The notion of ‘Continuation’ in medieval literature is a familiar one – but it is one which does not know any precise definition. Despite the existence of important texts which take the form of what we nominally call ‘Continuation’, such as Le Roman de la Rose, Le Chevalier de la Charrette and of course the Perceval Continuations, to date no work exists which specifically examines the mechanics and processes involved in actually producing a ‘Continuation’. The existence and importance of ‘Continuation’ as a genre of medieval literature are undeniable, and yet we cannot begin to claim that we fully understand it. This thesis therefore seeks to make the first tentative movements in creating a working model for understanding what some call the Poetics of Continuation, and it does so by means of close and meticulous analysis of the manuscript tradition and content of the Perceval Continuations. The Perceval Continuations (composed c.1200-1230) constitute a vast body of material which incorporates four separately authored Continuations, each of which seeks to further, in some way, the unfinished Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes – though they are not merely responses to his work. Chronologically, they were composed one after the other, and the next in line picks up where the previous left off, thus they respond intertextually to each other as well as to Chrétien, and only one actually furnishes the story as a whole with an ending. As such the Continuations offer an interesting and varied patchwork from whence to begin a study of this kind. By means of a framework of careful methodological design, incorporating theories on what constitutes an ‘end’ and what is ‘unfinished’, alongside scrutiny of other, selected, medieval ‘ends’ and ‘Continuations’, this thesis examines, first, what the manuscript tradition can tell us about the medieval view of ‘Continuation’ in terms of whether the Perceval Continuations seem to have been considered as one homogenous whole, or as several separate œuvres, and second, in terms of content and construction, what kind of ‘Continuation’ each individual text proposes, and how, mechanically, it does so. This analysis culminates in the creation of an efficient working model that aims to facilitate the further study and investigation of other medieval ‘continuatory’ texts.

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This thesis is in two parts. In the first I deal with the personal mythology of Cocteau which contributed in great measure to the poetic imagery in his works. After attempting to distinguish the "real" Cocteau from his legendary "persona" by briefly examining aspects of his life and the various influences which impinged upon his artistic development, I proceed to discuss the constituent elements of his personal mythology and try to show how they emerged gradually as a result of his personal and artistic experiences over a long period. In the second part of the thesis I systematically examine the illustrations of his poetic imagery and aesthetic theories in selected works from the literary spheres in which he was prolifically active. Examples are studied from his poetry, his novels, his plays and his works of artistic criticism, which he described as his poesie critique, and I try to demonstrate the inter-dependence of his works in the various media he employed. In this section I also devote a final chapter to his most characteristic works in the cinema, a medium in which he possibly achieves the climax of his artistic aims by the imaginative use of his oneiric imagery to realise, with great versatility, the corporeal expression of his poetry, while simultaneously broadening the artistic dimensions of the art of the film. In examining his works I attempt to demonstrate that his existential dilemma, which he referred to as his malaise perpetuel, involved him in incautiously and sometimes wilfully fostering a false image. Nevertheless, the resulting conflict within him stimulated his oneiric experiences without which he could not have accomplished his poetic mission, an exploration of the mystery he termed la nuit humaine, from which he emerged endowed with a very individualistic morality of freedom opposed entirely to the conventions of social morality.

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Maryse Conde is a female Guadeloupean writer whose reputation as an ‘important writer’ has largely been consolidated in the United States where the author has been awarded a number of literary prizes and held teaching positions at various prominent American universities. It is therefore commonplace for the author's work to be read in terms of critical paradigms that name her identity as ‘black’, ‘female’ and/or ‘Francophone Caribbean’. If Conde has, at has various times, used these same labels to identify herself and her work, she has also raised questions about the assumptions that underpin the use of these labels and their implications for the role of literature and the writer. Indeed, two distinctive and critically overlooked features of the author's work has been the author's marked engagement with the assumptions that inform the reception of her work in her various contexts of reception (both explicitly in her numerous interviews and critical writings and more obliquely in her fiction) and her defence of the freedom of literature. In this thesis, I will be arguing therefore that the author's engagement with these issues along with her peripatetic claiming of a range of identities can be viewed as challenging specific assumptions concerning the relationship between individual and collective identities and the work of literature and criticism. With a view to developing this argument, I read a selection of the author's critical writings and interviews and five of her fictional texts: En attendant le bonheur, Moi, Tituba sorciere ... Noire de Salem, Les derniers rois mages, Le coeur a rire et a pleurer: contes vrais de mon enfance and Desirada. I situate these texts in a critical framework that brings together the work of Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon with theorisations of postcolonial/gender studies, ‘representativity', ‘reception’ and ‘literature'.

The dissertation is a chiasmic reading of the works of Jean Genet and Emmanuel Levinas, examining the way they each address the relation to the Other in terms of ethics and subjectivity. Whereas a straightforward association between the two writers might seem paradoxical because of the differences in their approaches and rhetoric, a chiasmic reading allows intricate approaches, moments of proximity and departures to be read both conceptually and aesthetically. We show that these two writers share a tightly-woven discursive neighbourhood, and examine that neighbourhood through detailed analysis of various textual encounters. We trace patterns of influence which allow us to consider our writers’ decision-making processes in the genesis of their texts. Genet and Levinas develop views surprisingly close to each other’s of the “face-to-face encounter”, which they place at the origin of language seen both as expression and commandment. Each approaches that encounter simultaneously in terms of the possibility of welcome, and the possibility of violence and betrayal. Considerations of influence from sources common to both, especially Paul Valery and Fyodor Dostoevsky, serve to extend our analysis of their thought on address to include the encounters they share within discursive history and across the genres. The theatre figures in both oeuvres as a powerful way of considering the radical passivity of the individual’s relation to the world. The passive subject, unable to escape alterity, is also unable to escape a certain liberty of choice and action, and a call to engagement. This call may take surprising forms, and even provoke the subject’s defection over to the Other; or the substitution of the Other’s claims for its own. This interstice between the individual and a plural world serves to disorder totalisation, characterised by hostility, and open new possibilities of interaction in its place.

This thesis is a study of the major phases of the career of Philip Roth. In the nearly fifty years since his first book, Roth has published close to thirty works, creating a body of work now as large and as varied as any twentieth century writer. In an attempt to chart the progression of this career, I break down Roth's oeuvre into six chronological phases, beginning in the late 50s and ending at the start of the new century. Having carried out extensive research into Roth's archive in the Library of Congress, contemporary reception of the books, and a variety of often overlooked cultural contexts, I have attempted to offer a new and original take on Roth's most interesting and distinctive preoccupations. Beginning with Goodbye, Columbus, Roth's first book, I examine the author's complicated relationship with, and treatment of, the idea of Jewish community in America. The second chapter follows Roth's vexed pursuit of, and eventual rejection of, an ideal of literary seriousness in the 1960s, especially in relation to the example of the New York Intellectuals. Chapter 3 looks at Roth's preoccupation with two figures from twentieth century European Jewish history, Franz Kafka and Anne Frank, who figure in a number of Roth's books during the 1970s. Chapter 4 examines the important role that psychoanalysis plays in Roth's books, from the burlesque of an analytic session of Portnoy's Complaint, to an apparent break with psychoanalytic thinking in 1986's The Counterlife. The next phase is Roth's "autobiographical" period of 1988 to 1993, during which he produced four books each at a different point along a continuum between autobiography and fiction. In these works, Roth comes to grips with the ethical issues that his fiction had played with for so long. Finally, the last chapter looks at Roth's final books of the century, investigating how his assessment of three periods of twentieth century American history shows a fascination with individuals who attempt to break free from the forces of determination. Rather than, as is commonly espoused, a break with his earlier work, I argue that the "American Trilogy" continues concerns that have preoccupied Roth from the very start of his career.

Numbers in square brackets refer to chapters: This dissertation studies the relation between myth and demystification in post-revolutionary France, notably in the literary depiction of Paris. I argue that, in this period, the functions of myth in society were being redefined by literature in the light of a new, 'secularised' conception of the sacred. I begin by focusing on the social functions of myth (maintaining social cohesion and identity), particularly through the constitution of 'collective memory' I also examine the downside of this need for social cohesion: alienation [1]. I then look at the framework of modern myth-making that combines poetics, politics, history and myth. I show how new forms of the sacred emerged in the century of rationalism and disenchantment, and how Michelet in particular contributed greatly to the construction of the myth of 1789 [2]. For it is indeed 1789 that explains Paris's unique status. I am focusing on Hugo in this regard to understand the sacralisation of Paris as the capital of the revolution [3]. Hugo also illustrates a general tendency in the post-revolutionary depiction of Paris: its darkness and claustrophobia seem to illustrate the condition of modern man [4]. But beyond a material glance at the city, Hugo's vision sends a more disturbing message: in exile, the poet-seer redefines the march of history and offers new means of demystification [5]. This analysis then extends to looking at Hugo's central character, the People, and its difference from the equally mythical populace. In fact the confusion between the two will lead to the end of Paris as a myth, which coincides with the Commune and the debacle of Paris [6]. That ultimate defeat will prompt Hugo to go back and seek the origins of modern France, focusing this time on 1793 in a last attempt to oppose the seer's parole to that of the state, with the very definition of the republic at stake [7].

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