The works published by Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) between 1878 and 1889 exposed Italian culture to the most innovative European literary trend, French Naturalism, and marked a turning point in the landscape of Italian literature. While Verga’s stylistic choices are meant to create, in his own words, ‘the complete illusion of reality’ (having the author disappear from the text in order to make way for a supposedly unmediated representation), I argue that Verga’s Verist fiction ends up emphasizing precisely the ways in which people represent reality according to their own relative point of view. Since the narrative is given from the unreliable perspective of the characters, all the distortions inherent in every storytelling act become apparent. Their viewpoint is purposefully shown as being partial and informed by individual interests, feelings, and desires. These complex dynamics of representation, or misrepresentation, in Verga’s Verist production are at the heart of my enquiry. This critical focus allows me to reevaluate the traditional representation of Verism and Naturalism as backward-looking phenomena, firmly tied to a notion of art as a mirror up to nature. The present study is situated within a growing body of work (inaugurated by Luperini, Pellini, and Merola) that intends to re-frame Verga as having demonstrably paved the way for twentieth-century Modernism. The first chapter interrogates the way in which space is transfigured by characters in I Malavoglia (1881). By looking at how narratives of country vs city, past vs present are formed and shaped by the characters’ relative points of view, I argue that the novel should be read not simply as the account of the modernization of a rural village in post-unification Italy, but mainly as a study into how such oppositional narratives are formed and what aims they serve. The second chapter focuses on a specific character-type, the malevolent observer. I argue that this figure can be seen as a representation of the readers in the texts and that it is instrumental in exemplifying Verga’s skepticism toward the heuristic potential of literature. The third chapter examines the gap between reality and representation as articulated in Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889) by situating Verga in a completely new intellectual framework, that of elite theory as formulated by political theorist Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). This move allows me to re-read what has become a commonplace of Verga criticism – the theatrical conception of politics in Mastro-don Gesualdo as a bitter commentary on trasformismo – as a much wider point on social history, human nature, and on the inherently slippery essence of language, on its built-in capacity to deceive and dissimulate.

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Leonard J. Arrington and Jon Haupt have identified seven stereotypes of Mormons in nineteenth century American fiction which influenced public opinion about them, ultimately resulting in anti-Mormon legislation. Since westerns were also extremely popular in Germany, the writings of two popular German novelists of the eighteen hundreds, Amalie Schoppe and Balduin Mollhausen, were analyzed to determine whether their Mormon characters are similarly stereotyped. Mormon stereotypes associated with adventure writing were found in the works of both authors, but not those associated with polemical novels. It was concluded that their writing still had an adverse effect on public opinion, though the state churches also influenced anti-Mormon policy in Germany.

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Estudia los artículos de costumbres de Manuel Moncloa y Covarrubias escritos entre 1885 a 1895 considerando que en este periodo se concentra la mayor parte de su producción de artículos costumbristas publicados en revistas de la época. Sostiene como hipótesis que en sus artículos germina tentativamente la presencia de un nudo conflictivo que intensifica la anécdota y por el cual se realiza el despliegue narrativo. La metodología aplicada comprende: estudio de fuentes secundarias compuestas por los flancos de la historia y crítica litería, exploración directa de fuentes primarias (en especial hemerográficas), y análisis textual empleando categorías sobre el artículo costumbrista y la teoría del texto narrativo. / Tesis

A presente dissertação realiza uma análise dos artigos jornalísticos de Karl Marx e Frie-drich Engels publicados no jornal norte-americano New York Daily Tribune, entre 1851 e 1862. Durante esse período, Marx trabalhou como correspondente europeu e era o responsável pelos assuntos militares e financeiros do jornal. Engels, como uma espécie de ghost writer, ajudou Marx na tarefa de despachar semanalmente os artigos para Nova Iorque. Dentre os diversos assuntos abordados por Marx nesses artigos, selecionamos a crise de econômica de 1857-1858 e a Guerra Civil Americana de 1861-1865 como focos de nosso trabalho A escolha desses dois temas nos permite demonstrar a interação entre os estudos de economia desenvolvidos por Marx para elaboração de sua crítica da eco-nomia política e os estudos dos acontecimentos históricos particulares. Essa interação é fundamental para pensarmos o que Marx chamou em O Capital de método de pesqui-sa e método de apresentação. Ela é fundamental também para entendermos a especi-ficidade da apresentação ou da narrativa histórica desenvolvida por Marx nos artigos jornalísticos. Dos artigos sobre a crise destacamos como, a partir da análise detalhada do sistema financeiro, em especial do banco francês Crédit Mobilier, Marx aponta para a centralidade do sistema de crédito na expansão da economia capitalista e no estouro das crises. A partir dos artigos sobre a guerra civil americana, descrevemos como Marx procurou entender a guerra como um conflito entre dois sistemas sociais a escravi-dão e o trabalho assalariado tendo em vista a necessidade expansiva do escravismo. / This dissertation makes an analysis of journalistic articles of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published in the American newspaper New York Daily Tribune between 1851 and 1862. During this period, Marx worked as European correspondent and was respon-sible for the newspapers military and financial matters. Engels, as a sort of ghostwriter, helped Marx in the task weekly dispatch the articles to New York. Among the many matters discussed by Marx in these articles, we selected the economic crisis of 1857-1858 and the American Civil War of 1861-1865 as the central focus of our analysis. The choice of these two topics allows us to demonstrate the interaction between the econom-ic studies developed by Marx to elaborate his critique of political economy and studies of particular historical events. This interaction is crucial to think what Marx called in The Capital research method and presentation method. It is also fundamental to understand the specificity of the presentation or the historical narrative developed by Marx in newspaper articles. Articles about the crisis highlight how, from the detailed analysis of the financial system, especially the French Crédit Mobilier, Marx points to the centrality of the credit system in the expansion of the capitalist economy and the bursting of the crisis. From the articles on the American Civil War, we described as Marx tried to understand the war as a conflict between two social systems the slav-ery and the free-labor having in mind the expansive necessity of slavery.

A tese intitulada \"Ilustração Brasileira (1854-1855) e A Ilustração Luso- Brasileira (1856, 1858, 1859): uma contribuição para o estudo da imprensa literária em língua portuguesa\" teve por objetivo demonstrar que, no Brasil, a imprensa de ilustração foi inaugurada com a publicação da Ilustração Brasileira, visto que nenhuma publicação anterior deu tamanho destaque e foco especial ao \"modelo de ilustração\" quanto ela, o que pôde ser confirmado a partir do exame de periódicos brasileiros que a antecederam. Provou também que a publicação da revista A Ilustração Luso- Brasileira (1856, 1858, 1859) veio na esteira de uma tradição da imprensa ilustrada lusitana em ascensão. Discutiu ainda a relevância destas duas ilustrações para o estudo das literaturas românticas de Portugal e do Brasil, bem como a participação de cada uma no processo de desenvolvimento da imprensa literária e ilustrada em seus respectivos países. Traz, em volume separado, um índice por categorias de análise dos textos publicados em cada uma das revistas. / This dissertation entitled \"Ilustração Brasileira (1854-1855) and A Ilustração Luso-Brasileira (1856, 1858, 1859): a contribution to the study of the literary press in Portuguese language\" was carried out to demonstrate that, in Brazil, the illustrative press began with the publication of Ilustração Brasileira, since no former publication gave such a great emphasis and special prominence to the \"illustrative model\" as the magazines at issue did, what can be confirmed by analyzing the Brazilian journals which preceded it. It was also proved that the publication of the magazine A Ilustração Luso-Brasileira (1856, 1858, 1859) followed a tradition of the ascendant Portuguese illustrative press. This dissertation also broaches the relevance of both illustrations to the study of the Portuguese and Brazilian Romantic literatures, as well as the role played by each literature in the development process of the literary and illustrative press in each of those countries, and additionally presents a separate volume of the table of contents classified according to the categories of texts published in each of those magazines.

This dissertation reconsiders the relationship between fiction and slavery in American literary culture. “Prisoners of Style” shows how writers from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, including Hannah Crafts, Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, and William Faulkner, wrestled with enslavement. They found it not only a subject to be written about, but also a problem of characterization. Slavery and the ontological sorcery through which it produced a new kind of individual—the individual who is also a thing—led these authors to rethink basic formal assumptions about realist fiction, especially about what constitutes a literary character. The writers I discuss did not set out to argue for the slave’s humanity or to render her interiority, but instead sought to represent the systematic unmaking of black personhood perpetrated by the laws and institutions that governed chattel slavery in the US. They set out to reveal the ideological violence perpetrated against enslaved blacks, and they did so by writing characters who embodied the categorical uncertainty of the slave, characters who were not allegories for real, full people. The tradition of writing I describe does not represent the fullness of enslaved “persons”; instead it renders something far more abstract: the epistemology that undergirded enslavement—those patterns of thought that preconditioned slavery itself. The authors I study understood fictionality as a thorny ethical, epistemological, and political problem. In my chapter on Crafts, for example, I look at The Bondwoman’s Narrative alongside a set of non-fiction texts about Jane Johnson, the slave who preceded her in John Hill Wheeler’s household. Reading the novel against legal documents, pamphlets, and histories about Johnson and her escape from Wheeler, the chapter explores what fiction could do that these other modes of writing could not. In moments of sleep, amnesia, and daydreaming, Crafts resists the normative logic of subjecthood and individual rights that underpins the representations of Johnson. In the second half of the project, I demonstrate the significance of fictionality to American literary realism’s evolution into modernism. The final chapter, on Faulkner, places two of his Yoknapatawpha novels within the context of his interest in modernist painting and sculpture. Work by Picasso, Matisse, and other visual artists inspired his concern with surfaces and flatness, leading to a meditation on artifice that runs throughout his major novels. I argue that his flatness—his insistence on the non-referential quality of fiction—is crucial for understanding his characterization and philosophy of history history, in particular the history of Southern plantation slavery.

Includes bibliographical references. The origins of the Torrens System of land registration are not clear. Examines the claim of Dr. Ulrich Hübbe who asserted that he collaborated with Torrens to bring about the adoption of the land law of his hometown Hamburg in the form of the Real Property Act 1858 (SA). An historical examination (collecting and analysing all relevant historical sources), shows that it is likely that Hübbe was the actual draftsman, while a comparative legal analysis (contrasting Hamburg's land law at the beginning of the 19th century with the first bill of the Act) demonstrates that there is a strong similarity between Hamburg's land registration system and the original Torrens System; and, that the outstanding differences between the systems can be explained by the natural adaptation processes which are implied by the adoption of laws.

This thesis focuses on the anachronistic poacher-hero figure in late nineteenth-century German literature. Historian Hobsbawm has suggested that the symbolic endurance of "noble robber" figures (of which we can view poacher-heroes as a subset) takes place in an ideal imaginary "stripped" of the "local and social framework" (2000, 143). My thesis shows, in multiple examples across multiple genres, that in fact the poacher-hero is uniquely available for re-contextualization and renewal of social relevance, even under changed social and economic circumstances. The poacher-hero is not only a device for making statements about the past, but also for expressing claims on the future. It is perhaps this dynamism that makes the poacher-hero excellent carrier for different kinds of social critique as well. In my first chapter, I give a brief historical overview of the period and the motif. In the second chapter, I show how the poacher and his rural context are brought into contact with urban, imperial themes. In the chapter I read two novels, Der verlorene Sohn (The prodigal son, 1884-1886) and Quitt (Even, 1890), and the play Waldleute (Forest people, 1896) thematically to show how upward social mobility is associated with and adapted to the poacher figure. In the third chapter of the thesis, I examine narrative strategies and their employment in the construction of a socially critical viewpoint in Der verlorene Sohn and Quitt. I show how both high and low literary works, intended and written for different audiences, achieve similar results in their positioning of the poacher-protagonist through different narrative structures. This convergence shows the malleability of the societal frame for the poacher-hero. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I show regional adaptations of the motif, by examining different versions of a folk ballad "Das Jennerweinlied" ("The Jennerwein song"). This thesis furthermore shows how study of a motif can be used to bring together a diverse group of roughly contemporary texts. Viewing these texts in relationship with one another brings into question the scholarly focus on certain texts at the expense of others. / text