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Given that the role of Heinrich Heine as a precursor to Charles Baudelaire has long been recognized and examined in the critical literature, this dissertation aims to explore congruities in their respective poetic universes, by conducting a parallel reading of the image of woman in their poetry. Contrary to a feminist critique, which denounces the writers' reductive and hence misogynist use of such images, we will remove the anathema momentarily in order to allow a discourse of love to be expressed, in a complex language which reveals the fears and desires of the loving subject in the 19th century. / The representation of the woman by Heine and Baudelaire points to a rupture characteristic of modern poetry. In accordance with the principle of irony, in which a strategy of evasion and detachment is employed, the various female characters presented by the two poets can never be reduced to the two-dimensionality of a pure object. The relationship to woman is marked by distance, suffering and dissonance. Occupying a liminal position between life and death, between animate and inanimate, the image of woman exercises a power of seduction which constitutes a challenge to the social order, extended from its margins. / The image of the prostitute will be analyzed in terms of its close relationship with the metropolis. Subsequently, Freudian theories will shed light on the stakes of the erotic experience which occurs in contact with the demimondaine. The symbolic exchange established with the commodified body of the prostitute ends in the transmission of illness, and ultimately, in the woman's death. In a vain attempt to control his fear of death, the modern poet displaces this fear onto an object as other: the female cadaver, whose horrible beauty emits a "disturbing uncanniness". The object of desire, put to death in this manner, returns to haunt the fetishist, even to take vengeance in the form of the vampire woman whose body resists death, but breathes it into the one she seduces. Finally, through the images of the statue and the sphinx, the poets reveal a divine and revolutionary dimension in the realm of love.

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The subject of this thesis is an intertextual and psycho-analytic study of the relationship between two major dramatists of twentieth century Italian Theatre, Luigi Pirandello and Eduardo De Filippo. The analysis is in part conducted according to the concept of influence developed by Harold Bloom in The Anxiety Of Influence and expressed in "Freudian" terms, in which one poet, the later (Eduardo De Filippo), is presumed to "struggle" with or try to surpass his precursor (Luigi Pirandello).

Si grand que puisseêtre l'abime entre l'écolier dévoyé du XVe siècle que fut Villon, et le dandy raffiné du XIXe que fut Baudelaire, leur vie et leur tempérament offrent, par certains côtés, des analogies frappantes. Ce sont ces ressemblances, doublées de différences non moins frappantes, qui font l'intérêt d'une comparaison entre la vision que chacun d'eux eut de sa ville natale, Paris. [...]

Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) has generally been recognized as an influential study of western literary perceptions of the East, but numerous critics have also challenged his geographical parameters as too narrow and his conceptual framework as insufficiently complex. This thesis further expands the study of Orientalism (1) by focussing on a colonized area generally overlooked in this context, namely Southeast Asia; (2) by including a writer of German background, a nationality frequently omitted in the discussion of colonial history in general and of Orientalism in particular; and (3) perhaps most importantly, by juxtaposing the views of a Chinese author with those of western writers. This thesis is the critical study of three authors about their travels in Southeast Asia: Isabella Bird (1831-1904), Max Dauthendey (1867-1918) and Ai Wu (1904-1992). Since postcolonial criticism does not generally concern itself with the cultural habits which are formed in a traveller’s native society prior to his or her departure, this approach alone does not provide the tools for the differentiated kind of investigation I wish to conduct. I therefore draw on the cultural criticism of Pierre Bourdieu (1972, 1979, 1993), Johannes Fabian (1983, 1991), and Walter Benjamin (1969, 1974, 1985), to focus on a decisive moment in each traveller’s background, which may be said to have shaped his or her perception of other cultures. In Bird’s case, this event was the 1851 Exhibition which encapsulated the Victorian ideals of industrial progress, imperial expansion, and Christian philanthropy. By contrast, Dauthendey’s responses were shaped by the Art Nouveau sensibilities he bad acquired in the German, French, and Scandinavian bohème. Finally, Al Wu derived his outlook from the May Fourth Movement, a brief period when western ideas were welcomed into Chinese social and literary history. Said’s Orietalism posits the homogeneous cultural entity of an imperial West in contradistinction to a victimized East. This thesis does not reverse these categories, but it does provide the space for an equal discussion of Chinese and western writings within a differentiated historical context.

The history of contact with Europeans for Native Americans and the Tlingit people in particular has been well documented as one of extreme pain, suffering, and injustice. It was "survival time" for the Tlingit and very difficult choices had to be made. The life of one Tlingit man, Rudolph Walton, born in Sitka, Alaska in 1867, illuminates this critical time in the history of the Tlingit people. This dissertation is ah exploration of the interplay between competing cultures and interests and it is a quest to understand who Rudolph Walton was and how his life and the choices he made are connected to the larger historic themes and cross-cultural issues in Alaska Native education and religious life. In addition to providing a look at history and at cultural change through an individual's life, choices and experiences, this dissertation is also about the connection between my ancestors' choices and the impact those choices had on the survival of a people. It is at once a macro view and a micro view of the impact of history on Indian people. After the purchase of Alaska by the United States traditional Tlingit life changed forever. The Tlingit were forced on a daily basis to balance demands and pressures made by various Christian religious groups and the U. S. government. They also had to contend with the prejudice of the average American citizen. Most Native American history has been limited to the use of records written by Europeans and Americans. Our understanding of that history is limited because the voice of the Native American is rarely heard. This dissertation fills a gap in the history of Southeast Alaska through an examination of the life of Rudolph Walton. The life of Mr. Walton is important because he left us with a unique set of documents which help us to understand the difficulties he had to face as a Tlingit man during a critical time in the history of Southeast Alaska.

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