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This dissertation studies a group of contemporary Anglo-American novelists who contribute to the development of a new humanism after the postmodern critique of Euro-American culture. As such, these writers respond to positions in twentieth-century philosophy that converge in a call for silence which has an ontological as well as ethical valence: as a way of rigorously thinking the ‘outside’ to language, it avoids charges of metaphysical inauthenticity; as an ethical stance in the wake of the Shoah, it eschews a complicity with the reifications of modern culture. How to reconcile this post-metaphysical promise with the politico-aesthetic inadequacy of speechlessness is the central question for this nexus of novelists—David Markson, Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith—at the center of which the study locates Wallace as a key figure of contemporary literature. By reconstructing the conversation among these authors, this dissertation argues that the nexus writers turn to indirect means of representation that do justice to the demand for silence in matters of metaphysics, but also gesture past it in the development of a neo-romantic aesthetics that invites the humanist category of the self back onto the scene after its dismissal by late postmodernism. The key to such indirection lies in an aporetic method that inspires explorations of metaphysical assumptions by seducing readers to an ambiguous site of aesthetic wonder; in conversation with a range of contemporary philosophers, the dissertation defines this affective site as a place of proximity, rather than absorption or detachment, which balances out the need for metaphysical distance with the productive desire for a fullness of experience. Such proximate aesthetic experiences continue the work of ‘doing metaphysics’ in post-metaphysical times by engaging our habitual responsiveness to the categories involved. Hence the novels discussed here stage limit cases of reason such as the unknowable world, the unreachable other, the absence of the self, and the unstable hierarchy between irony and sincerity: Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress imagines skepticism as literal abandonment and reminds us of our metaphysical indebtedness to a desired object/world; Ellis’s American Psycho shows the breakdown of communication due to a similarly skeptical vision of human interaction and presents a violence that tries to force a response from the desired subject/person; Wallace’s Infinite Jest creates a large canvas on which episodes of metaphysical and literal ‘stuckness’ afford possibilities for becoming human; Smith’s The Autograph Man, finally, pays attention to gestural language at the breaking point of materialism and theology, nature and culture, tragedy and comedy. / Graduate / 2020-08-01

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura crítica do romance Los detectives salvajes, publicado em 1998 pelo chileno Roberto Bolaño. Minha leitura investiga como o romance problematiza a tríade verdade - sentido - experiência através de um jogo com a opacidade que elide a sua linguagem (segundo alguns críticos) transparente. Para tanto, divido o trabalho em três momentos. No primeiro, analiso o cruzamento de vozes que o romance põe em cena, tomando-o como uma forma de dramatização da verdade. A partir do conceito de voz, que pauta essas reflexões, estabeleço também uma ponte para pensar a tensão com a poesia que o livro coloca, em uma abordagem que visa ultrapassar a mera exposição da tematização da vida desmesurada dos poetas. No segundo momento, indago a promessa de sentido que a narrativa faz: para além do uso do mistério e do enigma como motores da leitura, que é impulsionada pela iminência de uma revelação que não se produz, exploro suas consequências como procedimentos específicos de construção do sentido. No terceiro momento, pondero como, apesar de ser um relato associado ao fracasso ideológico de uma geração, Los detectives salvajes parece conservar ou criar um lugar para a esperança e para o acontecimento de experiências verdadeiramente autênticas, sob a forma de sobrevivências ou de intervalos. Tomando, portanto, as ideias de voz, sentido, verdade, centro, experiência, sujeito e enigma como caminhos, vias, o trabalho interroga as lições que o romance de Bolaño lega à literatura por vir. / This dissertation offers a critical reading of the novel Los detectives salvajes, published in 1998 by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. After having established the book\'s fragmentary structure as a starting ground, my reading proceeds to an analysis of the crossing of voices staged in the novel, taking it into account as a means of dramatization or questioning of the truth. Since this division of utterances is both fundamental and constitutive in Los detectives salvajes, being connected to issues of language and displacement, from it arise important ethical implications. These reflections were based on the concept of voice, from which it was also possible to establish a bridge for thinking of the tensions with poetry enacted by the novel, in an approach that sought to surpass the mere exposition of the thematization of poets\' unruly lives. Aside from this, the research also questions the promise of meaning developed by the narrative: beyond the use of mystery and enigmatic elements as stimuli for reading, that promote the idea of an imminent revelation never to be accomplished, I explore its consequences as specific procedures in the construction of meaning. I also hypothesize on how even though Los detectives selvajes is an account of ideological failure for a generation, it seems to create or maintain a place for hope and for authentic experience in the forms of survivals or intervals. There are specific occurrences in this research in which I establish comparisons with the canonical projects of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, in a sense, to measure the inclusion of Bolaño\'s novel in a Hispano-American history of literature.

A proposta desta dissertação é analisar em contos do livro Sessanta Racconti (1958) a relação entre a poética do autor e a estética surrealista. Através do exame de elementos surrealistas específicos (acaso objetivo, humor negro, sonho, maravilhoso e fantástico) utilizados por Buzzati na construção dos 16 contos selecionados, buscou-se identificar indícios de similaridade, transposição ou releitura de modo a aprofundar o conceito de surrealismo buzzatiano, diverso das demais manifestações surrealistas, mas ao mesmo tempo em diálogo com a estética vinculada a André Breton e seguidores. Desta forma, pretende-se colaborar para o preenchimento de lacunas ainda existentes nos estudos sobre o autor, auxiliando na construção de possíveis novas abordagens para análise e tradução da obra de Buzzati. / The aim of the present dissertation was to study the tales in the book Sessanta Racconti (1958) to analyze the relation between author\'s style within the surrealist aesthetics. We tried to identify similarities, transposition or review, through the study of specific surrealistic elements (objective hazard, black humour, dream, marvelous and fantastic) that was used by Buzzati to create his 16 selected tales. Thus we intend to show a idea of the Buzzati´s surrealism, different of another surrealist manifestations, but at the same time in dialogue with the aesthetic model related to André Breton and his followers. Finally we intend to improve the author\'s researches, with suggestions for the development of new approaches to analysis and translations of Buzzati\'s works.

This study examines the use of the fairy tale intertext in contemporary Canadian womens fiction. In using specific fairy tale plots, themes, motifs, and/or characters within their works of fiction, women writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries purposefully express their goal for the revival and continuity of the female narrative voice and sense of agency. To explore the fairy tale-fiction relationship, Margaret Atwoods Alias Grace and Anne Hberts Kamouraska are approached from what fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes has constructed as the theory of contamination of the fairy tale genre. The fairy tale genres integration into contemporary fiction represents an important development where fairy tale narratives are critically reread so as to bring out deeper meanings for the contemporary audience. / Comparative Literature

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A proposta desta dissertação é analisar em contos do livro Sessanta Racconti (1958) a relação entre a poética do autor e a estética surrealista. Através do exame de elementos surrealistas específicos (acaso objetivo, humor negro, sonho, maravilhoso e fantástico) utilizados por Buzzati na construção dos 16 contos selecionados, buscou-se identificar indícios de similaridade, transposição ou releitura de modo a aprofundar o conceito de surrealismo buzzatiano, diverso das demais manifestações surrealistas, mas ao mesmo tempo em diálogo com a estética vinculada a André Breton e seguidores. Desta forma, pretende-se colaborar para o preenchimento de lacunas ainda existentes nos estudos sobre o autor, auxiliando na construção de possíveis novas abordagens para análise e tradução da obra de Buzzati. / The aim of the present dissertation was to study the tales in the book Sessanta Racconti (1958) to analyze the relation between author\'s style within the surrealist aesthetics. We tried to identify similarities, transposition or review, through the study of specific surrealistic elements (objective hazard, black humour, dream, marvelous and fantastic) that was used by Buzzati to create his 16 selected tales. Thus we intend to show a idea of the Buzzati´s surrealism, different of another surrealist manifestations, but at the same time in dialogue with the aesthetic model related to André Breton and his followers. Finally we intend to improve the author\'s researches, with suggestions for the development of new approaches to analysis and translations of Buzzati\'s works.

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura crítica do romance Los detectives salvajes, publicado em 1998 pelo chileno Roberto Bolaño. Minha leitura investiga como o romance problematiza a tríade verdade - sentido - experiência através de um jogo com a opacidade que elide a sua linguagem (segundo alguns críticos) transparente. Para tanto, divido o trabalho em três momentos. No primeiro, analiso o cruzamento de vozes que o romance põe em cena, tomando-o como uma forma de dramatização da verdade. A partir do conceito de voz, que pauta essas reflexões, estabeleço também uma ponte para pensar a tensão com a poesia que o livro coloca, em uma abordagem que visa ultrapassar a mera exposição da tematização da vida desmesurada dos poetas. No segundo momento, indago a promessa de sentido que a narrativa faz: para além do uso do mistério e do enigma como motores da leitura, que é impulsionada pela iminência de uma revelação que não se produz, exploro suas consequências como procedimentos específicos de construção do sentido. No terceiro momento, pondero como, apesar de ser um relato associado ao fracasso ideológico de uma geração, Los detectives salvajes parece conservar ou criar um lugar para a esperança e para o acontecimento de experiências verdadeiramente autênticas, sob a forma de sobrevivências ou de intervalos. Tomando, portanto, as ideias de voz, sentido, verdade, centro, experiência, sujeito e enigma como caminhos, vias, o trabalho interroga as lições que o romance de Bolaño lega à literatura por vir. / This dissertation offers a critical reading of the novel Los detectives salvajes, published in 1998 by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. After having established the book\'s fragmentary structure as a starting ground, my reading proceeds to an analysis of the crossing of voices staged in the novel, taking it into account as a means of dramatization or questioning of the truth. Since this division of utterances is both fundamental and constitutive in Los detectives salvajes, being connected to issues of language and displacement, from it arise important ethical implications. These reflections were based on the concept of voice, from which it was also possible to establish a bridge for thinking of the tensions with poetry enacted by the novel, in an approach that sought to surpass the mere exposition of the thematization of poets\' unruly lives. Aside from this, the research also questions the promise of meaning developed by the narrative: beyond the use of mystery and enigmatic elements as stimuli for reading, that promote the idea of an imminent revelation never to be accomplished, I explore its consequences as specific procedures in the construction of meaning. I also hypothesize on how even though Los detectives selvajes is an account of ideological failure for a generation, it seems to create or maintain a place for hope and for authentic experience in the forms of survivals or intervals. There are specific occurrences in this research in which I establish comparisons with the canonical projects of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, in a sense, to measure the inclusion of Bolaño\'s novel in a Hispano-American history of literature.

Based on three novels by the contemporary Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra, the study discusses didactic and aesthetic features of the literary text. While essentially set in the Arab world, Khadra’s fiction links to western encyclopaedia and journalistic discourse. In relating to this part of the reader’s experience, the novels produce an impression of proximity to the peripheral real, and a sense of responsibility. It is suggested that this interdiscursivity be viewed not as a deviation from literature but as inherent to literary discourse itself; the text comments and constitutes simultaneously. Emphasising the hybridity of literary means and didactical drive, the study proposes that Khadra’s work be labelled “didafiction”.

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