The conventional belief that objective truth is incompatible with "bardic" insight (as Andre Maurois called it), has led to the undervaluing of the literary nature of biography. Not until it is generally understood that biography derives its form from the biographer's dependence upon language will biography be accepted as a symbolic structure the same as any other artifact of narrative discourse. The acceptance of biography as an art form worthy of the same serious critical attention shown the novel or the lyric would allow both the creators and readers of biography to realize and participate in the possibilities inherent in the genre. To this end, Part One of this dissertation examines the principal critical approaches to biography promulgated during the last one hundred years. These approaches are characterized as being either dominantly objectivist or subjectivist in tenor. Special attention is paid to attempts to utilize psychology and psychoanalytic technique to reconcile the differing requirements for authenticity demanded by these two opposed approaches to the genre. The position taken by this dissertation, however, is that biography is not a question of history as opposed to art, of objectivity as opposed to subjectivity, or even of the truth as opposed to untruth. A third, or ironist, approach to the creation and critical appreciation of biography is, therefore, proposed. This approach accepts as untenable all claims to absolute truth whether they be positivist or idealist in nature. The critical position developed in Part One is applied in Part Two to an examination of specific texts, both critical and primary, selected from the biographical literature on one of the most influential figures in modern American culture, Ernest Hemingway. The resulting critique demonstrates that biography is the best characterized as a field of cultural interplay wherein all peremptory dichotomies are subsumed and reworked into more meaningful, if also more transitory, structures.

This study examines the way in which nationalism in the postcolonial world has emerged as a major ethical and political problem in postcolonial literary scholarship. Focusing mainly on the work of Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, the study tracks the way in which various postcolonial critics have attempted to deal with questions and concerns raised by the nationalist response to colonialism, and the implications raised for art, culture, and critical theory. The study outlines how nationalism has emerged as the most persistent problem in Postcolonial Theory. It traces the ambivalent and complex theoretical and political engagement by Edward Said with nationalism in general and Palestinian nationalism in particular. It explicates Homi Bhabha's complex critique of national discourse. The study also examines the legacy of Frantz Fanon, and the way in which his work has been appropriated by both Said and Bhabha to further their own arguments. It concludes with an evaluation of the overall failure of Postcolonial Theory to find a coherent stance towards postcolonial nationalism and reviews several alternatives that have been proposed but not engaged in a sustained manner.

This dissertation attempts to open up new possibilities in the interpretation of Liaozhai Zhiyi sk45, the criticism of which in the past four decades has been predominantly political (Marxist) and biographical. My interpretation of Liaozhai draws on four psychoanalytic theories: Freudian (also ego psychology), Jungian, feminist and Winnicottian. In chapters two through six, my discussion of thirty-three full-length Liaozhai stories is guided by Jung's conceptualization of the collective unconscious and the individuation process. The intricate and dynamic relations between human and supernatural characters are reimagined as those between the conscious mind and a group of Jungian archetypes (the shadow, the anima, the mother, etc.). In chapter seven, my discussion of "Feng Sanniang" sk45, a unique Liaozhai story in which a young woman is helped in magic ways by a female fox spirit, questions Jung's animus archetype. My interpretation of it draws on Nancy Chodorow's theory on the development of the feminine psyche in relation to the preoedipal and oedipal mothers and the oedipal father. Next, my reading of several Liaozhai stories emphasizes a hidden theme (male Oedipus complex) and some defense maneuvers (splitting, displacement, projection, regression, denial, sublimation, etc.). Finally my interpretation of "Yingning" sk45 is guided by Winnicott's theorizing of what happens between self and other in infancy. Instead of fragmenting the story, this reading brings all characters into comparison and sheds light on otherwise puzzling descriptions. With this example, I try to demonstrate that the psychoanalytic approach tends to require the critic to treat a literary work as an organic whole and examine details of the language to look for a convergence of themes. In my dissertation I argue that fantasy allows Pu Songling sk30 freedom to explore and portray what was repressed socially, personally and politically. The stories may be perceived as dreamwork to illustrate and resolve problems of the self, and psychoanalytic approaches may reveal symbols, paradoxes, recurring themes and unconscious fantasies which are embedded in the texts and so far have not been adequately explored.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a monument to literary achievement; a world built so completely that other literature, both canonical and not, attempts in vain to match its grandeur. Likewise, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's body of philosophy is conspicuous not only for its thematic variation across books but also the profundity of its concepts. Given this, it is shocking then that the critical apparatuses of Deleuze and Guattari have not been used to explore Tolkien's novels, given the innate symmetry between the two bodies of work. While ample research has been carried out regarding each separately, there is no conjoined study between the two. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings provides ample ground for exploring numerous Deleuzoguattarian concepts including schizophrenia, desire-producing machines, the ritournelle, smooth and striated space, becoming, and the assemblage. This thesis illuminates the untouched relationship between the work of Tolkien and Deleuzoguattarian philosophy, particularly emphasizing how Sauron creates an assemblage - a working arrangement - from his desire, forming what I call the Sauron-assemblage. The Sauron-assemblage expands from a milieu— a center— constructed of Sauron, his territory of Mordor, and the One Ring which is both a piece of Sauron and a desiring-machine for the other characters of Lord of the Rings. As a Deleuzoguattarian desiring-machine, the One Ring creates in those who desire it a schizo-identity or becoming-Gollum, meaning they showcase characteristics similar to that of Gollum without ever fully being him: this becoming-Gollum is symptomatic of the schizophrenic desire the Ring instills in its subjects, causing characters to desire it for the object it is without a concept of lack or symbolism behind it, as Freud or Lacan might argue. The character Frodo Baggins is a central piece in the application of Deleuzoguattarian philosophy to Lord of the Rings, as he pursues a radius of becoming-Gollum, -Sauron, and -Nazgûl to become-nomad. This becoming-nomad of Frodo is both nomadism in a spatial sense by escaping the control and egmentation of space— striated space— and in a magical sense by escaping magical investment in space. To examine Frodo's nomadism, I invent and utilize the theory of spatiomagus, investigating how magic affects space in an isolated work of fantasy. Frodo's divine mission to destroy the Ring, and thus the Sauron-assemblage, enables him to cut through both normal and magical striation of space and become-nomad.

My dissertation is aimed at examining each translation methods and strategies used by Lin Shu, Yan Fu, and Liang Qichao and, more importantly, exploring the contribution of their translations to the formation of a consciousness of Chineseness. I hope to show that rather than serving as a tool to literary history, translation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century served as one of the most important tools for introducing new ideas and producing cultural changes. In chapter one, I first give an historical account of the formation of Chineseness in the late Qing period and its current problematic status. Then I introduce briefly Chinese translation history, which still remains largely obscure to Western readers. Finally I provide readers with biographical information about the three Chinese translators and with a basic acquaintance of their translations. Chapter two starts with a review of the criticism of Lin Shu’s translations. After a comparison of different translational motives behind Lin’s first two translation projects, I map out a constellation of emotional, cultural, and commercial motives, suggesting that Lin Shu started his translation career in a turbulent era when new cultural paradigms and national consciousness were looming in the distance. Chapter three devotes many pages to Yan Fu’s three translation criteria: xin (accuracy), da (intelligibility), and ya (elegance). I argue that Yan Fu imbues these three ancient concepts with new meanings and tries to establish a new standard genre that is suitable to modern science. Though Yan Fu follows the original closer than does Lin Shu, he intervenes and manipulates the source text to the extent that his translation cannot be called literary translation. A study of Liang Qichao’s theory of fiction constitutes the main part of chapter four. Liang Qichao promotes a completely politically charged literary genre to sharpen Chinese consciousness. I offer a comparison of traditional Chinese ideas of fiction and Liang’s new fiction doctrine. Finally I examine Japanese influence on Liang’s literary and political ideas. In the conclusion chapter, I argue that the three Chinese translators not only tested the plasticity of the Chinese language in accommodating foreign languages, but also destabilized the boundary within the Chinese language. By using an unfamiliar language to translate an unknown language, the three Chinese translators longed for a new Chinese language that would become the mother tongue of the Chinese people as opposed to other races and ethnicities.

This thesis deals with two seventeenth century Spanish writers: Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor y Mariana de Caravajal y Saavedra. Almost unknown to modern criticism, both of them shared with Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega one interest, the novela corta. Zayas's novels are original, aggressive, violent and rebellious. These characteristics lead some to consider her the most outstanding Spanish feminist writer. Meanwhile, Mariana de Caravajal, the escritora madre, her opposite and counterpart, remains forgotten. The thesis begins with a short history of the anecdote as it evolved through the centuries, culminating in the Spanish short novel. The study continues with a critical examination of the way in which each writer's individual message is expressed within the constraints of the short novel form. The work concludes with a comparative study of the motives, characters and styles employed in the Novelas ejemplares y amorosas (1637) and Desenganos amorosos (1647) of Maria de Zayas and Navidades de Madrid y noches entretenidas (1660) of Mariana de Caravajal.

Cynthia Ozick is one of the most respected contemporary American authors, whose fiction, according to many critics, exemplifies “the Jewish writer oxymoron.” Ozick respects the Jewish Covenant and its tradition, but she uses her imagination to invent stories; she worries about the temptations of paganism and the dangers of idolatry, but she fabricates fictional golems; she strongly refuses the label “woman writer”, but she writes essays in defense of feminism, demanding equal rights with respect to the Torah; she despises the treatment of Jewish history (and of the Holocaust in particular) as fiction, but she “cannot not write about it”. In short, Cynthia Ozick's art resists narrow categorization and her fiction overcomes rigid confines, both literary and ideological. These intriguing thematic complexities and cultural intricacies, dealt with a robust sense of humor and stylistic richness, deserve to be brought to the attention of the Italian reading public. In fact, if Ozick's belletristic reputation has been amply recognized in the United States, her popularity in Italy is still scant as very little of her production has been translated into Italian. The aim of this dissertation is to offer a sample of Cynthia Ozick's literary production as representative of both contemporary American literature and Jewish culture. Ozick's poems, short stories, and essays—which have been grouped in three different sections—have been chosen to introduce the author's kaleidoscopic production as reflective of her immense variety of interests and mental acuteness. Moreover, Cynthia Ozick's work is also used to exemplify some of the major recent shifts in translation studies, showing how the degree of her popularity in Italy depends on a slow dynamic, aimed at filling cultural gaps or at mapping new emerging cultural and religious geographies. Ozick's reception in Italian, in fact, raises significant linguistic and cultural problems including assimilation and marginality, the clash between the periphery and the center, and the use of translation as the process of canonization of a foreign writer who is also the representative of a “weak” literature, in the sense given by Itamar Even-Zohar in his Polysystem Theory.

Following the path of the use of the Petrarchan sonnet in Renaissance England, this article explores why this specific form was so prevalent from the court of Henry VIII to that of his daughter, Elizabeth I. The article pays specific attention to the works of Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, Richard Barnfield, and Lady Mary Sidney Wroth, paying close attention to social, political, and gender issues of the period.

by Chen Jue. / Thesis (M.Phil)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references. / Preface --- p.i / Foreword --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One: --- From the Editorial Policy of the TKR to the Spirit of East- West Comparative Literature Studies --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Comparative Studies of Drama and East-West Methodology --- p.50 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Comparative Studies of Poetry and East-West Hermeneutical Backgrounds --- p.96 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Comparative Studies of Fiction and East-West Ideals --- p.126 / Afterword --- p.158 / Works Cited --- p.169 / Works Consulted --- p.177

Authors̓ inaugural dissertation, Heidelberg. / "Literatur-Verzeichnis": p. [103]-110.