This thesis examines and explores the process of coming of age in successful fantasy fiction series, including J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novel and its prequel The Hobbit, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. In particular, it is suggested that the huge popularity of fantasy stems from the fact that it provides a representation of human agency significantly at odds with the everyday experience of an increasingly bureaucratized and financially-determined world. Analysis shows how fantasy texts provide a universal model that help younger readers to understand the process of maturity as individuation and entry into the intersubjective social world. The central protagonists of such texts have to learn to master concepts such as seeing oneself in the other through intersubjective dialogues, objectifying one’s self in the world, and coping with their own battles, in the process of finding their way to maturity. This fictional “quest” or “journey” provides a model for readers to assess their own realities and actions, which in turn has the effect of changing their understanding and enabling them to critique their own lives. It is demonstrated how these classic and widely translated works of fantastic literature, which reach a huge crossover readership, may be understood in terms of parallel transformational stages such as confusion, inattentional blindness, fear, courage and various attempts of learning the need for moderation. Overall, this analysis, comprising the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, anthropology, education, behavioural economics, sociology, media, and history, explores the processes of transformation and maturation within fantasy literature. At the same time, the case for fantasy literature’s uniqueness in its capacity to reveal the mechanisms of human agency is substantiated within a theoretical framework.

Orientador: Roxana Guadalupe Herrera Álvarez / Banca: Antonio Roberto Esteves / Banca: Arnaldo Franco Junior / Resumo: O duplo há muito tempo está presente na literatura e passou a ser mais recorrente a partir do século XVIII, no Romantismo. Vários escritores produziram obras que dão destaque ao tema. E, por estar na literatura das mais diversas formas, trazendo os mais diversos significados, o duplo proporcionou e proporciona, consequentemente, diversos estudos. Esta dissertação é resultado de uma pesquisa que teve por objetivo principal a realização da análise interpretativa do duplo, sob perspectiva da literatura fantástica, na obra da escritora contemporânea espanhola Cristina Fernández Cubas (1945-). Para a realização da análise, foi feita a seleção dos seguintes contos: "Lúnula y Violeta" (1980), "En el hemisferio sur" (1983), "Helicón" (1990), "La mujer de verde" (1994), "La fiebre azul" (2006) e "El moscardón" (2006). No desenvolvimento da pesquisa, foi feito o estudo do duplo na literatura, do fantástico e do gênero conto. Tais estudos, serviram de base para a realização das análises interpretativas dos contos. Em relação ao suporte teórico, citamos, em especial: Juan Herrero Cecilia (2000, 2011), Sigmund Freud (1976), Nádia Battella Gotlib (1998), Carl Gustav Jung (1987), Rebeca Martín López (2006), Otto Rank (1939), David Roas (2011), Clément Rosset (2008) e Teresa Martín Taffarel (2001). Das considerações finais do trabalho, destacamos: a constante presença da abordagem do processo criativo do escritor por meio da figura do duplo e, inseridas em meio à narrativa, discussões e reflexões sobre o tema do duplo e o gênero fantástico. Em relação ao duplo, este apresenta-se das mais diversas formas, prevalecendo o duplo subjetivo. Em suma, na maior parte dos contos analisados, o tema está relacionado à questão da identidade e associado ao fantástico / Abstract: The double has been long present in literature and it became a recurring theme since the Romantic period in the 18th century. Many writers have highlighted the double in their works. As the double has been represented in a variety of ways and acquired varied meanings, it has been subject of several studies. This thesis results from a research that had as main goal to perform, from the perspective of the fantastic literature, an interpretative analysis of the double in the work of the contemporary Spanish writer Cristina Fernández Cubas (1945 - ). To do such analysis, we have selected the following short stories: "Lúnula y Violeta" (1980), "En el hemisferio sur" (1983), "Helicón" (1990), "La mujer de verde" (1994), "La fiebre azul" (2006) and "El moscardón" (2006). During the research we have studied the double in literature, the fantastic and the short story genre. Such studies constitute the basis for our interpretative analysis of the above short stories. As theoretical framework, we have used the works: Juan Herrero Cecilia (2000, 2011), Sigmund Freud (1976), Nádia Battella Gotlib (1998), Carl Gustav Jung (1987), Rebeca Martín López (2006), Otto Rank (1939), David Roas (2011), Clément Rosset (2008) and Teresa Martín Taffarel (2001). From the final remarks of this study, we draw attention to: the constant approach of the creative process of the writer by means of the double and the discussions, inserted throughout the text, on both the double and the fantastic genre. Relating to the double, it appears in several ways, but the "subjective double" prevails. In most cases, in the analyzed short stories, the double is related to the question of identity and associated with the fantastic / Mestre

Orientador: Roxana Guadalupe Herrera Álvarez / Banca: Maira Angélica Pandolfi / Banca: Cláudia Maria Ceneviva Nigro / Resumo: A presente dissertação de Mestrado tem como título "Macário e "La cruz del diablo": a caracterização da figura do diabo na literatura fantástica" e discute a forma como a figura do diabo se estabelece nas duas obras fantásticas, de autoria de Álvares de Azevedo e de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, respectivamente. Para estudar estas duas obras e estabelecer semelhanças e diferenças entre elas, será estudada a figura do diabo, criatura bastante utilizada em obras literárias, especialmente fantásticas; o gênero fantástico, pois ambas as obras possuem características que permitem inseri-las neste. Serão estudadas também algumas características do Romantismo, pois ambas as obras foram escritas durante este período. Outras teorias como as do conto, do teatro, da lenda e da literatura comparada serão brevemente incluídas quando necessárias para a análise das obras / Abstract: This Masters dissertation called "Macário e "La cruz del diablo": the figure of the devil's characterization in fantastic literature", discourses about the way as the figure of the devil sets in two Álvares de Azevedo and Gustavo Adolfo Becker 's literary works, respectively. To study these two literay works and find similarities and differences between them, it will be study the figure of the devil, a creature widely used in literary works, especially in fantastic literay works; fantastic literary genre, because both literay works have features which allow insert them in fantastic literay genre. It will be also studied some features of Romanticism, whereas the two literary works studied here, were written during the romantic period. Other theories such as the tale, the theater, the legend and the comparative literature, will be briefly included when necessary, for the analysis of the literay works / Mestre

L’objectif de ce travail est d’étudier les résonances de la pensée scientifique dans les récits fantastiques du XIX et XX siècle et de revivifier, du même coup, l'approche théorique du genre fantastique. L'axe dorsal de ma thèse consiste à étudier le rapport du genre à la raison (la plasticité de ce concept permet de dépasser les découpages habituels entre science et non-science). Si l'on résume la position de la critique sur la question, on aboutit au constat suivant : le Fantastique met en exergue les carences de la raison. Il en souligne les défaillances, les limitations, les insuffisances, au nom de l’inexhaustible complexité du réel. L'image que le Fantastique véhicule de la raison est donc passablement négative, mais elle est liée à une conception classique de la rationalité, aujourd'hui périmée. L'image de la raison que proposent les sciences a considérablement évolué. Quelques unes des révolutions conceptuelles les plus marquantes du XX siècle dans le domaine des sciences physiques et des mathématiques sont à l'origine de cette évolution, elles marquent le passage de la raison classique (absolutiste) à la raison contemporaine (relativiste et complexifiée). On ne peut s'attendre à ce que le miroir de sorcière reflète une image irréprochable et normative de la raison, mais on ne saurait se satisfaire d'une image strictement négative. Le Fantastique ne se tient pas, contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait croire, à l'écart des vertiges de la science moderne. Il évolue en symbiose avec elle. Je m'attache à montrer, tout au long de ce travail, que la littérature fantastique restitue une image positive mais impure de la raison. Cette dernière dérive des « monstres » que la raison engendre au XX siècle : relativité einsteinienne, mécanique quantique, théorème de Gödel, relativité einsteinienne, logiques non-classiques (entre autres). Dans un récit fantastique, la raison strictement déductive, rigide et totalisante est systématiquement battue en brèche. Mais ce n'est pas là la preuve que la raison a atteint ses limites. La pensée scientifique nous enseigne que ce peut être, au contraire, le signe d'une extension de la raison. Cette réhabilitation de la raison – de son versant « impur » – qui tient compte du contexte scientifique actuel a le mérite de réactualiser le genre fantastique et lui confère une nouvelle unité. Cette réactualisation passe par une modification substantielle du statut du surnaturel : il n’est plus tenu pour un principe désorganisateur mais considéré comme agent de la rationalité. / The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to analyze the reflection of scientific thinking in the Fantastic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and, by the same token, to re-invigorate the theoretical approach to the Fantastic genre. The backbone of my thesis is to study the connection between reason and the Fantastic genre. In summarizing the specialists on this subject, one comes to the following conclusion: the Fantastic genre highlights the insufficiency of reason. It underlines the shortcomings, restrictions and failures of reason in the name of the inexhaustible complexity of reality. The image of reason that the Fantastic genre conveys is quite negative, although connected to a classical concept of rationality, nowadays obsolete. Some key revolutionary concepts of the twentieth century in the fields of physics and mathematics have significantly changed the way we regard reason. This progress marks the passage from classical reason (absolutist) to contemporary reason (relativist and a high degree of complexity). It could not be expected that Fantastic literature reflect a faultless and canonical image of reason, but a strictly negative image is unsatisfactory. The Fantastic genre is not insensitive, contrary to usual belief, to the amazing discoveries of modern science. It evolves in symbiosis with modern science. My goal is to show throughout this work that Fantastic literature gives a positive but troubled image of reason. The latter comes from the “monsters” that were invented by science during the twentieth century: Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, Gödel’s theorem, non- classical logics (among others).In a Fantastic tale, strictly deductive reasoning, unbending and all-knowing is systematically defeated. But this is not proof that reason has reached its limits. Scientific thinking teaches us that it can be, on the contrary, a sign of an extension of reason. This rehabilitation of reason –of its "troubled" side– that takes into account the current scientific context updates the Fantastic genre and gives it a new unity. This updating means a substantial modification of the status of the supernatural: one does not consider it as a disorganizing agent but as an agent of rationality

This study examines six texts o f the 12[sup th] and 13[sup th] centuries for the fantastic mode. It first refutes the critical assertion that the fantastic could not exist in medieval literature, but also establishes that most of the casually denominated "fantastic" is not. For the genuine fantastic, both in general and in its medieval appearances, questions of reality are at most peripheral. Rather the fantastic mode encodes itself in the narrative structure, creating ambiguity and openness. The structural approach frees the discussion o f the fantastic from theories predicated upon issues of thematics, reality-based analysis, and didactic categorizations o f supernatural objects. The first two chapters synthesize those elements from modern works of fantastic theory, (re)deflning the fantastic based upon a semiotic approach. The introduction concentrates on the need to reexamine the corpus of critical works addressing the fantastic. Chapter 1 summarizes the theoretical discussion in order to adjust the definition of "fantastic" as a critical term according to a more pre-Renaissance view of reality. Chapter 2 proposes the parallel worlds model as a structural model for the identification of the fantastic mode in texts where the supernatural is evident, with an emphasis on fantastic space as an intermediary locale between worlds. The last four chapters apply the parallel worlds model to a selected corpus of six narratives. While the structures of these texts vary in length, the fantastic is consistently manifested in a pattern that alternates between the real world, fantastic space and the otherworld. The open-ended structure of five narratives indicates that journeys to the otherworld are rarely accomplished with a high degree of completion, and therefore the narrative program remains incomplete. The conclusion is a defense of the fantastic within medieval French literature, concentrating on how the supernatural creates /otherness/, fantastic space and openness in the narrative program. The fantastic as a powerful but elusive force within Old French romance narratives often shifts to the merveilleioc in the end. The parallel worlds model, when used in conjunction with other theories for identifying the fantastic, is a structural method that emphasizes openness as a characteristic of the fantastic within medieval romance narratives. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Two children, Dan and Una, sit in the woods and listen to a story of Britain's early history told to them by Sir Richard, a spirit conjured from the past for this instructive purpose. In this tale, Sir Richard gains treasure by defeating the "devils" that terrorize a village of African people. In many ways, this framed narrative sets up the expected hierarchy found in children's literature wherein the adult actively narrates a story and the child silently listens and learns. However, the children of Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill do something else--they question and challenge. At the end of the story, Dan declares, "I don't believe they were Devils" and backs up his disbelief by drawing on other books he has read. While much scholarship on children's literature reads child characters through the lens of adult desire and finds them voiceless and empty, I seek out moments wherein these imagined children, like Dan and Una, challenge adult dissemination of knowledge. Building upon recent scholarship that sees the child less as a straightforward projection of desire and more complexly as a site for conflicting ideologies and tensions, my dissertation enters into the critical conversation concerning the figure of the child and suggests a fresh, new approach to reading adult-child relations in children's literature. Urging readers to focus on the ways in which fantasy literature imagines and represents child characters' relationships to language--as readers, authors, storytellers, and questioners--I argue that whether deliberately or unselfconsciously these works imagine a child capable of interacting with language in order to seize power and thus unsettle the force of adult desire. Even as the characters themselves remain the products of adult creation, the relationship to language they model for their implied readers transcends a simple one-to-one correlation of adult authorial desire and a child reader's internalization. Each of my four chapters focuses on a pair of authors: Sarah Fielding and Mary Martha Sherwood, Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald, Frederika Macdonald and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Rudyard Kipling and E. Nesbit. Instead of mere escapism and fancy, these portraits of childhood address debates surrounding the emerging genre of the novel, religious censorship, educational legislation, imperial ideology, medical discourses, and textbook publication. By juxtaposing these novels in pairs alongside these significant historical contexts, my project brings the child's voice, which we often ignore, to the surface. Like Dan and his declaration of disbelief, the readers imagined by these important works of fantasy refuse to sit in silence and instead play with words to question, create, and challenge.

When Ursula K. LeGuin revisited the world of Earthsea with Tehanu (1990), her return to an established classic of the fantasy genre came with a powerful desire to revisit its construction and reinterpret its assumptions from a female perspective. Drawn to the side of her dying former tutor, protagonist Tenar is repeatedly posed with the question of what to do with his lore books, which could never offer to her what they had his conventionally male students. Even if this time-honored tradition excludes her, however, Tenar cannot bring herself to discard or abandon the books, for all that they seem "nothing to her, big leather boxes full of paper." Traveling on foot, forced often to flee for her life and pack light, she feels compelled to carry these book on her back. For Tenar, the tomes are a considerably "heavy burden," and, given the context in which this novel appears, this female protagonist's struggle with the weight of traditional, respected patriarchal male text is particularly significant. In LeGuin's fantasy, the image of Tenar traversing her story with Ogion's great "lore-books" strapped to her back is emblematic of the struggle many authors have faced in negotiating the received texts and tropes of their generic inheritance in order to create female-centered fantasy. Indeed, the transformation of Ogion's great lore-books into Tenar's conflicted baggage literalizes what many other texts have more figuratively confronted. My dissertation, "A Noted Departure: Metafiction and Feminist Revision within a Tradition of Fantasy Writing," considers the compelling frequency of such self-conscious textual moments in female-centered fantasy of the 80s and 90s and argues for their importance as a writing strategy that challenges the assumptions of more formulaic fantasy texts and tropes, especially those that inform expectations about roles for women. Examining this moment in which the legacy of a revisionist feminist impulse converges with a post-modern, post-structural metafictional critique of traditional narrative forms and the ideologies they encode, my dissertation sheds light on many critically ignored self-conscious fantasy texts which feature heroines whose critical, textual negotiations bring readers to reconsider the nature of fantasy and the danger and wonder, the limits and liberty, of fictional representation. Taken together, as important and largely overlooked entries in a genre which thrives on the tension between tradition and innovation, these works represent a significant transitional moment in the fantasy genre, bridging the gap between a relatively limited female presence and a more contemporary diversity. My first chapter, "Doing the "Not Done": Wrede's 'Improper' Princess and her Whimsical Revision of Fairy-Tale Expectation and Convention," demonstrates the fluid link between the established tradition of feminist fairy tale revision and the self-critical generic departure my dissertation presents as an important literary moment in the fantasy genre. As the archive my dissertation constitutes might be understood as the answer to Angela Carter's frustrated plea that we must "move beyond revision," this chapter acknowledges the fairy tale's potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes and, thereby, of cultural precepts for young women in a reading of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (1990-5). In threading seemingly simple and conventional plotlines together with unexpected and innovative departures, Wrede upsets narrative expectation and undercuts generic convention, particularly those associated with the 'princess' trope. Achieving her critical commentary on the commonplaces of the genre by first invoking the traditional before establishing a heroine who positions herself against it, Wrede's plot also reveals the importance of textual negotiation and interpretation, and this chapter underscores the generative relationship this kind of critical interplay bears on the need for new plots and narrative options. Chapter two, "'In Search of 'Something New': Metafiction as Critical and Creative Discourse" offers a sustained discussion of the theoretical work of metafiction. Opening with an examination of the historical precedent of feminist metafiction and its desire to create an alternative tradition to a limited masculinist tradition in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, I demonstrate how aptly feminist metafiction aligns with a fantasist's impulse to challenge the same constraints within genre. Examining how metafiction can function as a critical and creative narrative strategy within a generic context, I adapt the conceptions of theorists such as Roland Barthes, Jean Genette, Gayle Greene, Amie A. Doughty, and Brian Stonehill to an understanding of how metafiction functions in fantasy. "Plotting Change, Imagining Alternatives: Metafiction as Revision in Feminist Fantasy," argues that while thematic or plot-based investigations into feminist fantasy are useful, understanding the way in which generic push-back occurs requires closer attention to the writing strategies which articulate such artistic feats and aesthetic negotiations. This third chapter examines several significant but critically ignored fantasy works which demonstrate how writers of this period signal their departure from generic tradition through key metafictional moments in which a heroine herself invokes text or turns, within her own story, to a text that exists within her own world. Alanna of Trebond in The Song of the Lioness series (1983, 84, 86, 88), Daikin of The Farthest Away Mountain (1976), and Talia in The Heralds of Valdemaar series ("Arrows Trilogy," 1987-88) all experience transformative and liberatory adventures that afford a break with tradition that is drawn along lines of both gender and narrative. Thus, texts occupy a central role in these adventures, providing opportunities to investigate the cultural role they play and the tensions they surface between providing inspiration and motivation on the one hand and limitations that must be overcome on the other. As revisionist quest-narratives which are also deeply internal feminist Bildungsroman, the frequently close relationship between heroine and text in these works is deeply telling; such metafictional moments allow their adventures to advance not only plot or individual story, but a critical conversation about the literary conventions and cultural traditions which condition their representation. In calling attention to the critical work of these metafictional moments, I reveal that the most fruitful feminist fantasy criticism must not be only about plot, but the possibility of plot. Indeed, as these heroines become legends themselves, their narratives not only deconstruct traditional discourses, engaging with the need to re-write tradition, to counter narrative expectation and convention with the creation of new stories; they also more collectively re-mythologize. In creating new stories and new patterns of storytelling, this chapter reveals how these writers do not just expose the cultural power of tradition and myth and critique the representation of women within them, but counter its absences and suppressions with their own mythopoesis. Taken together, such a wealth of significant but critically ignored examples demonstrates how writers employ metafiction as a strategy to enact criticism and imagine alternatives in the fantasy genre, particularly in terms of expanding narrative possibilities for heroines. My fourth chapter, "Convention Undone: UnLunDun's Unchosen Heroine and Narrative (Re)Vision," examines China Miéville's UnLunDun (2007) as a deliberate response to a tradition of fantasy writing, lampooning, in particular, the portal-quest fantasy. Revealing narrative adherence to traditional patterns as false and hollow, and those who trust them uncritically as foolishly naïve, Miéville reminds readers of the importance of innovation, of critical interaction with narrative tradition, and the unfinished nature of both narrative and identity. In a tour-de-force of a self-and-genre-conscious metafictionality, Miéville explores the pit-falls of expectation and the potential which comes from the creation of an alternative narrative--and with it, an alternative heroine in Deeba, whose journey works both with and against the perspective traditions of 'The Book' (a talking tome whose authority proves less than accurate). Ultimately, I argue that Deeba's quest and her transformation into a celebrated, unchosen heroine reveals the degree to which success lies in making the old useful again, and the narrative she reshapes is a vivid illustration of both what it means to revise or reimagine and the necessity of such a critical process. In a world of fragments and the discarded, this book speaks to the genre at large, asking what might be constructed from the inherited baggage of traditional understandings, and what can be done in spite of their limitations and previously established identities or functions. Commonly engaged in the construction of questioning, questing stories, the writers I study have crafted pioneering, uncertain heroines who act out a self-conscious awareness that presses against the genre's limits. As these writers must struggle with the loaded material they wish to weave into new story shapes, so, too, do their fictional creations meditate upon the way in which their journey or character diverges from the expected. These are heroines in the making, heroines whose identities are not fixed easily in text but who must constitute it through an engagement with texts both familiar and new. As books which are also about books, as stories which take story as explicit subject matter, these works feature textual negotiation as a necessary critical process at the level of plot. Moreover, in presenting such metafictions as a critical, questioning comparison to a traditional norm, generic expectation, or narrative inheritance experienced as limited or confining, these works also shed light on the possibility of alternative plots and call special attention to the kinds of artistic and ideological negotiations necessary for such stories to be told in our own realistic worlds as well as in our fantasies. Thus, my dissertation highlights the importance of a writer's impulse to reflect and revise the tradition in which they participate and underscores the creative and critical potential of furthering dialogue between texts and conventions. As my readings demonstrate, the fascination fantasy holds as an enduring art form may well be contingent upon the genre's potential for self-conscious interplay and its protean capacity to refigure narration as a meaningful form of discourse.

Orientador: Alvaro Luiz Hattnher / Banca: Márcio Roberto do Prado / Banca: Nilce Maria Pereira / Resumo: O objetivo desta pesquisa será o de analisar fanfictions - em tradução literal "ficção de fã" - da saga Harry Potter em todas as suas especificidades - formato, definições, caraterísticas, postagem e público. Este último, por sua vez, trata-se de um público único e bastante presente em nosso objeto de pesquisa: o fã. Com a evolução tecnológica pelo qual nossa sociedade atual tem passado, novos gêneros literários vão desenvolvendo-se e ganhando cada vez mais espaço na internet. Uma das razões para que isso ocorra é também o aumento significativo da cultura de massa, termo definido por Kellner (2001) e de grandes lançamentos de best sellers que acumulam uma legião de seguidores, como é o caso de Harry Potter, líder das fanfictions acessadas no website fonte desta pesquisa. Dentre as mais de 800 mil fanfictions de Harry Potter as quais tivemos acesso, selecionamos cinco, todas elas pertencentes à classificação específica de universo alternativo, cuja definição é uma releitura e/ou adaptação da obra original para um novo contexto, distanciando-se, assim, do que foi estabelecido no texto original. A questão que move esta pesquisa é: uma vez que o fã da obra original de Harry Potter foi atraído para a série, considerando-se, especialmente, a existência de ferramentas literárias, como modalidade de narrador e verossimilhança, utilizadas para criar uma realidade paralela à nossa realidade e convencer seu leitor a aceitá-la sem questionamentos, o que faz com que ele continue... / Abstract: The purpose of this research is to analyze Harry Potter saga fanfictions in all its specificities ─ format, definitions, characteristics, posting and audience. The latter, in turn, is a unique audience and very present in our research objective: the fan. Considering the technological evolution that our current society has gone through, new literary genres have been developed and gained more space on the internet. One of the reasons for this to occur is also the significant increase of mass culture, a term defined by Kellner (2001), and big best sellers releases that accumulate a legion of followers, such as Harry Potter, leader of the fanfictions accessed on the website used as a source for this research. Among more than 800,000 Harry Potter fanfictions that we had access to, we selected five, all of them belonging to the specific alternative universe classification, whose definition is a rereading and/or adaptation of the original work to a new context, destiny or personality of the characters, thus, distancing itself from what it was established in the original text. The question that moves this research is: since the fan of the original Harry Potter work was attracted to the series, especially considering the existence of literary tools, such as narrator modality and verisimilitude, used to create a reality parallel to our reality and to convince its readers to accept it without question, what keeps readers interested and assiduously following the texts of alternative ... / Mestre

As a scholar, Tolkien spent a great deal of time working from manuscripts. Likewise, as a storyteller, in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien creates a narrative persona who bases his story on his compilation and translation of ancient manuscripts. This persona operates within his story’s narrative frame as an analogue for Tolkien’s own work with manuscripts. Readers have long sought for Tolkien’s sources. The mythologies of medieval Northern Europe have been especially beneficial in helping us understand the influences on Tolkien. No study, however, currently exists that pursues the “manuscript sources” used by Tolkien’s narrative persona. But a reading that attempts to pursue these sources may also prove beneficial. Just as Tolkien inserts himself, in the form of his narrative persona, into the framework of Middle-earth, so also is the reader invited to read The Lord of the Rings from within this same framework. Tolkien wanted to his story to be read from inside Middle-earth as an artifact of history. This study will propose that—by simulating the kinds of phenomena around which a modern compiler of medieval manuscripts and stories has to work: fragmented manuscripts, lacunae, dittography, palimpsests, and variable texts—Tolkien has successfully distressed his story in such a way that it has gained the atmosphere of an ageing legend. The argument of this thesis is that Tolkien’s imitation of classical and medieval manuscript realities is even ambitious enough to suggest that Tolkien’s narrative persona has culled his story from the manuscripts of at least three major literary traditions, each of which is distinct in its interests, concerns, iconographies, historiographies, and themes. In addition to revealing where and how Tolkien has distressed his narrative, this study will also seek to identify what portions of the narrative belong to which of the three major traditions and tease out the implications of the interactions between them. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / English / DLitt / Unrestricted

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