Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (January 12, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-65)

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2008. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 11, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-44). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Theses (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains iv, 74 pages including illustrations. Bibliography: page 74.

M.A. / This dissertation considers how shifts in the representation of mythological figures, images and tales are reflective of shifts in social ideology. The texts with which this study is concerned have been chosen because of the ways in which they deal with mythological themes and images and their transference from one historical and ideological context to another. This transference is effected principally through the device of what Viktor Shklovsky called “defamiliarisation”. In Neil Gaiman‟s American Gods, the fictional America of the novel is the framing context in which Gaiman considers the nature of mythology as it begins to shift from the ancient to the new. American Gods reveals how the natures of gods and the narrative patterns through which their exploits are told to men are altered as social idioms change. The battle between the gods of ancient mythologies and those of the new world is illustrative of a society undergoing ideological and religious change, especially in the conception of the godhead. Although disparate in time, style and culture, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf also engages with a mythological shift, from pagan to Christian mythological idiomatic thought. Beowulf, the great pagan warrior, and the creatures by which he finds himself confronted intermingle in complex ways to demonstrate the shift, not only in myth, but in the perception of its archetypal figures and their roles. In particular, it is the human element of mythology that is emphasised through the process of defamiliarisation. To illustrate how a text‟s mythology can be adapted in order to be relevant to a temporally and ideologically distant society, this study will also examine the adaptation of the poem Beowulf into two filmic narratives. Beowulf 2007 and Beowulf and Grendel, are both concerned with the process of myth creation and dissemination and display an awareness of their own statuses as constructed narratives. In so doing, they draw attention to the constructed nature of mythology and its ideology. The films defamiliarise Beowulf and through the translation and adaptation of the poem are able to reinvent and thus revive the poetic material.

Orientador : Prof. Dr. Clóvis Gruner / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em História. Defesa: Curitiba, 05/09/2017 / Inclui referências : f. 197-201 / Resumo: Este trabalho analisa a história em quadrinhos Sandman, escrita por Neil Gaiman e publicada pela editora norte americana DC Comics durante os anos de 1988 e 1996. A análise se fixou nas relações desta com o pós-modernismo e, principalmente, em como a morte é representada na publicação, uma vez que a morte não apenas aparece como algo importante na narrativa, onde vários personagens são mostrados encontrando o fim de sua vida, como também esta aparece enquanto personagem. Pelo fato da personagem Morte ser caracterizada não da forma mais tradicional, com vestes negras e uma foice, mas sim como uma garota gótica divertida e apaixonante, torna-se propício um diálogo acerca da morte no contexto da obra, o pós-modernismo, e o quanto este é semelhante ou diferente à representação da personagem. Desta forma, trabalhando as relações com a morte ao longo da História, mas fixando-se no contexto proposto, dentre os anos 1988 e 1998, pretende se compreender como a sociedade se comporta diante da morte, como esta encara o ato de morrer, por vezes o negando ou ignorando, sempre o afastando, e como isso pode ser relacionado com uma representação da morte tão diferente, tão encantadora, como alguém de quem não se quer fugir, mas encontrar imediatamente. Palavras-chave: histórias em quadrinhos; morte; pós-modernismo; Sandman; / Abstract: This work analyse the comic book Sadnamn, writen by Neil Gaiman and published by the north american publishing company DC Comics amont the years 1988 and 1996. The analysis was focused in the relations os this with the post-modernism and, mainly, in how the death is represented in the publication, once death shows like something importante in the story, where lots of characters are shown finding the end of their lives, and also is shown like a character. By the fact that the character Death is characterized no in the most tradicional way, with black robes and a sickle, but like a fun and lovely goth girl, its possible a dialogue about death in the contexto of comic, the post-modernism, and how similar or different is this to the representation in the comic books. This way, writing about the relations with death over the History, but keeping in the contexto, among the years 1988 and 1998, its intended to understand how the society behaves in the face of death, how it faces the act of dying, many times denying ou ignoring, aways pushing it away, and how this can be related with a very different representation of death, so lovely, like someone that you don't want to run away from, but meet immediately. Key-words: comic books; death; post-modernism; Sandman;

D. Tech. Language Practice / The graphic novel has become the means through which a generation of contemporary writers has chosen to communicate the myths of our time to the world, yet unlike their counterparts in classic mythology, they have not yet enjoyed the same depths of investigation. As a medium with the ability to conjure up powerful, emotive reactions, the graphic novel is now in need of a means of substantiating the responses and reactions to the medium. This study has set out to prove that through the utilisation of a three-pronged analytic model that incorporates analytical approaches from the schools of Myth- and Archetypal Criticism, visual analysis, and particularly Linguistic Criticism an authoritative literary critique can be produced on a graphic novel that would reveal and comment on the three primary constituents of the medium, namely: language; story; and graphic illustration. In addition, this study has aimed to provide contextualisation for the nature and development of the graphic novel against the backdrop of postmodernism for the purposes of explaining the sociological, cultural and temporal influences that prompted and promoted the development of the comic book into what we now know as the graphic novel. A secondary aim of this study has been to provide further legitimacy to the concept of contemporary mythology through the exploration of this controversial concept and, by virtue thereof, set the scene for the incorporation of Myth-criticism into a multi-pronged analytic model.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-11-30Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:42:40Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 cerqueira_als_dr_arafcl.pdf: 770872 bytes, checksum: fe33ffc489e86cd4169fed6d62c59890 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Na tese de doutorado “O realismo mágico nas short stories de Neil Gaiman: um contador de histórias da contemporaneidade”, realizamos a análise de histórias do autor inglês com base, principalmente, nas teorias do realismo mágico e no canônico texto O narrador, de Walter Benjamin, cuja importância não diminuiu com o passar do tempo, o que justifica nossa opção por utilizar essa obra como um dos pilares de nosso trabalho. A intenção é demonstrar que Gaiman pode ser considerado um contador de histórias da atualidade, que segue o estilo de narração descrito por Benjamin, para quem o narrador se baseia em experiências próprias e tem como objetivo perpetuar suas histórias por gerações. Optamos pela análise de quatro short stories que abordam temas e motivos variados, como o vampiro, o duplo, o gato preto e o diabo, e têm em comum o fato de se nortearem pelo realismo mágico. Por fim, as análises destinam-se a revelar que Gaiman é um autor que faz a inversão de paradigmas e a contestação de ideias prontas e difundidas, apresentando ao leitor novas perspectivas para histórias e temas/motivos consagrados / In the doctoral thesis “The magical realism in the short stories by Neil Gaiman: a storyteller of contemporaneity”, we carried out the analysis of tales written by the English author based, specially, upon the theories about the magic realism and on Walter Benjamin’s text The narrator. We intent to show that Gaiman can be considered a storyteller of our time and someone who follows the style of narration described by Benjamin, to whom the narrator relies on personal experiences and has the aim of perpetuating his/her stories for generations to come. We have chosen to analyse a group of four short stories in which varied themes and motives, like the vampire, the double, the black cat and the devil are worked out, as well as aspects of the magic realistic genre. The intent of the analyses is helping to reveal that as an author Gaiman brings about an inversion of patterns and defiance of widely accepted and unchallenged ideas, presenting instead new ways of looking at known stories and celebrated themes/motives

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Translation Johannesburg, 2016 / The aim of this paper is to investigate how the different types of humour in Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens have been translated into French and German as De Bons Présages and Ein Gutes Omen, respectively. This study applies frame semantics to analyse how the translators recreated the humour of the ST in the instances that they were able to do so. This theory examines how context is created and what expectations arise from an individual’s knowledge of context i.e. their understanding of the context and what the reader or hearer associates with it. The novel involves several subplots, but the same humorous elements such as puns, parody and an invented archaic variety of English appear throughout the book and it is the aim of this study to determine how these elements were dealt with by the translators. I will compare the two translations and determine how, and if each translator was able to recreate the same frames that made the ST humorous. / MT2017

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the human capacity of modifying established myth in the light of new circumstances. It focuses on the changing status of myth and mythical cosmologies in Western culture as advances in telematics and techno-culture has led to the abundant proliferation of mythic content in modern society. The rise of scientific, secular and rational tendencies in the Occident has resulted in the demystification and negation of some myths and the cultural realities they once supported. Mythical symbols, however, do exhibit a certain degree of independence from their original set ontologies, growing and transforming continuously within contemporary culture as they are communicated to all social spheres. A particular focus is placed on the demystification of myth and its ability to be appropriated within other discourses, most notably fiction. As such, myth tends to exhibit certain migratory and conservational qualities that this study investigates. This serves as background for this thesis that is primarily located within the broader theoretical argument of myth as a system of world-representation in society, the main point of discussion is the re-appropriation of myth within the narrower field of visual signification, specifically the comics medium, as exemplified in the works of Neil Gaiman and Conrad Botes, as well as in my own work. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tesis ondersoek die menslike kapasiteit om gevestigde mites te wysig in die lig van nuwe omstandighede. Dit fokus op die veranderlike status van mites en mitiese kosmologieë in die Westerse kultuur, aangesien vooruitgang in die telematiek en tegnokultuur gelei het tot ’n ryk proliferasie van mitiese inhoud in die moderne samelewing. Die opkoms van wetenskaplike, sekulêre en rasionele tendense in die Weste het die demistifikasie en negasie van sommige mites en kulturele realiteite wat hulle eens ondersteun het, tot gevolg gehad. Mitiese simbole vertoon egter ’n sekere graad van onafhanklikheid van hul oorspronklike vasgestelde ontologieë en groei wild binne die kontemporêre kultuur, aangesien hulle deurlopend gekommunikeer word aan verskillende sosiale sfere. Daar word veral gefokus op die demistifikasie van die mite en sy vermoë om geapproprieer te word binne ander diskoerse, veral in fiksie. As sodanig is mites geneig tot migrasie en die vertoon van konserverende kwaliteite, soos ondersoek in hierdie studie. Alhoewel die tesis eerstens gelokaliseer is binne die breër teoretiese argumentasie rondom mite as ’n sisteem van wêreldrepresentasie in die samelewing, is die kern van diskussie die re-appropriasie van die mite binne die smaller veld van visuele betekenisgewing, spesifiek in strippe as medium, soos uitgelig in die werke van Neil Gaiman en Conrad Botes, asook in my eie werk.

A presente dissertação consiste em um estudo do romance Deuses americanos de Neil Gaiman levando em consideração suas conexões a outros textos bem como inserções de diversos textos provenientes de outros trabalhos na prosa do romance. A proposta de leitura do texto de Gaiman segundo este trabalho utiliza os conceitos de intertextualidade e arquétipos de forma a analisar a relação entre a trama de Deuses americanos às várias utilizações de textos cuja escrita “original” não é atribuída ao autor do livro inseridos (ou referenciados) na prosa do romance. Embora o objeto de estudo seja comumente visto como um livro difícil de ser categorizado dentre de um certo gênero, a proposta desta dissertação é demonstrar que o movimento e o fluxo contínuo de discursos (textos) e estilos na prosa do romance remonta a uma visão de um estrangeiro sobre os Estados Unidos e como o país foi criado: ou seja, que ele é não somente um ponto geográfico de confluência de muitos povos, mas também de muitas crenças e culturas que, de um modo ou outro, trouxeram os seus deuses consigo. A análise do uso de intertextos, intratextos e arquétipos no romance está estruturada em três capítulos centrais: o primeiro contextualiza os mitos que aparecem no romance e discute a questão de gênero literário do livro, além do conceito de América no texto de Gaiman. O segundo capítulo examina o uso de mitos por Gaiman em relação a outros trabalhos, tanto os manuscritos antigos de crenças pagãs quanto instâncias mais modernas de mito e alegoria, além de estudar as conexões entre Deuses americanos e outros textos escritos por Gaiman de acordo com o conceito de intratextualidade proposto por Affonso de Sant’Anna. Por fim, o terceiro capítulo se concentra no uso pontual de intertextos no romance, organizando-os entre alusões literárias, referências à cultura pop, além de estudar o conflito entre a era digital e o antigo reinado da fé religiosa, sem deixar de investigar o uso de arquétipos e apropriação na prosa do romance. O trabalho, assim, tem como objetivo verificar a alegação de que a qualidade intertextual do romance é essencial tendo em vista sua trama e cenário, bem como a afirmação de que ele redefine o conceito da América do final dos anos 90 como um espaço multicultural, dinâmico e mítico. / This thesis consists of a study of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods in the light of its connections to other texts as well as the punctual insertions of various texts from other works in the novel’s prose. The proposed reading of Gaiman’s text employs the concepts of intertextuality and archetypes in order to further analyze the relation of the plot of American Gods to the various uses of texts - that were not originally written by the book’s author – which are inserted (or alluded to) in the novel’s prose. Although the object of study is generally seen as a book that is hard to brand within a certain genre, this thesis’ approach to the novel demonstrates that movement and the continuous flow of speeches (texts) and styles in the novel’s prose comprises an outsider’s view of America and how the country came into existence – that is, that it is the geographical conflux not only of many peoples, but also of many beliefs and cultures, which in some way or other brought their gods with them. This examination of the use of intertexts, intratexts and archetypes in the novel is structured in three main chapters: The first chapter contextualizes the myths that appear in the novel and discusses the issues of genre and the concept of America in Gaiman’s text. The second chapter analyzes Gaiman’s use of myths in relation to other works – the original manuscripts of ancient beliefs as well as modern instances of myth and allegory – along with the connections between American Gods and Gaiman’s other works according to Affonso de Sant’Anna’s concept of intratextuality. Finally, the third chapter focuses on the punctual uses of intertexts in the novel, breaking them down into literary allusions, references to pop culture and the conflict between the digital era and the age of religious faith, and the use of archetypes and appropriation in the novel’s prose. At the end of the work, I aim to assert my belief that the intertextual nature of the novel is essential to its plot and setting, and re-defines the concept of late-90’s/early 2000’s America as a multicultural, dynamic mythical space.