The thesis examines how the American novelist William Gaddis replenishes the tradition of the novel by way of a parodic subversion of its enabling assumptions. In the face of the subject's on-going marginalization, mimetic narrative appears as an "exhausted" literary form. JR (1975) directs the reader's attention to the complexity of language. In that sense, the novel problematizes the conditions for the existence of meaning in fiction. By means of narrative dissemination, Gaddis points to those anarchic energies in oral speech, which thwart efforts to instrumentalize language. Human beings in JR do not possess a recognizable personality, they are metonymic functions of cultural discourses. Deprived of their origins, they have to cope with an orphaned existence. The author also suspends his controlling functions and becomes a narrative stumbling block through disconcerting intrusions. Thus the text is constituted from the diversity of linguistic material in popular culture.

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Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2009. / Thesis advisor: Jay Bergman. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69). Also available via the World Wide Web.

A major issue in William Gaddis' novels, The Recognitions and JR, is the problematic role of art and the artist. The thesis traces this theme to certain classic and romantic ideas about art in the nineteenth-century American romance, as well as to the literary theories of such modernists as T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, and to the theories of such disparate writers as, among others, the New Critics and Alain Robbe-Grillet. The ideas and structure of Gaddis' novels are located and discussed in relation to this context. Like many contemporary novelists, Gaddis transposes his themes into the reflexive structures of his works. His development of self-referring form culminates in JR, a novel in which language is itself the structural and thematic focus. This thesis shows that, although Gaddis' novels demonstrate the modernist tenet that art vindicates life, they are also powerful satires which express the writer's concern for the social relevance of art.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1996. / Bibliography: leaves [85]-98. Also available online.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1993. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 269-275). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

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La pensée provenant du monde scientifique et celle représentée dans le cadre narratif du roman sont toutes deux issues d'une même volonté de révéler les objets de ces pensées, même si leur articulation est indubitablement différente. La science utilise le langage pour décrire le monde et aspire à des avancées techniques, alors que le langage du roman est l'expression d'une expérience. Les trois romans de notre étude intègrent certains aspects de la pensée scientifique et permettent ainsi de rendre compte des chassés-croisés entre la science et le littéraire. L'étude propose de faire état de l'appréhension du monde représentée dans Carpenter 's Gothic de William Gaddis, Roger 's Version de John Updike et Cat's Cradle de Kurt Vonnegut; à ce titre, nous serons en mesure de mettre en lumière les incidences de la pensée scientifique, épistémologique et philosophique dans ces romans. Nous articulerons comment les tensions entre les deux disciplines sont intimement liées aux processus langagiers dans ces fictions. Une réflexion sur la nature des savoirs et de la vérité est également au coeur de la dynamique de ces romans. L'imaginaire de la science permet d'anticiper un questionnement sur le rapport au monde de l'homme contemporain. Le présent mémoire tente globalement, en analysant comment la pensée scientifique se manifeste dans l'espace des romans, d'exposer comment les différents discours sur la science dans ces fictions caractérisent une pensée trouble essayant de faire sens d'un monde complexe et contradictoire. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : William Gaddis, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Littérature, Science, Société, Culture.

O romance The Recognitions (Os Reconhecimentos) do escritor norte-americano William Gaddis é um texto auto—reflexivo que retrata a trajetória de Wyatt Gwyon da infância à maturidade, na medida em que ele rejeita e busca a originalidade. O presente trabalho analisa The Recognitions enfocando a problematização dos conceitos de originalidade e autoria propostos pelo romance através de debates sobre a falsificação e o plágio, que remetem a duas noções maiores e mais importantes: autoria e originalidade. O romance questiona a presente demanda por originalidade e discute a possibilidade de ser original. Ele formula uma estética baseada em reconhecimentos que é defendida no romance e usada pelo autor na tessitura do texto. A fim de atingir seus objetivos, este trabalho apresenta os diferentes conceitos associados aos termos originalidade e original, assim como alguns das principais violações relacionadas a eles na sociedade contemporânea. Também oferece um histórico do desenvolvimento dos conceitos de originalidade e autoria na sociedade ocidental, mostrando a crescente importância da figura do autor e o desenvolvimento paralelo dos conceitos de plágio e direito autoral. Os capítulos seguintes dedicam-se a tentar fornecer um relato do romance enfocando os principais personagens, todos artistas, e também uma análise do romance à luz do background histórico e teórico apresentado nos dois primeiros capítulos. O primeiro desses capítulos de análise enfoca a trajetória de Wyatt e suas concepções artísticas. O segundo os reflexos de Wyatt na narrativa, que reforçam a estrutura auto-reflexiva do romance. E o terceiro exemplifica e analisa a estética de Wyatt baseada na noção de reconhecimento, que nada mais é do que a própria estética usada por Gaddis na composição de sua ficção. / William Gaddis’s The Recognitions (1955) is a selfreflexive novel that portrays Wyatt Gwyon’s trajectory from childhood to maturity, as he rejects and searches for originality. The present work bestows an analysis of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the problematization of originality and authorship proposed by the novel by means of the central issues of forgery and plagiarism, which bring with them two larger and more important sister-notions: authorship and originality. The novel questions the prevailing demand for originality and discusses the possibility of being original. It formulates an aesthetics of recognitions defended in the novel and used by the author in the making of this text. In order to do that, this work provides a view on the different concepts associated with the terms originality and original, as well as some of the main infringements related to them in contemporary society. It also offers an account of the development of the concepts of originality and authorship in Western society, showing the growing importance of the figure of the author and the parallel development of the concepts of plagiarism and copyright. The next three chapters are dedicated to attempt to provide an account of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the main artist characters and an analysis of the novel in the light of the theoretical and historical background provided. The first of these chapters focuses on Wyatt’s trajectory and his visions of art. The second identifies and analyses Wyatt’s mirrors in the narrative, which reinforce the self-reflective structure of the novel. And the third chapter exemplifies and analyses Wyatt’s aesthetics of recognitions, which turns out to be Gaddis’s own aesthetics in the making of his fiction.