Axmatova wrote the poem Primorskij park Pobedy in 1950 for Slava miru, a collection of verses that glorified Stalin. This poem was included in all her books that were published before her death (1966), apparently to please her censors. A few specialists that are trying today to establish a canonical and definitive version of her poetical works believe that Primorskij park Pobedy cannot be treated as a real Axmatova poem. The exclusion of a "parasitical" element seems unjustified if we conceive Axmatova's poetical works not as a complete Book, that is a definite and homogenous whole, but as a variable unity with undetermined limits. / When we read Primorskij park Pobedy through an intertextual network, the superficial meaning of the poem cracks and collapses. The text becomes open: under a trivial and official meaning is concealed an infinity of possible meanings. Our thesis explores this polysemy by showing how Axmatova's poem can generate a system of intertextual relations.

No description available.

No description available.

By using rigorous conventional structure in her early work Anne Sexton was able to successfully contain some of her severe psychological instabilities stemming from childhood in poetic form. Sexton's artistic direction underwent a sharp change midway into her poetic career after she wrote the volume Transformations, a collection of story-poems based on narratives from the Grimm fairy tales. In this collection, Sexton took on the external persona of a witch, and with her new voice, she was boldly able to re-tell her version of the Grimm tales. The new persona enabled Sexton to shed her previous voice of passivity, and instead criticize humanity by using satire and humor. Unfortunately, this movement in her work was an exercise in self-exploitation as the larger, cultural arena of Grimm put off any chance of working out her private problems. After Transformations Sexton had come to the realization of her self-exploitation and decided to even further separate herself from humanity by continuing to work with even more generalized, cultural forms--a movement that ultimately led her to mythologize her own death.

A defining element of Yves Theriault's work, sexuality has frequently been perceived by various critics as a motif which serves to reinforce other, often extraliterary readings. It is my intention on the other hand to study this phenomenon from the viewpoint of its fundamental importance as the primary theme in order to delimit its significance on the structural level. I mean to accentuate not only the principal parameters of the sexual identity of Theriault's characters but also the environment which oversees and influences the origins and the development of their sexuality. It follows from this that nature in his novels and short stories shows itself to be a highly eroticised presence which serves as a model for man in his perpetual struggle for the key to a harmonious relationship with woman. I begin by giving an overview of Theriault's erotic universe before going on to study in greater depth the specificity of the sexual exchange between man and woman. This leads us to the formulation of a more precise idea of the sexual centre of his work. My conclusion takes us inexorably back to the outset of the study, for it underlines the essential contribution of an eroticised nature to the development of a healthy sexual and emotional relationship within the couple. The general direction of this procedure reflects to no small degree the cyclical, never-ending quest of a writer who is continually striving for the salvation of mankind through his art.

"Books are books, and can suffer the same fate as men. They too can be killed in battle," wrote Georges Bernanos in Francais, si vous saviez. Bernanos' work thus demands to be read through the optic of his battle against the modern spirit. If the polemical focus is clear in his political writings, criticism of his work has never fully recognized its deployment throughout his novels. It is therefore when Bernanosian fiction renounces any expression of its intention, eluding any dimension of rhetoric---when it is dramatically demobilized---that it is meant to be its most scandalous. / What is the mission of fiction in the Bernanosian project? Based on the tools of reconciled rhetoric of figures and argumentation, the aim of this work is to re-examine the Bernanosian triple paradox of "convincing of the obvious without using words those who share his beliefs" which generates the tension of his project of writing from the end; that is to say finding a language worthy of Christian truth, a language so "true" and so "transparent" that it could be capable of immediate conversion of souls. To fully understand the place of battle in Bernanosian writing, the notion of the end as a creative principle is examined through three main themes: the preludes to the end of time (eschatology), the final struggle for the end (agony) and the end results of writing (aim). / Writing from the end fundamentally implies a return to the origins. The focus of this study will be to demonstrate that the Bernanosian project, through a return to the source of spiritual authority and a re-examination of asceticism, is a central part of the vast enterprise of reappropriation of language defining French literature after the armistice. The search for this language capable not of convincing but of conquering is mainly studied through the voices the author gives his characters who are simple in heart and soul: to his heroes who are "strangers to a certain fencing with language," locked in a perpetual battle with words. The analysis of these heroes' discourse in this "slow tongue" attempts to determine the exact, though improbable, degree to which their babbling voices carry a weight of authority.

The present master's thesis includes an essay and a fiction based on the theme of the ennemy. The essay relies on Antoine de Saint-Exupery's works: it shows the main three steps leading the warrior to a fall understanding of the meaning of his combat. / First, the warrior must recognize and confront the outer ennemy, in order to attain certain virtues which will lead him to a first degree of personal growth. But the warrior who wishes to go beyond that limit must then point towards himself the faults attributed to the outer ennemy: he will thereby discover his own inner ennemy. Finally, the evacuation of hatred will be possible only if he accepts to challenge himself to the limit of his combat, by sacrifying himself for the sake of mankind. / The fiction tells the story of a young teacher who decides to declare war on his own principal for having done something absolutely immoral: the plagiarism of a philosophical essay in an editorial sent to the parents. Progressively, the troubling events that this teacher will go through will force him to admit that cowardness and dishonesty, faults first attributed to his boss, are in fact vices that he was never able to recognize in himself until then. / The discovery of his inner ennemy will change everything. The teacher won't accept anymore to fight in this war that has degenerated into hatred. Facing his responsibilities towards those who, just like him, challenged the principal and put themselves in a precarious situation, he will surrender to the only fraternal action left: his own sacrifice.

While much attention has been paid to the events which followed the publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (1988), there has been little detailed examination of the role of Islam in that novel and in the rest of Salman Rushdie's fiction, notably Midnight's Children (1981) and Shame (1983). His portrayals of Islam and Islamic societies are not easily recognizable via the traditional structures of the academic study of Islam. His divergence from the vast majority of Muslim tradition and experience can be seen firstly through his own experiences in India, England, and Pakistan; and secondly through his provocative literary exploration of religious beliefs, something which has few precedents in the history of Islam. By using Islamic elements and symbols in the same way that Western literatures have explored religious themes, Rushdie presents irreverent satire and often scathing criticism of many aspects of Muslim societies and culture. The most significant aspect of this critique is the attempt to subvert what Mohammed Arkoun called "Islamic logocentrism," the tendency to confine all discourse about Islam to a certain narrow field of textual interpretation. Rushdie's treatment of religion is informed by an ideal which sees reading and writing for one's own purposes to be the highest form of spiritual exercise, and when Islam is subordinated to the writer's imagination, he has little reason to uphold the authority or sanctity of its precepts, principles, or history.

This Master's thesis proposes to examine the place of space in five works by Andre Breton which are: Nadja (1928); Les Vases communicants (1932); L'Amour fou (1937); Arcane 17 (1945); Martinique charmeuse de serpents (1948). The first chapter of this thesis deals with the problem of space and its definitions through a sequence of seven authors who propose different perspectives. The second chapter explores the literary, the imaginary and the textual spaces in the aforementionned works while taking into account numerous surrealist concepts proposed by Breton.

Constance de Salm (1767-1845) is an unknown French woman author who nevertheless enjoyed much success in her time. The French Revolution of 1789 and the disappointments that it brought in regards to woman's rights incited her to also use her writings to forward women's cause. / In this work, we will first introduce this "illustrious unknown writer" through a biography relating the important periods of her life while also drawing a parallel with the literature she wrote during her career. We will then go over those "feminist" writings in order to focus on the major themes.