This thesis examines the genesis, maintenance, and failure of rigid and exclusionary societal models present in William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Yi- Fu Tuan's analysis of the concepts space and place serves as the foundational theoretical framework by which human spatiality may be interpreted. Combining Tuan's observations and architectural analysis with Edouard Glissant's concepts of atavistic and composite societal models allows for a much broader consideration of various political ideologies present in the South. Following this, it becomes necessary to apply a postcolonial lens to areas of Faulkner's literature to examine how these societal models are upheld and the effects they have on characters in both Reconstruction and post- Reconstruction eras. Within Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner showcases an aspect of southern history that allowed this societal model to flourish, how this model affected those trapped within it, and its ultimate failure for future generations. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Il s'agit, en prenant comme jalons l’œuvre de trois auteurs symptomatiques, Marcel Proust(1871-1922), Georges Bataille (1897-1962) et Pascal Quignard (1948), d'étudier l'évolution de la place et du rôle de l’œuvre d'art dans la littérature depuis la deuxième révolution industrielle jusqu'à nos jours. Ce travail interroge donc les données structurelles, socio-économiques et politiques, qui constituent l'agencement d'une production artistique, mais aussi les évolutions dans les rapports sujet/objet, la définition de l'art, l’étude de tropes spécifiques, la préférence d'un mouvement descendant à un mouvement ascendant (transcendantal), l'expérimentation comme fondement cognitif, la préférence d'une posture d'étant-au-monde à la notion d'être-au-monde, l'abandon de l'idéalisme et de la métaphysique pour l'élaboration d'autres régimes ontologiques mais aussi épistémologiques. Ces éléments composent ce que nous pouvons appeler un paradigme de l’ombre, paradigme mineur par rapport à un paradigme majeur, dominant, coercitif. / This thesis deals with the work of three symptomatic authors, Marcel Proust (1871-1922),Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Pascal Quignard (1948), as milestones, in order to studythe evolution of the place and the role of the piece of art in literature since the second Industrial Revolution until today. This work therefore questions the structural,socioeconomic and political data, which constitute the agency of an artistic production, but also evolution in the subject-object relations, definition of what art is, specific tropes,preference of a downward movement to an ascending (transcendental) movement,experimentation as a cognitive foundation, the preference of a position of being-in-theworld to the notion of being-in-the-world, the abandonment of idealism and metaphysics for the development of other ontological regimes. These elements compose what we can call a paradigm of the shadow, a minor paradigm compared to a major, dominant and coercive one.

Ce mémoire se propose d'analyser la concordance entre l'illustration du désir humain et sa transformation en violence sociale dans les théories du désir mimétique et du mécanisme du Bouc émissaire, développées par René Girard dans ses oeuvres Mensonges Romantiques et Vérités Romanesques et Le Bouc Émissaire, et dans l'oeuvre de William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury. Ce mémoire soutient que la description du désir humain et son acheminement en crise sociale est très similaire chez les des deux auteurs. The Sound and the Fury, tout comme les oeuvres de René Girard, décrivent le désir humain comme un mécanisme triangulaire basé sur l'imitation du sujet à un model ou médiateur. Ils démontrent aussi que ces désirs peuvent créer des rivalités féroces qui peuvent induire à une violence irrépressible. Quand cette violence se multiplie par le nombre de rivaux acharnés, elle évolue en phénomène sociale : une crise que René Girard appelle Crise Mimétique et que William Faulkner reproduit dans la majorité de ces nouvelles et précisément dans The Sound and the Fury. Le mécanisme humain décrit pour l'évacuation spontanée de la violence est aussi remarquablement conforme dans l'effigie des deux auteurs. Les écrits des deux démontrent que pour évacuer leur agressivité, les sociétés la redirigent envers un ou des individus qu'ils considèrent comme inférieurs. Finalement, les deux auteurs analysent d'une manière très rapprochée les trois méthodes utilisées par l'homme pour contenir la violence. Ils présentent tout les deux les rituels comme une méthode qui a été longtemps efficace pour canaliser les tensions mais qui n'a plus sa place dans la société moderne et ce à cause du déclin religieux. Ils décrivent aussi tout les deux les méthodes compensatoires tels que les duels et les jugent inefficace et, en dernier lieu, ils considèrent tout les deux le système légal comme une méthode efficace pour l'interruption des cycles de vengeances mais pas pour l'évacuation de la violence.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The stereotypical figure of the femme fatale as irresistible seductress, who inevitably brings about death, is well known. This figure is nevertheless strangely absent from Afrikaans literature. This is what makes the appearance of the character of Nicolette in André Brink’s novel, The Ambassador (1963), so remarkable. Not only is she a complex femme fatale, she also adds a new dimension to the cliché. The striking similarities between Nicolette and Kathe, the female protagonist in Henri-Pierre Roché’s novel Jules et Jim (1953), justify a comparative study between these two novels. Although both of them bring about death, it seems that the presence of these femme fatale characters has positive rather than negative consequences. Contrary to the stereotypical evil temptress, Nicolette and Kathe are more natural, spontaneous and unpredictable – apparently free from the constricting qualities of the bloodthirsty femme fatale. In this comparative study, the image of the femme fatale is investigated through the close examination of its role and function in Jules et Jim and The Ambassador. By examining the philosopher René Girard’s theories on mimetic desire, violence and sacrifice as well as Georges Bataille’s ideas on eroticism and death, the nature of the femme fatale in these two novels is analysed in order to determine to what extent the image of the femme fatale as negative archetype could be reconsidered. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die stereotipiese figuur van die femme fatale as onweerstaanbare verleidster wat noodwendig die dood teweegbring, is alombekend. Tog blyk daar 'n opvallende afwesigheid van dié gevaarlike karakter in die Afrikaanse letterkunde te wees. Dit is waarom die verskyning van die karakter van Nicolette in André P. Brink se roman, Die Ambassadeur (1963), so merkwaardig is. Nie net is Nicolette 'n komplekse femme fatale karakter nie, maar bring sy ook 'n nuwe dimensie tot die geykte stereotipe. Dit is dan veral die treffende ooreenkoms tussen Nicolette en Kathe, die vroulike protagonis in Henri-Pierre Roché se roman Jules et Jim (1953), wat 'n vergelykende studie tussen hierdie twee romans regverdig. Alhoewel albei die dood teweegbring, blyk dit dat die teenwoordigheid van hierdie femme fatale karakters eerder positiewe as negatiewe gevolge het. Anders as die stereotipiese bose verleidster, is Nicolette en Kathe meer natuurlik, spontaan en onvoorspelbaar – oënskynlik vry van die beperkende eienskappe van die bloeddorstige femme fatale. In hierdie vergelykende studie word die beeld van die femme fatale ondersoek deur die rol en funksie daarvan in Jules et Jim en Die Ambassadeur in diepte te bestudeer. Deur die filosoof René Girard se teorieë oor mimetiese begeerte, geweld en offergawe asook Georges Bataille se idees oor erotisme en die dood te ondersoek, word die aard van die femme fatale in hierdie twee romans vergelykend ontleed om sodoende te bepaal tot watter mate die beeld van die femme fatale as negatiewe argetipe heroorweeg kan word. / RESUME: La figure stéréotypée de la femme fatale comme séductrice irrésistible et malfaisante qui entraîne inévitablement la mort, est bien connue. Néanmoins, nous constatons une absence frappante de cette figure dans la littérature de langue afrikaans. Voilà ce qui rend d’autant plus remarquable et surprenante l’apparence du personnage de Nicolette dans le roman L’Ambassadeur d’André Brink (1963). Non seulement est-elle une femme fatale complexe, mais Nicolette apporte aussi une nouvelle dimension à la figure rebattue. Ce sont surtout les similarités évidentes entre Nicolette et Kathe, la protagoniste féminine du roman Jules et Jim d’Henri-Pierre Roché (1953), qui justifient une étude comparée de ces deux romans. Bien que ces deux personnages féminins provoquent la mort d’un homme, il semblerait que la présence de ces femmes fatales ait des conséquences positives plutôt que négatives. Contrairement au stéréotype de la séductrice maléfique, les personnages de Kathe et de Nicolette sont plus naturels, spontanés et imprévisibles – apparemment libres de toute étiquette restrictive attribuée à la femme fatale assoiffée de sang. Dans cette étude comparée nous nous pencherons sur l’image de la femme fatale en examinant son rôle et sa fonction dans les romans Jules et Jim d’Henri-Pierre Roché et L’Ambassadeur d’André Brink. En considérant les théories sur le désir mimétique, la violence et le sacrifice que propose René Girard ainsi que les idées de Georges Bataille sur l’érotisme, nous essayons enfin d’établir dans quelle mesure on pourrait reconsidérer la définition étriquée de la femme fatale comme archétype négatif.

Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," as early as 1839, reveals an uneasiness about the space of the house. Most literary scholars accept that this anxiety exists and causes some tension, since it seems antithetical to another dominant motif, that of the power of place and the home as sanctuary. My critical persona, like Poe's narrator in "The House of Usher," looks into a dark, silent tarn and shudders to see in it not only the reflection of the House of Usher, but perhaps the whole of what is "Southern" in Southern Literature. Many characters who inhabit the worlds of Southern stories also inhabit houses that, like the House of Usher, are built on the faulty foundation of an ideological system that divides the world into inside(r)/outside(r) and along numerous other binary lines. The task of constructing the self in spaces that house such ideologies poses a challenge to the characters in the works under consideration in this study, and their success in doing so is dependant on their ability to speak authentically in the language of silence and to dwell instead of to just inhabit interior spaces. In my reading of Faulkner and Warren, this ideology of division is clearly to be at fault in the collapse of houses, just as it is seen to be in the House of Usher. This emphasis is especially conspicuous in several works, beginning with Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and its (pre)text, "Evangeline." Warren carries the motif forward in his late novels, Flood and Meet Me in the Green Glen. I examine these works relative to spatial analysis and an aesthetic of absence, including an interpretation of silence as a mode of authentic saying. I then discuss these motifs as they are operating in Toni Morrison's Beloved, and finally take Song of Solomon as both an end and a beginning to these texts' concerns with collapsing structures of narrative and house.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Chinese

Dans une perspective historique, ce mémoire s'intéresse à une certaine tradition interprétative de l'œuvre du marquis de Sade, de Guillaume Apollinaire à Pierre Klossowski en passant par Georges Bataille et le groupe surréaliste. S'inspirant à la fois des travaux en esthétique de la réception et des théories de la lecture (Jauss, Fish, Charles), ainsi que de la notion de figure (Auerbach, Gervais), il procède à une « critique de la critique » en retraçant les grands moments de la période dite de la « dialectisation » de la réception de l'œuvre de Sade - celle qui fait suite à la « médicalisation » et qui précède sa « textualisation », selon les catégories mises de l'avant par Michel Delon. S'il s'agit en premier lieu de faire l'archéologie de la figure de Sade pendant le XIXe siècle français, il s'agira ensuite de montrer que c'est sous un mode conflictuel que l'œuvre sadienne circule au sein de l'avant-garde dans la première moitié du siècle suivant. Dans les lectures de Sade qui seront convoquées, une place particulière sera faite à la polémique qui éclate entre Georges Bataille et André Breton dans les années vingt, puisqu'au cœur de cette querelle d'interprétation sont mis à nu certains enjeux de pouvoir qui travaillent toute gestion d'héritage. En ce sens, ce mémoire se propose, dans l'esprit de ce que Nathalie Heinich nomme l'« anthropologie de l'admiration », de mesurer ce que l'on pourrait appeler l'« effet Sade » dans l'entre-deux-guerres français : la glorification souterraine dont sa figure a été l'objet et qui amène ceux qui veulent s'en prendre à un certain ordre du monde à chercher sous son « envergure contradictoire » (Annie Le Brun) le terreau fertile qui leur est nécessaire pour ancrer leurs révoltes. Autrement dit, il s'agira de cerner comment et pourquoi, après que le sceau de l'interdit ait pesé aussi longtemps sur l'œuvre sadienne, elle est devenue l'une des références majeures de la critique française du dernier siècle. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : littérature et scandale, anthropologie de l'admiration, conflits de lecture, réception critique, posture de l'héritier, figures, marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille, André Breton, surréalisme.

This dissertation is mainly based on the reading of three American novels to explore how female characters deal with their illegitimate pregnancies and how their solutions re-shape their futures and affect their inner growth. Chapter 1 discusses Dorinda Oakley's premarital pregnancy in Ellen Glasgow's Barren Ground and draws the circle of limits from Barbara Welter's "four cardinal virtues" (purity, submissiveness, domesticity, and piety) which connect to the analogous female roles (daughter, sister, wife, and mother). Dorinda's childless survival reconstructs a typical household from her domination and absence of maternity. Chapter 2 examines Ántonia Shimerda's struggles and endurance in My Ántonia by Willa Cather before and after Ántonia gives birth to a premarital daughter. Ántonia devotes herself to being a caring mother and to looking after a big family although her marriage is also friendship-centered. Chapter 3 adopts a different approach to analyze Charlotte Rittenmeyer's extramarital pregnancy in The Wild Palms by William Faulkner. As opposed to Dorinda and Ántonia who re-enter domesticity to survive, Charlotte runs out on her family and dies of a botched abortion. To help explain the aftermath of illicit pregnancies, I extend or shorten John Duvall's formula of female role mutations: "virgin>sexually active (called whore)>wife" to examine the riddles of female survival and demise. The overall argument suggests that one way or another, nature, society, and family are involved in illegitimately pregnant women's lives, and the more socially compliant a pregnant woman becomes after her transgression, the better chance she can survive with her baby.

Orientador: Eric Mitchell Sabinson / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T20:21:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mariano_FabioRoberto_M.pdf: 721675 bytes, checksum: 0863ae488f30abc0a8c4cbb050955f56 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é compreender a recepção de Faulkner na França a partir de uma contextualização da literatura francesa nos anos 1930 e da leitura detalhada dos referidos prefácios. O que está em primeiro plano não é uma leitura crítica do autor, e sim uma organização de leituras críticas anteriores. Ao fim do texto, é esboçada uma proposição acerca do apelo específico que Faulkner teve na França. Dos seis livros de Faulkner publicados durante os anos 30, cinco trazem prefácios. Esses textos são de autoria de figuras de grande influência no ambiente literário francês: os tradutores Maurice-Edgar Coindreau e René-Noël Raimbault, o crítico e escritor Valery Larbaud e o escritor, político e jornalista André Malraux. A partir das leituras propostas nesses prefácios, é possível tentar estabelecer uma relação entre o ambiente cultural da França e a obra de William Faulkner. Para estabelecer tal relação, este trabalho se divide em três partes, cada qual correspondendo a um de seus capítulos. Em primeiro lugar, faz-se uma análise do ambiente histórico e literário da França. Em segundo, uma leitura atenta dos prefácios é feita, levando-se em consideração também quem são seus autores. Por fim, o terceiro capítulo é um movimento de interpretação dos prefácios à luz da análise feita no primeiro capítulo / Abstract: The present dissertation aims at an understanding of the reader response to Faulkner in France. It is based both on a study of the mentioned prefaces and on an attempt to describe the literary and critical standards of the time. The main point here is not exactly a critical reading of the author's work in itself, but an effort of organizing earlier readings. This study is closed by a hypothesis about Faulkner's specific appeal to French readers. Five out of the six of Faulkner's books published during that time are prefaced, all of them by Frenchmen: translators Maurice-Edgar Coindreau and René-Noël Raimbault, literary critic and writer Valery Larbaud and politician, journalist and novelist André Malraux. A detailed analysis of these prefaces may be an effective strategy to establish a connection between Faulkner's work and the French cultural environment in which he is read. In order to effectively make such a connection, this dissertation has been divided in three parts, each of which corresponds to one of its chapters. In the first one, the literary and historical context of France is analyzed. In the second, a close reading of each of the prefaces is made, taking into account not only their words and references, but also their authors. In the third and last chapter, the prefaces are interpreted according to what had been exposed in the first chapter / Mestrado / Historia e Historiografia Literaria / Mestre em Teoria e História Literária

This doctoral dissertation, «The Retrospective Novel: The Romance of the Self,» focuses on the relationship between literary genres, ideology, and history. The novels I analyze are widely regarded as masterpieces of the last two centuries of Western literature. They include works by authors such as Melville, Conrad, Gide, Pirandello, Svevo, Roth, Faulkner, and Mann. All these novels present a biographical structure, in which the life of the protagonist is narrated retrospectively either by the hero himself (like in Pirandello’s Mattia Pascal) or by one of his friends (as in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus). The research aims to examine the relationship between the retrospectivity of these novels and the rise of modern bourgeois society. The goal is to define the retrospective novel as a genre that, by continuing the Romantic tradition, reacts to Western ideas of modernity and to the realist novel. The dissertation discusses the formal features of retrospective novels to investigate the relationship between the crisis of linear plots and the existence of tragic heroes. The analysis takes into consideration the tension between polyphony and monologism, the combination of essayism and narration, and the importance of a centralized moral point of view that questions the predominant moral discourse of society. The discussion of these formal aspects of retrospective novels lets emerge the craving for epic anti-bourgeois heroes that characterizes retrospective novels. By employing a novel theoretical framework, the dissertation aims to reappraise capital texts of the Western canon and to reevaluate the underestimated influence of Romanticism on the development of the modern Western novel.