The histories of the Theater and of the Novel have rarely been linked to one another. Nevertheless, studying the evolution of the two arts as of the seventeenth century, allows us to pinpoint and define the sources of contamination. It is more precisely in the nineteenth century that the history of both the Theater and the Novel became envenomed, going from fresh influences to disloyal relations during which time the Theater faded by admitting romanesque realism to take the stage. By denying its capacity to reveal the "real", the Theater failed its possibilities and let its art be disinterested from the theatricality showing all that should have been evoked. Men of theater participated at recapturing the theatrical art so to regain confidence on stage and near 1950, an avant-garde movement flourished to favor a renewal of vitality for the theater with a new language which utilizes all of what the scene could provoke. This "New Theater" is soon followed by a similar romanesque enterprise, the "New Novel", a group of novelists also wishing to acknowledge the right to explore a new style of writing.

During the seventies, a new discourse on language emerged and built up in Quebec. While the "querelle du joual" was almost finished, feminists became more and more aware of their so-called "mother tongue"'s inherent sexism. Believing in determinist linguistic theories, the vast majority of them came to the conclusion that language was a symbolic system that rejected women and women's experience. / While some American feminists were proposing an important reform of the language, in Quebec, a few women writers incorporated their preoccupations with language in their literary texts. These women dedicated themselves to intensive textual researches, with the intention of creating a new "women's language" that would override the patriarchal law ruling the symbolic order. The different works studied in this thesis have been chosen between those of the women most representative of feminist metalinguistic discourse in Quebec: L'Euguelionne (1976), by Louky Bersianik, L'Amer ou le chapitre effrite (1977), by Nicole Brossard, Une voix pour Odile (1978) by France Theoret and Lueur: roman archeologique (1979) by Madeleine Gagnon. / The analysis of these texts will particularly be focused on the tensions building between discursive and formal aspects of each work. We'll see if and how the metalinguistic discourse, which we can find in the texts themselves and in more theoretic articles, is manifesting itself by a radical manipulation of the language at a formal level. The variety of ways some women writers of Quebec tried to inscribe feminine experience in language can be shown as a proof of the extreme difficulty of these textual practices, which elaborate themselves through what they are desperately trying to overcome.

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Library Services (KZNPLS) is attempting to address the reading needs of black adult users neglected during the apartheid era. The provision of popular adult English fiction, which consumes a considerable portion of the KZNPLS book budget, has catered for the recreational reading tastes of a small, educated, predominantly white group. This study explores whether popular adult English fiction has a role to play in the reading needs of black adult users in libraries affiliated to KZNPLS. An exploratory survey using the semi-structured interview was conducted in black libraries affiliated to KZNPLS to investigate whether there was an interest in popular English fiction and whether it was assisting readers to develop English language reading skills. The findings of the survey suggested that needs were very broad. However, basic literacy material was the most needed, and popular English fiction was playing a significant role in improving English language reading skills and fluency. The study suggests that if transformation and development is to take place in South Africa, the country's inhabitants must cultivate the critical thinking skills necessary for full utilisation of information technology. The oral tradition is not sufficient for South Africa's information needs but should be incorporated into a synergic union with global information systems. Reading has an established role to play in the development of critical thinking skills but South Africa lacks a strong reading culture. The fostering of English-language reading ability is appropriate as English is the lingua franca of South Africa and the foremost language of technology. The structure of much popular English fiction has transcultural appeal due to its use of archetypal formulas. Popular English fiction provides reading motivation but has a controversial history due to elitist condemnations of its literary quality. To overcome the debate of whether libraries should prefer literary merit or popularity in their fiction collections, it is recommended that diversity be the touchstone and that readers be given full opportunity to indulge in the free voluntary reading that provides fertile ground for the cultivation of critical thinking skills. / Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

This study uses concepts from network science to analyze the agency of outsider characters who cause change or disruption without necessarily securing economic or political power for themselves. Network science as theorized by thinkers like Duncan Watts (Six Degrees, 2003) and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (Linked, 2002) explains social networks in terms of social structures: clusters of people, bridges between them, pathways through them. Michel Foucault (The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1971) suggests that new notions must enter public or personal awareness on "surfaces of emergence"—institutions like families and social groups. Michel de Certeau (The Practice of Everyday Life, 1974) looks at inventive ways that users repurpose products, both industrial and cultural, and so become "secondary producers." To analyze the influential-outsider agency of the fictional characters featured in this study, I theorize the clusters, bridges, and pathways of network science as surfaces of emergence on which "secondary productions" can appear and then spread through a social network.The introductory chapter explores and explains the general application of network science to literary criticism. In subsequent chapters, I use a networks-based approach to examine the agency of William Dean Howells's Tom Corey (The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1884), F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby, 1925), Joseph Heller's Milo Minderbinder (Catch-22, 1961), Thomas Pynchon's Pierce Inverarity (The Crying of Lot 49, 1965), and William Gibson's Cayce Pollard (Pattern Recognition, 2003). These characters do unusual things with and from the subject positions in which they find themselves, and—whether or not they are or remain marginalized characters in their social systems—they are innovative and influential in ways that other characters do not understand or anticipate. All five novels depict the diffusion of innovative ideas and practices as a process of unplanned, non-coercive social negotiation, where innovation can originate with any person or group of people in the social network and is dependent on the complex interaction of liminal notions and mainstream thinking. The networking approach to these novels clarifies the ways that their authors have imagined social networks to function and the particular interactions they have imagined to lead to change or disruption. / Department of English

Novel:

楊彩杰. / "2008年9月". / "2008 nian 9 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-102). / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Yang Caijie. / Chapter 第一章 --- 緒論 / Chapter 第一節 --- 硏究目的 --- p.1 / Chapter 第二節 --- 硏究方法 --- p.3 / Chapter 第三節 --- 前人硏究槪況 --- p.10 / Chapter 第二章 --- 「小說實驗」釋義´ؤ´ؤ香港五、六十年代小說實驗的參照 / Chapter 第一節 --- 文學雜誌對時代的詮釋 --- p.16 / Chapter 第二節 --- _「政治」´ؤ´ؤ香港五、六十年代「政治介入文學」的文學景觀 --- p.21 / Chapter 第三節 --- 「五四」´ؤ´ؤ早期香港文學接受「五四」小說的範式 --- p.26 / Chapter 第四節 --- 「大眾文化」´ؤ´ؤ香港五、六十年代的通俗小說 --- p.29 / Chapter 第五節 --- 小結 --- p.32 / Chapter 第三章 --- 香港五、六十年代小說實驗的敘述形式 / Chapter 第一節 --- 香港五、六十年代文學雜誌所載文章表現的敘述觀念 --- p.34 / Chapter 第二節 --- 時間意識的改變 --- p.40 / Chapter 2.1 --- 時間中的空間 / Chapter 2.2 --- 意識流技巧 / Chapter 第三節 --- 共時性的敘述結構 --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1 --- 「一天之內」的共時性結構 / Chapter 3.2 --- 多角度敘述的共時性結構 / Chapter 第四節 --- 小說敘述與現實經驗的關係 --- p.58 / Chapter 4.1 --- 人物與場景的邏輯關係 / Chapter 4.2 --- 後設敘述 / Chapter 第五節 --- 小結 / Chapter 5.1 --- 「敘述權威」 --- p.65 / Chapter 5.2 --- 「現代主義思潮」的再思 --- p.67 / Chapter 第四章 --- 另一個硏究面向´ؤ´ؤ香港五、六十年代小說的內容實驗 / Chapter 第一節 --- 香港五、六十年代文學雜誌所載作品表現的政治意識形態 --- p.69 / Chapter 1.1 --- 右翼文學 / Chapter 1.2 --- 左翼文學 / Chapter 第二節 --- 拆解政治論述的合法性 --- p.75 / Chapter 2.1 --- 政治寓言 / Chapter 2.2 --- 內心獨白的宣言 / Chapter 2.3 --- 「對革命的革命」 / Chapter 第三節 --- 淡化政治色彩 --- p.82 / Chapter 3.1 --- 大時代下的小人物 / Chapter 3.2 --- 私人領域的政治 / Chapter 3.3 --- 紅白以外的本土關懷 / Chapter 第四節 --- 女體與戰爭 --- p.86 / Chapter 4.1 --- 女體與屍體 / Chapter 4.2 --- 女體´ؤ´ؤ另一個自我的投射 / Chapter 第五節 --- 小結 --- p.90 / Chapter 第五章 --- 總結´ؤ´ؤ港五、六十年代小說實驗的意義探析 / Chapter 第一節 --- 從「五四傳統」到「現代實驗性」 --- p.92 / Chapter 第二節 --- 在地視野 --- p.95 / 參考書目 --- p.98 / 附錄:文學雜誌作品簡表 --- p.103

This thesis argues that Patrick White’s Voss, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life depict landscape in a manner that reveals the inadequacies of imperial epistemological discourses and the rationalist model of subjectivity which enables them. The study demonstrates that these novels all emphasise the instabilities inherent in imperial epistemology. White, Ondaatje and Malouf chart their protagonists’ inability to comprehend and document the landscapes they encounter, and the ways in which this failure calls into question their subjectivity and the epistemologies that underpin it. One of the principal contentions of the study, then, is that the novels under consideration deploy a postmodern aesthetic of the sublime to undermine colonial discourses. The first chapter of the thesis outlines the postcolonial and poststructural theory that informs the readings in the later chapters. Chapter Two analyses White’s representation of subjectivity, imperial discourse and the Outback in Voss. The third chapter examines Ondaatje’s depiction of the Sahara Desert in The English Patient, and focuses on his concern with the ways in which language and cartographic discourse influence the subject’s perception of the natural world. Chapter Four investigates the representation of landscape, language and subjectivity in Malouf’s An Imaginary Life. Finally, then, this study argues that literature’s unique ability to acknowledge alterity enables it to serve as an effective tool for critiquing colonial discourses.

This dissertation studies certain similarities between some early Bildungsroman of D. H. Lawrence and André Gide. In Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow, and Gide's L'lmmoraliste and La Porte étroite, the authors explore the destructive effects of cultural "Icons", narrowly codified gender roles, upon sensitive young European women at the turn of the century. Through an intricate subtext of allusive imagery, postures, language, and "mythical" patterns, Lawrence and Gide imply that a patristic Christianity had somehow enlisted certain strains of Romance to fashion a pervasive cultural code that encouraged young women to be virginal, passive, and receptive to suffering. The young female protagonists look to their roles as Madonna, Maiden, and Martyr as an escape from a provincial world that offers little to their "over brimming" souls. Ironically, it is their Knight-Christs, the "mentors" who propose to teach them about the higher world, who imprison them further. Pretending to elevate them to the status of Spiritual Muse to inspire the male quest for selfhood, the lovers demand of their Madonna-Maidens a passivity whereby suffering is their only "heroic" act. Male-sculpted models of femininity, then, make it impossible for young women to pursue their own quests for the authentic "self". The final tragedy for the young women comes when their opposite numbers awaken from Romance's pregenital spring to what Lawrence calls "blood-consciousness". The Maidens' Knight-Christs now find restrictive their spiritual lovers and desire instead the initiation into the "flesh" preached by a new cultural code, that of Nietzsche et al. Lawrence's and Gide's young female characters, then, serve as exemplars of an entire generation of young women destroyed in this teleological shift to a new cultural ethos, one in which, suddenly, their "virtues" are judged vices, all they had been presented to them as "natural" is deemed "unnatural".

The aristocratic novel in the twentieth century depicts the successes and failures of the aristocracy's efforts to come to terms with the social realities brought about by contemporary egalitarianism. Although several of the novels discussed are written by aristocrats, the aristocratic novel as such refers to novels about the aristocracy as a social grouping. Seven authors are selected to represent fictional treatment of a class in crisis, struggling between decadence and resilience: V. Sackville-West, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, L.P. Hartley and Emma Tennant. Sackville-West faces and chronicles the inevitable decay of her class, yet cannot refrain from mourning its gracious past. To her, the manor house symbolizes an ancient idyllic symbiosis between aristocrat and worker. To Evelyn Waugh, the aristocracy embodies the finest achievements of inherited English culture. He regards its decline as the crumbling of Christian civilization itself. Resilience against the rising proletariate lies in faith and a chivalrous other-worldliness associated with the old Catholic aristocracy. Mitford uses comedy to defend the ideals of service and honour which she sees undermined by vulgarity and mercantilism. She resists her opponents with lethal swipes of raillery. Bowen and Keane deal with the decline of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. The heirs of the ascendancy have to cope with the paralysing bequest of a more vital past. Ironically, resilience lies in breaking with their heritage. Hartley appears to criticize the class structure, but his work reveals a fascination for the captivating myth of patrician life. Tennant, representing an aristocracy which has profited from the resurgence of wealth in Thatcherite Britain, is unsparingly caustic on the condition of her class. Her satiric writing presents an ethical resurgence that goes beyond the mere financial recovery of her society. The genre examined suggests a primal need among urbanized citizens for the myth of an heroic order. In the finest aristocratic novels, admiration for an imitable superior order is used to rally a consciousness of a venerable ethical establishment. What is threatened or lost is not merely wealth and privilege, but aristokratos - government by the best. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-13T12:10:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-02-04. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2015-07-13T12:25:25Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000834023.pdf: 702167 bytes, checksum: d6bef4a4cc2d9e7e447d70baed312e2f (MD5) / Álvaro Lins (1912-1970) por meio de sua crítica-jornalística, desenvolveu um trabalho em que, num primeiro momento, se restringiu mais à biografia e à psicologia dos escritores. Mais tarde, ele procura se libertar da tendência de teor impressionista, passando a adotar um caráter científico para a crítica literária. Desse modo, almeja-se nesse trabalho abordá-lo enquanto leitor de Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953); para tanto, tem-se com fulcro de análise os três ensaios escritos sobre ficção do escritor alagoano que estão compilados no posfácio de Vidas Secas (Valores e Misérias das Vidas Secas): I - Graciliano Ramos em termos de construção do romance e arte do estilo; II - As memórias do romancista explicam a natureza e a espécie dos seus romances; III - Romances, novelas e contos: visão em bloco de uma obra de ficcionista. Intenta-se assim estabelecer um breve delineamento dos procedimentos temáticos e formais evocados pelo crítico pernambucano sobre a prosa do romancista brasileiro, além de levar em conta que ele foi um dos pioneiros na sua recepção, acompanhado seu percurso, de modo que contribuiu para a sua consagração em nossas letras / Álvaro Lins (1912-1970) through his critical-journalistic, developed a work that, in the first moment, was restricted more to the biography and psychology of writers. Later, he tries to break free of Impressionism content trend, adopting a scientific character for book review. Thus, we aim in this work approach it as reader of Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953); to this end, has been with analysis fulcrum three written tests on about fiction of Brazilian writer that are compiled in the afterword of Barren Lives (Values and Miseries of Barren Lives): I - Graciliano Ramos in terms of construction of the novel and style art; II - Memories of the novelist explain the nature and kind of his novels; III - Novels, novellas and short stories: vision block of a work of fiction writer. Thus intends to establish a brief outline of the thematic and formal procedures referred by Brazilian reviewer about the prose of the Brazilian novelist, and take into account that he was a pioneer in its reception, accompanied your route so that contributed to their consecration in our literature