer o que diz.
We undertaken in this work, an analysis of six critical texts about the work of the Pernambucano painter Cicero Dias. In the light of the theoretical citation of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), specifically of the three-dimensional model analysis of proposed speech by Norman Fairclough (2001),we identified in the critiques that make up the corpus of our work, the enunciated modality, the intertextuality, the interdiscursivity and the ethos in order to check that images of the painters work are built by these texts. To undertake this analysis, we placed Cicero Dias in the scenery of the Brazilian art and we made a brief gathering of his life and the phases of his work. Furthermore, we examined the nature and origin of the critique of art in Brazil in the same way that we made reflections about the social role of critique and the critical. Our study induced us to infer that the critique of art, while guides the look of the interlocutor, constitutes itself in more one implement formative of opinion Who has imputed to the critical the Power to say and He approval of the society to say what He says.

In this dissertation I explain the transition from modernism to postmodernism through the study of the French existentialist novel. I follow theories that demonstrate that the latter owes its success to historiographic metafiction. By setting off the aporias that deeply penetrate modern novels, I demonstrate the obsolescence of the prototype of the realist novel and I explain the impasses towards which the project of a committed literature lead, inscribed in the line of realism and aimed at an almost direct relation with society and history through the mediation of art between 1945 and 1955 in France.
On one hand I consider literature as an object which can be described by the methodologies of history. On the other hand I suggest an analysis of the historicity of the text that is constituted by the dynamic system generated by the interaction, the interdependence, and the correlation of the poetic and aesthetic parameters and the factors of the historical context. My aim is to set off the poetic and aesthetic mecanism of stability and of transformation of literary creation according to the dynamic relation between the vector of the project associated to realism and the one of the prototype associated to the novel. I think that late modernism produces paradoxical configurations of the novel because it is the period in which the project of realism becomes lapsed and the prototype of the realist novel becomes dilapidated.
Among the works that are exemplary of the tension between fiction and history and between project and prototype in the framework of the representation of reality and of the inscription of history in novels, I identified Albert Camus' La Peste, Simone de Beauvoir's Les Mandarins and Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Chemins de la liberte . I conclude that the enterprise of committed literature was an aporias because it was generated from the impoverishment of the project of realism and the obsolescence of the prototype of the novel. Later literature was extricated, firstly, by the radically and extremely metafictional writing of the Nouveau Roman and, secondly, it was changed by postmodern historiographic metafiction. The crisis of history and of the writing of history was solved by works in which there is the acknowledgement and the use of sophisticated mediations to evoke and inscribe history in different ways.

The main objectives of this dissertation are: to research the theatrical term “artistic director”; and to investigate how an artistic director of a theatre troupe performs as an “auteur in contexts”. Through the case study of Dr. Joanna Chan (Chan), the second-ever artistic director of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre (“the Rep / HKRep” / the Theatre), this dissertation examines the execution of her artistic directorship while she worked for a theatre company established and operated by the British colonial government. Auteur theories, Andrew Sarris’ in particular, are applied to investigate Chan’s creative works. “Artistic director” is a relatively new term in drama history. No serious or special studies have been conducted on the position, despite the fact that the job-holder is the creative force of a theatre company – by no means a meagre role. This dissertation closely studies the artistic directorship of Chan as an “auteur in contexts” when she took up the position at HKRep during Hong Kong’s final decade under British rule, particularly after the Sino-British Joint Declaration had been signed. Taking advantage of special political and social contexts, and as a Catholic nun with a broadly exposed, overseas educational background and an established career in theatre, Chan created local discourses in Hong Kong as an “auteur in contexts” by writing original plays and setting up the Rep’s first-ever theme for its drama season – Facing Deadlines. The bold and unique offerings of the drama season she designed, along with her other artistic works, all explored individuals’ dilemmas, social anxieties, and the Hong Kong people’s conflicting identity, induced by “the 1997 deadline”. Her emphasis on writing and promoting original plays had greatly contributed to the shift in the Rep’s programming from purely artistic offerings to productions tinted with social agendas. Through first-hand information obtained by interviewing Chan, other industry insiders and drama critics; through close study of Chan’s plays for textual analyses; and through research carried out particularly in the Rep’s news clippings library, this case study investigates how Chan as an artistic director managed to carve out a space for herself, to display her own style as an “auteur in contexts” of the text of HKRep, and to influence the local drama scene while working under a system replete with governmental constraints as well as facing larger political, social and cultural changes in society

Wolfgang Koeppen’s three post‐war novels have often been called a trilogy, purely based on their publication in rapid succession in the early 1950s. This study establishes a connection between the works by looking at their roots in Irish, Anglo‐American, French and German modernism, and shows up links between Wolfgang Koeppen, James Joyce, E.E. Cummings, Charles Baudelaire and Thomas Mann. This comparative analysis concludes, by integrating socio‐political factors of life in West Germany after World War II, that Koeppen transcends the modernist tradition – the fact that modernism has become tradition, i.e. it has become “classic”, in contradiction to being “modern”. Koeppen’s texts do not only allude to and build on classic texts and refer to stylistic and narrative modernist elements such as stream‐of‐consciousness and sketching a fragmented society in turmoil; the very act of recurring to myths and texts of the Western canon in order to depict the disaffected individual is an almost post‐modern one.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The following mini-thesis, Things Fall Apart, Power and Krishnamurti, is concerned with the nature by which power is possibly viewed, maintained and transferred by the characters of Chinua Achebe' s novel, Things Fall Apart. The intent of this analysis is to incorporate traditional literary approaches to issues of power in the novel via polarised conceptions, such as east versus west, black versus white or indigenous culture and traditions versus Christianity. Yet simultaneously, by incorporating the unique world-view of Krishnamurti, power, as possibly represented in Things Fall Apart, will be scrutinised as a selfperpetuating entity which chooses its own agents for its manifestation, outside and not necessarily as results of constructions of race, religion or economical design. Specifically, I am interested in Achebe's fictional construction of the indigenous- African maintenance of power and authority within the novel; before and after the arrival of the European colonialists. Did all African villagers, as represented in the fictitious Umuofia, accept the powers-that-be with non-critical minds, or, was power and authority embedded in the processes whereby the Umuofians became accustomed and socially conditioned by the cultural constructs of their particular society? Personally, I do not perceive either of these approaches to be sufficient in the process of holistically comprehending African adaptation to and adoption of 'western' modes of culture. Instead, I believe that though the encroachment of European mercantilism and Christianity upon the African mental and physical landscape was undeniably brutal, this very brutality was in and of itself not variant, compared to psychological and physical maintenance of power in the indigenous realm. This is a primary area of concern of this thesis. I perceive that the African elite, like the European missionaries, used religion and perceptions of tradition and identity to hold on to their elitist and prestigious positions in the indigenous social network. Secondly, this thesis is critical ofthe perception that the dominant emergence of western spiritual and political constructs, over indigenous structures, is a direct result of the acquiescence or absolute physical and mental defeat of African people. Rather, I perceive that African people - in the processes of becoming aware of a new way of life and in making conscious decisions to incorporate this new world-view into their own life-scheme - altered the manipulation and maintenance of power and authority in indigenous society, within the context of Things Fall Apart. In effect, the transfer of political power in Things Fall Apart is not simply a matter of the destruction of African culture by the Europeans. Instead, it is a result of Africans becoming aware of a new way of life, and adopting aspects of this lifestyle in the place of their traditional norms. Krishnamurti's ideas will be incorporated into the above analysis to present a particular world-view that deliberately strives to counteract the human tendency to cling to philosophies, political persuasions, theories or religious fervor. I have included Krishnamurti in the examination of the tension and psychological conversion of African people (as represented in Things Fall Apart) due to moments when they themselves, in the process of introspection, sought to let go of ancient customs and explore the new and foreign, as represented by Christianity. It is my position that in the moments when indigenous authority was questioned by the masses, so began a multifold process: this included the reconstruction of the African self and the readjustment of power relations within the African collective. Krishnamurti posed the following question: When you are told what to do, what to think, to obey, to follow, do you know what it does to you? Your mind becomes dull, it loses its initiative, its quickness. This external, outward imposition of discipline makes the mind stupid, it makes you conform, it makes you imitate (1974:29). I am aware that by juxtaposing the above idea next to African culture might appear blasphemous in the 'new' South Africa, given the great effort to revive 'African' culture. I do not object to this revival and consciousness of tradition and heritage. Yet, I strongly agree with Krishnamurti that the maintenance of power by a select group of elite Africans in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial dispensations is a result of the conformity and acceptance of the masses of African people of the social, spiritual and economic constructions of the elite. The very patterns whereby Africans think was, through centuries, developed by a select group of individuals, as reflected in Things Fall Apart. Culture and tradition have acted as standards whereby individuals measure the worth of their individuality. Hence, Krishnamurti views the struggle of freedom; the struggle of individuals to shake of cultural or traditional constraints, as crucial to the full development of the human self. "Freedom," he says, "liberty, the independence to express what one thinks, to do what one wants to do, is one of the most important things in life. To be really free ... within oneself, is one of the most difficult and dangerous things" (1974:30. As this thesis progresses, we will probe Krishnamurti's claim that the individual attempt to be free, as possibly represented in Achebe's Things Fall Apart, may be both difficult and dangerous.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die volgende mini thesis, "Things Fall Apart, Power and Krishnamurti" is besorg op die manier hoe mag anskou, behou en oorgedra work binne karakters van Chinua Achebe se novel, "Things Fall Apart". Die doel van hierdie analise is om bewus te raak van die tradisionele liturere benadering tot konsepte soos mag gesien vanuit ft polografiese oogpunt, soos bv. oos teenoor wes, swart teenoor wit of inheemse kuluur en tradisie teenoor Christenskap. Inteendeel, deur die unieke sienswyse van Krishnmurti in te sluit, sal mag soos vervat in "Things Fall Apart", in totaliteit gekritiseer word deur sy eie manifesteringe en nie noodwendig vanuit ft oogpunt van ras, geloof of ekonomie nie. Ek is spesifiek geinteriseerd in Achebe se fiktioneie konstruksie van die Inheemse Afrikaanse behouing van magsbeheer in hierdie novel. Beide voor en nadat Europese kolonisme hier gearriveer het, het Afrikaner inwoners, soos voorgehou in die fiktiese "Umofia" magsbeheer in hulle gedagtes aanvaar? Of was magsbeheer onvoorwaardelik in hulle ingeplant deur die sosiale en kulturele aspekte van hul spesifieke gemeenskap. My persoonlike sienswyse is dat hierdie banadering ft oordeelkundige benadering is om gevolglik die Afrikaner aanvaring en uitoefening van westerse kulturele modes te verstaan. Inteendeel argumenteer ek dat die indringing van Europese merkantalisme en Christendom bo-op die Afrikaner geestelike en natuurkundige landskappe onerkenbaar geweldadig was en dat hierdie geweldadigheid in en vanself nie veranderlik was nie, invergelyking met die sielkundige en fisiese behouing van mag soos voorbehou in die Inheemse koningkryk. Die elite wie die opperpriester van prekoloniale Afrikaner gemeenskap saamgestel het, wie aangedring het op ft vorm van getrouheid tot kulturele en politieke konstruksies soos deur hulle bepaal, het ook die psige krag van die plaaslike dorpsbewoners misbruik. Dit is my primere punt van fokus in hierdie thesis. My argument is dat die Afrikaanse elite, soos Europese sendelinge, geloof en persepsies van tradisie en identitiet gebruik het om vas te kleef aan hul eie elite en invloedryke posisies binne die Inheemse en sosiale netwerk. Tweedens, hierdie thesis is krities van die persepsie dat die verskyning van Westerse spiruturele en politieke konstruksies oor inheemse strukture, ft direkte gevolg was van die instemming tot absolute psise en geestelike omverwerping van Afrikaner mense. Ek sal beweer dat Afrikaner mense, in die proses van gewoont raak aan ft nuwe lewenstyl, doelbewuste keuses gemaak het om hierdie nuwe wereld sienswyse in hul eie lewenstyl te inkorpireer. In hierdie proses is die magsbeheer soos voorbehou in die Inheemse gemeenskap gemanupileer binne die konteks van "Things Fall Apart". Gevolglik, die direkte oordrag van politieke mag in "Things Fall Apart" was nie net eenvoudig ft vernietiging van Afrikaner kultuur deur Europese nie. Inteendeel, dit was ft direkte gevolg van Afrikaners wat bewus geraak het van ft nuwe lewenstyl, en in die proses het Afrikaners hierdie lewesstyl as hul eie aanvaar. Krishnamurti se sienswyse sal geinkorpireer word in die boostaande analise wie se wereldwye sienswyse doelbewus stry teen die mens se geneighheid om aan te kleef aan filosofiese en politieke oortuigende gedagtes van theorie en geestelike opgewondenheid. Ek het spesifiek Krishnamurti se sienswyse ingekorpireer om die konflik en filosofiese veranderinge in Afrikaner mense te ondersoek (soos voorbehou in "Things Fall Apart") as gevolg van oomblikke waarin die Afrikaners hulself introspeksie doen en in dié proses, van hul eie eeue oue tradisies en gewoontes afstand gedoen het om die nuwe forum soos voorbehou deur Christenskap aan te kleef. Dit is my sienswyse dat gedurende hierdie tydperk magsbeheer bevraagteken was deur die magdom van mense. Dis hoe die rekonstruksie van die Afrikaner "Ek" en die herskedulering van magsbeheer verhoudinge binne die Afrikaner kollektief plaasgevind het. Krishnamurti stel die volgende vraag: Wanneer ft mens gesê word wat om te doen, wat om te dink, wat om te gehoorsaam, wat om te volg, weet jy wat dit aan n mens doen? Nmens se brein raak traag en die brein verloor sy inisiatief en sy fluksheid. Die uitwendige, die buitewerking van discipline maak jou brein dom, dit laat jou naaboots. (1974:29). Ek is bewus dat deur bogenoemde idea en Afrikaner kultuur naas mekaar te stel mag as godslasterend voorkom binne die konteks van die "nuwe" Suid Afrika, gegewe die groot inspanning om "Afrikaner" kultuur te hernu. Ek maak nie beswaar teen die heruwing en bewussyn van tradisie en erfenis nie. Ek stem saam met Krishnamurti dat deur die beheer van mag van fi selektiewe groep van elite Afrikaners in die prekoloniale, koloniale en post-koloniale dipensasies te gee, is as gevolg van die aanmeerning en aanvaarding deur die magdom van die Afrikaner gemeenskappe van sosiale, spirituele en ekonomiese konstruksies soos dié van dié elite. Die denks wyse waarlangs Afrikaners dink, was vir eeue lank, uitgebrei deur fi selektiewe groep mense, soos voorgehou in "Things Fall Apart". Kultuur en tradisie het fi standard geword waarby fi mens hom kan mee verlyk om sy waarde as individu te kan bepaal. Om hierdie rede, sien Krishnamurti die geveg vir vryheid as die geveg vir individue om kulturele en tradisionele beperkige af te skud en dis inderdaad belangrik vir die uitbreiding van die mens se eie identiteit. "Vryheid", sê hy, "liberalisme, die onafhanklikheid om uit te spreek wat fi mens dink, te doen wat fi mens wil doen, is een van dié mees belangrikste dinge in die lewe. Om innerlik vry te wees ... is een van die moeilikste en gevaarlikste dinge in die lewe" (1974:30). Soos hierdie thesis voortgaan, sal ek Krishnamurti se beweering dat die individu se poging om vry te wees, soos moontlik voorgestel in Achebe se " Things Fall Apart" dalk beide moeilik en gevaarlik mag wees.

Any text which criticizes, undermines and/or transforms the encyclopaedic ideal of ordering and textualizing the world in a closed, linear fashion can be defined as a post-encyclopaedic text. This thesis explores both theoretical and artistic texts which inhabit the realm of post-encyclopaedism. In the past, critical speculation on encyclopaedism in literature has been concerned with the ways in which artistic texts attempt to live up to the encyclopaedic ideal. In some cases, this effort to establish an identity between the artistic text and the encyclopaedia has led to an ignorance of the disruptive or even deconstructive effects of so-called fictional encyclopaedias. Once we recognize the existence of such effects, we must begin to examine the techniques and possibilities of post-encyclopaedism. Hence we can see post-encyclopaedic qualities in the condensed meta-encyclopaedism of Jorge Luis Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", the disrupted quests for encyclopaedic revelation in Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and the principle of textualized world as fugue in Louis Zukofsky's "A"-12. In addition, we can create a theoretical space for the post-encyclopaedic text by weaving together Mikhail Bakhtin'sideas on the novel as opposed to the epic, Michel Foucault's notion of restructuring the closed circle of the text through mirrored writing, Jurij Lotman's theory of internal and external recoding in texts, and Umberto Eco's concept of the open text. By combining an investigation of theoretical and artistic texts which lend themselves to post-encyclopaedism, we can create a generic distinction between texts which attempt to be encyclopaedic in themselves: and texts which disrupt and/or transform the encyclopaedic ideal
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

This mini-thesis is located in historical discursive practices, choreographing history, biography as a source for making dance in South Africa and choreographic transformations in South African choreography since the 1994 democratic elections. Derridian concepts of deconstruction will be referenced in an attempt to focus the argument of this research, which comments on choreographic transformations since 1994, by subverting the influence of the 'violent hierarchies' enforced by the apartheid regime on South African cultural life and choreographic identity. The researcher draws on these considerations in order to explore the hybrid nature of South African choreography that has emerged since 1994. Chapter one examines the fallacious nature of historical discourse through a consideration and application of Derrida's notions of deconstruction and fabrication. Chapter two explores the notion of choreographing history in theatre through a focus on the objective/subjective fallacy and the history of the body as a textual medium. Chapter three focuses the study specifically in biography as a discourse within the idea of theatre. This approach to biography can be encapsulated by the phrase 'telling lives'. This chapter also explores the relationship between the traditional binaries of writing as a purely cerebral act and choreography as a purely visceral experience. Chapter four brings the focus to the specific post-apartheid South African context. This chapter considers the hybrid forms of dance emerging in South Africa as well as the notion of protest in relation to theatre and dance. The final chapter is an investigation and analysis of two choreographic works created by South African choreographers since 1994 in relation to biography and concepts of deconstruction. These works are Gary Gordon's Bessie's Head (2000) and Gregory Maqoma's Miss Thandi (2002). The focus of the analysis also reveals the inherent difficulty in objective interpretation, and considers the problematics of collaboration and autobiography when choreographing within a biographical context.

Orientador: Cassiano Sydow Quilici
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes
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Resumo: Joseph Beuys pertence a uma geração de artistas que buscou discutir a arte como uma possibilidade de ação e conhecimento. Este trabalho tem como ponto de partida a discussão das Aktiones do artista, que a partir de 1960 passam a ser sua principal prática. As ações apontam as tentativas de Beuys de encontrar na arte uma lugar de recriação dos conceitos de pensamento, vontade, criatividade e sensibilidade. A partir daí, elegemos uma possível crise da ação como mote para análise do teatro contemporâneo. Iniciamos a discussão com uma tentativa de contextualizar a ação teatral contemporânea e como ela tem se distanciado de suas referências dramáticas aproximando-se das ideias de experiência e acontecimento. Em seguida, introduzimos as Aktiones beuysianas para podermos repensar o processo de criação do ator/performer dentro de um possível campo de produção artística diversificado e com limites estéticos expandidos, até mesmo além da arte. Chegamos, por fim, a aproximação do conceito de escultura, proposto por Beuys e do seu conceito de ação numa tentativa de entendê-la como indissociável da vida e dos pensamentos do artista, como uma atitude politica e estética capaz de provocar transformações na qualidade do agir humano
Abstract: Joseph Beuys belongs to a generation of artists who aimed to discuss art as a possibility of action and knowledge. This research takes as its starting point the discussion of the artist Aktiones, which since 1960 become his main practice. The actions leads to Beuys¿ attempts to find a place in the art of recreating concepts of thought, will, creativity and sensitivity. From this point, we elected a possible crisis of the action as a theme for analysis of the contemporary theater, a discussion its started with the attempt to contextualize contemporary theatrical action and how it has distanced itself from the dramatic references and approached the idea of experience and event; then we introduce the beuysians Aktiones in order to rethink the creative process of the actor / performer within a possible diverse artistic production field and expanded aesthetic limits, even beyond art. We finally arrived to an approach to the concept of sculpture, proposed by Beuys and the concept of action in an attempt to understand the action as inseparable from the life and thoughts of the artist, as a political and aesthetic attitude capable of causing changes in the quality of the human act
Mestrado
Teatro, Dança e Performance
Mestra em Artes da Cena

This research aims to illuminate how and why war challenges the limits of poetic representation, through an analysis of non-combatant poetry of the Second World War. It is motivated by the question: how can one portray, represent, or talk about war? Literature on war poetry tends to concentrate on the combatant poets of the First World War, or their influence, while literature on the Second World War tends to focus on prose as the only expression of literary war experience. With a historicist approach, this thesis advances our understanding of both the Second World War, and our inherited notions of 'war poetry,' by parsing its historiography, and investigating the role critical appraisals have played in marginalising this area of poetic response. This thesis examines four poets as case studies in this field of research-W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Dylan Thomas, and Stevie Smith-and evaluates them on both their individual explorations of poetic tone, faith systems, linguistic innovations, subversive performativity, and their collective trajectory towards a commitment to represent the war in their poetry. The findings from this research illustrate how too many critical appraisals have minimised or misrepresented Second World War poetry, and how the poets responded with a self-reflexivity that bespoke a deeper concern with how war is remembered and represented. The significance of these findings is breaking down the notion of objective fact in poetic representations of war, which are ineluctably subjective texts. These findings also offer insight into the 'failure' of poetry to represent war as a necessary part of war representation and prompt a rethinking of who has the 'right' experience-or simply the right-to talk about war.

Orientador: Francisco Foot Hardman
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: Esta pesquisa tem por finalidade o estudo sobre como são tecidas as construções espaciais na obra Pedro Páramo, publicada em 1955, do escritor mexicano Juan Rulfo (1917-1986). Este estudo não pretende abordar o espaço como mero cenário no qual acontece a narrativa literária, mas sim como um conjunto indissociável do qual participam, de um lado, objetos geográficos e sociais e, de outro, a vida que os preenche e que os anima. Portanto, neste trabalho não há como delimitar o ambiente sem levarmos em consideração os protagonistas: o espaço não é somente cenário físico e geografia povoados de referentes, mas é também metáfora ou imagem capaz de dar sentido às experiências sociais dos personagens. Por isso nosso objeto de estudo será analisado de forma multifacetada, assumindo aspectos relacionados à estrutura narrativa e à construção de efeitos de sentido dentro da obra literária. O material empírico que serviu de inspiração e ponto de partida para este estudo foi coletado nas viagens ao interior mexicano: Sayula, San Gabriel, Apulco e Tonaya
Abstract: This research aims to study how the spatial constructions works in Pedro Páramo, published in 1955, by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo (1917-1986). This study is not intended to address the space as a mere case scenario in which the literary narrative, but as an indivisible set which involves, on one hand, geographical and social objects and, on the other, the life that fills and animates them. Therefore, in this work there is no way to define the environment without taking into consideration the protagonists: the space is not only physical landscape and geography of settlements related, but it is also a metaphor or image can make sense of the social experiences of the characters. Therefore, our object of study will be analyzed in a multifaceted way, assuming aspects of the narrative structure and the construction of effect within the meaning of literary work. The empirical material was the inspiration and starting point for this study was collected when traveling to the Mexican Interior: Sayula, San Gabriel, Apulco and Tonaya
Mestrado
Teoria e Critica Literaria
Mestra em Teoria e História Literária

Orientador: Nina Virgínia de Araújo Leite
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: O presente trabalho consiste em uma leitura do estilo de Jorge Luis Borges a partir de um inquietante efeito narrativo, passível de ser abordado na área psicanalítica através do enigmático conceito de estranho. Para a elaboração dessa hipótese, inicialmente chamou-se à baila três contos de Borges: "La escritura del dios", "La muerte y la brújula" e "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". Mesmo estendendo-se a outras incursões na vasta obra borgeana, as três narrativas constituem a moldura necessária para a compreensão de certos mecanismos do estilo borgeano, que nesse trabalho acabam por figurar como elemento causa de estranhamento. No primeiro capítulo tomaram-se os textos como cenas de leitura, em um procedimento que buscou explicitar esse inquietante efeito da escrita de Borges, bem como salientar suas reverberações no campo da crítica literária. O impacto do estilo borgeano na sua crítica pôde elucidar alguns pontos cruciais ao enodamento com a teoria psicanalítica nos capítulos posteriores, recuperando também algumas chaves de leitura importantes no delineamento do efeito em questão. No segundo capítulo promoveu-se uma leitura d' "O estranho", de Sigmund Freud, a partir desse funcionamento da obra borgeana: seus pontos de contato puderam revelar que o conceito erigido por Freud supera os limites de sua própria elaboração, fazendo-se presente mais como um lugar de enunciação do estranho do que como um conceito fechado em suas próprias bases. Esse movimento convocou, no terceiro capítulo, a retomada do conceito de estranho por Jacques Lacan em seu O seminário, livro 10: a angústia. Nele, Lacan promove uma elaboração do estatuto do objeto a, noção paradigmática no campo psicanalítico, a partir do estranho como um efeito de seu aparecimento na estrutura subjetiva. Para tecer o enodamento com o literário, as teorizações lacanianas em seu décimo oitavo seminário foram fundamentais, por trazerem à tona a noção de discurso e de escrita, sobretudo em sua "Lição sobre Lituraterra". O estabelecimento da letra como litoral entre saber e gozo, bem como o seu funcionamento a partir da rasura, permitiram a sustentação da hipótese de leitura que se soergueu inicialmente a partir de um efeito: há em Borges algo que causa estranhamento, e ele se anuncia para além do registro do relato, constituindo uma operação formal que produz esse efeito de escrita
Abstract: This work consists in a reading of Jorge Luis Borges' style beginning from a disquieting narrative effect, which is liable to be approached by the psychoanalytic area through the enigmatic concept of the uncanny. For the elaboration of this hypothesis three Borges' short stories were primarily chosen: "La escritura del dios", "La muerte y la brújula" and "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". Even having made other incursions into the vast borgesian oeuvre, these three narratives constitute the needed frame for the understanding of certain mechanisms of the borgesian style, which in this work figure in the end as elements cause of uncanniness. In the first chapter these texts were boarded as reading scenes in a procedure that aimed to make explicit this disquieting Borges' writing effect, as well as to underline its repercussion in the field of literary criticism. The impact that the borgesian style had on his critics could elucidate some crucial points to the entanglement with the psychoanalytic theory in the posterior chapters, as well as recovering important keys for the reading in the proposed outlining. In the second chapter was promoted a reading of Freud's "The uncanny" through this aspect of the functioning of the borgesian oeuvre: their points of contact could reveal that the concept created by Freud overcomes the boundaries of its own elaboration, making itself present as a place of enunciation of the uncanny rather than a concept closed in its own bases. This movement summoned, in the third chapter, the resumption of the uncanny concept in the seminar, book 10. The anguish, by Jacques Lacan. In this work Lacan promotes an elaboration of a paradigmatic notion for the psychoanalytic field, the object a, starting from the uncanny as an effect of its appearance on the subjective structure. The lacanian theories in his eighteenth seminar were essential in order to compose the entanglement with the literary form, as they shed light on the notions of discourse and writing, especially in his "Lesson on Lituraterre". The establishment of the letter as littoral between knowledge and jouissance, as well as its way of function through the erasure, allowed to sustain this reading hypothesis, which was raised from an effect: there is something that causes uncanniness in Borges' writing and it shows itself beyond the register of the narrated story, constituting a formal operation that produces this writing effect
Mestrado
Linguistica
Mestra em Linguística

Associé tout d’abord au cycle Ubu, Alfred Jarry garde une position relativement marginale dans les études du théâtre français de la fin du 19e siècle. Etudié soit dans le cadre de la dramaturgie de l’époque soit comme un précurseur de l’avant-garde théâtrale, il reste l’homme de lettres passionné par le théâtre de marionnettes. Ce travail part de l’ambition de mettre en lumière un autre Jarry, l’homme de plateau, le marionnettiste dont les œuvres littéraires sont guidées par la pratique théâtrale. Une première partie analyse le modèle théâtral de Jarry dans le champ des arts de la scène de l’époque, le théâtre d’acteurs d’une part et le théâtre de marionnettes d’autre part. Une deuxième partie s’interroge sur la poétique jarryque de la perspective théâtrale, montrant comment l’esthétique de guignol et de théâtre d’ombres guide sa démarche littéraire. Cette approche reçoit le nom de « scène pataphysique » : un système qui permet à l’auteur de vivre artificiellement à l’intérieur de son œuvre
Known first of all as an author of the Ubu cycle Alfred Jarry remains relatively marginal figure in the French fin-de-siècle theatre studies. Studied as the play writer or as the precursor of the avant-garde theatre, he is seen as a man of letter who was passionate about puppet theatre. This work aims to valorise another Jarry, the man of the stage, the puppeteer whose literary works were influenced by the theatrical practice. Part One analyses Jarry’s theatre model in the field of the fin-de-siècle theatre, the living actors’ scene and the puppet theatre as well. Part Two focuses on the Jarry’s poetics, showing how the puppet and shadow theatre aesthetics guide his literary strategy. This approach receives the name of “pataphysical scene”: a system that allow the author to live artificially inside his work

La philosophe feministe Simone de Beauvoir eut une passion et une fascination pour les voyages depuis sa plus tendre enfance. Des son emancipation en 1929, dIe allait se lancer sur les routes de France, d'Europe puis du monde. Si cet aspect primordial de son existence est souvent mentionne, il n'est que rarement analyse et peu de chercheurs ont tente de l'integrer dans le schema plus large de la philosophie existentielle chere al'ecrivaine. Cette etude va s'interesser aux voyages en tant que pierres de fondation de l'existence de Sirnone de Beauvoir, au meme titre que ses ecrits et son engagement politique et feministe. En nous aidant de ses reuvres biographiques, de ses recits de voyages et de ses romans, mais aussi d'etudes reconnues, nous allons essayer de comprendre la problematique du voyage mais surtout de comprendre pourquoi celui-ci fut si important dans la construction de son ersonnage et dans l'edification singuliere et exemplaire de son existence. ien loin du canon feministe qui masque souvent d'autres aspects du parcours extraordinaire e Simone de Beauvoir, notre etude, qui se veut biographique et litteraire et, nous l'esperons, riginale non pas tant dans son approche structurelle, mais dans son analyse critique et dans es theories que nous avons voulu formulees. Il nous a semble necessaire de revoir et de reviser certains points biographiques et de les faire pivoter autour de la notion de voyage et de ecouverte de l' Ailleurs en tant que donnee de transcendance. Le voyage fut bien plus qu'un ivertissement mondain pour Simone de Beauvoir, il fut avant tout une maniere d'acquerir la iberte et de bien souvent la sauvegarder. 11 fut aussi un outil indispensable pour repousser 'eventualite supreme et redoutee : la mort, c'est a dire le neant selon la dialectique xistentialiste. Selon les informations en notre possession, il n' existe pas de theses octorales s'interessant irectement a ce sujet majeur (la plupart des theses beauvoiriennes ont ete soutenues en merique du Nord ou la philosophe est fort etudiee, la France la boude encore comme le emarque justement Toril Moi dans son ouvrage de reference cite dans notre bibliographie : Simone de Beauvoir : The Making of an Intellectual Woman). Nos recherches et nos erifications aupres de plusieurs specialistes et de nombreuses institutions superieures bibliotheques universitaires, nationales, centres de recherches ... ), nous ont convaincus que ce travail etait original dans son essence, bien qu'il suive une approche traditionnelle et ineraire de par son caractere biographique. Comme notre introduction l'indique clairement, notre recherche tente de depasser l'optique lassique d'etude de l'reuvre de Simone de Beauvoir qui est dominee par un ouvrage : Le euxieme sexe et par consequent peut etre consideree comme un travail purement original et otalement personnel malgre l'inclusion de nombreuses citations venant etayer notre propos.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

This study examines representations of Southern African black women in the works' of two male and two female writers. A comparative approach is used to review the ways in which the writers characterise women who labour under intense restrictions in domestic situations, the workplace, and in political contexts. Some representations suggest that women have come to terms with social strictures and have learned to live fulfilled lives despite them. Other representations are contextualised in creative situations in which social roles are re-imagined. In the process, women are removed from conventional object-related gendered positions. These representations suggest that women have the capability to achieve personal transcendence rather than accept the immanence imposed by stereotyped gender relationships and repressive political structures. The suggestion is made that writers can change the image of women by centralising them as active subjects, challenging their exclusion and creating spaces for women to represent themselves
English Studies
M.A. (English)

This study probes selected stories from Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures (1977) in order to elicit instances of contiguity and disjuncture between orality and literacy, to establish Head's complex identity configurations which are often manifested in the interactions between aesthetic form and content, authorial consciousness, character delineation, and narrative voice. At the same time, the dissertation explores her portrayal of the proscribed condition of women, the subversive consciousness that undercuts women's subjugation by patriarchy, and her vision for the liberatory possibilities for women from the exigencies of patriarchal domination. I also examine Head's (re-)vision of culture within the framework of hybridity and creolity and determine how some of these perspectives are crystallized in discourses such as When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973). I juxtapose my reading of Head with other African writers such as Bâ, Emecheta and Nwapa to draw references in instances where the context permits. The dominant critical approach adopted in this thesis is a contextual approach. I consider this approach useful for my purposes because of its flexibility, the attention it pays to the formal properties of literary texts and, its cognizance of the socio-historical genesis of texts and its demonstration of literature's timeless value.
English Studies
M.A. (English)

This dissertation seeks to explore the perceived intricate relationship that exists between constructed identity, discrimination and violence as portrayed in Bessie Head's trilogy from varying perspectives, including aspects of postcoloniality, materialist feminism and liminality. Starting with a background to some of the origins of racial hybridity in Southern Africa, it looks at how racial identity has subsequently influenced the course of Southern African history and thereafter explores historical and biographical information deemed relevant to an understanding of the dissertation. Critical explorations of each text in the trilogy follow, in which the apparent affinities that exist between identity, discrimination and violence are analysed and displayed. In conclusion the trilogy is discussed from a largely sociological perspective of hope in a utopian society.
English Studies
M.A.(English)

This study explores the triple imbrications of race, power and gender in the selected novels of Bessie Head. A critical analysis of Maru (1971) and A Question of' Power (1974) is undertaken with a view to identifying the subordinating and the marginalising tropes that result in silencing of female subjectivities in Head's protagonists. Linked to a critical reading of the novels, this study examines the role of cultural and psychological forces in maintaining patriarchal hegemony, which is based upon hierarchy and domination of women rather than equality. Furthennore, this dissertation suggests that Head's depiction of narrow ethnic and racial bigotry serves a broader etiological purpose of accounting for "the state of thingsff within the South African context. Thus this study oscillates between the abstract constructs and the concrete social experiences within which Bessie Head's literary imagination subsists. In this study, particular attention is paid, in addition to critiques of individual texts, to some of Head's biographical elements with a view on the one hand, to highlighting the moments, events and issues which are reflected as " contexts of her-story" and on the other, to amplifying how Head's formative experiences contribute to her critique of the exploitative racially structured narratives. By using Foucault's theories within the social constructionist model, this dissertation aims to demonstrate the insidious intersections between racism and sexism and how these constructs are implicated in the conception and construction of power. Specifically, this study argues that due to their arbitrary applications, racial and sexual difference be viewed as dynamic and contested, rather than fixed. A synthesis is reached which accords literarure a role within the framework of socio-cultural practice in general.
English Studies
M.A. (English)