This thesis explores Eliot's allusive method, that is his use of Judaeo-Christianity with its analogues (and sometimes sources) in pre-Biblical primitive myths and legends. The first chapters study The Confidential Clerk and the draft material of the play which contains overt allusions-subsequently expurgated - to Sargon and Dionysos'as pre-Biblical archetypes of Moses and Christ respectively. I discuss the growth and development of the two legends of Sargon and Dionysos and their Biblical counterparts through successive drafts of the' play. In adapting the Sargon-Moses legend, Eliot was influenced by Sigmund Freud and Sir James George Frazer who both believed that the legend of Moses's birth and early life closely resembles that of his Babylonian predecessor, Sargon of Accad, which the Hebrews imitated. In adapting, on another level of the play, the Dionysos-Christ legend, Eliot was in debt of Frazer and. John M. Robertson who have persuasively shorn the shaping influence of Dionysos and the Dionysos religion upon the Founder of Christianity and the Christian system. I have used the same approach in studying the other plays of Eliot, The same pattern,ie.,the adaptation of a pre-Biblical legend which has its counterpart in the Bible is to be found in The Family Reunion in which Eliot drew upon the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh from which he adapted the pre- Biblical legend of the Fall and the deluge story. For the minutiae of these legends in the epic of Gilgamesh and their Old Testament parallels Eliot is indebted to Alfred Loisy, the French Modernist theologian who explains the Genesis in terms of Babylonian mythology. In writing. The Cocktail Party, Eliot went to The Golden Ass of Apuleius, an anti- Christian work, from which he transformed the pre-Biblical legend of Isis, the forerunner of the Virgin Mary, as well as other motifs. Finally The Elder Statesman, Eliot's last play, adapts the pre-Biblical legend of Ahriman, an archetype of the Biblical story of Satan and the concept of evil in the Old Testament. But I have not included this play in my thesis, although I have investigated it, because of limitations of length, and also because the connection of text and sub-text in The Elder Statesman is less significant than that in the other plays.

The Ancient Mesopotamian society is often pictured as the cradle of society. It is surroundedby the rivers Euphrates and Tigris and has given life to an agricultural civilization that hasproduced the oldest preserved literary writing of our time, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In thisqualitative research paper, I intend to explore similar stories to expand the understanding ofthe Mesopotamian religion and its deities.Metaphorical literature, as with the Epic of Gilgamesh, represent society’s understanding ofits surroundings and thus portrays deities as reflections of its values and cognitive thinking.As an example, kingships of Mesopotamia were depicted as gods, and gods as kings, duringthe third millennia B.C. The prevailing political setting of monarchs demanded protection ofits citizens against outside threats. Wars were common during this era and thus walls werebuilt around the cities. The deities acted as protectors of the citizens as well as the kings. So,the metaphorical literature created during this time reflected upon this societal system.The analysis of the paper does not only intend to investigate the understanding of deities inrelation to the physical world, but also intends to elaborate the current understanding of thosedeities. Previous research has tried to explain and understand the Mesopotamianpandemonium in its completion despite the religion having produced nothing that can beexplained in a systematic structure. Instead, I argue, that the anthropomorphic Mesopotamiangod system needs to be further analyzed in relation to the society itself. Many metaphoricstories do not separate mankind to gods, and so this paper’s purpose is to further specify thecurrent Mesopotamian definition according to such keystones.

Si rapprocher Phèdre et la femme de Putiphar peut sembler surprenant, cette étude a mis en évidence la gémellité structurelle de leurs histoires et une probable origine commune : l’affrontement d’Ishtar et Gilgamesh au 2e millénaire av. J.C. Le motif de la tentatrice refoulée qui se venge s’est ensuite décliné en deux branches d’évolution, l’une proche-orientale donnant l’épisode de la femme de Putiphar, et l’autre grecque produisant le mythe de Phèdre. Si l’histoire littéraire privilégie parfois l’une ou l’autre, une bipartition finit par s’observer, la femme de Putiphar s’arrogeant le 19e siècle et Phèdre le 20e. L’origine de la tentatrice biblique explique en partie le phénomène. Proche-orientale à une époque où s’exerce une fascination pour l’Orient, héritière d’une misogynie chrétienne séculaire et d’une influence sadienne, la figure entre en résonance avec le mythe de la femme fatale qui s’élabore dans la deuxième partie du siècle. Car face aux premiers soubresauts féministes, les hommes répondent à ce qu’ils ressentent comme une invasion par la fabrication de toutes pièces d’une figure féminine fantasmée et caricaturale : les avatars de l’Egyptienne deviennent des séductrices frénétiques. Mais la Première Guerre mondiale procède à un rééquilibrage et Phèdre revient en force. Investie de nouvelles croyances, elle se fait l’écho de la condition féminine. Agent du bouleversement, elle incarne le Désir et la réalisation globale du sujet féminin. Revendiquant une nouvelle place dans la société, balayant l’ordre ancien, portant des valeurs politiques et humaines éternelles, cette nouvelle Phèdre brille dans un 20e siècle chaotique comme une héroïne intemporelle. / Even if comparing Phaedra and Potiphar’s wife seems to be strange, this study has pointed out the structural similarity of their stories and probably a same origin : the confrontation between Ishtar and Gilgamesh in the 2nd millennium B.C. The pattern of the rejected temptress who takes revenge has split and has taken two directions. In the Near East, it became the Potiphar’s wife motif and in the Greek area Phaedra’s myth. Through literary history, the preference has gone sometimes to one, sometimes to the other, until this amazing situation : Potiphar’s wife overruns the 19th century and Phaedra the 20th. The origin of the biblical temptress explains the phenomenon. She’s oriental during a period in which Europe is fascinated by Orient and Orientalism. Furthermore, she has inherited Christian ancestral misogyny and Sade’s influence. Finally, the figure meets the myth of the femme fatale born in the second part of the century. In fact, in reaction to the beginnings of feminism as if it were an invasion, men build a phantasie of feminine Evil. And Potiphar’s wife and its avatars become lustful seductresses. But first Word War balances the situation and Phaedra comes back. Embodying new beliefs, she echoes back the female condition. Subversive, personifying Desire and the fulfilment of the feminine, claiming for a new place in society, sweeping ancient rules, embodying political and timeless human values, this new Phaedra is in the middle of this chaotic 20th century a bright and eternal heroine.

Avec les neurones miroirs et les théories de la simulation, les découvertes récentes des neurosciences sur les relations intersubjectives offrent à la théorie littéraire de nouvelles données pour approcher le récit fictionnel. Elles permettent de réhabiliter le bovarysme littéraire dont la version cognitiviste, l’empathie fictionnelle, est l’objet de cette thèse. Il apparaît que dans le monde créé par la fiction, c’est l’empathie fictionnelle qu’il éprouve pour les personnages qui permet au lecteur de comprendre leurs états mentaux et d’anticiper leur comportement. Ainsi, les émotions fictionnelles, véritable catalyseur du processus de simulation qui permet au lecteur d’éprouver corporellement le point de vue du personnage, participent-elles pleinement au processus de compréhension et d’interprétation de l’histoire. L’objectif est donc de repenser l’activité du lecteur de fiction en axant la réflexion sur la manière dont le lecteur appréhende le monde fictionnel et s’y investit émotionnellement. L’aptitude à l’empathie fictionnelle devient alors une compétence de lecteur, indispensable pour qu’il puisse s’immerger dans l’univers fictionnel. Ce point de vue soulève une question concernant la didactique de la lecture littéraire. Lors de la lecture d’œuvres de fiction, en quoi et comment est-il souhaitable de solliciter l’empathie fictionnelle des élèves pour les personnages ? Cette thèse répondra à cette question en proposant un dispositif d’accompagnement de la lecture par l’écriture : le « journal de personnage ». L’expérimentation présentée, menée en classe de CM2 et de 6e, concerne le journal de Gilgamesh, héros mythologique dont le récit des aventures appartient à nos textes fondateurs. À travers l’observation de productions écrites d’élèves et l’analyse d’entretiens et de questionnaires individuels, il apparaîtra que les écritures fictionnelles en première personne demandées aux élèves sont un moyen d’exercer leur aptitude à l’empathie fictionnelle et par voie de conséquence de développer leurs compétences en matière de lecture littéraire. / With mirror neurons and simulation theories, recent findings in neuroscience on inter-subjective relations offer new data to literary theory about fictional narrative. They help restore literary bovarysm of which cognitive version, the fictional empathy, is the subject of this thesis. It appears that, in a world created by fiction, the fictional empathy that the reader feels for characters allows him to understand their mental states and anticipate their behavior. Thus, the fictional emotions, real catalyst of the simulation process that allows the reader to physically experience the perspective of the character, fully participate in the process of understanding and interpreting the story. The objective is therefore to rethink the mental activity of the reader of fiction, with a focus on how the reader grasps the fictional world and gets involved emotionally. The capacity for fictional empathy then becomes a reader’s skill, essential to immerse himself in the fictional universe. This approach raises a question about the teaching of literary reading. When reading fiction, in which way and how is it advisable to seek the students’ fictional empathy for the characters? To address this issue, this thesis proposes that a reading-cum-writing support mechanism be envisaged: the "character’s diary". The experiment conducted in CM2 and 6th grade classes, relates to the diary of Gilgamesh, mythological hero whose adventure stories belong to our founding texts. Through the observation of students' written along with the analysis of interviews and individual questionnaires, it would appear that fictional writing requested from students in the first person are a means to exercise their capacity for fictional empathy and as a corollary develop their skills in literary reading.

The academic interest of this study is to establish the relevance and pertinence of Juan Rulfo's novel, Pedro Paramo, in the literary canon of western tradition. To accomplish our goal we will consider Rulfo's text in light of Carl Gustav Jung's analytical psychology, in particular the concepts of the archetypes and the collective unconscious, to demonstrate that the types and world presented in Rulfo's novel adhere to classical literary types of western tradition. We will use Jung's theory of the collective unconscious to show that what has been considered purely Mexican represents an extension of the themes and topics of interest in western tradition. To prove our point we will consider texts that are part of the literary canon of western tradition, such as: La epica de Gilgamesh; John Keats poem, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"; Rainer Maria Rilke's poems, "Sonnets to Orpheus" and "Orpheus, Euridice, Hermes"; Ovidio's, La metamorfosis ; and Virgilio's Georgicas; as well as biblical selections in comparison and contrast to Rulfo's text. This study will establish that Juan Rulfo's work is an expression of the communal experience that concerns western literary tradition.

By examining archaeological evidence in the form of grave findings and textual evidence dating from or relevant to the period, this thesis aims to reconstruct Mycenaean eschatological beliefs and mortuary practices. Despite the plethora of archaeological findings dated to the Bronze Age, specifically on the Greek Mainland from the 16 th to 13 th centuries B.C., very little is actually known about Mycenaean religion; therefore, Mycenaean grave architecture and the contents found in graves will be considered in comparison with evidence from Minoan Crete and the Near East, other Bronze Age civilizations. These latter are significant because they display similarities with regard to the deposition of wealth with the deceased, the orientations of the bodies and funerary iconography. Furthermore, in order to obtain a fuller perspective on the subject, the study also includes evidence for funerary practices from relevant literary sources that are dated to or depict the Bronze Age, especially the Homeric epics, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Hittite Funerary Ritual for the King . Taking into account the types and complexity of tombs, the nature and abundance of tomb gifts and funerary iconography, the evidence for a cult of the dead and the sophistication of funerary rituals in the Iliad , this study examines the Mycenaeans' belief regarding death and the afterlife.

This is a triptych of three novellas. Ideally it is a summoning ritual for revolutionary consciousness, a banishing ritual for depersonalization, nightmares, cops, realtors, the onrush of global fascism, the great, clawing dread of thinking rationally about things yet to come. It is a mythopoesis. Its subject is the transmigration of souls. Loverboy Under The Knife was inspired by “Not I” by Samuel Beckett, The Politics of Experience by R. D. Laing, and a nervous breakdown I survived in the fall of 2014. Paterson Farm was inspired by Paterson by William Carlos Williams, Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and Stardew Valley, a popular video game by Eric Barone. I Saw The Deep was inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Revelation to John, and the YouTube videos of John Plant. Parts of this manuscript were written at Stephen Jones’s house in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. I was talking with him about the Chyernyshevsky novel, What Is To Be Done?, and Stephen said the damndest thing. He said Chyernyshevsky really believed in the future, which is something almost nobody does anymore. If somebody believed in the future, what kind of novel would they write today? That is the conversation I want to have with you all. I believe it’s the conversation I’m going to be having with my craft moving forward.

Civilisation et désert : deux termes qui donnent l’impression en apparence d’être antithétiques, mais ils sont cependant et ont souvent été liés étroitement ensemble dans l'imaginaire aussi bien que dans la pratique. Depuis L'Épopée de Gilgamesh, en passant parles textes antiques et les traditions religieuses ou bien par les variations successives menant aux «découvertes géographiques», à la «modernité» et à la «mondialisation», l’idée de la civilisation a maintes fois trouvé son inverse, son révélateur et son complément dans la référence qu’elle donne au désert : quand la civilisation échoue à conquérir et à urbaniser le désert, c’est à ce même désert qu’elle retourne. Cette interaction des représentations autour des variantes contemporaines du rapport civilisation/désert n’a cessé de donner une inspiration importante depuis deux siècles à une littérature abondante sur le désert,dans laquelle la relation de ce dernier à l’espace civilisé constitue non seulement une sorte de confrontation entre deux espaces, mais aussi entre deux mondes, Occident et Orient,entre deux temps mythiques, deux visions du destin humain. Cet imaginaire se projette aussi dans les représentations des utopies– anciennes et nouvelles – pour mettre en valeur le désert.La présente thèse se donne pour objet de mettre l’accent sur l’opposition civilisation/désert à l’époque moderne. Notre lecture structuro-idéologique et socio-historique s’efforce d’identifier, pour chacun de nos quatre textes, les procédés sémiotiques et poétiques mobilisés en vue de mettre en lumière cette opposition, à savoir les mécanismes de sa représentation, de son fonctionnement et de sa mutation.Partant d’une analyse du contraste entre le discours colonial et le discours postcolonial,notre approche comparatiste repose sur la lecture de quatre oeuvres romanesques postcoloniales appartenant à quatre littératures mondiales traitant de l'opposition civilisation / désert tout en révélant la misère de l'Homme primitif face à tant de tentatives de l’Homme civilisé de l’arracher de son milieu. Les quatre oeuvres qui superposent l’Histoire à la fiction s’articulent sur une vision dénonciatrice de la civilisation moderne et sur une vision idéaliste et utopique du désert et du nomadisme. / Civilization and desert: two words which in appearance appear to be antithetical, and yet they are and have often been tightly linked in the imaginary as well as in practical experience. From The Epic of Gilgamesh, to ancient texts and religious traditions or even to the successive variations leading to "geographic discoveries", "modernity" and to "globalization", the idea of civilization has many times met its opposite, its enlightener, and its point of reference that it gives to the desert. For two centuries, this interaction in the representations about the contemporary variations of the connection civilization/desert has been continuously providing an important inspiration to an extensive literature on the desert. The latter's relationship with the civilized space not only sets up some confrontation between two spaces but also between two worlds, the Western and Eastern ones, between two mythical times, two different visions of human destiny. This imaginary experience is also shown through the representations of the utopias ancient or recent to highlight the desert. The opposition civilization/desert in modern times forms the subject matter of this thesis. Our structural-ideologicaland socio-historical reading endeavors to identify, through all four texts, the semiotic and poetic processes. These processes are featured in order to bring this opposition to the fore, which are the mechanism of its representation, functioning and mutation. On the basis of an analysis of the contrast between the colonial discourse and the postcolonial one, our comparative approach hinges on the reading of the four postcolonial novelistic works belonging to four world pieces of literature which deal with the opposition civilization/desert while featuring the misery of the primitive Man facing so many attempts of the civilized Man to force him out of his background. The four works superposing History on fiction are structured on a denunciatory vision of modern civilization and on a utopian and idealistic vision of the desert and of nomadism.

Esta pesquisa propõe o conceito de \"cidade fictiva\", entendida como a cidade que nasce especificamente da construção estética literária. Tal conceito permite descobrir os alicerces da cidade na literatura a partir dos primeiros textos de criação literária do Ocidente (Enuma Elish, Epopéia de Gilgamesh), para detectar suas principais características e examinar omo estas constituem elementos de construção em contos contemporâneos rasileiros, chilenos e portugueses nos quais se percebe uma idéia de \"conto citadino\". O estudo da cidade fictiva estabelece alguns paradigmas observados em diversos textos, como: La Ciudad está Triste, do escritor chileno Ramón Díaz Etérovic; \"Timotu Kalu\", de Orígenes Lessa; \"Passeio Noturno I e II\", de Rubem Fonseca; e \"A tua véspera de Natal\", do escritor português David Mourão-Ferreira. Junto a esses paradigmas são estabelecidos alguns mundos possíveis da cidade fictiva, surgidos da análise comparativa entre os contos: \"Amor\", de Clarice Lispector, e \"La Elegida\", da chilena Lilian Elphick; \"Una señora\", do chileno José Donoso, e \"Sem Remédio\", de Luiz Ruffato; \"Busca\", de João Antônio, e \"A Bota\", do português José Rodrigues Miguéis. / This research paper puts forward the concept of \"fictive city\", understood as the city that is born specifically of literary aesthetic construction. This concept enables one to discover the foundations of the city in literature as from the earliest texts of literary creation in the West (Enuma Elish, the Gilgamesh Epic), in order to detect their main characteristics and examine how these constitute building blocks of contemporary Brazilian, Chilean and Portuguese tales in which an idea of \"tale from the city\" can be perceived. The study of the fictive city sets out certain paradigms, found in a number of different texts, such as La Ciudad está Triste, by Chilean author Ramón Díaz Etérovic, \"Timotu Kalu\", by Origenes Lessa, \"Passeio Noturno I e II\", by Rubem Fonseca, and \"A tua véspera de Natal\", by Portuguese author David Mourão-Ferreira. In addition to these paradigms, certain possible worlds of the fictive city are established, taken from a comparative analysis of the tales: \"Amor\", by Clarice Lispector, and \"La Elegida\", by Chilean Lilian Elphick; \"Una señora\", by Chilean José Donoso, and \"Sem Remédio\", by Luiz Ruffato; \"Busca\", by João Antônio and \"A Bota\", by Portuguese José Rodrigues Miguéis.

Esta pesquisa propõe o conceito de \"cidade fictiva\", entendida como a cidade que nasce especificamente da construção estética literária. Tal conceito permite descobrir os alicerces da cidade na literatura a partir dos primeiros textos de criação literária do Ocidente (Enuma Elish, Epopéia de Gilgamesh), para detectar suas principais características e examinar omo estas constituem elementos de construção em contos contemporâneos rasileiros, chilenos e portugueses nos quais se percebe uma idéia de \"conto citadino\". O estudo da cidade fictiva estabelece alguns paradigmas observados em diversos textos, como: La Ciudad está Triste, do escritor chileno Ramón Díaz Etérovic; \"Timotu Kalu\", de Orígenes Lessa; \"Passeio Noturno I e II\", de Rubem Fonseca; e \"A tua véspera de Natal\", do escritor português David Mourão-Ferreira. Junto a esses paradigmas são estabelecidos alguns mundos possíveis da cidade fictiva, surgidos da análise comparativa entre os contos: \"Amor\", de Clarice Lispector, e \"La Elegida\", da chilena Lilian Elphick; \"Una señora\", do chileno José Donoso, e \"Sem Remédio\", de Luiz Ruffato; \"Busca\", de João Antônio, e \"A Bota\", do português José Rodrigues Miguéis. / This research paper puts forward the concept of \"fictive city\", understood as the city that is born specifically of literary aesthetic construction. This concept enables one to discover the foundations of the city in literature as from the earliest texts of literary creation in the West (Enuma Elish, the Gilgamesh Epic), in order to detect their main characteristics and examine how these constitute building blocks of contemporary Brazilian, Chilean and Portuguese tales in which an idea of \"tale from the city\" can be perceived. The study of the fictive city sets out certain paradigms, found in a number of different texts, such as La Ciudad está Triste, by Chilean author Ramón Díaz Etérovic, \"Timotu Kalu\", by Origenes Lessa, \"Passeio Noturno I e II\", by Rubem Fonseca, and \"A tua véspera de Natal\", by Portuguese author David Mourão-Ferreira. In addition to these paradigms, certain possible worlds of the fictive city are established, taken from a comparative analysis of the tales: \"Amor\", by Clarice Lispector, and \"La Elegida\", by Chilean Lilian Elphick; \"Una señora\", by Chilean José Donoso, and \"Sem Remédio\", by Luiz Ruffato; \"Busca\", by João Antônio and \"A Bota\", by Portuguese José Rodrigues Miguéis.