The thesis deals with the oral, or folk epic of the non-Slavonic peoples inhabiting Siberia, excluding the so-called Palaeosiberians. It is divided into four main parts, as follows: I. Essay on the historicity of epics, in general terms, but with special reference to those of Siberia. II. Discussion of the epics of the two main groups, Mongolian (Burjat) and Turkic, which latter includes the Yakut of the north. Form and construction of the epics, with remarks on their versification, mode of presentation, and content, in general. III. Details of the content, shown in summaries of the stories of selected epics. IV. A short account of the Soviet attitudes towards folk literature, and conclusion. The appended bibliography lists the major works in the field, both primary and secondary, and the Glossarial Index gives excursi upon several topics and motifs regularly met with. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines epic impressions between two disparate literary genres, the classical Homeric epic and the science fiction novel, Frank Herbert's Dune in particular. This is done by applying Jung's archetypes and his notion of the collective unconscious to both literary works. This thesis argues that, through intertextual dialogue, continuities can be seen to exist between the Homeric epic and Dune and other science fiction texts of a similar nature. Chapter one examines epic impressions through a study of the classical heroic superhuman. This superhuman, his birth, divine attributes and heroic adventures shall be isolated and applied to both the classical hero and the hero of Herbert's narrative. Chapter two will examine the relationship between prescience ("hyperawareness") and the divine oracle of the classical epic. Chapter three will examine the archetype of the "Terrible Mother" and the masculine fear of feminine powers that works to keep the feminine subordinate. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This thesis examines epic impressions between two disparate literary genres, the classical Homeric epic and the science fiction novel, Frank Herbert's Dune in particular. This is done by applying Jung's archetypes and his notion of the collective unconscious to both literary works. This thesis argues that, through intertextual dialogue, continuities can be seen to exist between the Homeric epic and Dune and other science fiction texts of a similar nature. Chapter one examines epic impressions through a study of the classical heroic superhuman. This superhuman, his birth, divine attributes and heroic adventures shall be isolated and applied to both the classical hero and the hero of Herbert's narrative. Chapter two will examine the relationship between prescience ("hyperawareness") and the divine oracle of the classical epic. Chapter three will examine the archetype of the "Terrible Mother" and the masculine fear of feminine powers that works to keep the feminine subordinate. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

In Mexico, corn (Zea mays L.) is the most important crop (59% of its agriculture land) and the primary source of sediment yield. This study looks for alternatives to maintain corn productivity by means of sustainable soil and water conservation practices at central Mexico. In order to understand broad tendencies between soil erosion and crop productivity in the region, the EPIC (Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator) model was applied in the Texcoco's district as follows:1) Calibrate the model using 352 experimental corn plots established between 1972 and 1992 in 36 rural communities.2) Validate the model on a spatial basis, using GIS tools, by means of historic corn yields.3) Identify the most vulnerable areas where corn productivity is being affected by soil erosion.4) Analyze the relationship between soil erosion and crop productivity, over a 100 years of simulation, comparing the Current Management (CM) and the Recommended Management (RM) by governmental institutions.5) Evaluate the most feasible soil and water conservation practices for the region.From the calibration process, it was concluded that the EPIC model, under a wide range of environmental conditions, simulates very good corn yield (r2 between 0.88 and 0.90), annual runoff (r2=0.98), and annual sediment production (r2=0.96).Base on the official environmental inputs available in the region, the EPIC model can assess only a moderately strong relationship (r2=0.58) between the official historical crop records and the simulated ones.Comparison between CM and RM shows that the average crop yield in the region can be increased by 32.6% if RM were followed. Under the CM, the loss of soil fertility in the district reduces corn productivity by 3% over a hundred years. At least 50.0% of the region's agricultural area needs soil conservation practices, mainly on areas with slopes over 5%. If it is decided to grow corn under conventional till in such areas it is recommended to construct bench terraces in order to maintain soil erosion below 20 t/ha/yr. Corn under no till, besides control erosion, can also increase grain productivity by at least 40% (0.6 t/ha) by combining contouring, mulching, and manures.

Roman epic authors extended, reinvented and created new wild animal representations that stood apart from traditional Greek epic renderings. The treatment of wild animals in seven Roman epics (Virgil’s Aeneid, Lucan’s Civil War, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid, Valerius’ Argonautica and Silius’ Punica) forms the basis of this thesis, but the extensive study of other relevant works such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Apollonius’ Argonautica allows greater insight into traditional Greek renderings and throws Roman developments into starker contrast. Initial stages of research involved collection and detailed examination of almost 900 epic references to wild animals. The findings from this preliminary research were analysed in the context of Pliny’s Natural History, Aristotle’s Historia Animalium, and other ancient works that reveal the Greeks’ and Romans’ views of wild animals. The accumulation of such a range of evidence made it possible for patterns of development to become evident. This thesis focuses on the epic representation of animals and considers a number of questions: 1) How Roman epic authors represented animals’ emotions and employed creatures’ thought processes. 2) How Roman epic authors examined the difference between wild and tame animals and manipulated the differences and similarities between humans and animals and culture and nature. 3) How wild animals were aligned with scientific and cultural beliefs that were particular to Roman society. 4) How animals were employed to signify foreign countries and how some epic animals came to be symbolic of nations. 5) How Roman epic authors represented particular aspects of animal behaviours with fresh insight, sometimes ignoring traditional representations and historiographic sources.

No description available.

Byron’s women characters have typically been seen as, in Hazlitt’s early observation, ‘yielding slaves’. My study re-examines that assumption, finding instead, across Byron’s career, an abiding concern with the active individuality of women, and, more especially, with the creation of a specifically female form of heroism. Recent critical attention has discussed women in Byron’s poetry in general, notably Nigel Leask (British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire, 2004) and Susan Wolfson (Borderlines: The Shiftings of Gender in British Romanticism, 2006), but Byronic female heroism has gone unstudied. Caroline Franklin’s sociologically couched work (Byron’s Heroines, 1992) is one of the few to tackle the heroine, but she understands the term merely as ‘female protagonist’: my interest, by contrast, is in the development of a specific, new kind of gendered heroism. Byron’s representation of women takes shape within a number of discrete but inter-related discourses. The thesis examines the manner in which Byron engaged with previous literary and historical representations of proscribed gender roles. I remain alert to the literary heritage of Byron’s representation of female heroism, which extends beyond his own socio-historical context. The thesis is organised within the three major influences: (i) contemporary writings on gender and women, and a consideration of how Byron has ‘resisted’ availability for feminist critique, this being a result of an insufficiently nuanced approach to his poetry; (ii) eighteenth-century writings on the Orient and Oceania, which examines the concepts of Orient and Other as central to the destabilization of fixed perimeters of gender spheres in Byron’s Turkish Tales; (iii) epic, which establishes Byron’s relationship with his literary predecessors as one of reformation and resistance before demonstrating how Byron’s particular form of heroism and epic was one way that he made room for the heroic female. The thesis concludes with a brief coda, which extends the parameters of the governing concerns of the thesis, gender and heroism, arguing that Don Juan becomes a formal realization of the gendered heroics of Byron’s poetic consciousness.

This text is a partial record of the development of the Virginia Commonwealth University production of The Civil War: A Musical that opened on April 7, 2005 for a three-week run ending April 28, 2005. The greater part of the text is devoted to the evaluation of the underlying principles of direction and choreography applied in the creation of an artistically aid financially successful production of this size. Included in the evaluation of The Civil War: A Musical are analyses of the directors' --Patti D'Beck and David Leong --individual creative processes, aesthetics, and working styles. The result of this evaluation and analysis is a compilation of the fundamental principles of direction and choreography applied The Civil War: A Musical as a methodology for the creation of theatre. Further reflections on collaboration and artistry serve as the culmination of lessons inherent in both the creation of the Theatre VCU production of The Civil War: A Musical and in the author's three years of study in the VCU Master of Fine Arts program in Theatre Pedagogy with an emphasis in Movement Direction and Choreography.

A dissertação de mestrado intitulada A busca da adequação entre formas literárias e momento histórico: um estudo comparativo entre O guarani de José de Alencar e O escravo de José Evaristo de Almeida tem o objetivo de fazer um estudo comparativo dos romances em questão, apontando os elementos do gênero épico presentes em O guarani, e os elementos do gênero trágico presentes em O escravo. Para tanto, reportaremos o leitor ao momento histórico pelo qual passava o Brasil e Cabo Verde, porque a representação da realidade política e social desses países demandava um diálogo com esses gêneros clássicos, os quais, sem dúvida, deram uma maior legitimidade e verossimilhança aos romances. / The dissertation entitled \'A busca da adequação entre formas literárias e momento histórico: um estudo comparativo entre O guarani de José de Alencar e O escravo de José Evaristo de Almeida\' has the purpose of presenting a comparative study of the romances in question, underlying the elements of the epic genre present in O guarani, and the elements of the tragic genre present in O escravo. For this, we will lead the reader to the historical moment of Brazil and Cabo-Verde, because the representation of the political and social reality of these countries demand a dialog with these classical genres, that certainly, gave a greater legitimacy and verosimilitude to the romances.

Na epopéia homérica, a ágora, a assembléia do povo, constitui espaço privilegiado de interação social, servindo de cenário para a figuração de eventos importantes para a condução da trama, tanto da Ilíada quanto da Odisséia. No âmbito dos estudos homéricos, aqueles que se dedicam à análise histórica dos poemas têm feito largo uso desses episódios, na busca de chegar a explicações coerentes a respeito dos modos de operação da sociedade retratada na narrativa. Qual seria o papel das assembléias na sociedade homérica? Qual seria a constituição social do povo presente nessas reuniões? Seria ela conformada aos moldes de uma sociedade de caráter patriarcal ou refletiria as instituições das nascentes póleis arcaicas? Ou seria pura ficção, um amálgama de elementos contraditórios, não retratando uma sociedade que tivesse tido existência fora dos textos? O principal obstáculo para o encaminhamento dessas questões encontra-se na própria natureza dos textos homéricos. Elas são caras à nossa forma de perceber o mundo, mas não encontram eco no texto. Os poemas não apresentam registros que possibilitem respostas precisas para elas. Quando as questões que animam a interpretação buscam a clara delimitação das instâncias organizacionais da sociedade figurada na Ilíada e na Odisséia, a memória preservada, no registro épico da ágora homérica, apresenta-se para nós permeada de ambigüidade e indefinições, que, para serem rompidas, necessitam de esquemas de referências que possibilitem contextos a partir dos quais se possa empreender a análise. No presente trabalho, apresentam-se reflexão sobre a forma como a crítica especializada tem contornado tais problemas de interpretação e proposta de hermenêutica das cenas de assembléia na épica, tendo como fio condutor as questões da conformação da ágora como elemento definidor do estatuto da vida civilizada; da oposição entre assunto público e privado; e da natureza social do povo presente nas assembléias / In Homeric epic poems, the ágora, the assembly of the people, constitutes a privileged space of social interaction. It serves as stage set for portraying important events for plot conduction, both in the Iliad and the Odissey. In scope of Homeric studies, those engaged in historical analysis of the epic poems have made wide use of these episodes in search of coherent explanations, regarding the operational ways of the society portrayed throughout the narrative. Which would be the role of the assemblies in the Homeric society? Which would be the social constitution of the people present in these meetings? Would it be conformed to the moulds of a society of patriarchal character or would it reflect the institutions of the rising archaic pólis? Or would it be pure fiction, an amalgam of contradictory elements, not portraying a society that had had existence out of the texts? The main obstacle for the guiding of these questions meets in the proper nature of the Homeric texts. They are so dear to the way we perceive the world, but they don\'t find any echo in the text. The poems do not present registers that make possible accurate answers for the asked questions. When the questions that liven up the interpretation search the clear delimitation of the organizational instances of the society depicted in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, the memory preserved in the epic register of the Homeric ágora comes out pervaded by ambiguity and unclear settings, that, to be breached, need design of references that make possible contexts from which the analysis can be undertaken. This work presents a reflection on the form as the specialized critic has contoured such problems of interpretation and a proposal of hermeneutics of the assembly scenes in the epic, having as conducting wire the questions related to the conformation of the ágora as defining element of civilized life; the opposition between public and private subject; and the social nature of people present in the assemblies