<p>  </p> <p>Gender, anxiety, identity, and Gawain’s impossible choice have long been identified and examined as worth studying in the fourteenth-century alliterative poem <em>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</em>. By focusing on the different states of dress that Gawain finds himself in, the gendered behaviors he engages in, and the fact that he takes on and wears a piece of woman’s clothing as his own before his final encounter, it becomes clear that Gawain begins to utilize and slip into a gender fluid state of identity. His behaviors in Haut Desert cross gendered lines, but also the lines of private and public identity: Gawain’s fault is revealed at the Green Chapel, when the Green Knight reveals himself to be Bertilak as well as his knowledge of Gawain’s girdle. By taking up the green girdle, Gawain cross-dresses and gains access to alternative courses of action and paths towards virtue and survival. Upon returning to his court, his community must take on the girdle as a token of Gawain himself and integrate it in a way that allows for his gender fluidity to become enclosed within the borders of the chivalric community. Gawain’s survival and the benefit which he brings his court are materially represented by the girdle which stands for both the honorable and shameful, the knightly and the monstrous, and the feminine and masculine. </p>

There has been to date no attempt at a detailed examination of Aleksandr Grin’s philosophical views interpreted on the basis of his literary work. Whilst some critics have noted interesting links between the writer’s oeuvre and a few popular philosophers, this has usually been done in passing and on an ad hoc basis. This thesis aims to fill this gap by reconstructing Grin’s views in relation to the European philosophical tradition. The main body of the thesis consists of three parts built on and named after three essential themes in philosophy: External World, Happiness and Morality. Part One delineates Grin’s views on nature and civilisation: I argue first that his cult of nature makes it possible to conceive of Grin as a pantheistic thinker close to Rousseau and Bergson, and then I reconstruct the author’s criticism of urbanisation and industrialisation. In the second part I assess the place of happiness in Grin’s world-view, indicating its similarities to the philosophy of various thinkers from the Ancients to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. After sketching a general picture of the concept of happiness in Grin’s works, I discuss the place of material and immaterial factors in the writer’s outlook. I also gather maxims expressed by the protagonists in his fiction that can be taken as recommendations concerning ways of achieving and defending happiness. Finally, I link happiness with the problem of morality in Grin’s oeuvre. In the final part I examine modes of moral behaviour as displayed by the author’s protagonists. Firstly, I argue that in Grin’s works we find numerous examples and themes that allow us to perceive him as an existentialist. Secondly, I indicate Grin’s adherence to rules of conduct commonly associated with chivalric literature. Thirdly, I emphasise the importance of Promethean-like characters in the moral hierarchy of Grin’s protagonists.

The master thesis presents and analyses a range of different ways in which the motif of the forest was treated in late-medieval literary sources as an element of thematic and compositional construction of the text. At the theoretical basis of the thesis is the concept of diachronic text reception and adaptations which bring along the transmission and simultaneous transformation of the use of topoi, while this process is being related to the development of the literary chronotopos signalizing a change in the public's horizon of expectation. The majority of sources for analysis are drawn from Czech sources of the long 14th century - courtly and chivalric romance, the Old Czech verse legend of St. Procopius and the Dalimil Chronicle - while a shorter part of the thesis is devoted to the presentation of individual tendencies in the development of the use of the forest topos in English and French literary allegory of the 14th and 15th centuries. In detailed comparison of specific passages from Old Czech texts with their actual models in other languages (Old Middle German, Latin), the thesis demonstrates, upon the example of the forest topos, that topoi do not represent fixed, inalterable clichés, but actually exhibit intense shifts in function, content and theme.

Nesta dissertação investigamos como a ficção envolve o leitor. Para isso, partimos da rejeição a Homero declarada por Calímaco, observando que a suposta diferença entre a literatura preferida pelo público e a literatura preferida pela crítica depende de dois fatores distintos. O primeiro é o simples fato de a crítica ler profissionalmente e o público ler por prazer. O segundo está relacionado à distinção entre recepção e uso da literatura proposta por C.S. Lewis. Na recepção, a obra tende a ser admirada por si; no uso, tende a ser instrumentalizada como suporte para um devaneio em que os desejos do próprio leitor são vicariamente satisfeitos. Observamos que essa devaneio, que Lewis chama de construção egoísta de castelos, e que inclui uma variante mórbida, tem um paralelo na noção girardiana do duplo angélico. Contudo, o devaneio depende da simpatia como definida por Adam Smith, a qual por sua vez depende de certa aprovação moral. Investigamos portanto o tipo de personagem que conquista a aprovação moral do leitor, contrastando os heróis homéricos com os cavaleiros cristãos a fim de verificar como o cristianismo dirige a aprovação moral para as vítimas, fazendo com que os heróis da ficção sejam pessoas perseguidas ou marginalizadas. / In this dissertation we investigate how fiction involves the reader. Starting Callimachuss rejection of Homer, we note that the supposed diference between the literature favoured by the public at large and the literature preferred by critics is actually twofold. First, critics read for business and the public reads for pleasure. Second, as proposed by C.S. Lewis, there is a distinction between the reception and use of literature. In reception, a work tends to be admired in itself, whereas in use it becomes a mere support for a sort of daydreaming in which the readers own desires are vicariously satisfied. We discuss this daydreaming called egotistic castle-building by Lewis, highlighting its morbid variant, which finds a parallel in the Girardian notion of the angelic double, developed from a reading of Proust. Now, as egotistic castle-building in its turn depends on sympathy as defined by Adam Smith, a concept which includes moral approval, we investigate the types of characters who obtain the moral approval of readers, contrasting the warriors from Homers poems with Christian knights in order to show that Christianity directs moral approval towards the victims. In a Christian society, fictional heroes must be people who are persecuted or at least marginalised.

Nesta dissertação investigamos como a ficção envolve o leitor. Para isso, partimos da rejeição a Homero declarada por Calímaco, observando que a suposta diferença entre a literatura preferida pelo público e a literatura preferida pela crítica depende de dois fatores distintos. O primeiro é o simples fato de a crítica ler profissionalmente e o público ler por prazer. O segundo está relacionado à distinção entre recepção e uso da literatura proposta por C.S. Lewis. Na recepção, a obra tende a ser admirada por si; no uso, tende a ser instrumentalizada como suporte para um devaneio em que os desejos do próprio leitor são vicariamente satisfeitos. Observamos que essa devaneio, que Lewis chama de construção egoísta de castelos, e que inclui uma variante mórbida, tem um paralelo na noção girardiana do duplo angélico. Contudo, o devaneio depende da simpatia como definida por Adam Smith, a qual por sua vez depende de certa aprovação moral. Investigamos portanto o tipo de personagem que conquista a aprovação moral do leitor, contrastando os heróis homéricos com os cavaleiros cristãos a fim de verificar como o cristianismo dirige a aprovação moral para as vítimas, fazendo com que os heróis da ficção sejam pessoas perseguidas ou marginalizadas. / In this dissertation we investigate how fiction involves the reader. Starting Callimachuss rejection of Homer, we note that the supposed diference between the literature favoured by the public at large and the literature preferred by critics is actually twofold. First, critics read for business and the public reads for pleasure. Second, as proposed by C.S. Lewis, there is a distinction between the reception and use of literature. In reception, a work tends to be admired in itself, whereas in use it becomes a mere support for a sort of daydreaming in which the readers own desires are vicariously satisfied. We discuss this daydreaming called egotistic castle-building by Lewis, highlighting its morbid variant, which finds a parallel in the Girardian notion of the angelic double, developed from a reading of Proust. Now, as egotistic castle-building in its turn depends on sympathy as defined by Adam Smith, a concept which includes moral approval, we investigate the types of characters who obtain the moral approval of readers, contrasting the warriors from Homers poems with Christian knights in order to show that Christianity directs moral approval towards the victims. In a Christian society, fictional heroes must be people who are persecuted or at least marginalised.

L’étude du long poème épique de Lion de Bourges permet de mettre en évidence un parcours individuel modelé par la recherche d’un ordre politique et féodal, au sein duquel le héros tente d’inscrire son action, celle d’un ordre familial, au travers du lignage et de la parentèle, et celle d’un ordre personnel, à la fois recherche des origines et du père, qui devient une quête d’identité. L'idéal chevaleresque s’inscrit donc dans trois perspectives complémentaires. C’est d’abord face à l’instabilité des structures et du pouvoir royal, l’aspiration au rétablissement d’un ordre politique, mais l’inachèvement des actions entreprises et la constante réapparition du mal font que cette quête de l’ordre reste imparfaite. C’est ensuite l’effort pour la restauration d’un ordre familial mis à mal par les entreprises des traîtres et les aléas de l’aventure, mais là encore l’engagement et les efforts du héros ne permettent d’obtenir que des résultats imparfaits ou insatisfaisants. C’est donc à un niveau supérieur, dans la quête d’un ordre intérieur et dans un élan vers la perfection que l’itinéraire personnel de Lion de Bourges peut trouver son véritable sens. Cependant, son ultime tentative pour s’approcher du sacré ne conduit qu’à un échec : le contact avec le surnaturel chrétien est réservé au personnage du Blanc Chevalier, revenant secourable, et le héros doit se contenter d’une forme intermédiaire de merveilleux féerique. En définitive, ce poème témoigne, de manière originale et fort cohérente, de la vision pessimiste de l’idéal humain et de l’engagement héroïque, qui devient prédominante dans l’épopée française tardive. / The long epic poem Lion de Bourges portrays the personal quest of a hero, first, to set in order a feudal political structure; then his own family structure (through ancestry and parentage); and finally, his personal life; for seeking his origins and father becomes a search for his own identity. The chivalric ideal therefore is seen through three complementary perspectives. Initially, when faced with the instability of social structures and royal power, Lion seeks to re-establish political order, but both Lion’s inability to complete his goals and the constant reappearance of evil cause this quest to remain incomplete. Afterwards, Lion’s effort to bring his family back together is derailed by traitors’ plots and the fortunes of adventure, so there again the hero’s efforts produce only imperfect or unsatisfactory results. It is thus only at the highest level, the quest for personal order, for spiritual perfection, that the private itinerary of Lion de Bourges might find its true goal. However, his last desire, to reach sanctity, leads to failure as well: contact with the Christian supernatural is reserved for the White Knight, a helpful spirit, and the hero must content himself with a lesser form of supernatural, the enchanted marvelous world. Clearly, this poem demonstrates, in an original and highly consistent way, the pessimistic view of the human ideal and of heroic engagement that predominates in late French epic.

La thèse constitue la première étude d’ensemble de l’œuvre poétique yiddish d’Élia Lévita (1469-1549) qui cherche à définir sa place dans la littérature de la Renaissance en analysant les transferts esthétiques et culturels ayant présidé à sa production. Elle situe l’œuvre vernaculaire de ce savant hébraïste, proche des humanistes chrétiens, dans les traditions poétiques juives hébraïques et yiddish et dans la logique d’une affirmation du rôle de l’écrivain et de la langue vernaculaire dans la société juive. Elle analyse également la portée des modèles extérieurs, chrétiens, en insistant sur l’inscription des romans de chevalerie de Lévita dans l’évolution générale du genre chevaleresque en Italie, et met en évidence le rôle fondamental qu’a joué l’Arioste, et en particulier le Roland furieux, dans le raffinement progressif du projet esthétique de l’auteur. Enfin, elle propose la première analyse d’un certain nombre de textes de la littérature yiddish ancienne, conservés dans des manuscrits, et fournit des arguments pour l’attribution de nouvelles œuvres à Lévita, dont un long poème satirique sur les femmes. Par son ampleur et par sa variété, l’œuvre vernaculaire d’Élia Lévita constitue non seulement la première œuvre moderne de la littérature yiddish mais aussi un cas particulièrement éclairant sur la diffusion des modèles esthétiques de la Renaissance dans des catégories ethniques (les juifs) et sociales (les classes populaires) que l’on aurait pu croire éloignées de ces mutations culturelles. / This PhD dissertation is the first study entirely dedicated to the poetical creation of Elia Levita in Yiddish (1469-1549) and aims at defining its place in Renaissance literature by proposing a detailed analysis of the esthetical and cultural transfers this work illustrates. It locates the vernacular production of this renowned Hebraist, who was acquainted with numerous Christian Humanists, inside the Yiddish and Hebrew poetical traditions and sheds light on the new functions endorsed by the writer and the vernacular language in Jewish society at the beginning of the modern era. It also discusses the influence of external – i.e. Christian – models on the poet and insists on the participation of Levita’s chivalric romances to the global evolution of this genre in Italian literature, by underlying, in particular, the essential role played by Ariost, and his Orlando Furioso, in the progressive refinement of the author poetical practice. Finally, it analyses, for the first time, some texts of Old Yiddish literature which were still buried in manuscripts, and argues for the attribution of new works to Elia Levita, among them, a long satire about women. Elia Levita’s vernacular work not only constitutes, by its size and variety, the first modern work of Yiddish literature but it is also a rich and enlightening example of the diffusion of Renaissance esthetical models inside ethnic and social groups (the Jews and popular classes) which one might have thought untouched by such cultural transformations.

Ce mémoire est une analyse comparative écocritique entre Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut, composé par Joseph Bédier en 1900, et ses sources médiévales principales : les poèmes du XIIIe siècle de Béroul, de Thomas d’Angleterre, d’Eilhart d’Oberg et de Gottfried de Strasbourg. L’objectif principal de notre étude est de chercher à savoir si la perception de la Nature dans le roman de Bédier diffère de celle des textes médiévaux. Pour atteindre ce but, nous dirigeons notre attention sur les descriptions des paysages sauvages et sur les épisodes où les forces de la Nature semblent influencer le déroulement des évènements du récit. Nous analysons ces passages, et nous les comparons avec les descriptions correspondantes tirées des sources de Bédier. Nos résultats montrent que, même si la représentation de la Nature est chez Bédier loin d’être unilatérale, elle témoigne généralement d’une vue plus positive de la nature sauvage par rapport aux textes médiévaux. De ce fait, le roman de Bédier s’éloigne de la tradition médiévale, qui consiste à voir les environnements sauvages comme étant inhospitaliers et périlleux, et s’approche plutôt de la tradition romantique qui célèbre les merveilles de la Nature. / This essay is a comparative ecocritical analysis of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, composed by Joseph Bédier in 1900, and its principal medieval sources: the thirteenth-century poems of Béroul, Thomas of Britain, Eilhart von Oberge and Gottfried von Strassburg. The overall aim of the study is to investigate how the perception of Nature in Bédier’s work differs from that in the medieval texts. To meet this aim, we turn to the textual descriptions of wild landscapes and the episodes where the forces of Nature seem to have a powerful influence on the unfolding of the events in the story. These passages are analysed and compared with the corresponding descriptions in Bédier’s sources. Our results show that, while Bédier’s portrayal of Nature is by no means one-sided, it generally displays a more positive view of Nature and wilderness than the medieval texts. In this regard, Bédier’s novel moves away from the medieval tradition of imagining wild environments as inhospitable and perilous and approaches the romantic tradition of celebrating the wonders of Nature.