John Bellenden's Chronicles of Scotland (1531-r. 1537) is a humanist Scots translation of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historia (1527). As the first full-scale printed national history in the vernacular, the Chronicles assumed a pivotal role in sixteenth-century Scottish literary culture. Despite its contemporary importance,however, relatively little critical attention has been paid to Bellenden's work itself, primarily due to the misconception that it is a neutral translation of the Scotorum Historia. However, as Bellenden successively revised his text in several stages with stylistical, ideological and material alterations, the Chronicles needs to be evaluated as an individual literary work. The <en>Chronicles reveals much about translation practice, cultural attitudes and book history in early modern Scotland. This thesis situates John Bellenden as a leading vernacular humanist whose concern to heighten the quality of vernacular Scots gave major impetus to the vernacular tradition in Scottish historiography. Chapter 1 shows how Bellenden's overall translation policy is indebted to humanist literary precepts and shows how its embodiment evolves through the course of his revision work. The following three chapters, which deal with Books 1, 12 and 16 of the Chronicles respectively, demonstrate the changing nature of Bellenden's translation and revision practice. A comparative analysis of the first manuscript version, three intermediary manuscript versions and the final printed version exhibits how Bellenden's attitude towards the Chronicles is affected by his ultimate respect for humanistic quality, and his consideration of his patrons and his audience. Chapter 5 examines the contemporary reception of the Chronicles. The conclusion seeks to reevaluate the congruity of the Chronicles with the contemporary cultural milieu and its influence on subsequent historiography and literature within and outwith early modern Scotland.

In this thesis, I discuss a group of compositionally related 'core' chapters within the Yi Zhou shu, a collection of 59 texts from ancient China that has received very limited attention in scholarship. The texts in this collection are difficult to read and interpret because of their poor preservation and the lack of concise commentaries. I develop a methodological strategy for the identification of philologically related texts within the collection, which allows me to single out a group of texts related by compositional structures, rhetorical patterns and characteristic formulaic expressions. I call such chapters 'kingly consultations', considering that most of such texts are presented as speeches involving sage rulers of the Western Zhou (mid. 11th century - 771 BC), in which they share the fundamental wisdoms of kingship. I argue that these texts are remnants of an important ritualised textual practice, which has left traces not only in the Yi Zhou shu, but also in other collections, such as the Liu tao (Six Bow Cases), which is commonly classified among 'military' texts. I reconstruct elements of the socio-political context of the kingly consultations using comparative insight. I examine the numerical lists used for systematisation of knowledge against similar lists in the Pali canon. I also explain the significance of the expressions that emphasise the secretive transmission of texts against better known esoteric textual communities in China and Japan. Such comparison allows me to preliminarily identify the communities behind the kingly consultations as based on strict knowledge-based hierarchy, but prone to segmentation. Finally, I position the kingly consultations within the broader context of the practice of treasure texts. This practice is an important development in ancient China that led to the emergence of a new type of textual authority by 'detaching' earlier epigraphic texts from their precious material carriers and introducing them into novel environment of manuscript culture.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 1999. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

The present project sets out to discover what the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan ('A Tale of Marriage Destinies that will Bring Society to its Senses'), an anonymous novel of manners from seventeenth-century China, can tell us about life in the world out of which it emerged. Seventeenth-century records depict China on the verge of modernity as a world torn between the traditional agricultural society and the new challenges of urban life, commerce and a money economy. The shifts from conventional norms and values gave rise to concepts of Utopia and anti-utopia: to nostalgia for the lost paradise of the past and to apocalyptic satire on present conditions. Scholars have noted the prominence of utopianism in seventeenthcentury fiction but no detailed study has been undertaken so far. Utopianism is here explored in terms of the indigenous Chinese traditions. The text of the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan is analysed to see how it perceives and reflects the seventeenth century Chinese world. Utopia serves as an analytical construct to recreate a glimpse of society and the moral evaluation of the world through the eyes of a contemporary observer. The body of the thesis analyses three major motifs in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan: the healers, the elite and the mother. Critical comparison with other contemporary literary and historical sources attempts to place the novel into its context. The visions of Utopia and anti-utopia provide insight into the dreams and nightmares as seventeenth-century Chinese minds may have perceived them, shedding light on the vernacular culture as opposed to the officially recognised and imperially ordained culture of China.

The late Ming artist and poet Xu Wei (1521-1593) is most well known for his self-representation as a cultured "mountain hermit" and "eccentric", pursuing the literary ideals of originality, simple language and direct emotional expression. His wild ink-brush paintings, mental instability, numerous suicide attempts and the murder of his third wife all helped to consolidate Xu's image as China's Van Gogh. However, later hagiographies of Xu as the "patron saint of eccentrics" have led to a one dimensional view of Xu. This thesis presents Xu as someone who explored and wrestled with different and sometimes contradictory self-representations against a thorny political and social backdrop. It moves away from Xu's "eccentric" persona, instead examining his writings within the political context of the 16th century. Against the backdrop of Mongol and pirate invasions, Xu's close friend Shen Lian was executed by the Chief Grand Secretary Yan Song and his clique. Yet only a month after his friend's execution, Xu switched sides and worked as a ghost-writer for Hu Zongxian, a protégé of Yan Song. Yet with the fall of Yan Song in 1562 and the arrest of Hu Zongxian, this became an embarrassment for Xu. Fearing that he would be implicated with the Yan Song clique, Xu distanced himself from his flattering ghost-written poems. Overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, he explored the complexities of loyalty and identity in his poetry. Xu's career is representative of many Ming scholars who were frustrated by examination failure and the inability to find an official post. His literary ideals contradicted with lived reality. Xu is unique among Ming literati in voicing these contradictions.

The project examines how German- and English-speaking translators of selected Maigret novels by the Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon have dealt with cultural and linguistic specificity, with a view to shedding light on how culture and language translate. Following a survey of different theories of translation, an integrated theory is applied in order to highlight what Simenon’s translators have retained and lost from three selected source texts: Le Charretier de la Providence (1931), Les Mémoires de Maigret (1951) and Maigret et les braves gens (1961). The examination of issues of linguistic and cultural specificity is facilitated by application of an integrated theory of translation coupled with the methodology devised by Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge (1992, 1995 and 2002). In addition, consideration of paradigms of detective fiction across the three cultures involved, and Simenon’s biography and wider oeuvre, help elucidate the salient features of the selected source texts. In view of the translators’ decisions, strategies for minimising various types of translation loss are presented. While other studies of translation theory have examined literary and technical texts, this study breaks new ground by focussing specifically on the comparative analysis of detective fiction in translation.

<p style="text-align: justify;">U radu se, primenom feminističke književne kritike, analiziraju rodni stereotipi u svih četrnaest romana iz lektire za drugi ciklus obrazovanja. Pokazuje se da su rodni stereotipi prisutni u različitim aspektima ovih romana, kao &scaron;to su zastupljenost i konstrukcija likova, sadržaj i način oblikovanja priče. Takođe, predstavljaju se metodički modeli nastavnih interpretacija ovih romana, koji uvažavaju rodnu perspektivu. Primena ovih modela omogućava da učenice i učenici prepoznaju rodne stereotipe, razumeju njihovu funkciju i zauzmu kritički odnos prema njima.</p> / <p style="text-align: justify;">The dissertation analyzes gender stereotypes by applying feminist literary criticism in all fourteen novels included in the second cycle of the primary education curriculum. It is indicated that gender stereotypes are present in various aspects of the novels, such as characters&rsquo; presence and construction, content and method of creating stories. Furthermore, the methodical models of educational interpretations of these novels, which respect the gender perspective, are also presented. The application of these models allows pupils to recognize gender stereotypes, understand their function and take a critical attitude towards them.</p>

Au seuil de ses Fables, La Fontaine affirme qu’il « chante les héros dont Ésope est le Père ». Souvent prise pour argent comptant, cette généalogie affichée a conduit la critique à envisager la composition des Fables dans le cadre d’un face-à-face schématique entre le « Père » supposé du genre et son Fils incarné dans la France du Grand Siècle. Cette thèse se propose de reprendre sur nouveaux frais la question des sources de l’inspiration « ésopique » de La Fontaine : « chante[r] les héros dont Ésope est le père », qu’est-ce à dire exactement ? À quelle figure auctoriale et à quels ouvrages le nom d’Ésope pouvait-il être associé dans l’esprit d’un poète du XVIIe siècle ? Au travers de quels filtres la « matière ésopique » était-elle passée avant que La Fontaine ne se l’approprie ? Après un examen approfondi de l’origine et de la nature du corpus des fables dites d’Ésope et de la biographie fictive du fabuliste grec (Vie d’Ésope), l’enquête se porte sur la réception et la transmission de ces textes aux XVe, XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Elle révèle que la filiation apparemment directe, évidente et sans médiation entre l’inventeur légendaire de l’apologue et son héritier majeur demande une révision de nos préjugés critiques, à la lumière de l’archéologie d’un modèle, d’un genre et d’une tradition qui s’avèrent d’une complexité et d’une diversité que La Fontaine lui-même ne soupçonnait peut-être pas, mais qui promet à l’analyste moderne la révélation d’un mode d’invention et de réception du genre fable beaucoup plus ouvert, fluide, voire confus, que ne le laisserait supposer l’annotation des éditions du fabuliste français. / At the beginning of his Fables, La Fontaine claims that he « sings the heroes whose father is Æsop ». Because it was often accepted at face value, this self-styled genealogy led the critics to consider the composition of the Fables as a « tête-à-tête » between the so-called « father » of the genre and his spiritual son. In this dissertation, I try to renew the study of the Æsopic sources of La Fontaine. What does « singing the heroes whose father is Æsop » really mean ? Which books could be related to the name of Æsop in the mind of a 17th-century French poet ? After a carefull examination of the origin and nature of the so-called Æsop’s fables as well as the fictionnal biography of the Greek fabulist, the present investigation analyses the reception and the transmission of both Æsop’s life and fables in Early Modernity (15th, 16th and 17th centuries). In the light of this archeological research, the belief in an obvious and direct relationship without any mediation between the legendary inventor of the fable and his most gifted heir turns out to be completely deceptive. The Æsopic tradition proves to be far more various and complex than one might think after reading the comments and footnotes of the critical editions of La Fontaine’s Fables choisies mises en vers.

This thesis investigates the twelfth-century Latin poem entitled Urbanus magnus or 'The Book of the Civilised Man', attributed to Daniel of Beccles. This is a poem dedicated to the cultivation of a civilised life, aimed primarily at clerics although its use extends to nobility, and specifically the noble householder. This thesis focuses on the text as a primary source for an understanding of social life in medieval England, and uses the content of the text to explore issues such as the medieval household, social hierarchy, the body, and food and diet. Urbanus magnus is commonly referred to as a 'courtesy text'. This thesis seeks to understand Urbanus magnus outside of that attribution, and to situate the text in the context of twelfth and thirteenth-century England. Thus far, scholarship of courtesy literature has focused on later texts such as thirteenth-century vernacular 'courtesy texts' or humanist works as exemplified by Erasmus's De civilitate morum puerilium. This scholarship looks back to the twelfth century and sees texts such as Urbanus magnus as 'early Latin courtesy texts'. This teleological view relegates such earlier texts to positions at the genesis of the genre and blindly assumes that they belong to the corpus of 'courtesy literature'. This neglects both their individual importance and their respective origins. This thesis examines Urbanus magnus as a didactic text which contains elements of 'courtesy literature', but also displays moral and ethical concerns. At the heart of the thesis is the question: should Urbanus magnus be considered as part of the genre of courtesy literature? This question does not have a simple answer, but this thesis shows that some elements and sections of Urbanus magnus do conform to the characteristics of courtesy literature. However, there are further sections that reflect other literary traditions. In addition to morals and ethics, Urbanus magus reflects other genres such as satire, and also reveals social issues in twelfth-century England such as the rise of anti-curiale sentiment and resentment of upward social mobility. This thesis provides an examination of Urbanus magnus through the most prevalent themes in the text. Firstly, it explores the dynamics of the medieval household, along with issues such as social mobility and hierarchy. Secondly, it focuses on the depiction of the body and bodily restraint, covering topics such as speech, bodily emissions, and sexual activity. Thirdly, it discusses food and diet, including table manners, food consumption, and dietary effects of foodstuffs. The penultimate chapter looks at the manuscript dissemination of the text to investigate the different uses which Urbanus magnus found in subsequent centuries. The delineation of Urbanus magnus as part of the genre of courtesy literature ignores the social, cultural, and literary impact on the creation of the text. In response, this thesis has two aims. The first is to minimise the notion of genre, and treat Urbanus magnus as a text in its own right, and as a product of the twelfth century. The second shows that Urbanus magnus reflects both continuity and change in society in England following the Norman Conquest.

The diploma thesis Cultural journalism of Ferdinand Peroutka in Přítomnost (1924 - 1939) deals with culture articles Ferdinand Peroutka has written as the editor-in-chief of a cultural-political magazine Přítomnost during the years between the World Wars. The thesis is therefore mainly focused on his literary criticism but texts concerning theatre or film are included as well. Crucial part of the thesis is based on a critical qualitative analysis of a chosen sample of texts published in the culture section of Přítomnost between 1924 and 1939 - with the emphasis on Peroutka's requirements towards art, his polemics with other authors or his subject choice and reception. Form and content of the texts are analysed too. Additionally, the thesis provides an introduction to Ferdinand Peroutka as a member of Czechoslovak Republic's elite, specifically as a journalist and a culture critic. In order to offer full context a description of Přítomnost magazine is included and completed by a brief summary of Czechoslovak culture journalism between the World Wars with examples of other important periodicals and their contributors. The thesis opens with introducing different approaches to criticism as a genre.