Thèse : Littérature : München : 1989.

No description available.

Diss.--Urbana--University of Illinois, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 254-268.

Mongo Beti is the pseudonym of one Alexandre Biyidi, a novelist from the ex-French Cameroun, who wrote the body of his work in the 1950s, before his country gained its independence. His four novels, Ville Cruelle, Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba, Mission Terminee, and Le Roi Miracule together constitute a detailed portrait of life in the Cameroun under colonial rule. In this thesis I have attempted to set forth as clearly as possible Beti's opinions on the actions and philosophies of colonial administrator and Christian missionary alike, and on the effects which these have had upon his fellow-Camerounians. To analyse the justice of his opinions, I have referred to contemporary and more recent criticism of these two facets of Europe's "African adventure." It is my contention that, though mordant in his satire of the Christian religion in Africa, though angrily critical of colonialism's "civilising mission", Beti is never less than honest in his evaluation. Equally honest are his portrayals of his fellow-Africans, for he does not succumb to the temptation to present them as more noble or long-suffering, or as, in any way, other than they are. I have commented upon the intrinsic worth of the novels themselves, and have attempted, briefly, to suggest the position and importance of Beti's brand of social realism in the history of the African novel, indicating my reasons for believing that his work still has relevance today. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Mongo Beti (1932-2001), romancier, pamphletaire et journaliste, a abondamment enchaine un discours continu sur certaines questions socio-politiques portant sur la vie au Cameroun. II nous a fait un legs durable de son oeuvre romanesque qui s'etend de l'ere coloniale jusqu'au debut du XXIe siecle, et depeint de facon dynamique revolution socio-historique de son pays natal. Le renouvellement de son style romanesque dans la realisation de Trop de soleil tue I'amour (1999) et de Branle-bas en noir et blanc (2000), ses deux derniers romans, merite un examen des modifications narratives et de leurs effets par rapport a la forme narrative de ses romans precedents. Bien que nous demontrions une evolution romanesque possible en comparant quelques-uns de ses romans contestataires, a savoir Ville cruelle (1954), Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba (1956) et Mission terminee (1957), avec Trop de soleil tue I'amour et Branlebas en noir et blanc, nous decouvrirons egalement, du point de vue narratologique, que Beti a conserve dans une certaine mesure les fonctions premieres accordees a ses narrateurs. Afin de degager des changements identifiables, cette etude reposera sur l'approche narratologique edifiee par Gerard Genette dans Figures III (1972). Nous examinerons en particulier la perceptibilite de la presence du narrateur betien, ses rapports avec le recit et avec l'histoire et la facon dont certains aspects de Pinstance narrative se modifient d'un recit a 1'autre. Nous releverons ainsi de notre corpus des eloignements et des rapprochements entre les narrateurs autodiegetique, homodiegetique et heterodiegetique betiens, quant a leur situation narrative et leurs fonctions. Selon l'approche adoptee, nous verrons que Beti manipule les outils de la narration pour transmettre, sous forme d'un discours romanesque impressionnant, ses nombreuses preoccupations des conditions socio-politiques (neo)coloniales contemporaines. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation defines and analyzes a conflict which is present in all of Crane's poetry. The conflict is based on the opposition between two outlooks which are called mystical and empirical. Because both of these outlooks were central to Crane's vision, their apparent deep opposition troubled him. Crane's personal tensions both in his early private life and in his sensibility are important considerations in understanding this conflict. However, since he tried to discover a balance in life through his poetry, his art rather than his life is the central focus of this study. Crane turned to the literature of three Nineteenth Century traditions—Romanticism, Transcendentalism and American Symbolism—for his solution. In the works of these traditions, he found the same troubled conflict and the search for a solution in a unified statement. Consequently, he examined their art closely and was greatly influenced by it. At times, this influence appears to be an unconscious absorption of principles or techniques; at others, it is expressed in obvious, conscious imitation. Crane's ability or inability to incorporate the work of these earlier traditions is closely related to the success or failure of his own vision. His life-long relationship with these traditions is, therefore, the central energy behind his work. It is this relationship which is the concern of this dissertation. Chapter 1 defines the terms "mystical" and "empirical" as they are applied to Crane's art. It also provides a brief overview of Crane's poetry and letters in order to demonstrate how the tensions represented by the two terms are developed throughout all of his work. Chapters 2 to 5 deal with Crane's relationship to English Romanticism. Crane's earliest work is found to be an imitation of the anti-"empirical" literature of the fin de siecle. His maturer work is then studied in relation to the poetry of the High Romantics—Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Blake. The works of these poets are compared to Crane's both through analyses of individual poems and through studies of themes and poetic techniques. Chapters 6 and 7 explore Crane's debt to American Transcendentalism. The "mystical"-directed ideas and works of Emerson and Whitman are explored in relation to Crane's poetry and poetic. Inherent contradictions in the works of the two Transcendentalist figures appear again in Crane's. Chapters 8 to 10 deal with the American Symbolists—Poe, Dickinson and Melville. Crane found that these writers differed from the American Transcendentalists, mainly because of their distrust of a completely optimistic-minded outlook. The relationship of Crane's work to theirs demonstrates his share in this distrust. Chapter 11 is the conclusion. It summarizes Crane's relationship to the three Nineteenth Century traditions, as a difficult and uneven, but courageous, attempt to renew poetic faith in the Twentieth Century. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In this thesis, I analyze the Germanophone reception of Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (Der Golem) between 1916 and 1996 with respect to its treatment as light fiction (Trivialliteratur). I examine a representative selection of literary criticism concerning the dominant themes and narrative structures of the novel. Since The Golem could not be ascribed to a distinct genre or period within the canon, its reception has been characterized by profound dichotomies. Meyrink's novel can be seen as a blank screen upon which critics have projected their respective ideological agendas. By applying new historicist and genre studies, I contextualize the trends across eighty years of critical response to The Golem and the dialectical conflict between 'high' literature and popular fiction. I thus demonstrate that the novel's reception is symptomatic of the debate about art and popular fiction concerning works of early modern surrealism.