Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Laura Kanost / Early in the twentieth century, children’s literature in Spain developed greatly in terms of quality and distribution thanks in large part to the appearance of new publishing houses, illustrators and authors. Additionally, increased demand brought with it new translations of many foreign texts for children. Despite these early developments, children’s literature suffered a dramatic change after the establishment of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist regime; during the post-war period many types of literature were heavily censored, while children’s literature in particular devolved into what was in large part an ideological tool. Many of the texts for children during this period either directly or indirectly propagated a conception of “Spanishness” that excluded non-Catholics, particularly Iberian Muslims and those that supported the Second Spanish Republic that the Nationalists had toppled. Much like the Reconquista fought against the Iberian Muslims centuries earlier, the Spanish Civil War was often represented as a sort of crusade against non-Catholic (and therefore “non-Spanish”) Others. Many texts for children presented the elements of this narrative by means of auto-images (images of the Nationalist conception of “Spanishness”) and hetero-images (typically images of the “Otherly” Republicans and Muslims). The contrasts formed between these two sorts of images reveal how Spanish children were taught to conceive of themselves, as well as the Others of the Nationalist narrative. The texts discussed in this report include two civics texts (Así quiero ser: El niño del nuevo estado [1943] and España nuestra: El libro de las juventudes españoles [1943]), as well as two comic books (El Guerrero del Antifaz [1943-1966] and Flechas y Pelayos [1938-1949]) that were chosen for their representativeness of the sorts of texts widely available to and read by children during the post-war period.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Daniel A. Hoyt / This project is the first three chapters of a young adult novel, The Muses. Lily Bellows is singled out in infancy to become one of the Muses, humans given supernatural powers through enchanted golden masks. The six Muses (Faith, Wisdom, Pride, Obedience, Courage, and Desire) are telepathically linked to Illyria’s king so that he is better able to manage his emotions and thus rule more efficiently. Lily is destined to be the Muse of Faith, but her parents fake her death and keep her abilities secret until she heals her village of a deadly plague and the Muses consequently return for her. As Lily struggles to master fighting arts, healing skills, and the ability to manipulate emotions, she must also befriend the moody Prince Connor who will one day share her consciousness, and she must untangle the complicated feelings she has for Connor’s illegitimate brother, Ronan. While Lily’s fellow Muse initiates have been training since infancy, Lily joins them as a teenager, and she finds it nearly impossible to give up her family, her dreams and her individuality so she can make Prince Connor into a better king. When she has the chance to break the oath she swore to serve her country as its Muse of Faith, she must choose between power and individuality and determine whether she must submit to her destiny or create her own.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l’Université de Montréal / Né en France, fils et petit-fils de maîtres-imprimeurs, Fleury Mesplet (1734-1794) installa ses presses en 1776 à Montréal où il publia le premier journal littéraire (1770-1779) et le premier périodique d’information (1785-1794). Entre 1776 et 1794, il imprima 96 livres et brochures. Ce nombre de publications est un record l'imprimeur William Brown, à Québec, entre 1764 et 1789, ne fit paraître que 47 travaux. Il faut ajouter que Mesplet publia le premier almanach de langue française en Amérique. Il sortit aussi le premier livre illustré au Canada. Il imprima non seulement en langue française et en langue anglaise, mais encore en latin et en iroquois.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Amy L. Hubbell / Much of the critical work on Marie Cardinal's Les Mots pour le dire has focused primarily on the hysteria of the novel‘s narrator and her subsequent journey through psychoanalysis. More recently, research on the novel has expanded to include the issues of the narrator‘s pied-noir identity, nostalgia and memory. While such criticisms shed light on the intent of the novel, they do not necessarily explain the enigmatic and oftentimes overlooked final line of the text: "Quelques jour plus tard c‘était Mai 1968." In this thesis, I propose that this line is the key to understanding the novel; as such, I seek to re-examine Les Mots pour le dire through a feminist lens in order to explicate the seemingly malapropos reference to May 1968 and use it to explain central elements of the novel, including the narrator‘s madness, her tumultuous mother-daughter relationship and her eventual authorship. That the events of May 1968 represent one of the most subversive and socially destructive periods in recent French history as well as a giant shift towards the moral left establishes the value of revolt in Les Mots pour le dire. Specifically, I argue that Cardinal attacks the collusion of the ballasts of patriarchal society, religion, capitalism and class, and how these institutions have profited from the subjugation of women in society. When viewed in this light, the narrator‘s madness cannot simply be the product of her mother‘s psychological abuses. Instead, her madness and subsequent detachment from society symbolize the ultimate rejection of a world in which she finds herself oppressed and manipulated. She thus emerges not as a woman consumed by insanity but as a woman in revolt.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Elizabeth Dodd / This thesis analyzes the protagonists’ pursuit of alternatives to traditionally patriarchal value through economic and ecofeminist critical lenses. The female protagonists in Prodigal Summer resist being identified through the social legacy of coverture that is still present in the small Appalachian town they live. Lusa, Deanna, and Nannie demonstrate that their socio-economic independence, acquired mainly due to their educational background, allows them not only to disconnect themselves from societal beliefs that the woman should be in the margins of the male presence, but also to interact with nature differently from others. The women’s separation from the institution of marriage and their embrace of motherhood as a matriarchal structure that mirrors the example of the coyotes’ families are studied as main examples of how they distance themselves from the other characters’ attitudes in the novel. This rejection of old ideologies of womanhood in terms of patriarchal structures and their fight for new spaces in society is also present in their struggle to physically inhabit spaces long considered male domains. Defeating the notion that women belong to the domestic space of the house, the protagonists pursue a feminist identity in much wider settings, including forests and farms. The characters’ choice to consider nature as their home demonstrates that they welcome the concept of ecology and recognize the interconnectedness present in nature. This study shows that because of the protagonists’ feminist views, they can imagine different ways to both manage the land and their families. The land ethics they acquire thus refers to humans and non-humans equally.

La présente thèse explore les représentations de la femme dans des récits orientalisants de sept auteurs français du XVIIIème siècle, classés par ordre alphabétique : Caylus, Crébillon, Diderot, Mme de Genlis, Hamilton, Montesquieu et Voltaire. Les chapitres analysent cinq types de femmes regroupées selon leur rôle narratif. Dans le chapitre premier, j’étudie les figures féminines orientales dans Zadig et La princesse de Babylone de Voltaire. J’y tiens compte de la façon dont la voix narrative perçoit les femmes dans ces récits et quelle place elle leur attribue dans la narration. Dans le chapitre deux, je me penche sur la représentation des Orientales voilées dans « Aphéridon et Astarté », un récit inséré dans Lettres persanes de Montesquieu, et dans Nourmahal de Mme de Genlis. Je considère la femme voilée comme un personnage Autre, je relève ses caractéristiques principales, j’examine son rôle narratif, et j’identifie la valeur significative de son voile. Dans le chapitre trois, je tiens compte des personnages féminins orientaux dans Fleur d’épine de Hamilton et « Ibrahim et Anaïs », un autre récit enchâssé dans les Lettres persanes. Je m’interroge sur le rôle de la femme qui est représentée dans une situation inverse, je considère la place qui lui est attribuée dans le texte et son influence sur les autres personnages du récit. Dans le chapitre quatre, j’analyse les femmes interlocutrices dans Le Sopha de Crébillon et Les Bijoux indiscrets de Diderot. J’étudie la voix féminine dans ces récits et ses interventions dans la narration. J’examine ensuite l’effet de cet engagement sur le fond et la forme du récit. Dans le cinquième et dernier chapitre, j’étudie les femmes dans les Contes orientaux de Caylus. J’explore les différentes fonctions qu’elles remplissent ; je distingue alors entre les narratrices et les femmes objets du discours. Je m’intéresse particulièrement à montrer comment les personnages féminins qui se chargent de la narration utilisent le récit pour influencer le narrataire.

La présente thèse explore les représentations de la femme dans des récits orientalisants de sept auteurs français du XVIIIème siècle, classés par ordre alphabétique : Caylus, Crébillon, Diderot, Mme de Genlis, Hamilton, Montesquieu et Voltaire. Les chapitres analysent cinq types de femmes regroupées selon leur rôle narratif. Dans le chapitre premier, j’étudie les figures féminines orientales dans Zadig et La princesse de Babylone de Voltaire. J’y tiens compte de la façon dont la voix narrative perçoit les femmes dans ces récits et quelle place elle leur attribue dans la narration. Dans le chapitre deux, je me penche sur la représentation des Orientales voilées dans « Aphéridon et Astarté », un récit inséré dans Lettres persanes de Montesquieu, et dans Nourmahal de Mme de Genlis. Je considère la femme voilée comme un personnage Autre, je relève ses caractéristiques principales, j’examine son rôle narratif, et j’identifie la valeur significative de son voile. Dans le chapitre trois, je tiens compte des personnages féminins orientaux dans Fleur d’épine de Hamilton et « Ibrahim et Anaïs », un autre récit enchâssé dans les Lettres persanes. Je m’interroge sur le rôle de la femme qui est représentée dans une situation inverse, je considère la place qui lui est attribuée dans le texte et son influence sur les autres personnages du récit. Dans le chapitre quatre, j’analyse les femmes interlocutrices dans Le Sopha de Crébillon et Les Bijoux indiscrets de Diderot. J’étudie la voix féminine dans ces récits et ses interventions dans la narration. J’examine ensuite l’effet de cet engagement sur le fond et la forme du récit. Dans le cinquième et dernier chapitre, j’étudie les femmes dans les Contes orientaux de Caylus. J’explore les différentes fonctions qu’elles remplissent ; je distingue alors entre les narratrices et les femmes objets du discours. Je m’intéresse particulièrement à montrer comment les personnages féminins qui se chargent de la narration utilisent le récit pour influencer le narrataire.

This thesis engages with what has become a ubiquitous term in masculinity studies: “crisis”. I argue that the invocation of “crisis” which implies catastrophe, disaster and trauma, and the favorable reception of this invocation both in academic and popular thinking about men, has resulted in a rush to defend and reauthorize aspects of the masculine ideal. The defense of traditional masculinity risks re-entangling men with masculinity and masculinity with patriarchy. The retying of these categorical knots challenges the deconstruction of gender that feminism and early men’s studies carried out in the second half of the twentieth century in the name of equal rights and in the name of freeing both men and women from having to conform to rigid gender stereotypes – particularly in the home. In recent work by J.M. Coetzee, John Banville and Ian McEwan the male protagonists are fathers who are forced to address a crisis of authority and legitimacy. In the first three chapters I argue that fatherhood in these novels is the site wherein the masculine ideal is least likely to be deconstructed and as such, it is in the context of the relationship between father and daughter that I argue heteromasculinity is most powerfully constructed, maintained and defended. In the fourth chapter I consider Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home which provides a queer take on male crisis and father-daughter relationships and which represents female masculinity as a counter to the pressure to reauthorize heteromasculinity for the next historical turn.

This dissertation examines Leonardo da Vinci’s literary writings, namely those known as the Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia, as compelling expressions of how Leonardo envisioned the role and influence of morality in human life. Through an analysis of these four literary collections from the perspective of their genre history, literariness, and philosophical dimension, it aims to bring to light the depth with which Leonardo reflected upon the human condition. The Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia are writings that have considerable literary value in their own right but can also be examined in a wider historical, literary, and philosophical context so as to reveal the ethical ideas that they convey. By studying them from a historical perspective, it is possible to contextualize Leonardo’s four collections within the tradition of their respective genres (the bestiary, fable, facetia, and riddle) and thus recognize their adherence as well as contribution to these traditions. The literary context brings to light Leonardo’s intentionality and ingenuity as a writer who uses generic conventions in order to voice his ethical views. Assessed from a philosophical standpoint, these four literary collections prove to be meaningful reflections on the moral state of humanity, thereby justifying the characterization of Leonardo as a moral philosopher. Current scholarship on the Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia generally views these writings as minor Leonardo works and treats them as ancillary parts of his production. This dissertation, conceiving Leonardo as a moral philosopher, provides interpretations that lead to the conclusion that his thought pervades both his major and minor works and that these literary writings must be viewed as an extension (and result) of Leonardo’s greater notions of the world and of how all parts relate to one another. The Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia are works that deserve greater attention reflecting as they do the thought of this Renaissance man.

This thesis engages with what has become a ubiquitous term in masculinity studies: “crisis”. I argue that the invocation of “crisis” which implies catastrophe, disaster and trauma, and the favorable reception of this invocation both in academic and popular thinking about men, has resulted in a rush to defend and reauthorize aspects of the masculine ideal. The defense of traditional masculinity risks re-entangling men with masculinity and masculinity with patriarchy. The retying of these categorical knots challenges the deconstruction of gender that feminism and early men’s studies carried out in the second half of the twentieth century in the name of equal rights and in the name of freeing both men and women from having to conform to rigid gender stereotypes – particularly in the home. In recent work by J.M. Coetzee, John Banville and Ian McEwan the male protagonists are fathers who are forced to address a crisis of authority and legitimacy. In the first three chapters I argue that fatherhood in these novels is the site wherein the masculine ideal is least likely to be deconstructed and as such, it is in the context of the relationship between father and daughter that I argue heteromasculinity is most powerfully constructed, maintained and defended. In the fourth chapter I consider Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home which provides a queer take on male crisis and father-daughter relationships and which represents female masculinity as a counter to the pressure to reauthorize heteromasculinity for the next historical turn.