This project analyzes the ways that Louis May Alcott portrays authors in several texts, including Hospital Sketches (1863), "Enigmas" (1864), "Psyche's Art" (1868), Little Women (1868), A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), and Diana and Persis (1878). An examination of prevailing contemporary theories of authorship reveals that Alcott's interest in authorship (as shown through her experiences as a writer and the author figures she depicts within her writing) cannot be adequately analyzed under any of the existing theoretical frameworks because the theories neglect to consider markers of racial, sexual, cultural, and class-based difference. Being a female author in nineteenth-century America was, for Alcott, a preoccupation. Thus much of her writing features representations of authors. For Alcott, as well as many of her female contemporaries, the question "What does it mean to be an author?" cannot be considered without also asking, "What does it mean to be a woman?" and "How can an author be represented in a text?" Alcott's treatment of these questions in her writing was her attempt to create a dialogue between herself, other writers, and her reading public. By studying Alcott's author figures, I advance a model of authorship that highlights issues of gender and multiplicity; in this way my work has applications to other authors who have been excluded by normative definitions of authorship. The concept of "mutable authorship," a model that more accurately incorporates Alcott's treatment of authorship, is the product of several different literary, historical, and feminist theoretical lenses. This dissertation works through the different structuring figures that Alcott uses to represent the author, beginning with the semi-autobiographical first-person narrator and moving to the more metaphorical figures of the artist and the performer. The discussion culminates with the exploration of adaptation and collaboration in the three Hollywood feature films of Alcott's best-known work, Little Women, and several recent texts that respond directly to Alcott's work.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1937. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 127-130.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of English, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2005. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-207).

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. Dennis Moore, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Program in American and Florida Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 17, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 51 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

My dissertation is a historicist examination of the circulatory relationship among popular fiction, theatre, and related non–fiction texts in mid–nineteenth–century America. Though previous critics have acknowledged interactions between mid–century theatre and print, none have fully fleshed out the performative contexts or social consequences of this interplay. In contrast, I contend that the narrative and visual exchanges between theatre and literature are crucial to deciphering how different social classes formed and distinguished themselves. My central claim is that cultural arbiters from the print world (including activist authors and advice–text writers) and from the public amusement realm (entrepreneurial theatre producers and melodrama playwrights) poached each other's work in order to capitalize on preexisting consumer communities. By cultivating socially homogenous audiences, these arbiters became vital contributors to the consolidation of self–conscious, class–based identities in nineteenth–century America. Chapter One examines George Lippard's urban–crime novel The Quaker City; or The Monks of Monk Hall (1844). In it, I argue that Lippard reproduces apocalyptic scenes of disaster familiar to readers from spectacle–centric theatrical melodramas in order to unify a diverse working class. Chapter Two contends that W.H. Smith's temperance melodrama The Drunkard (1844) co–opts the real–life speeches of working–class temperance lecturers and reframes them as a middle–class landlord's story of redemption; through featuring this popular show at their curiosity museum theatres, proprietors Moses Kimball and P.T. Barnum established the nation's first theatrical spaces solely for middle–class audiences. Chapter Three claims that the 1860s proliferation of home theatrical guidebooks—which detailed how to construct makeshift stages, simulate special effects, and adapt well–known stage dramas—offered the emergent middle classes a viable substitute for commercial theatergoing and a key outlet to reinforce their social status. My final chapter studies Louisa May Alcott's sensation novella Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power (1866), a work which engages the dissertation's collective themes of theatricality, social class, and private space. By depicting a professional actress utilizing her theatrical skills to infiltrate an aristocratic family, Alcott presents the private estate as the ideal venue to gain social status and reveals performance as a critical means for upward mobility.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Hispánica mención Literatura

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur karaktären Amy March porträtterats i olikaadaptioner av Little Women. Utifrån Eders karaktärsklocka med ett fokus på fiktiv existensoch symptom analyseras fyra versioner, de från 1933, 1949, 1994 och 2019. Genom att utgåfrån ett genusperspektiv undersöks även hur tiden varje adaption gjorts under formatkaraktären. Resultatet av analysen visar att de två tidigare adaptionerna följer merkonventionella genrekonventioner där Jo står i fokus. De två senare adaptionerna ger merplats åt Amy och ger en mer nyanserad bild av karaktären. Dessutom för de uppmärksamhetentill den verklighet som kvinnor levde i under 1800-talet och har tydliga feministiska budskap.