This essay explores modern queer readings of The Awakening and Ruth Hall, with an emphasis on feeling, time, femininity, and maternity.

This study seeks to redress the continued exclusion of women poets from the theorization of the dramatic monologue. I argue that an unacknowledged consensus on the definition of the dramatic monologue exists, in spite of the oft-proclaimed absence of one, and that it is the failure to recognize this consensus which has in part debarred women poets from the theorization of the form. In particular, the failure to acknowledge this consensus has led recent feminist critics attempting to “rethink” the dramatic monologue, such as Cynthia Scheinberg and Glennis Byron, to reinscribe the very model they are attempting to rewrite by admitting into their analysis only those poems which already conform to the existing model. In consequence, these critics inadvertently repeat the exclusion they are attempting to redress by reinscribing a model which is predicated—as both Scheinberg and Byron acknowledge—on the exclusion of women poets. In order to end this cycle of exclusion, my project begins from a different beginning, with Hemans instead of Browning, and traces her innovations and influence across the dramatic monologues of two key dramatic monologists of the 19th-century, Augusta Webster and Amy Levy. In the hands of all three women poets, the dramatic monologue develops into a form which calls into question not only the nature of the self, as is characteristic of Browning’s model, but more crucially, the possibility of the subject. Their poems persistently dramatize what Judith Butler calls “impossible speech”—speech that is not recognized as the speech of a subject—and thereby challenges the model of authoritative speaking which underpins both men’s dramatic monologues and the prevailing theory of women’s as a clutch for linguistic freedom, power and authority. This project therefore has dual aims: to complicate our current conception of the dramatic monologue by placing the women’s dramatic monologues in conversation with the larger tradition of the form; and to complicate our understanding of 19th-century women poets’ conception and constructions of female subjectivity by re-theorizing their poetic strategies in the development of the dramatic monologue. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2008-06-26 14:13:29.982

Des lettres trouvées dans des portefeuilles d'émigrés (1793) d'Isabelle de Charrière à Quatrevingt-Treize (1874) de Victor Hugo, qui engage une relecture de la période au miroir de la Commune, la Terreur a nourri l'imagination de nombreux romanciers. Déferlement inouï de violence ou expérience démocratique inédite ? La fécondité de ce moment révolutionnaire tient en partie à ses paradoxes et aux tensions que sa mémoire suscite. Au coeur de controverses historiques et idéologiques qui, aujourd'hui encore, ne se sont pas éteintes, la Terreur est pendant tout le XIXe siècle un sujet d'autant plus actuel que les secousses révolutionnaires de 1830 et de 1848, en particulier, en réveillent le souvenir. Excédant le seul genre du roman historique, qui en a fait l'un de ses sujets de prédilection, le traitement romanesque de la Terreur ne résulte pas d'une simple transposition fictionnelle de la réalité historique, mais peut être envisagé comme le fruit d'un système de relations complexes entre l'historiographie, la littérature mémoriale et d'autres genres littéraires. De la Révolution à la Commune, le genre romanesque a été l'un des lieux où s'est inventé ce que nous avons choisi d'appeler, en hommage au grand livre de Daniel Arasse, un« imaginaire de la Terreur» que n'épuise pas l'image de la guillotine. Regarder comment le roman a participé, en complémentarité ou en concurrence avec d' autres types d'écriture, à des constructions discursives et à l'élaboration de cet imaginaire, et comment ces entreprises de figuration romanesque ont pu s'articuler à des enjeux idéologiques et à des choix poétiques, tel est l'enjeu de cette nouvelle enquête. De Ducray-Duminil à Dumas, de Sénac de Meilhan à Barbey d ' Aurevilly, de Germaine de Staël à GeorgeSand, en passant par Ballanche, Nodier, Balzac ou encore Vigny, cet essai de généalogie romanesque prend appui sur un large corpus de textes et entend faire place à des oeuvres méconnues dont le rôle n'a pas été moindre que celui des oeuvres les plus canoniques dans la mise en fiction de la Terreur révolutionnaire. / From Isabelle de Charrière's lettres trouvées dans des portefeuilles d'émigrés ( 1793) to Victor Hugo's Quatrevingttreize(1874), which reinterprets the period in the mirror of the Commune, the Terror fed the imagination of manynovelists. Unprecedented surge of violence or unheard of democratic moment ? The fecundity of this revolutionary moment is in part due to its paradoxes and the tensions triggered by its memory. At the heart of the historical and ideological controversies that, to this day, have not been extinguished, the Terror was, throughout the 19th century, a subject even more topical than the revolutionary tremors of 1830 and 1848, particularly by reawakening the memory.Exceeding the historical nove! genre, the fictional treatment of the Terror is not the result of a simple fictional transposition of the historical reality, but can be envisaged as the fruit of a system of complex relationships between historiography, memorial literature and other literary genres.From the Revolution to the Commune, the fictional genre was one of the spaces where the invention of what we have chosen to call an "imagination of the Terror" - in homage to Daniel Arasse's great book - was not exhausted by the image of the guillotine. Looking at how the novel participated, in conjunction or competition with other types of writing, in discursive constructions and the development of this imagination, and how undertaking fictional figurationrevolved around ideological issues and political choices, is the challenge of this new investigation. From Ducray Duminilto Dumas, Sénac de Meilhan to Barbey d'Aurevilly, Germaine de Staël to George Sand, via Ballanche, Nodier, Balzac and even Vigny, this genealogy of fiction dissertation is supported by a large corpus oftexts and intends to makeway for little-known works, whose role was no less than that of the most canonical works in fictionalising the revolutionary Terror.

Bears and wolves are large mammalian predators who fill similar biological niches and have acquired similar cultural significance throughout Western history. Although superficial similarities exist between them in Charles G. D. Roberts's short animal stories, Roberts uses anthropomorphism to differentiate between these two species. This thesis uses a historical-cultural approach to provide the context for determining what was known or believed about these animals during Roberts's life and what contemporaneous theories were likely to have influenced Roberts's writing. The present literary analysis of bears and wolves in Roberts's stories shows that the species are primarily differentiated through the degree of anthropomorphism attributed to their individual members. Roberts anthropomorphizes bears more than his other species, and this contributes to the bears representation of the positive potential of animality. By contrast, Roberts minimizes anthropomorphization of wolves, who represent the negative potential of animality. In Roberts's work, humans who live in the wilderness must become either bear-like or wolf-like. Those who embrace bears positive animal potential are those who belong in the natural world, while those who practice the wolves' negative animal potential are denied a place in the natural order. Humans ultimately prove themselves to be superior animals through their use of technology, but must also demonstrate positive qualities, such as morality, in order to show that they belong in nature. Roberts's binary of animality speaks to a conflict that continues today, between the desire to accept the animality that is part of human nature and simultaneously to deny the baser aspects of that animality.

Bears and wolves are large mammalian predators who fill similar biological niches and have acquired similar cultural significance throughout Western history. Although superficial similarities exist between them in Charles G. D. Roberts's short animal stories, Roberts uses anthropomorphism to differentiate between these two species. This thesis uses a historical-cultural approach to provide the context for determining what was known or believed about these animals during Roberts's life and what contemporaneous theories were likely to have influenced Roberts's writing. The present literary analysis of bears and wolves in Roberts's stories shows that the species are primarily differentiated through the degree of anthropomorphism attributed to their individual members. Roberts anthropomorphizes bears more than his other species, and this contributes to the bears representation of the positive potential of animality. By contrast, Roberts minimizes anthropomorphization of wolves, who represent the negative potential of animality. In Roberts's work, humans who live in the wilderness must become either bear-like or wolf-like. Those who embrace bears positive animal potential are those who belong in the natural world, while those who practice the wolves' negative animal potential are denied a place in the natural order. Humans ultimately prove themselves to be superior animals through their use of technology, but must also demonstrate positive qualities, such as morality, in order to show that they belong in nature. Roberts's binary of animality speaks to a conflict that continues today, between the desire to accept the animality that is part of human nature and simultaneously to deny the baser aspects of that animality.

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The Portrait of a Lady (1881), obra de Henry James, conta a história da formação de Isabel Archer, uma jovem americana que se destaca por desejar ser livre e independente em um contexto em que se esperava da mulher que desempenhasse um papel apenas decorativo; por isso, é possível que sua caracterização seja associada a uma protagonista com características feministas. Porém, o desenvolvimento do enredo a leva a um casamento infeliz motivado por determinantes alheios, principalmente pelo interesse financeiro de outras personagens. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar de que maneira a construção da subjetividade feminina da protagonista reflete, ou não, as questões sócio-históricas que marcaram seu contexto de criação, dentre os quais se destacam o início de uma consciência voltada à valorização feminina e busca pelos direitos das mulheres demonstrada pelo movimento pelo sufrágio universal. Em nossa análise consideramos os fatores sociais e políticos da época em que a obra foi escrita e revista, assim como os pressupostos da crítica literária feminista e crítica materialista, de forma a detectar na narrativa jamesiana as características que corroborem com um ponto de vista feminista sobre Isabel Archer, estendendo nossa leitura às personagens e fatos mais relevantes da obra. Assim, chegamos à conclusão de que a protagonista de The Portrait of a Lady apresenta características feministas, como o desejo pela independência, mas não pode ser considerada uma personagem feminista por ter sido subjugada e oprimida pelo poder patriarcal representado pelas figuras masculinas mais importantes à sua volta, principalmente por Gilbert Osmond, seu marido, que personifica nesta obra a dominação masculina total sobre a mente feminina. Contudo, sentimos que o enredo contém outras personagens e fatos que demonstram a força do insconsciente político daquele contexto, que se faz presente mesmo à revelia de seu autor, dentre eles outras personagens que caracterizam atitudes feministas. A importância deste estudo é posicionar uma forte protagonista feminina de Henry James dentre os estudos feministas sobre o Realismo do século XIX. / The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Henry James novel, tells the story of the formation of Isabel Archer, an young American lady who stands out for her desire to be free and independent in a context where nothing more was expected from a woman than having a decorative role; for that, it is possible that her charcterization is associated to a protagonist with feminist traits. However, the development of the plot leads her to an unhappy marriage motivated by outward determinants, especially by other characters financial interest. The objective of this work is to analyze how the construction of the protagonists feminine subjectivity either reflects or not the social and historical matters that marked its context of creation, among which the beginning of a consciousness aimed at a feminine appreciation and the search for the womens rights shown by the international suffrage movement. In our analysis we consider the social and political factors of the time when the novel was written and revised, as the assumptions of the feminist literary criticism and materialist criticism, in order to detect, in the Jamesian narrative, the characteristics that corroborate with a feminist point of view about Isabel Archer, and we extend our reading to the most relevant characters and events of the novel. So, we got to the conclusion that the protagonist in The Portrait of a Lady shows feminist characteristics, as the desire for independence, but she cannot be considered a feminist character for having been subjugated and oppressed by the patriarchal power represented by the most important masculine figures around her, mostly by Gilbert Osmond, her husband, who impersonates the total male domination over the female mind in this novel. Nevertheless, we feel that the plot contains other characters and events that demonstrate the strength of the political unconscious from a context that makes itself present even if unwanted by its author, and among them there are other characters that show feminist attitudes. The importance of this research is to establish a Henry James strong feminine protagonist in the feminist studies about the 19th century Realist literature.

Estudo analítico sobre os contos A Simple Enquiry, The Killers e Hills Like White Elephants de Ernest Hemingway. O trabalho visa a análise da narrativa desenvolvida pela ausência, fazendo relação com a figura de narrador de Walter Benjamin. / A critical analysis of A Simple Enquiry, The Killers and Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. This work encompasses an analysis of a narration style through the absence of information, relating it to the figure of the traditional narrator created by Walter Benjamin.

This thesis argues that Robert Louis Stevenson's South Seas writings locate him alongside Joseph Conrad on the 'strategic fault line' described by the Marxist critic Fredric Jameson that delineates the interstitial area between nineteenth-century adventure fiction and early Modernism. Stevenson, like Conrad, mounts an attack on the assumptions of the grand narrative of imperialism and, in texts such as 'The Beach of Falesa' and The Ebb Tide, offers late-Victorian readers a critical view of the workings of Empire. The present study seeks to analyse the common interests of two important writers as they adopt innovative literary methodologies within, and in response to, the context of changing perceptions of the effects of European influence upon the colonial subject.

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