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This essay attempts to trace the course of Anthony Trollope's literary reputation; to suggest some explanations for the various spurts and sudden declines of his popularity among readers and esteem among critics; and to prove that his mid-twentieth century position is not a just one. Drawing largely on Trollope's Autobiography, contemporary reviews and essays on his work, and references to it in letters and memoirs, the first chapter describes Trollope's writing career, showing him rising to popularity in the late fifties and early sixties as a favourite among readers tired of sensational fiction, becoming a byword for commonplace mediocrity in the seventies, and finally, two years before his death, regaining much of his former eminence among older readers and conservative critics. Throughout the chapter a distinction is drawn between the two worlds with which Trollope deals, Barsetshire and materialist society, and the peculiarly dual nature of his work is emphasized. Chapter II is largely concerned with the vicissitudes that Trollope's reputation has encountered since the posthumous publication of his autobiography. During the decade following his death he is shown as an object of complete contempt to the Art for Art's Sake school, finally rescued around the turn of the century by critics reacting against the ideals of his detractors. There follows a description of his unsteady rise to popularity and esteem through the next forty years, and of his extraordinary popularity during the Second World War. Two estimates of Trollope emerge from the controversy: the one which praises him as the supreme escapist creator of Barsetshire; and the one which exalts the courage and honesty of the Autobiography. It is suggested that neither of these can provide a just evaluation of Trollope's importance as a novelist, since the first ignores the greater part of his work and the second concentrates on the man rather than upon his novels. The final portion of this chapter is devoted to a brief discussion of certain of Trollope's major novels, and argues that the evidence derived is sufficient to prove both these gradually developed views of Anthony Trollope invalid as estimates of his worth as a novelist. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to examine in Virginia Woolfs fiction the demonic imagery of violence as it constitutes her ultimate conception of reality. Her novels record the self's ritualistic and symbolic journey into the interior landscape of the unconscious, each work probing behind the carefully wrought illusions of social reality in an effort to define that dark and violent inner truth. This quest in search of the self is essentially and necessarily narcissistic, frequently ending in disaster for the individual searcher who mistakes surface reflection for reality. Ultimately, Woolf depicts man as isolated and fragmented in his attempts to find pattern and meaning in life, and the inherent stubbornness which causes him to fight for life is seen throughout her novels in the recurring theme of identity lost, regained, and lost again. In this doomed world of Virginia Woolfs fiction, the tortuous and narrow path of man's destiny can, and does, lead only to the grave. In The Voyage Out, her first novel, Woolf uses consistently the violent imagery of disintegration that pervades all her fiction. Rachel Vinrace, the young, inexperienced heroine of the book, flees the sterility and isolation of her room for the glittering world of experience, only to drown in the "cool translucent wave" of that very experience. And as the long night of this book ends, the morning light brings no relief and no sense of rebirth—only a terrible reminder of life's pointless cycle of light leading to inevitable darkness. Indeed, Rachel Vinrace's return to the sterile darkness from which she emerged establishes the central metaphor in all Virginia Woolf's fiction. Although Night and Day appears to be a comedy of manners, it is a black comedy of life in a suffocating world where the individual must deny himself and his feelings in an effort to survive. The artificiality of the plot and structure only serves to underscore the artificiality of social life where truth is sacrificed in order to maintain the illusion of harmony and beauty, where the appearance of order and tranquility disguises the violence inherent in a society that worships conformity. In Jacob's Room the individual is never able to form a lasting relationship and remains isolated in a world where it is impossible to ever really know another. Jacob, in his restless, futile quest for identity, becomes a symbol of modern man, doomed to wander through the desert of life in a hopeless search for meaning amid the ruins of the past. The images of violence in Mrs. Dalloway once again create an impression of existence as a living death where the individual, enslaved by convention, is no longer able to communicate with others. Clarissa Dalloway's parties are her "offering" to life, an attempt to maintain order and balance in the face of the chaos which threatens to engulf her; yet, terrified of dying, her existence becomes a living death, an emotional suicide, mirroring the actual suicide of Septimus Smith. In To The Lighthouse the party is over long before the story has finished. With the unexpected death of Mrs. Ramsay, who has seemed to offer a beacon of warmth and security for those engaged on the voyage out, Mrs. Ramsay's family and friends are plunged into the darkness and confusion of the night, where they are no longer able to ignore the fact that life's harsh fruit is death. Virginia Woolfs penultimate novel, The Years, is a chronicle of three generations in the Pargiter family, reflecting the increasing sterility and isolation of modern society, where man must continue the endless dance macabre, doomed like Antigone to a living death. In Between The Acts, Woolfs final and most profound novel, the images of violence well up as if from the layer of mud at the bottom of the cesspool, spreading in ever-widening circles, pulling each one of the characters relentlessly into the vortex of loneliness and despair. As each falters and plunges to the bottom, he is faced with the reality that only bones lie in the mud beneath. And the "voyage out" in search of the self, failing to bring man to the shores of understanding and acceptance, becomes instead, an endless spiral of senseless repetition in which one must either drown or go mad. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Lexicologie et terminologie multilingues-traduction : Lyon 2 : 2006. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries