Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky (1806-1856) was one of a whole generation of Russian litterateurs who made it their business to develop new genres on the foundations laid by Russia's literary pioneers. In 1827 Kireevsky declared his intention of giving his own direction to Russian letters through criticism, a genre he helped create in Russia. The working out of the principal attributes of the narodnost' conceptual variable, key to his time, is a constant in all his articles. Also pervasive are his several professional deficiencies. These did not hinder his contemporaries' true and often stated appreciation of his contribution but for the modern student they seriously impede comprehension. Nevertheless, the Russia/West dynamic is a clearly discernible constant, constituting an integral part of his understanding of narodnost'. He persistently attempts to get around the West's cultural superiority but varies his tactical approach to the problem somewhat each time. It is the aim of the present study to follow and document the evolution of his thought on these related phenomena while concurrently dealing with the impact of his professional shortcomings.

by Robert B. McKersie. / Includes bibliographical references.

I.M. Kyratzoglou, Alexander H. Levis. / Caption title. "August 1988." / Includes bibliographical references. / Support provided by the Basic Research Group of the Technical Panel on C3 of the Joint Directors of Laboratories through the Office of Naval Research under contract N00014-85-K-0782

Eighteenth Century Venice witnessed the rise to popularity of Carlo Gozzi, a playwright whose life and works have provoked a spectrum of controversial opinions ranging from the over-enthusiastic evaluation of the German Romantics and the harsh criticisms of more realistic Italians, to the temperate judgements of modern literary critics. To understand why this prolific dramatist and dedicated opponent of the Enlightenment aroused such diverse impressions, one must study the period in which he lived and, with this in mind, proceed to examine his political, social, and moral views as they are expressed in his works, then attempt to reconstruct the personality of the author himself. Accordingly, I have included in this thesis a brief summary of the Enlightenment and the influence it had upon Italian cultural life. Against this historical background, I have presented the essential opinions of the author in order to determine his reasons for so resolutely opposing the concepts of the Enlightenment. These socio-political views are closely bound to the medium he chose. It, therefore, proves worthwhile to study his ideas on the theatre, its purpose, its rights and responsibilities, its actors and dramatists, and the genre which Gozzi used in his works, the commedia dell'arte. Although his plays are our most obvious and direct source of information, his memoirs and his treatise on the theatre are also essential. In them he describes the state of Italian theatre as he found it, his desire to rejuvenate its proud theatrical tradition, improvised comedy, his polemical and didactical reasons for writing plays, and his means of achieving the effects he believed every play should have on an audience. Gozzi's ideas also come to light in his criticism of his theatrical rival, Carlo Goldoni, whose plays reflected current social change. The fact that, until recently, literary critics judged Gozzi mainly on his theatrical productions has led them away from the fascinating personality of the author. Modern studies emphasize Gozzi, the man, as he reveals himself in the Memorie inutili, his last and most intimate work. The memoirs reveal the inner conflict of a man caught between past and future, torn between a dying culture of which he was a part, and a new one in which he could find no place. In conclusion, I maintain that only by considering his theatrical works in the light of the Memorie inutili and the Ragionamento ingenuo can one hope to give a comprehensive evaluation of Carlo Gozzi - dramatist and man. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

The education of John Stuart Mill was one of the most unusual ever planned or experienced. Beginning with his learning Greek at the age of three and continuing without a break of any kind to the age of fourteen, it constituted an almost total control of Mill's every waking activity, with the important exception of his visit to France at fourteen, until his appointment to the East India Company in 1823. It emphasized the "tabula rasa" theory, the effect of external circumstances on the developing mind, Hartley's Associationist theory, and the judicious use of the Utilitarian theories of the "pleasure-pain" principle. Conceived and carried out by Mill's father, James Mill, and his close friend, the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the education was planned to develop John Stuart Mill as their disciple, reasoner, and advocate who would help the advance of the Utilitarian philosophy. Dependent on John Stuart Mill's native intelligence and docility, this carefully planned education was unusually successful, but it was successful at the price of Mill's emotional development. Mill's education was so much a part of his life that the development of his thought cannot be understood without some appreciation of its nature. A biographical approach is essential to an understanding of Mill. This is particularly true of the development of his poetic theory which itself was developed in a response to his efforts to integrate his views of poetry with his former philosophy. His interest in poetry derived from the time of his mental crisis in 1826, when he discovered that his preoccupation with the improvement of mankind did not provide him with the emotional satisfaction that his personal life demanded. Wordsworth's poetry, with its emphasis on the restorative powers of external nature, its sensitivity to human feelings, and its adherence to observed truths and quiet, contemplative moods, was so suited to Mill's temperament and situation that his reading it marked one of the great turning points in his life. After reading Wordsworth, Mill recovered his spirits, and not only recaptured his enjoyment of life, but also acquired a life-long devotion to poetry. Mill's poetic views were an outgrowth of his experience with Wordsworth's poetry and his desire to integrate all new ideas into his philosophy. Responding to Wordsworth's view that the feeling expressed in a poem gives importance to the action and situation, Mill placed his greatest emphasis on feeling as the essential characteristic of poetry. He agreed with Wordsworth that poetry is spontaneous, and that the thought in a poem is subordinate to the feeling. He explained the latter in terms of Hartley's Associationism. His lifelong concern for truth found its justification in his insistence that the object of poetry was to convey truthfully the feelings to which the poem gives expression. However, his poetic views were much narrower than Wordsworth's inasmuch as he neglected the imagination, and he excluded fiction from poetry in his unusual emphasis on identifying poetry with the lyric. In his efforts to integrate his poetic theory with his philosophical views, Mill followed Wordsworth's thinking that poetry is the opposite of science, and by emphasizing that the common purpose of science and poetry was their devotion to truth, Mill saw their unity in his conception of the complementary nature of their methods of conveying truth, the one by logic and the other by intuition. Mill's poetic theory tended to be narrow in the light of its overemphasis on feeling, its insistence on confining the word, poetry, to the lyric alone, and its relative devaluation of the imagination. Nevertheless, with its Wordsworthian overtones and its sense of purpose, it was essentially a Romantic theory. Its contention that the highest truths are intuitively known by the poet or artist underlined Mill's attempt to find a union of science and art in a devotion to truth. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Jüristische Fakultät--Göttingen--Georg-August-Universität, 2003. / Bibliogr. p. 187-204.

Diss. : Berlin : 1990. / Bibliogr.: p. 284-295.

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