Les romans de Dostoïevski et de Bernanos se rencontrent sur la frontière fragile de la littérature et de la métaphysique ; l’incarnation des personnages dans des espaces et des lieux que leurs cœurs troublés contaminent donne au texte son symbolisme essentiel, qui n’est ni le « paysage choisi » romantique, ni l’espace surdéterminé des réalistes. L’incarnation ne contredit pas les règles de la création romanesque, puissamment remodelées par les deux auteurs, mais les refondent dans des histoires familiales archétypales où la maison paternelle peut être le lieu d’un meurtre moral initial. Derrière les discours de personnages bavards, avides de philosophie et de psychologie (ce qui a longtemps retenu surtout l’attention de la critique), se cache la question du langage et de l’esthétique face à la vérité. Beaucoup sont des menteurs, qui ont oublié le sens du langage enraciné auquel croyait Bernanos, et les soliloqueurs de Dostoïevski se perdent dans les méandres de leurs souterrains verbaux. La question de l’esthétique est tributaire des vicissitudes d’une époque (les années 1880-1930) qui est celle du déracinement des intellectuels ; quelle est cette beauté qui « sauvera le monde » dans un univers qui n’est plus théocentré, et quelle est la légitimité du romancier à en proposer la quête, surtout si elle est spirituelle ? Malgré la présence de figures du salut qui, dans la douleur de confrontations violentes, proposent l’acceptation de l’altérité, les déracinés persistent souvent dans la voie du mensonge et préfèrent le masque démoniaque du double ou le néant de l’«à quoi bon ? » / Dostoyevsky's and Bernanos's novels meet up on the frail boundary between literature and metaphysics; the incarnation of characters in spaces and places tainted by their troubled hearts gives the text its essential symbolism, which is neither the romantic "chosen landscape" nor the realists' overdetermined space. Incarnation does not contradict the rules of fictional creation —powerfully remodeled by the two authors— but recasts them in archetypal family stories where the father's home can be the locus of an initial moral murder. Behind the words of garrulous characters, who are eager for philosophy and psychology (which long caught the critics' attention), there lies the question of language and aestheticism confronted with truth. Many of them are liars who have forgotten the meaning of the entrenched language which Bernanos cherished, and Dostoyevsky's soliloquists get lost in the rambling development of their convoluted wording. The question of aestheticism depends on the vicissitudes of a period (1880-1930) which was marked by the uprooting of intellectuals: what is this beauty which will "save the world", a world which is no longer theo-centred, and how legitimate is a novelist who proposes its quest, especially if it is a spiritual one? Despite the existence of salvation figures who, through the suffering caused by violent confrontation, propose the acceptance of otherness, the uprooted characters often choose to lie persistently and prefer the demonic mask of duality or the nothingness of the "a quoi bon", an expression of absolute indifference and disillusionment.

Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:20:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Helena de Lima Corvini.pdf: 402435 bytes, checksum: c27b65909c893b98758526a82026bf2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-23 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This present dissertation intends to accompany Oscar Wilde's steps through late Victorian London, the booming center of an already decadent Empire. At this time being, positivist and imperialist discourses explain the reality. Both the medical science and the law fight over the theme of homosexuality. In a time when the symbolic authority to name homosexual desire is being questioned, Wilde is brave enough to state the precedence of the artist in naming the world. His life and works cause exalted reactions. His excentricities outrage London's high-society, of which Wilde becomes the arbiter of elegance, despite being a complete outsider: Irish and homosexual. He lives Aestheticism and dandism to the fullest, he lives a purposedly gay lifestyle and excites the fear of exerting some sort of "corruption" or "influence" over young men of the British society. His writing, through the use of paradoxes and symbolic invertions, shows the underpinnings of the aparently neutral text of normative reality. In his judgment, he is turned into the scapegoat of a severely repressed and puritan society. His works have founded the camp sensibility and a decidedly homosexual aesthetics / A presente dissertação busca acompanhar os passos de Oscar Wilde pela Londres da era vitoriana tardia, o centro pujante de um Império já em decadência. Nesse momento, o status quo produz um discurso positivista e imperialista sobre o mundo. A homossexualidade é disputada pelos discursos da ciência médica e da jurisprudência. Numa época em que a autoridade simbólica para nomear o desejo homoerótico se encontra questionada, Wilde tem a ousadia de afirmar a primazia do artista em nomear o mundo. Com sua vida e sua obra, Wilde provoca reações exaltadas. Suas excentricidades chocam a alta sociedade londrina, da qual se torna o árbitro da elegância, apesar de sua posição de outsider: irlandês e homossexual. Vivendo plenamente os ideários do Esteticismo e do dandismo, tem um estilo de vida acintosamente gay e suscita o medo da "corrupção" e da "influência" sobre os homens jovens por parte da sociedade inglesa. As masculinidades estão sendo elaboradas nesse momento e há o medo de que os homens jovens deixem de ser viris cavalheiros para se tornarem afeminados dândis. Em seus escritos, por meio de paradoxos e inversões simbólicas, Wilde também mostra a costura por baixo do texto aparentemente neutro da realidade normativa. Em seu julgamento, é transformado em bode expiatório de uma sociedade severamente reprimida e puritana. Suas obras permanecem hoje como fundadoras da sensibilidade camp e de uma estética decididamente homossexual

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:53:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Helena de Lima Corvini.pdf: 402435 bytes, checksum: c27b65909c893b98758526a82026bf2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-23 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This present dissertation intends to accompany Oscar Wilde's steps through late Victorian London, the booming center of an already decadent Empire. At this time being, positivist and imperialist discourses explain the reality. Both the medical science and the law fight over the theme of homosexuality. In a time when the symbolic authority to name homosexual desire is being questioned, Wilde is brave enough to state the precedence of the artist in naming the world. His life and works cause exalted reactions. His excentricities outrage London's high-society, of which Wilde becomes the arbiter of elegance, despite being a complete outsider: Irish and homosexual. He lives Aestheticism and dandism to the fullest, he lives a purposedly gay lifestyle and excites the fear of exerting some sort of "corruption" or "influence" over young men of the British society. His writing, through the use of paradoxes and symbolic invertions, shows the underpinnings of the aparently neutral text of normative reality. In his judgment, he is turned into the scapegoat of a severely repressed and puritan society. His works have founded the camp sensibility and a decidedly homosexual aesthetics / A presente dissertação busca acompanhar os passos de Oscar Wilde pela Londres da era vitoriana tardia, o centro pujante de um Império já em decadência. Nesse momento, o status quo produz um discurso positivista e imperialista sobre o mundo. A homossexualidade é disputada pelos discursos da ciência médica e da jurisprudência. Numa época em que a autoridade simbólica para nomear o desejo homoerótico se encontra questionada, Wilde tem a ousadia de afirmar a primazia do artista em nomear o mundo. Com sua vida e sua obra, Wilde provoca reações exaltadas. Suas excentricidades chocam a alta sociedade londrina, da qual se torna o árbitro da elegância, apesar de sua posição de outsider: irlandês e homossexual. Vivendo plenamente os ideários do Esteticismo e do dandismo, tem um estilo de vida acintosamente gay e suscita o medo da "corrupção" e da "influência" sobre os homens jovens por parte da sociedade inglesa. As masculinidades estão sendo elaboradas nesse momento e há o medo de que os homens jovens deixem de ser viris cavalheiros para se tornarem afeminados dândis. Em seus escritos, por meio de paradoxos e inversões simbólicas, Wilde também mostra a costura por baixo do texto aparentemente neutro da realidade normativa. Em seu julgamento, é transformado em bode expiatório de uma sociedade severamente reprimida e puritana. Suas obras permanecem hoje como fundadoras da sensibilidade camp e de uma estética decididamente homossexual

Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

The subject of this dissertation is funeral rites in the Murasaki Shikibu's novel, The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari). The analysis of the text seeks to explore the author's depiction of the end of life, the afterlife, communication with spirits or souls of dead and to summarize the notes and descriptions of the proceedings of funeral rituals including 'before burial' and memorial ceremonies. The purpose of this dissertation is to create an overview of funeral rituals and ideas of death described in the text of Genji Monogatari. The Tale of Genji is considered a document which reflects contemporary thinking and can therefore be relied on for a study of funeral and memorial rituals. The main method used to develop the topic is a detailed analysis of theoretical, practical and aesthetic aspects of death described in the Genji Monogatari novel. The ideas of the Heian Court about death and the afterlife were mainly affecting the cult of ancestors, Shinto, Taoism, Buddhism and Shamanism, which also participated in the creation of the funeral cult. Ideas of the afterlife were also very diverse. The world of the living and the world of the dead, in the concept of old Japanese, were not strictly divided and spirits had access to all spheres of life. Communication with spirits of the living and the souls...

vii, 157 p. / In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Aesthetic Movement in England coalesced literary and visual arts in unprecedented ways. While the writers associated with the Aesthetic Movement reflected on visual art through the exercise of criticism, their encounters with painting, portraiture, and sculpture also led to the articulation of a problem. That problem centers on the fascination with the attentive look, or the physical act of seeing in a specialized way for an extended period of time that can result in a transformation in the mind of the observer. In this dissertation, I consider how Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde utilize the attentive look in their poetry, fiction, and drama, respectively. As I argue in this dissertation, the writers associated with the Aesthetic Movement approach and treat attention as a new tool for self-creation and self-development. As these writers generally attempt to transcend both the dullness and repetitiveness associated with modern forms of industrialized labor as well as to create an antidote for the endless distractions affiliated with the modern urban environment, they also develop or interrogate systems for training and regulating the senses. What these writers present as a seemingly spontaneous attentive engagement with art and beauty they also sell to the public as a specialized form of perception and experience that can only be achieved through training or, more specifically, through an attentive reading of their works. While these writers attempt to subvert institutional authority, whether in the form of the Royal Academy or the Oxford University system, they also generate new forms of authority and knowledge. Even though the Aesthetic Movement is not a homogeneous set of texts and art works, the Aesthetic Movement can be characterized in terms of its utilization of attentiveness as a way to both understand and create modern subjectivity. / Committee in charge: Dr. Forest Pyle， Chair； Dr. Sangita Gopal， Member； Dr. Linda Kintz， Member； Dr. Kenneth Calhoon， Outside Member

Marmontel, écrivain bien connu de son temps et aujourd’hui presque oublié, a produit une œuvre diverse et abondante dont l’unité est analysée dans ce travail. L’œuvre de ce polygraphe est prise en compte, dans une perspective littéraire et historique. Son parcours intellectuel est d’abord mis en rapport avec le portrait de l’honnête homme, écrivain mondain et agent d’influence que façonnèrent ses Mémoires. En deuxième lieu, sa position au sein de la République des Lettres est réévaluée, depuis ses postulats théoriques (poétique et esthétique) jusqu’à leur application pratique (réécritures, traductions, relations avec Voltaire, avec « le mouvement encyclopédique » et avec ses adversaires). Enfin, les relations de Marmontel et de son public sont explorées. L’étude de sa poésie et de ses Contes moraux permet de déterminer dans quelle mesure l’œuvre de cet écrivain fut modelée par son dessein de faire carrière et adaptée au public qu’il visait. Ce travail a pour but de changer la perspective généralement adoptée dans les études consacrées à Marmontel, en montrant qu’il n’est pas seulement un reflet de son époque mais qu’il a pu l’influencer, à sa manière, en retour. / Marmontel, a well-known writer in his time – but almost unremembered nowadays – created a diverse and profuse work which unity is being recovered here. This versatile writer’s work is taken into account through a literary and historical angle. His intellectual journey is being connected to the portrait of the honest man, worldly author, and leverage agent, which were built up in his Memoirs. Furthermore, his place within the Republic of Letters is being reappraised, from his theoretical (poetic, and aesthetic) postulates to their practical implementation (rewriting, translating, interactions with Voltaire and with the “encyclopedia school”, as well as with his opponents). Finally, Marmontel’s relationships with his audience are being examined. The study of his poetry and his Moral Tales allows us to establish to what extent his writings were shaped by his design to succeed and adapted to the audience he targeted. This work aims to change the perspective generally adopted in the studies devoted to Marmontel, by showing that not only was he a reflection of his times, but he also managed, in return, to influence his age, in his own way.

This thesis examines how the aesthetic and queer themes in E. W. Hornung’s Raffles stories have been transmediated in the TV-series Raffles. Hornung’s Raffles stories were not only immensely popular in their time, but were also a reflection of the fin-de-siècle and of the cultural role aestheticism played in the late Victorian society. Though a number of adaptations were made in the early 20th century, none of them adapted Hornung’s original stories to the same extent as the 1975-77 Yorkshire TV-series.  In this study, material such as original scripts, notes, and correspondence from screenwriter Philip Mackie’s personal collection are examined from an adaptation theoretical perspective in relation to Hornung’s books and the finished TV-series. At the same time, a queer reading of the screenplays and of the televised series is made and compared to previous academic queer readings of Hornung’s stories. The adaptation is discussed in context with the time period in which it was produced and with the various factors that have formed it, such as financial restraints and medium related conventions.  The study demonstrates that both aesthetic and queer themes that correspond to those found in Hornung’s stories can be found in the TV-series. It argues that the political climate of the 1970s both restrained how Raffles and Bunny’s relationship was portrayed in the series but also allowed for a more faithful adaptation of Hornung’s stories, including their aesthetic and queer themes, than had previously been possible.

The period 1889-1891 has been regarded as crucial in Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) career. Having been somewhat unsuccessful as a writer during the 1880s, and turning to journalism to earn a living, Wilde in this period saw the publication of his dialogues which led to his sole novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (hereafter, Dorian), serialised in 1890 before being republished as a novel in 1891. It has been characterized as a turning point in his career, and critics have studied these works in detail, as well as those which followed, especially the four society’s comedies: Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). However, besides this selection, much of Wilde’s work remains under-researched, particularly his fairy tales, whose study suffers from the prejudicial categorisation as children’s literature. Research to date has tended to privilege a single aspect of Wilde’sfairy tales, as in Jarlath Killeen’s The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (2007) focusing on a Victorian societal perspective, rather than studying the fairy tales as a coherent and integral part of Wilde’s lifework. The essay focuses on ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ (hereafter, ‘Fisherman’), recognised as the most sophisticated tale from Wilde’s A House of Pomegranates (1891) (hereafter, Pomegranates). It will establish the essential role of ‘Fisherman’ in understanding Wilde’s complex aesthetic philosophy by examining the tale from two distinct levels of intertextuality. First, Wilde borrowed some of the most emblematic aesthetical and narrative elements from Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ (hereafter, ‘Mermaid’) and other similar fairy tales from the early nineteenth century for explicitly positioning ‘Fisherman’ as a response to Andersen’stale. Taking the opposite approach to Andersen’s ‘Mermaid’, Wilde’s ‘Fisherman’ stands as a social critique against the Victorian doxa, especially denouncing its nefarious effect on art. Second, through epistolary and textual evidence, the essay reveals the connections between ‘Fisherman’, Dorian, and ‘The Soul of Man’ (1891), including their genesis, design, themes, and discourse. This dual intertextuality of ‘Fisherman’ allows us to reassess Wilde’s tale as an influential text. It contributes simultaneously to comprehending better how consistent Wilde’s aesthetic standards and societal view were.