Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Aug. 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-210). Also available on the Internet.

After a brief contextualisation, time and history are examined in Ackroyd's novels. Chapter 1 examines postmodernism. Chapter 2 explores history perceived as fact and as construct. Chapter 3 investigates the dissolution of the distinction between history and fiction. Chapter 4 analyses the development of 'originality' and the futile search for origin. Chapter 5 examines the interchangeability of fiction and reality. Chapter 6 studies theories on time, focusing on Einstein's theory of relativity. Chapter 7 analyses the coexistence of the past and present, and the relativity of time. Chapter 8 scrutinises the myth of 'mobilities of presence', which facilitates rejuvenation. Chapter 9 considers the relation between time and space necessary for rejuvenation. Chapter 10 looks at simultaneity and the eternal present. It is clear that Ackroyd explores the mobilities of presence of historical and fictional characters, objects, and texts, thus showing that time is a web of simultaneously existing present moments. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This dissertation avers that the transpacific circulation of narrative artefacts - travel accounts, letters, relaciones, and illustrated codices- enabled the emergence of a new global history that departs from the ancient tradition of universal history. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Iberian missionaries and historians began to incorporate into their histories and chronicles of the Indies sources and material dealing with China, Japan and other regions of the Far East. The dissertation argues that this transpacific interaction enabled historians to produce synchronic modes of writing that were emancipated from ancient narrative models. To develop this argument, the dissertation examines how historians and missionaries gradually separated the reading of ancient books from their own modern experience of narrating the Far East. By incorporating sources and material produced mainly in Macau and Manila, scholars not only imported new knowledge related to East and Southeast Asia into the Iberian and European world, but they also transformed the genre of general and universal histories of the Indies developed during the 16th century in the New World. Instead of considering the gradual integration of America with Eurasia and Africa to be the main and only fact that defined the emergence of a new global history, this dissertation argues that it was the discovery of the Far East from the West Indies that enabled historians to create forms of writing global histories that departed from the tradition of universal history. The dissertation puts into dialogue coexisting models and methods of composing global histories that emerged in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. To do so, I examine the emergence of narratives that integrated the Far East into historical genres developed in the West Indies during the 16th century. In this part, I explore the writings of scholars who wrote about the Far East by projecting a perspective that emerged from their production developed in the West Indies: Martín de Rada (1533-78), Francisco Hernández (1517-1587), Juan González de Mendoza (1540-1617), José de Acosta (1540-1600), the authors of the Boxer codex (ca. 1590), Adriano de las Cortes (1577-1629), and Antonio de León Pinelo (1595-1660). Furthermore, the dissertation analyzes the emergence of global modes of writing by focusing on the writings of Jesuits who arrived in the Far East from the oriental Portuguese route, such as Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), Diego de Pantoja (1571-1618), and Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628). These correlated productions incorporated the Far East into the narratives of the Iberian world by redefining categories associated with the Orient and reformulating methods of historical writing. By building a corpus of sources that refer to the arrival of Iberians to the Far East, this dissertation advances the thesis that the creation of systems of exchange and the transpacific circulation of relaciones, letters, and codices made possible and shaped new forms of composing global histories in the early modern Iberian world.

A presente tese representa um esforço no sentido de contextualizar a caminhada do ensaio de interpretação do Brasil, durante o século XIX, com base em três aspectos: a construção do tema nacional, em Varnhagen; a aquisição de uma linguagem de corte subjetivo, em Joaquim Nabuco; e o relacionamento entre ciência e literatura, em Euclides da Cunha. Na introdução, ocorrem aproximações de natureza conceitual acerca das características mais salientes do ensaio como gênero na literatura e da noção de identidade nacional. No primeiro capítulo, os objetivos se transferem para a investigação dos antecedentes da interpretação do Brasil, principalmente aqueles localizados nos textos de não ficção, a exemplo da carta de Pero Vaz Caminha e dos relatos de viagem durante o período colonial. O segundo capítulo descreve os esforços para a criação de uma língua literária correspondente ao novo estatuto de independência política, tendências inventariadas pela prosa e poesia do período, em textos como a História Geral do Brasil, de Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen. O influxo de uma nova subjetividade sobre a linguagem constitui o escopo do terceiro capítulo que também reproduz parte da fortuna crítica do ensaio O Abolicionismo, de Joaquim Nabuco. Em quarto, o diálogo entre ciências sociais e a interpretação do Brasil servem de contraponto ao levantamento de obras que já aproximam a questão social (o caso de Os Sertões, de Euclides da Cunha). No quinto capítulo, uma breve reconstituição da passagem do ensaio de interpretação do Brasil no século XX. Por último, na coda, a trajetória do ensaio de interpretação do Brasil, até meados de 1900 / This study is focused in the interpretation of Brazil, in the period time of the XIX century, based on three aspects: the building of the nationalist matter, in Varnhagen; the acquisition of subjective language, in Joaquim Nabuco and the relationship between science and literature, in Euclides da cunha. The introduction, presents the conceptual nature about the more visible traces of the essay in the literature e and notion of national identity. In its first chapter, the narrative follow the roots of Brazils interpretation, especially in those non fictional texts like the letter of Pero Vaz Caminha and the journey reports during the colonial period. The second chapter describes the creation of a literary language after the process of political independence. It can be found in written productions such as poetry and novel, but mostly in texts like História Geral do Brasil, by Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen. The uprise of this new subjectivity in the language concerns the matter of the fourth chapter that also brings the criticism about the essay O Abolicionismo, de Joaquim Nabuco. In the coda, there is a brief reconstitution of Brazils way of interpretation, until near 1900

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 268-297.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Italian." Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-182).

In Marie-Claire Blais's trilogy Soifs, the history of the 20th Century is registered in an inter-cultural and inter-discursive realm both as a history which is "infernal" (chaotic, violent, fragmented) and as one which is civilizing. The objective of this study is to observe and comment on this double inscription, to evaluate how it takes charge of and modulates signs and representations already in circulation in social discourse. The author seeks to discern the inter-discursive work of manipulation and translation of social discourse from a point of view which is at once formal, narrative, linguistic and ideological, to ultimately identify the ideological work of Blais's novels on a fundamental stake within current society: the historical past.

This essay examines how female authors are described in the literary canon of two different editions of the Swedish education material on the history of literature: Svenska Timmar – litteraturen. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the depiction of female authors has changed from the first edition (1991) to the last edition (2012), and how these changes correspond with the curriculums Lgy70 and Lgy11. The study is quantitative as well as qualitative. The quantitative part of the study shows that the percentage of female authors has increased in the 2012 edition. A greater number of female authors are also portrayed with pictures and headings. This increase is partly explained by the new curriculum, Lgy11, which demands that female authors should be included in the history of literature. This was not the case with Lgy70. The qualitative part of the study contains a feminist and gender analysis, examining how a “gender system” produces and reproduces a dichotomy and hierarchy between the sexes, where the male is norm and the female deviates from this norm. This section shows that, despite the increased number of female authors, their portrayal still differs from that of the male authors. For example, the literary work of women is likely to be categorized as “female literature”, which signals that it is not considered as general as the men’s work. This is, in my conclusion, a way to reproduce the gender system of the literary canon.

This thesis examines a practice of nineteenth-century novelists which has often been mentioned by critics but never studied in detail - the setting of much of their work in a period a generation or two before the time of writing. Its main focus is on the fiction of George Eliot set in the recent past: Scenes of Clerical Life (1857-58), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Felix Holt, The Radical (1866), and Middlemarch (1871-72). However I begin by looking briefly at the pioneering novel in the field, Waverley (1814), and go on to discuss three more novels by Scott - Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquary (1816) and Redgauntlet (1824) - as well as three by Thackeray: Vanity Fair (1847-48), Pendennis (1848-50) and The Newcomes (1853-55). Since I aim to discover the attitudes these writers adopted to the recent past, and conveyed to their first readers, this study involves discussion not only of the periods in which the novels are set, but also of the periods in which they were written, so as to establish the knowledge and preconceptions which the books' early readers brought to bear on the fiction. Where possible I quote the responses of actual contemporary readers, notably those of the early reviewers. This thesis draws attention to the various functions a setting in the recent past could serve in nineteenth-century fiction: to arouse nostalgic feelings for a vanished but remembered past, or sympathy for the people of the past, to point out that change is sometimes more apparent than real, to comment obliquely on contemporary issues, to highlight the unchanging features of human nature and human predicaments, to examine the role of the individual in effecting change.

This thesis explores the involvement of Russian emigres in disseminating and informing the reception of Russian literature in England. It examines their use of translations and literary commentary as vehicles for propaganda, and considers the impact of their unique approach to literature on both Anglo-Russian relations and English letters. Part One describes the arrival of Russian émigrés in England and their mixed reception: as victims of a brutal regime, mysterious sages, exotic outcasts, Slavic barbarians, or at worst, as dangerous 'incendiarists' to be feared and reviled. It reflects on the welcome and assistance offered them by socialists, feminists, literati and Nonconformists, as well as the dangers they faced from Russian government agents and their English confreres. It then introduces, in turn, each of the five Russian exiles featured in this thesis, providing biographical details, outlining their work in Britain as propagandists and political agitators, and mapping out their political and literary affiliations. Part Two opens with an analysis of the motives - financial, political, cultural, and personal - which compelled Russian exiles to promulgate Russian literature in England. A chapter is then devoted to each of the five émigrés, chronicling their work disseminating the Russian canon, and outlining the circumstances surrounding their translations, lectures, books, journal articles, and publishing activities. Interspersed within these five narratives are discourses on each propagandist's aesthetic vision. Part Three is a case study of the émigré impact on Turgenev's English reputation. It starts by tracing the author's early reception, showing how he was initially regarded in England as a European novelist whose artistry took precedence over his politics, and whose exquisite writing revealed universal truths through its careful selection and presentation of minute details. It then shows how émigré commentary altered perceptions of the author, transforming him from a disinterested artist dealing only in universal themes into a radical critic of various epochs of Russian national life, whose novels revealed important inner truths about the state of Russian society and politics. The conclusion examines what may be termed the 'collateral' effects of émigré commentary on Russian literature and their involvement in translation projects in England. Firstly, it looks at the political impact of their criticism: how the émigré presentation of Russian literature affected Anglo-Russian relations and attitudes towards the first Russian revolution in 1905. It then considers how émigrés helped or hindered reputations of writers according to their own politically and aesthetically motivated preferences. Finally, it looks at the possible ramifications of émigré literary theory on English approaches to literature and criticism, and suggests further avenues of inquiry.