One of the fundamental stories in fairy tale studies is "Cinderella": folkloric designation ATU 510A, the Persecuted Heroine. As Fairy tale and Folklore studies continue to evolve, authors beyond Basile, Perrault and Grimm are added into the Cinderella canon to lend a more nuanced approach to the study of this fairy tale. Yet "Cinderella" is still often interpreted as a tale of feminine submissiveness, in which the heroine is little more than a passive ornament or else a likeable social-climber. These interpretations stem largely from the focus of "Cinderella" stories written by men. Though studies of "Cinderella" are expanding, "Cendrillon", "Aschenputtel", and Walt Disney's Cinderella remain the foundational tales that are thought of when "Cinderella" is mentioned. This research addresses the problem that female writers of "Cinderella" remain marginalized within analyses of the tale. This research considers five versions of "Cinderella" from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, from women authors, mediated in five different formats: literary fairy tale, novel, short story, and poetry. Mme D'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" and Mlle L'Héritier's "L'Adroite Princesse ou les Aventures de Finette," protofeminist literary fairy tales from seventeenth-century France, present Cinderellas who hail from the birth of the modern fairy tale but show personalities that most do not associate with the princess. D'Aulnoy and L'Héritier's Finettes are dutiful to their family and kingdom, but aggressively pursue their ambitions and secure for themselves both high-status as well as fulfilling futures. Jane Austen's eighteenth-century novel Persuasion brings a sharp contrast to traditional views of the fairy helper. Louisa May Alcott's "A Modern Cinderella: or, The Little Old Shoe" is an American Romantic short story originally published in a little magazine which paints a different perspective on the desires of a nineteenth-century Anglo-women in a Prince. Austen's and Alcott's stories give voice to how they perceive the place women are given in the world and their hostility to the patriarchal structures of their society allude to the rise of 'Defense of Women' literature during their period. Austen and Alcott highlight the restrictions that women face, but do not resign women to the fate of subjugation; instead they insist that women should decide their own fate and never settle for less than they are owed. "…And Then the Prince Knelt Down and Tried to Put the Glass Slipper on Cinderella's Foot," a poem by Judith Viorst from the 1980s, challenges the traditional expectations of the Cinderella cycle. At the sunset of the twentieth century, the poem challenges the typical Cinderella motifs and recursive narrative devices with a second-wave feminist perspective on women's perceptions of their ideas on romantic love and self-love and offers a Cinderella who speaks with her own voice. This research looks at women's culture using the lens of socio-cultural and historical approaches, feminist theory, and global studies to provide insight into each tale. Women authors use the Cinderella tale-type to express the idealized woman, reject literary stereotypes about women, and reveal women's attitude toward love and marriage in their respective cultures. Women who add to the Cinderella cycle use the heroine of their story to assert that women are capable of managing their own affairs and determining their future. Cinderella is adapted to present the image of a woman who successfully navigates her society to seize a fulfilling future. The concept of a 'fulfilling future' is one that begins in magnanimity and evolves into Cinderellas who expect 'princes' to show caring natures or who reject princes who do not meet their expectations. Feminine identity is embodied through retellings of Cinderella in relation to her sisters, her Fairy, her Prince and women's attitudes about their social identity and voice. By considering these previously overlooked contributors to the Cinderella narrative, this research provides different perspectives into women's perceptions of power, autonomy, and love and asks important questions about how women use "Cinderella" to claim their voice.

The esteemed French author, Marcel Proust, revolutionized the way that literature fuses with visual art. Through the detail of his novella Un Amour de Swann, Proust creates a world in which the idolatry of a painting destines one man to a life void of fulfillment in love. This thesis explores the intrinsic connection of painting and literature to love through Proust’s treatment of the Botticelli fresco, Les Épreuves de Moïse, and the carefully crafted lesson that Proust teaches to integrate art into the fabric of life. Proust’s advice reaches far beyond the constraints of his own words, and through an analysis of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, Proustian guidance is brought to a universal scale. For Proust, art truly was a way of life, this thesis seeks to embody just that.

The Marquis de Sade has a notorious reputation amongst academics as a continuous figure of fictional and cultural studies. His characters, stories, and writings carry weight in modern interpretations of gender dynamics, pornographic aesthetics, and the alternative fantastical. This thesis will explore the Marquis de Sade’s most famous characters, Justine and Juliette, as means to define the Marquis’ significance to 21st Century Western culture production, particularly in Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. Exploring the female protagonists (or main characters) of the separate works, the correlations of subjugation, constructed morality, and the constructs of femininity become important markers for understanding the Marquis’ dissemination of his philosophies on gender, violence, and indulgent sexuality that leads to conversations on pornographic aesthetics in our modern period. Despite being dead for nearly 200 years, the Marquis de Sade’s relevance parades on in ideologies regarding female identity and sexual desires of the extreme.

Many critics have discovered striking similarities between Samuel Johnson's Rasselas and Voltaire's Candide. Yet, most have failed to describe the links that exist between the works which indicate that similar forces may have spurred the authors to write so similar tales, one quickly following the other into publication. Source studies of the two tales indicate that very little, if any, evidence is available to prove that the works were inspired by the same written sources that Johnson and Voltaire may have relied upon. While source studies of the tales do not reveal any shocking information, they do inform the reader that both men used great effort in writing their tales. Nevertheless, the similarities of Rasselas and Candide are so great that one must turn elsewhere to find explanations. One possible explanation is that both men vehemently hated the popular philosophy of their day, a philosophy advocated by Gottfried von Liebniz under the name of optimism. This philosophy and the concept of the Chain of Being play an important role in the two works since each tale ridicules the ideas. Eighteenth -century optimism allows for no hope. Rasselas and Candide try to answer this dilemma the philosophy proposes. The joint attack on optimism and the Chain of Being cannot be the only reason that the two tales are similar. By examining certain aspects of each man's life, one finds that contrary to popular belief Johnson and Voltaire shared many resemblances. Both were very bright as children, as they were as adults. Both writers had powerful emotions and a strong sexuality. Both were gentle and caring people. These human characteristics can be seen in their works, helping explain some of the mystery surrounding the novels' similarities.

Les deux premiers romans de Virginie Despentes, Baise-moi (1995) et les Chiennes Savantes (1996), attestent de la mutation socio-culturelle qui affecte la societe contemporaine. Son style insolent, son langage corrosif et volontairement Prosaïque confirme et signe I 'évolution dans le monde occidental des valeurs, des désirs et aspirations de 1'homme, et plus crucialement de la femme des années 90. Plus qu'une révolution des moeurs, on assiste dans ses deux premières oeuvres á une véritable mutation culturelle qui bouleverse les rôles et modéles traditionnels des individus dans la société. Ce bouleversement qui s'exprime dans la vie banale, mais définitivement violente de ses personnages féminins remet en cause leur identité et questionne la nature mȇme de l'homme et de la femme. Les personnages que Virginie Despentes façonne d'une part, et l'espace dans lequel l'auteur choisit de les faire évoluer, d'autre part, représentent les consequences de ces bouleversements et traduisent le désaroi auquel la femme doit maintenant faire face devant les donnees nouvelles de la société. Dans une première partie, à travers les deux romans de l'auteur, nous nous efforcerons d'examiner et d'analyser le statut de la femme dans l'espace urbain contemporain lyonnais, en portant une attention particulière à la dichotomie spatiale qui s'exerce entre deux espaces à la fois socialement juxtaposés et geographiquement confondus: Lyon, communauté urbaine, et le "village" de la Croix Rousse, avec sa proper idiosyncrasie, ses coutumes, et la population fondamentalement hétéroclite, endémique à cette enclave dans la cité européenne. Dans une seconde partie, nous nous détournerons de cette perspective quasi sociologique pour aborder la dimension psychanalytique du langage tel qu'il se déploie dans la prose singulièrement provocante de Virginie Despentes. Nous nous interesserons dans cette partie à la symbolique du corps, de l'image et l'identité féminine. La troisième partie s'efforcera d'examiner les consequénces et répercussions de ces bouleversements dans la vision et conception idéologique de la “femme d'aujourd'hui”, selon la formule consacree des journaux dits “féminins.”

For English-language audiences, twentieth-century French literature is often identified with a variety of literary movements tied to the political left. In spite of its lesser visibility, the French literary right enjoyed considerable prestige during the first half of the twentieth century. This thesis employs methodologies from translation studies in order to study how the French literary right has been translated, or not translated, into English. Case studies devoted to three seminal writers of the right, including Charles Maurras (1868-1952), Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893-1945), and Roger Nimier (1925-62), demonstrate that right-wing committed literature was a central mode of literary production from the 1910s to the 1950s and that this current of writing is underrepresented in English-language translation and scholarship. A number of literary and cultural asymmetries separating English-language literature from French literature have contributed to this situation, such as the phenomenon of literary engagement in French literature and France’s strong anti-liberal intellectual tradition. Using systems theory this thesis argues that these differences between the French and Anglophone literary systems have contributed to the lack of representation accorded to the French literary right, which is manifested in the selection, presentation, and translation of texts by right-wing authors such as Maurras, Drieu, and Nimier. When translations of texts by these authors do exist, a number of translation patterns emerge. These patterns and distortions have ramifications for the construction of literary canon and for our understanding of twentieth-century literary history and the role ideology plays in influencing high- and low-level translation decisions.

While we can easily acknowledge that many aspects the texts written by Chrétien de Troyes have been studied and discussed through the centuries, it is always possible to apply a new reading to the author's work. Like many authors of the same time period, the author of Le Conte du graal and LeChevalier de la charrette was not only writing for the audience of his time but was also openly targeting an audience set in a different century and social context. This timeless aspect of Chrétien's work is part of what makes his texts intricate and still relevant to this day. It also allows us to understand the impact they had by the time they were written as well as the long lasting interest that has been keeping them current throughout eight centuries. While the courteous aspect of these texts seems to be mostly relevant to the audience of a certain time period it is possible for us to conduct a psychoanalytical reading of Chrétien's work in order to appreciate the long- lasting qualities of these tales almost eight hundred years later. By using the drive theory established by Freud along with the work of Lacan based on search for the I, studies which were both established during the twentieth century, we will analyze the untold motivations of the quest and define the relationship between the knight and his physical and inner journey. In this study we will consistently question these motivations. In order to understand them we will first discuss the implications of the quest in a set medieval context which will then lead us to look at this behavior outside of this timeframe in order to focus on the psychological elements of these texts.

This study examines how the female circus artist is represented in twelve pieces of French literature ranging from the late nineteenth century to the modern day. The books are divided into three categories by author type: first, authors without a circus background; second, male authors involved in the circus world; and third, women involved in the circus world. Although predicted that the first section would reveal the largest use of stereotypes and misogyny, the second would show the sexist expectations of the circassienne onstage and off, and the third would call out these stereotypes and suggest improvements, there was less variety found than expected. Only two authors—one from each of the first two categories—used circassienne stereotypes in an extremely negative manner, authors who were unfamiliar with circus but did research as well as the majority of the male authors familiar with circus bluntly stated some of the bias but did not offer solutions, and the majority of the female circus artist authors also stated the bias they faced but were limited in their opportunities to challenge stereotypes. Eleven of the books focus on artists from traditional circus, and only Circassienne looks at contemporary circus. Whereas there is a variety of literature about the contemporary circus scene in Quebec, Circassienne was the only book found to be written by a French circassienne that deals with normalizing the life of a circus artist in who lives in a house, sends their children to school, and creates pieces designed to expose children to contemporary circus as well as pieces with calls for activism. Overall, it was found that the situation for the female circus artist in traditional circus in France has not greatly changed in the past century. She is still expected to be feminine, to wear revealing costumes, and to flirt with the audience, often serving as the “female element” in an otherwise male-dominated group of performers. Reducing sexism in circus and the fight for gender equality remain part of the agenda of circus going forward, and progress is being seen faster in contemporary circus than in its traditional counterpart.

Cette thèse porte sur la valeur philosophique des représentations de la science et de la mythologie dans la science-fiction postmoderne, selon une étude du cycle du Pont d’Élisabeth Vonarburg. L’ensemble des mondes possibles présentés à travers ces œuvres se prête à une lecture épistémologique. Ces mondes, dépourvus de lien significateur avec une réalité sous-entendue, sont autosuffisants ; l’abord de ce type de texte pose ainsi un défi à la connaissance. La codification des œuvres de Vonarburg s’érige selon la constitution d’une <em>xéno</em>encyclopédie. La xénoencyclopédie s’exprime surtout à travers des métaphores, qui occupent par la représentation figurée une fonction épistémologique. Le tout s’assemble en structure cohérente par moyen d’un processus cognitif de projection cartographique effectué par le lecteur. Dans les œuvres du cycle du Pont, la science et la mythologie sont décortiquées pour révéler leurs imprécisions inhérentes. Ces systèmes sont tous les deux enracinés dans le langage, ce qui entraîne une représentation fragmentée et incomplète de la réalité qu’ils veulent figurer. Les représentations de la science et la mythologie, suscitent une investigation empirique qui tente d’élucider leur capacité de soutenir l’apprentissage. L’exposition des contraintes représentatives propres à la science et à la mythologie se manifeste à travers la juxtaposition et la superposition des mondes du cycle du Pont. Nous soulèverons une question finale : des limitations des systèmes de codification, découle-t-il un épuisement potentiel de l’imaginaire ? Pour y répondre, nous invoquerons l’apport de la métafiction, qui relève de l’interaction du lecteur avec le récit. / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis examines the potential of the graphic novel as a site for rethinking identity from a postcolonial perspective. I begin with an in-depth analysis of comic theory and breakdown the elements that distinguish the graphic novel from other literary genres. In addition, I highlight the importance of narration in the graphic novel, thus setting a framework for how to analyze the interplay between text and image as it relates to the narrative and vice versa. I use this framework to investigate how notions of masculinity, memory, and historical references are employed in the Brazilian graphic novel, Dois Irmãos, and the French graphic novel, l’Arabe du Futur, thus highlighting postcolonial concepts of identity formation illuminated in the narratives of young Arab boys narratives of their fathers.