De nombreux critiques se sont penchés sur le caractère fantastique des romans d’Iris Murdoch, d’autres ont évoqué la notion du bien. Nous avons voulu dans cet écrit mettre en relation les deux notions et montrer qu’à travers le fantastique Iris Murdoch conduit son lecteur sur le chemin du bien dans cinq romans : The Bell, A Severed Head, The Italian Girl, Bruno’s Dream et Jackson’s Dilemma. Dans une première partie, après avoir proposé quelques définitions du fantastique, nous avons relevé dans le texte murdochien tous les éléments qui nous permettent de lui apposer cette étiquette. Par l’étude de l’illusion d’optique, nous avons pu confirmer que le fantastique prend sa source dans une fissure du réel et fait sourdre un monde où règnent peur, doute, rêve et folie. Nous avons, par la suite, analysé les symboles spécifiques du genre. Dans une deuxième partie nous avons examiné le rôle du lecteur dans les écrits de la romancière et tenté de comprendre en quoi la notion de fantastique pouvait influencer le sens de sa lecture. Dans une dernière partie nous avons établi qu’Iris Murdoch s’appuie sur l’aspect fantastique et inexplicable de la nature humaine pour orienter son lecteur vers le chemin du bien. La contingence à laquelle Iris Murdoch est particulièrement attachée, c’est-à-dire l’acceptation que tout ne peut être maîtrisé, force le lecteur à reconnaître que son destin lui échappe. Dès lors il lui est possible de lâcher prise et de ne plus mettre en avant un ego aveuglant. Il devient un homme humble capable d’un amour altruiste qui l’entraîne vers le bien où se réunissent la mort, l’amour et la littérature. / A number of reviewers have dealt with the fantastic character of Iris Murdoch’s novels, others have mentioned the Good. In this study we have aimed at linking both notions to show, in five of her novels: A Severed Head, The Bell, The Italian Girl, Bruno’s Dream and Jackson’s Dilemma, that through the ‘Fantastic’ Iris Murdoch leads her reader on the way to the “Good”.In the first part, after giving a definition of the word ‘fantastic’ we have selected all the elements that point towards the fantastic features in Iris Murdoch’s writings. Starting with the optical illusion, we have shown that the ‘Fantastic’ originates from a break in reality which gives birth to fear, doubt, dream and madness. We have then analyzed the symbols that characterize the genre. In the second part, we have examined the role of the reader in Iris Murdoch’s novels and we have tried to understand in what way the ‘Fantastic’ could influence readers. In the last part we have shown that Iris Murdoch relies on the “Fantastic” and the unexplainable aspect of human beings to lead her reader on the way to the “Good”. Contingency- that is admitting that not everything can have an explanation- which Iris Murdoch sees as of paramount importance, forces the reader to realize that he cannot master his destiny. Therefore the reader cannot do anything other than let go and stop putting forward a blind ego. He or she then becomes a humble man, able to feel an altruistic love that will take him or her on the way to the Good in which death, love and literature are connected.

The main objective of this thesis is to define narrative scheme and elements of the fantastic in the novel Blank Gaze (Nenhum Olhar, 2000) by a Portuguese writer, José Luís Peixoto. His works have been considered part of the mythic narrative current, which, according to a common definition, often draws attention to deformed values of today's society. For José Luís Peixoto, the fantastic, from a modern perspective, or neofantastic, an alternative means for expressing a need for belief in today's society. This fact becomes the main and timeless legacy of the work, and the reader does not be aware of details of religious rules. After the introduction the thesis focuses on outlining the literary and historical context of contemporary Portuguese prose. The second chapter also pays attention to the biography and bibliography of José Saramago, both politically and ideologically involved author. Similarly to Peixoto, in his works he touches the human essence and presents unconventional reflections about values of present society. The third chapter tries to introduce Peixoto as an autor of Blank Gaze. It also mentions him as the laureate of the 2011 José Saramago Prize - a reward which is awarded to Portuguese writers younger than thirty five. The fourth chapter discusses the beginning and development of...

The topic of this master thesis is a description of female characters in short stories by Silvina Ocampo. The main goal is a study about how Silvina Ocampo works with female characters present in her stories and whether they share any similar characteristics. The stories were selected from the books: La furia, Las invitadas, Los días de la noche. The thesis analyzes typology of female characters and their relationships with other characters. Fantastical elements such as the theme of doppelganger and transformation are also part of the analysis. Key words: Silvina Ocampo, short stories, fantastic fiction stories, female characters, cruelty

[pt] Esta tese busca relacionar mística cristã, que é o fundamento da própria teologia, e literatura fantástica compreendendo esta como lugar tanto da teologia como da experiência mística. Afirmamos, portanto, que a literatura fantástica constitui uma forma de expressão da mística cristã. O que há em comum entre as definições desses conceitos é a dimensão do mistério que ambos compartilham. Pois, por um lado, a mística nos lembra da inefabilidade divina, diante da qual toda expressão da linguagem, embora necessária à sistematização da fé, revela-se insuficiente, uma vez que a experiência de Deus ultrapassa os limites do conhecimento racional-lógico da realidade. Por outro lado, a literatura fantástica introduz no mundo cotidiano a dimensão do insólito, do fantástico, do maravilhoso que enriquece a própria vida. Ambas traduzem experiências que são inquietantes e fundamentais à vida humana. Estas experiências inquietantes estão intimamente vinculadas à dimensão teológica e mística da existência. Por isso, a literatura fantástica é capaz de transmitir experiências profundamente humanas, incluindo as experiências teológicas e místicas. A partir dessa relação, o objetivo é investigar a experiência pessoal e algumas obras ficcionais do escritor irlandês C. S. Lewis a fim de perceber como, seja em sua vida, seja em sua produção literária, Lewis aborda questões vinculadas à mística cristã e à teologia por meio do uso da literatura fantástica. / [en] This thesis seeks to relate Christian mystique, which is the foundation of theology itself, and fantastic literature comprising this as a place of both theology and mystical experience. We affirm, therefore, that the fantastic literature constitutes a form of expression of the Christian mystique. What is common in the definitions of these concepts is the dimension of the mystery they both share. For, on the one hand, mystique reminds us of the divine ineffability, in the face of which every expression of language, though necessary to the systematization of faith, is insufficient, since the experience of God goes beyond the limits of rational-logical knowledge reality. On the other hand, fantastic literature introduces into the everyday world the dimension of the unusual, the fantastic, the wonderful that enriches life itself. Both translate experiences that are disturbing and fundamental to human life. These disturbing experiences are intimately linked to the theological and mystical dimension of existence. That is why fantastic literature is able to convey profoundly human experiences, including theological and mystical experiences. From this relationship, the aim is to investigate the personal experience and some fictional works of the Irish writer C. S. Lewis in order to realize how, in his life or in his literary production, Lewis addresses issues related to Christian mystique and theology through the use of fantastic literature.

This book is about the participatory aesthetics of the fantastic. In it, the author argues that the definition of the fantastic presented by Tzvetan Todorov in 1970 can be used, provided it is first adapted to a media-ecological framework, to theorize the role of aesthetic participation in the creation of secondary worlds. Working within a hermeneutical tradition, Todorov understands reader participation as interpretation, in which the creative ambiguities of the literary object are primarily epistemological. However, it is here argued that the aesthetic object of the fantastic is also characterized by material ambiguity. The purpose of this dissertation is then to present a conceptual framework with which to theorize the relation between the material and the epistemological ambiguity of the fantastic. It is argued that such a framework can be found in an ecological understanding of aesthetic participation. This, in turn, entails understanding human subjectivity as a process always already embodied in a material environment. To this extent, the proposed theoretical framework questions the clear and oppositional distinction between form and matter, as well as that between mind and body, nature and culture, and human and non-human, on which a modern and humanist notion of subjectivity is based. And in this sense, the basic ecological assumptions of this dissertation are posthumanist, or non-humanist. From this position, it is argued that an ecological understanding of participation offers a means to reformulate the function of a number of concepts central to studying the aesthetics of the fantastic, most notably the concepts of media, genre and text. As the fantastic focuses on the creation of other worlds, it is an aesthetics of coming into being, of ontogenesis. Accordingly, it will be argued that the participatory aesthetics of the fantastic operationalizes the ontogenesis of media, genres and texts. By mapping the ontogenesis of three distinct media ecologies – the media ecology of fantasy and J. R. R. Tolkien’s secondary world Middle-earth; the media ecology of the American comic book superhero Miracleman; and the media ecology of William Blake – this book argues that the ecological imagination generates world. Per Israelson has been a doctoral candidate in the Research School of Studies in Cultural History at the department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. Ecologies of the Imagination is his dissertation.

This thesis investigates the literary fantastic in Italy from the late nineteenth century to the second half of the twentieth century. The purpose is to analyse the way in which the fantastic functions in a story—its ʻmechanicsʼ—and to see how the fantastic evolved structurally over the first century of its existence in Italy. This investigation is carried out by the development of a new theoretical methodology together with the close reading of a selection of texts from four key Italian authors of fantastic literature. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is a historical overview of the emergence of the fantastic in Italy in the late nineteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century; it examines the obstacles the fantastic has faced and some of the thematic and structural characteristics of texts which emerge. The second chapter is a literature review of the theoretical models used to analyse and understand the fantastic, followed by an outline of a new model, entitled Different Mimetics, which looks at the internal logic of the fantastic. In the following four chapters Different Mimetics is applied to the study of a selection of fantastic texts by four authors. Chapter three focuses on Ugo Tarchetti, and shows that his stories are defined by coexistence and coincidence in both historical and thematic terms. Chapter four demonstrates how Giovanni Papini reverses the mechanics one might expect, and how his stories are structured as internal narratives. Chapter five looks at how Dino Buzzatiʼs stories are characterised by instability and stretched narrative paradigms; and finally, chapter six looks at how Italo Calvinoʼs narratives focus on world creation and paradox and how they question the stability of narrative paradigms.

Six courts récits, qui peuvent n’en former qu’un, se penchent sur les possibilités de la voix narrative (à la troisième personne, au « je », au « nous », au « tu »). Ils réfléchissent sur l’acte de création comme construction et sur les effets de la narration. Pour preuve, le dernier texte reprend intégralement le premier. Le fantastique surgit au moment de l’hésitation du lecteur devant la nature des faits qui lui sont présentés. C’est avec les différentes instances que composent les destinateurs et les destinataires du récit que ce texte joue. La voix narrative, dans un texte fantastique, a une grande importance et doit créer une tension chez le lecteur, qui n’arrivera pas à trouver une explication pour certains aspects du récit. Le narrateur, souvent au « je », se confond avec un personnage. À l’aide de l’analyse du déroulement de l’intrigue et des procédés narratifs utilisés dans trois nouvelles : La Vénus d’Ille (Mérimée), Apparition (Maupassant), Ligeia (Poe), nous cherchons à montrer le rôle du narrateur dans le texte fantastique. / Six short stories, which can be grouped into one long story, provide different styles for the narrator: a third-person narrative, an ‘’I’’ narrative, a ‘’we’’ narrative, and a ‘’you’’ narrative. This particular text is a reflection about the act of creating as a progressive construction as well as a reflection on the effects of narration. As a concrete proof, the last part is identical to the first one, but having the whole story in mind gives the same text a different meaning. The fantastic mood emerges with the reader’s hesitation of how to interpret the facts that are presented to him. Globally, this text plays with the instances that provide a literary text and the ones that receive it. The narrative in a fantastic text is very important, and has to create tension in the reader, who will not be able to explain certain aspects of the story. Often, the plot is told in the first person, hence merging the narrator with a character, thus creating a double personality. We try to shine the light on the role of the narrator in a fantastic text by analyzing how the plot unravels and which narrative methods are used in three short stories: La Vénus d’Ille (Mérimée), Apparition (Maupassant), and Ligeia (Poe).

Aucune figure, au XXe siècle et aujourd'hui, n'est comparable au zombie. Sa prolifération et sa réitération en font un cas d'étude exceptionnel. Or, une figure est inséparable des discours qui la voient naître. Il existe un subtil et profond arrimage entre la production d'une figure, son interprétation et l'économie de sens qui la voit naître. Ma modeste ambition, dans ce mémoire, s'insère dans une réflexion à caractère épistémologique où les enjeux narratifs et les notions critiques encadrant le phénomène zombie seront interrogés. De même, afin de faire émerger cette économie de sens, les modalités de sens de la métaphore doivent être cernées. Ce mémoire est donc une série de prolégomènes nécessaires à l'intelligence d'un important problème contemporain : l'interprétation d'une figure telle que le zombie. Le premier chapitre est une synthèse des manifestations de la figure et de sa compréhension. Les années 60 opèrent une importante transformation dans le corpus filmique zombie (et d'horreur) qui s'incarne dans Night of the Living Dead, de George Romero. Le second chapitre s'intéresse aux enjeux narratifs et aux notions critiques qui encadrent le phénomène zombie. La distinction entre thématique et esthétisme s'incarne alors dans la séparation stricte entre forme et contenu et se fait sentir dans les interprétations offertes du phénomène de l'horreur et dont les études sur le zombie sont tributaires. Cela fait, je rappellerai la vision de Todorov et d'Ingarden sur la représentation afin de cerner les enjeux véritables d'une interprétation. En définitive, la question sera de savoir si le zombie peut être pris à la lettre. Le troisième chapitre sera le moment d'interroger la métaphore afin qu'émergent les modalités de sens qui lui sont inhérentes. Ce chapitre se divisera en deux parties qui reprennent les moments essentiels de la métaphore : sa production et sa lecture. Pour ce faire, je parcourrai la tradition théorique sur la métaphore afin de saisir la portée de l'affirmation poétique qui établit un rapport métaphorique entre les zombies et les humains. Quelle est la signification de cette affirmation qui assume et guide la mise en récit d'une figure (le zombie), et qui assume et guide une lecture métaphorique de l'être humain? En guise de conclusion, je réfléchirai sur les modalités de la lecture en vue d'une interprétation de la figure du zombie. En ce sens, j'explorerai cette inséparabilité entre la manière, c'est-à-dire la métaphore, et son contenu, c'est-à-dire ses interprétations. / No figure, in the Twentieth Century, and today, is comparable to the zombie. Its proliferation and reiteration make it an exceptional case study. Yet a figure is inseparable from the discourses that give birth to it. There is a profound and subtle correlation between the figure’s productions and interpretation, as well as the economy of meaning generating it. My modest ambition, in this thesis, is anchored in an epistemological reflection in which the narrative stakes and the critical notions framing the zombie phenomenon will be examined. For that economy of sense to emerge, the metaphor’s modalities of meaning must be grasped. Thus, this thesis takes the form of a series of prolegomena necessary for understanding an important contemporary problem: the interpretation of a figure such as that of the zombie. The first chapter presents a synthesis of the figure’s manifestations. The 60s bring an important transformation in the zombie (and horror) corpus that is conveyed in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The second chapter focuses on narrative issues and critical notions framing the zombie phenomenon. The strict separation between form and content shapes the horror discourse and many of its interpretations from which Zombie Studies emerge. Subsequently, I revisit Todorov’s and Ingarden’s thought about representation in order to grasp the fundamental issues of interpretation. Ultimately, the question concerns knowing whether the zombie can be taken à la lettre. The third chapter examines metaphor’s inherent modalities of meaning. This chapter is divided into two sections that represent the essential aspects of metaphor: production and reading. In this connection, I refer to the theoretical tradition on metaphor so as to discern the nature of the poetic affirmation that, through metaphor, links zombies and humans. What does this affirmation signify, as it takes up and guides both the zombie figure’s narrative and the metaphorical reading of the human being? In conclusion, I reflect on the modalities of reading underlying interpretations of the zombie figure. In this sense, I will explore the inextricable link between the mode - that is, the metaphor - and its content or, rather, interpretations.

ZBIEJCZUKOVÁ, I. The conception of hero in fantasy literature. Diploma thesis. Prague: ÚČLLV FF UK, 2010-2011. This diploma thesis deals with typology of heroes and heroins in fantasy literature, with special regard to heroic quest from the point of view of literally composition. One part of the thesis applies to the defition and history of fantasy genre in both anglo-saxon and czech environment. The thesis therefore uses and cites both czech and foreign fantasy literally works. The aim of the thesis is to point to archetypical neomythic structure of fantasy texts and to their tendency to recreate heroism using particular examples of fantasy literature.

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá postavou Golema v dílech německých a českých autorů. V první kapitole se zaměřuji na Prahu na přelomu 19. a 20. století, kde se tomuto tématu věnovali hlavně němečtí, převážně židovští autoři. Jejich tvorba je označována pojmem "pražská německá literatura". Vedle nich o Golemovi píší i čeští spisovatelé. V druhé kapitole přibližuji dobu za vlády Rudolfa II., kdy žil rabi Löw, který podle pověsti Golema stvořil a oživil šémem. Poslední kapitola je věnována obecným informacím o oživlé hliněné postavě. Následně zde analyzuji jednotlivá díla předem vybraných autorů. Po zhodnocení sedmi bodů, na které jsem se ve své práci zaměřila, uvádím výsledky této analýzy. V některých případech uchopili autoři jednotlivé situace velice podobně, v některých se značně odlišovali. Právě odlišnost přístupu a pestré variace zpracování dotváří Golemův mysteriozní obraz.