No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>The thesis attempts to explore and analyze the characteristics of the writing of death in Cioran' s texts. Living in France smce 1937, the Romanian-born French writer E.M.Cioran has established a significant position for himself in contemporary French literature. He has been considered one of the greatest French stylists while his contribution to the development of the contemporary essay has o~en been compared to Beckett's contribution to the renewal of the theater in postwar France. The first part of the study is an inquiry into the sense of death that oriented Cioran' s aphoristic writings from beginning to end. I try to describe the crisis of metaphysics and language that influenced Cioran' s -writing, as well as the possible links between his essays and a particular Romanian feeling for death. On the other hand, I also connect Cioran' s writings with the sense of death that characterizes contemporary examinations of discourse in the period after 1960, in France. In the second part of the thesis I attempt to formulate a typological description and analysis of Cioran' s essential modes of expression, the essay and the aphorism. My intention is to examine the feeling of death as a generator of style through an analysis of Cioran' s fundamental texts. The thesis ultimately suggests that in Emil Cioran's work, the feeling of death represents a direct challenge to the legitimacy of literature. Is Cioran a great metaphysician of death? Or is his writing in revolt against the sterile rationalism of the metaphysical revolution that followed the Enlightenment? Should we, then, reconsider his thought and style as a post-modernist expression of the feeling of the end? The present study does not claim to answer these questions, but merely to suggest a few paths that could lead to a better understanding of the writing of an important contemporary French writer.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Voltaire began his career in literature by writing for the theater. One of his plays, The Orphan of China, was an adaptation of a Chinese play, The Orphan of the Mansion Tchao. Many critics contend that in this play Voltaire is: 1. Propagating the spirit of the Enlightenment to the Europeans via his representation of the Chinese; 2. Refuting Rousseau because he condemns civilization as the source of men's suffering and pain; and 3. Lacking in understanding of Chinese history during the Mongolian invasion. This thesis will argue that critics have not examined the essential philosophical theory in The Orphan of China because they have overlooked the significance of sacrificial and judicial systems (in Europe and, more importantly, in China) in the play. In the first chapter, I will demonstrate Voltaire's theory of civilization by contrasting The Orphan of China with Rousseau's essays: Discourse on Arts and Science and On the Origin of Inequality. The succeeding chapters will illustrate Voltaire's ideal society which is supported by judicial system.

This dissertation examines the representation of aesthetic objects in contemporary Francophone literature and cinema, with special attention to Francophone African countries, particularly Senegal and Mauritius, and their diasporas. I focus on a range of objects, such as photos, the camera, paintings, personal accessories, and the body, which, I argue, function as a metaphor for the creative process. These ‘objects’ have a deep link with the character’s inner life and enable a process of healing and remembering. Chapter 1 explores the representations of the female body in Ananda Devi, Magali Marson, and Isabelle Boni-Claverie, and how it becomes an artistic ‘map’ where characters renegotiate their sexuality, thus renewing notions of gender, pleasure and power dynamics. In chapter 2, drawing on the metaphor of the body as a creative space, I investigate the problematics of belonging, gaze and characters’ relation to the Other in the films The Cathedral (2006) by Harrikrishna Ananden and Tey (2016) by Alain Gomis, and in the novel Infrarouge (2010) by Nancy Huston. Chapter 3 explores what Walter Benjamin defined as ‘historical objects,’ respectively in Moufida Tlatli’s La saison des hommes (2001), Amatal Sewothul’s Made in Mauritius (2012) and Khaled Osman’s La colombe et le moineau (2016), which revisit concepts of History, national identities and gender dynamics. My last and forth chapter analyzes the representation of dead, fragmented and unidentified bodies-objects as a metaphor and a medium for representing migration crisis in contemporary Francophone and Italian novels and visual texts, such as Les Irréguliers (2016) by Patrick Autréaux, Ceux du large (2018) by Ananda Devi, Terraferma (2011) by Emanuele Crialese, Les fantômes de la mer (2016) by Bruce Clarke and The mapping journey project (2011) by Bouchra Khalili, among others. Revisiting the notion of the object itself, which becomes both a subject and content of the artistic process in the texts analyzed, my dissertation explores anew the representations of bodies, memories, displacements and borders, be they geographical, social or textual. My conclusion reflects on the aesthetic process that these objects generate as materializations of memories, identities, and H/histories.

missing page 9 in original document

No description available.

Thesis (MA (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Résumé La littérature de jeunesse est continuellement considérée comme un outil pédagogique indispensable, un moyen efficace pour éduquer les jeunes. Cependant, un roman de jeunesse ne peut pas atteindre son objectif d’enrichir les jeunes lecteurs s’ils ne s’amusent pas en le lisant. Il est donc essentiel que les auteurs de jeunesse créent des textes qui plaisent en premier lieu aux lecteurs, des textes qui captent leur intérêt. Si les lecteurs ne sont pas capables de s’identifier entièrement aux thèmes qu’un auteur aborde, son langage ou les personnages qu’il met en scène dans son histoire, le texte ne retiendra pas leur intérêt et l’auteur ne parviendra pas à les enrichir. Cette étude se concentre sur les romans pour jeunesse de Marie Desplechin afin de déterminer dans quelle mesure les petits héros ordinaires dans ses romans peuvent encourager et aider les lecteurs préadolescents (âgés de sept à quinze ans) à se construire d’une façon progressive. Opsomming Kinder- en jeugliteratuur word gereeld as `n ideale opvoedkundige medium beskou aangesien dit gebruik kan word om die jeug aan die wêreld en al sy fasette bloot te stel. `n Outeur kan egter slegs daarin slaag om `n boodskap aan die jong lesers te kommunikeer indien die leesproses `n genotvolle ervaring is en indien die jong lesers met die karakters, die temas en die taalgebruik in `n roman kan identifiseer. Hierdie studie fokus op Marie Desplechin se kinder- en jeugromans om te bepaal in watter mate die doodgewone kinders in haar stories preadolessente lesers (tussen die ouderdom van sewe tot vyftien jaar) kan aanmoedig om die struikelblokke in hulle bestaan deur middel van selfkennis en selfkritiek te oorkom en hulle lewenskwaliteit sodoende te verbeter.