Michel Butor is one of the most prolific writers of post-war French literature. The size of his production is equalled only by its diversity. Originally a novelist, Butor has developed into an author of "open works", opera, poetry, dream texts and children's books. This study is a search for unity in the midst of this diversity. Taking as our starting point Butor's adoption of Rimbaud' s famous assertion ·'Il faut changer la vie", we elaborate a perspective of commitment to change in both writing and reality which we apply to the four most developed areas of Butor's production: the novels, the experimental texts, the Illustrations series and the Mati~re de Reves series. Devoting one section of the thesis to each of these four areas, we examine the parallel between the formal evolution of Butor's production, the change that can be seen in his writing, and the thematic evolution, the change that he would like to see in reality. In the novel section we discuss Butor's treat ment of the myth of imperial dominance as the expression of modern western man's existential outlook and its implications for the reader of novels together with Butor's own, different existential outlook and his consequent abandonment of the novel genre. In the second section we examine Butor's conception of the relationship between man and place together with his experimental attempts to solve the problems raised by the novel form, the solution finally appearing in the thought 1?ehind the "open work". The Illustrations section contains a study of Butor's collaboration with the art world, his development of the corporate text and the elaboration of the concept of collage reality, a concept designed to replace the imperial organisation criticised in the novels. Finally in the Mati~re de Rives section we analyse Butor's method of using his own literary career as an example of the re-integration, re-organisation and attitude required for the construction and maintenance of the new, collage reality.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Dissertation (MA (English))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / English / unrestricted

This M.A. thesis is a critical study of Chen Jiangong's fiction, chiefly attempting to reveal the process of thematic development in this author's works by way of tracing the hero through non-hero to anti-hero. The first chapter, which is biographical, makes a brief account of Chen's family background, personal experience as well as the unique personality fostered by his ten year career as a coal-miner. The second chapter presents an analysis of the thematic defects of his early fiction, and meanwhile some technical matters are succinctly introduced. The third chapter deals with the stylistic traits -- subject matter, narrative technique and language -- of the three stories which left untouched in the previous chapter due to their different way of representation. In order to show clearly Chen's two styles, a comparison of these three stories with his other early works is frequently made. The fourth chapter is an interpretation of his two mature works "No. 9 Winch Handle Alley" and "Looking for Fun." The centre of attention is mainly concentrated on "the sense of tragicomedy" -- a philosophy of life rather than a mere technique Chen acquired after he disposed of former literary dogmas. The fifth chapter is devoted to a comparative study of his masterpiece "Curlylocks" and how it was influenced by J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye". The aspect of anti-heroism is especially stressed. The sixth chapter is a summary in which Chen's thematic transformation from heroism to anti-heroism is reiterated and his literary achievements are evaluated. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

One of the most distinctive features of Aeschylus' poetic style is the choral odes. The odes can generally be divided into two parts: lyrical narrative and lyrical reflection. The narrative sections motivate the main action of the drama, often relating past events and causes. The lyrical reflection is distinguished from the narrative parts by its overt moralizing that lift the dramatic action from the particular to the universal. Within these sections of the ode, are clusters of moral generalizations or gnomes, dealing with a variety of topics but always of a distinctively moral nature. These gnomes far from being unrelated, in fact, give logic to the dramatic events, explaining the reason for a particular event and presenting that event in universal terms, in terms, let us say, of the justice of Zeus or the working of Fate. In fact, the gnomes move along two directions of the drama. They reflect upon and anticipate its events. The conflicts in, and resolutions to the drama are often worked out at the lyrical level. It is the purpose of this thesis, then, to study the gnomes of the Oresteia and their surrounding gnomic passages, to examine their meaning within their immediate context, and to see how and to what extent the gnomes relate to the dramatic actions. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

References to stories and storytelling appear throughout Alice Munro's five short story cycles: DANCE OF THE HAPPY SHADES, LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN, SOMETHING I'VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? and THE. MOONS OF JUPITER. This thesis contends that stories--mentioned briefly or recounted at length--provide counterpoint to experience for Munro's characters. Oral and written stories influence them throughout life, but especially in youth, when they eagerly identify with, and imitate, fictional figures. In LIVES and WHO, storytelling becomes central because their protagonists are a writer and an actress. Occasionally, the narrators in all five works reflect on the difficulty of expressing truth in fiction, but SOMETHING raises this issue repeatedly. By embedding stories within her narratives, Munro imitates the workings of memory; moreover, she draws attention to her narratives as texts rather than glimpses of reality. A feminine perspective on narrative gradually emerges, in which the woman narrator sees her task not as imposing order, but as discovering order that already exists. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The primary objective of this thesis is to study the writings of the contemporary poet, short story writer, novelist and critic Zulfikar Ghose. In some respects Ghose is a "difficult" and "unclassifiable" writer who refuses to be confined to traditional categories. He calls himself "Indo-Pakistani" and "native-alien" -- terms which recall his experience of displacement and exile after the Independence and Partition of India in 1947. Although the trauma of marginalisation does not constitute the overt subject matter of the bulk of his writings, I have argued that the theme of native-alien experience underpins the entire corpus of his work. The focus of this study is on evolving poetic and narrative patterns in Ghose's work and the complex relation between form and content. Chapter 1, which follows a biographical introduction, deals with the author's four volumes of poetry and traces a paradigm which reflects in microcosm the development of his fiction. Chapter 2 discusses three early works -- Statement Against Corpses, The Contradictions and The Murder of Aziz Khan -- in relation to the conventions of mimetic writing. I have analysed Crump's Terms, which is Ghose's only stream-of-consciousness novel, in chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the Brazilian trilogy and Hulme's Investigations into the Bogart Script respectively. The central issue in the chapter on the trilogy is the tension created by the subtle use of diachronic and synchronic patterns. Hulme is an antireferential work, and in chapter 5 I have concentrated on the notion of an autonomous construct as a possible vehicle for the experience of exile. The recent novels -- A New History of Torments and Don Bueno -- are works of magic realism, and in chapter 6 I have studied the author's use of the possibilities inherent in this mode. Where necessary, I have referred to Ghose's autobiography, his critical works and an interview recorded on 14 Aug. 1984 (included as an appendix) to reinforce my reading of his poetry and fiction. Ghose's experimentalism is at once the most fascinating and the most difficult aspect of his writings. I have argued in all the chapters, and in the conclusion, that his technical inventiveness, far from being a sign of waywardness, is a necessary consequence of a quest for a vision of home that can be found nowhere in the external world. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Molière's theatre is one of movement. He owes his keen sense of the gestural especially to the commedia dell'arte and French farce traditions. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the rhythm and devices he employs in some of his earlier and more mature plays. This discussion reveals patterns of reversal, repetition and oscillation, the elements which give particular exuberance to his comic vision. As an actor, director and playwright he had a unique genius for translating his gestural vision into great theatrical works. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

There is a two-fold recurrent theme in Claire Martin's literary works. On the one hand, the established power structure as embodied in the patriarchal image is reversed through the exploration of love and female sexuality. On the other, the male-female dynamic is reconstructed in the Martinian female character (in two of Martin's novels this character also happens to be a writer) and a viable mirror-image of the true nature of woman emerges. The writer as fictional character first appears as Gabrielle in Doux-Amer (1960), Martin's first novel, and later as the anonymous narrator in Les Morts (1970), her last. Martin herself says in an interview that the protagonist of Les Morts could be an older version of Gabrielle. Les Morts is essentially a dialogue between two speakers, an anonymous narrative voice and an equally anonymous interlocutor. This aspect and the singular blend of autobiography and fiction which characterizes the novel lead to a number of questions as to its signification and interpretation. An aura of mystery surrounds these anonymous voices as they discuss the past, or rather as the protagonist relates fragments of her past which do not respect chronological order or geographic accuracy. These are further complicated by the relevance of the autobiographical nature of the work, arising from the relationship between the author and the character, and the portrait of the writer which is conveyed. The ensuing discussion leads to several conclusions about the work. The detailed and somewhat ironic treatment of the connection between love and death in Les Morts is in fact a discourse of displacement in which the 'I' of the speaker rebels against patriarchal authority in an 'imaginary' confrontation involving the use of memory as literary device. As a result of this 'confrontation' (mirrored by the second speaker), the 'I' recovers the ability to love and hence to write. The outcome of the process is paradoxical: the discovery of writing as a solution eliminates the need to write for both author and character. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This study aims (1) to document and classify the materials and techniques of persuasive speech in Euripidean drama, and (2) to develop an understanding of the ways in which the balanced arguments and abstract speculations of Euripidean characters contribute to the construction of plots, themes and characters. The results are intended to be useful both as a contribution to criticism concerned with the "tone" of Euripidean tragedy and as a resource for the study of early oratory and argumentation in the period of the Sophists. The first two chapters classify and analyse speeches and scenes according to dramatic context. In Chapter I, single speeches of several types are shown to rely on similar techniques of presentation and argument. Chapter II analyses patterns of correspondence between the speeches of a scene. The debate scenes of Alkestis and Hippolytos are discussed with a view to determining how stylised and conventional rhetorical material affects our view of the characters involved. Analysis is next offered of some common techniques for the presentation of arguments. Chapter III discusses the "probability argument" and related forms involving the use of rhetorical questions and conditional formulations. Chapter IV examines Euripides' use in argumentative contexts of gnomic material and so-called "utopian reflections". Chapter V considers the use of rhetorical techniques and scenes in three plays. Phaidra's monologue in Hippolytos 373-430 is discussed in terms of its rhetorical purpose and its contribution to important themes and formal relationships in the play. The rhetorical confrontations of the first half of Suppliant Women are seen to contribute to the delaying and highlighting of the action that follows while exploiting an opportunity for abstract moral and political debate. The play-long rhetorical preparation for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in Iphigeneia at Aulis similarly is shown to serve the purpose of enhancing the importance and value of the girl's death, while involving an intricate formal balancing of scenes and speeches that should be appreciated in its own right. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

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