Although such prominent writers as Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Gwendolyn MacEwen have praised her work, Shulamis Yelin remains largely unknown to critics and the common reader. In three sections, this thesis attempts to rectify this situation by offering a more complete portrait of the poet and her poetry. First, it presents newly edited versions of eighty-five previously uncollected and unpublished poems spanning the length of her career. Second, in order to supply the necessary context for her work, it provides both a biographical sketch and a critical analysis of her complete poetic oeuvre. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a complicated and, at times, destructive struggle between the Real and the Ideal lies at the heart of Yelin's life and work. Tracing this theme through her various public, private, and poetic personae, it concludes that this poet represents a talented, tragic, and inspirational figure, whose rediscovery contributes a unique and powerful new voice to the Canadian literary canon.

According to Julia Kristeva, abjection is an unconscious process (a cut) every human being has to operate to be able to autonomize her or himself from the dyadic relationship with the mother. An autonomous subject then has access to what « sémiotique tensive » (influenced by the phenomenology of perception andstructuralism) calls « field of presence » from where she or he can enunciate and thus enter the Symbolic order. In this thesis, I posit that the field of presence changes from modernity to postmodernity, and that some avant-garde authors, such as Michel Butor in the 1960's, are articulating the shift from one to the other and modifying the relationship between subject and abject. My textual analyses focus on two of Butor's most innovative books : Mobile. Étude pour une représentation des États-Unis (published in 1962) and 6 810 000 litres d'eau par seconde. Étude stéréophonique (usually referred to by critics as Niagara, the title of its English translation, published in 1965). My hypothesis is that, on the level of enunciation, Mobile shows traces of a modem field of presence, where the margins are highly dysphoric (abject), while Niagara tends to represent a more postmodern one, using différent discursive stratégies to defuse the abject threat. I close with a reflection on the state of abjection as a subjectivity inducing process, the subject it exhausts in postmodern times, and the new relationship to the body (therefore, to perception and enunciation) it imposes.

These Studies in the interpretation of Genesis 26.1-33 are concerned with a relatively brief and well defined section of biblical Hebrew narrative, and following an Introduction are divided into two parts reflecting literary and historical interests respectively. The Introduction takes note of the current interest among Old Testament scholars in the literary interpretation of the biblical materials and, after opting for an approach which will take account of both literary and historical-critical enquiry, outlines the procedure which will be followed. No logical priority is claimed for literary analysis, although it is considered appropriate that it should be pursued prior to any historical enquiry. In this way, it has been possible to avoid any suspicion that literary analysis of the type pursued here is a further development of the historical-critical method. Part One (Chapters One - Four) is concerned to construct a literary interpretation of the text of Gen 26.1-33. The interpretation consists of three main studies of the Isaac narrative which are followed by a brief discussion of certain aspects of the method involved. This interpretation has developed in the main from a reflection upon the relationship which appears to exist between the promise made to the patriarch by the deity and the surrounding narrative material. Beginning from a literary-structural analysis of the Isaac narrative, it has been possible to observe that a number of relationships of a literary and structural nature exist between the promise and the surrounding narrative materials. The exploration of these relationships discloses a series of tensions between the promise and the narrated events which in one way or another seem designed to bring the fulfilment of different aspects of the promise under threat, and each of these tensions are resolved in turn in the narrative. Thus, even even if the events narrated appear to run counter to the direction of the promise, it is in the exploration of this dialectic which is set up between promise and those narrative events which tend to threaten the fulfilment of the promise that the beginnings of a satisfactory literary interpretation of Gen 26.1-33 is to be found. The literary interpretation of the Isaac narrative is carried out in three stages. In the first stage (Chapter One), the extent of the material under consideration is narrowed down to Gen 26.1-33, and other material (notably Gen 25.19-26) is excluded. Once the narrative structure has been analyzed in terms of divine promise, threat, and (partial) resolution, a further brief examination of the narrative context of the other divine promise sections in Genesis 12-36 shows that the literary technique of juxtaposing these same three elements has in fact been applied more widely, even if it is most clearly evident in Gen 26.1-33. An analysis of the role Rebekah plays in the wife-sister episode shows that she is clearly a subsidiary character, and that in the narrative Abimelech the Philistine king of Gerar and Isaac's antagonist throughout is the character closest in importance to Isaac. Indeed, in many respects the narrative appears to explore the relationship which exists between Isaac and the Philistine king. A number of literary features which enhance the impression of unity which has already been gained from the structural analysis are examined. In particular, a number of narrative transformations are seen to take place between the beginning and the end of the narrative. These are largely concerned with the situation of Isaac in relation to Abimelech. At the beginning of the narrative Isaac comes to Abimelech at Gerar and is dependent on the latter's good will for his wellbeing. But at the end of the narrative, Abimelech comes to Isaac at Beersheba, in order to participate in the blessing enjoyed by the Patriarch. In the second stage (Chapter Two), the structure of each of the episodes which combine to form the Isaac narrative is examined, using a form of structural analysis used by Bremond in relation to the fairy tale, but which is also appropriate to the analysis of other simple forms of narrative. This examination, which I have used to determine whether the individual episodes maintain a comic or tragic function within the Isaac narrative, is carried out without prejudice to the assumption that the narrative is a unity at some level. One of the impressive features of the Isaac narrative is that the Patriarch does not achieve his good fortune at the expense of Abimelech and his people, but the Philistines also prosper, and it is seen that this effect has been achieved by means of paradox. The discussion of the individual episodes leads to the conclusion that the ability of the narrative as a whole to generate meaning is greater than the sum of its parts. In the third stage (Chapter Three), I have attempted to construct an appropriate 'narrative background' against which the text may be understood. This exercise involves the careful observation of such signals as are raised in the text and appear to direct one's attention to materials elsewhere in the tradition, and particularly among the narratives of Genesis 12-25, which may combine to serve as a background against which the Isaac narrative may be understood, and which might properly enrich one's understanding of the text. This undertaking begins from the point that no text may be properly understood from within a vacuum, and that while it is proper to begin such a literary-structural investigation as has been undertaken in this Thesis from a detailed study of the text itself, it has been considered necessary to go on from there and to provide a richer understanding of the text. The formation of a 'narrative background' is to be distinguished from the method of 'narrative analogy' (Miscall, Alter) so far as it takes the canonical ordering of the narratives more seriously. Part One is concluded with the discussion of a number of methodological issues in Chapter Four which forms an attempt to say something about the aims and validity of the analyses set out in Chapters One-Three. There is no concern, however, to resume systematically issues which have already been raised in the earlier chapters. In Part Two, I have addressed some of the more usual historical concerns of biblical studies. The first main part of Chapter Five is concerned with the form-critical discussion of the Isaac narrative. An examination of the form-critical studies of Lutz. and Coats is followed by an analysis of the structure and content of Gen 26.1-33. The analysis is then filled out by a broad discussion which is informed to some extent by the earlier discussion of Chapter One, particularly by the degree to which the various episodes were there seen to be related to each other. The fact that, apart from vv 1-6, the episodes all required assumption of information provided by one or another of the preceding episodes in order to appear coherent suggests that the unity of Gen 26.1-33 is perhaps more than the result of a collector stringing them together in terms of the common theme "Isaac and the people of Gerar". This observation sets an obvious limit against the usual formcritical criterion which holds that the most original units were concered to narrate only single episodes. Throughout this discussion the results of current studies in folklore which have led to much uncertainty concerning the stability of oral transmission so that it is no longer possible to be so confident in the antiquity of the pentateuchal tradition were taken for granted. The traditio-historical question of priority is examined, and it is concluded that Abraham is in fact prior to Isaac.

The purpose of this dissertation is to trace the literary career of Flannery O'Connor and to show that the writer's dramatic sense could not be separated from her vision of faith and reality. This study focuses particularly on Flannery O'Connor's status in literary circles, on her critical essays collected in Mystery and Manners, on an assessment of her two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, and her volumes of short stories. As a Catholic writer in the South, Flannery O'Connor observed and interpreted reality in the light of specific doctrines of the Church. Miss O'Connor's fiction puzzled and outraged her critics and readers by its tough Christianity, Southern grotesques, its themes and its violence. Implicit in this study is the premise that a critical approach to the fiction of Flannery O'Connor according to her own statements on her position of a Catholic writer in the fundamentalist South will give the reader a fuller understanding of the author's vision of faith and reality as exposed in her fiction.Chapter I traces Flannery O'Connor's literary career and shows how the author grew from a young, talented writer at the University of Iowa into an artist whose fictional output was remarkable. A study of the criticism accorded Flannery O'Connor's fiction follows a chronological pattern and shows how reviewers and critics, confused though they were by her early fiction, took her seriously during her lifetime and acclaimed her posthumous publications as unique contributions to American letters.Chapter II is devoted to both articles and essays that Flannery O'Connor published in her lifetime and several essays she never revised for publication. These essays as a whole shed light on her Catholic theological viewpoint expressed in her fiction.Chapter III is devoted to an analysis of Flannery O'Connor's early stories which remained uncollected until the publication of Flannery O'Connor: The Complete Stories (1971). These early stories, for the most part inferior in technique and maturity of expression, deserve attention because they contain many of the elements which foreshadow the excellence of the author's mature works.Chapter IV is concerned with the study of Flannery O'Connor's two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away. In both novels Flannery O'Connor is preoccupied with religious concerns and absorbed in her Christian vision with its deep concern for the redemption and salvation of the human spirit through trials of fire and love.Chapter V deals with the bulk of Flannery O'Connor's short fiction contained in the collections A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge and Flannery O'Connor: The Complete Stories. The most prevalent themes in the short stories deal with man's flight from a pursuing God, sin, and the problems of salvation and death.Regarding the extent to which Flannery O'Connor's vision has been shaped by her Catholic faith, it is my thesis that the artist's theological implications are the touchstones on which she built the vision of faith and reality which she revealed in her fiction.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two modes of prereading assistance on fifth-graders' literal and interpretive comprehension of selected material. Readers of average ability were considered. The two modes of prereading assistance studies were Directed Reading Question introductions (tape-recorded prereading assistance given pupils which set purposes for reading by having them read to find answers for specific questions) and Cognitive Organizer introductions (tape-recorded prereading assistance given pupils which included both general information about the topic and a preview of the sequence of events in the passage). Additionally, one-third of the pupils were given no prereading assistance and were used as the Control group. From an original population of all fifth-grade pupils reading on grade level in Anderson, Indiana's twenty-eight elementary schools, fifth-graders in three representative schools were chosen by the Assistant Superintendent. All fifth-graders in these three schools (159 subjects) were given Ransom's Cloze Test as an initial screening device. Those students scoring between fourth and seventh-grade instructional level, inclusive, on the Cloze Test were individually administered the Silvaroli Classroom Reading Inventory. Of the fifth-graders found to have an instructional reading level of fifth-grade, sixty-three were randomly divided into three groups, the Directed Reading Question group, the Cognitive Organizer group, and the Control group. The Directed Reading Question and Cognitive Organizer groups listened to the appropriate tape-recorded introductions before reading each of the three reading passages (three-selections from SPA Kit IIIb), and then answered the posttest questions over each passage. The Control group received no prereading assistance before reading the passages and answering the posttest questions. All materials, the introductions, passages, and fifteen literal and fifteen interpretive subtest questions were validated by a panel of reading experts. Additionally, all materials were field tested with fifth-graders reading on grade level from a fourth representative Anderson School. Kuder-Richardson-20 reliability estimates for the subtests were .69 and .78. Total posttest was .85. Nine null hypotheses were tested using Bonferroni t procedures and multivariate and univariate analysis. Using the .05 level of confidence as the predetermined criterion, six of the nine null hypotheses were rejected. On the total posttest, the scores of the three groups were significantly different. The students who received the Cognitive Organizer introductions scored significantly higher than the other two groups on the total post-test. The Directed Reading Question group scored significantly higher than the Control group on the total posttest. In the three cases involving individual subtests where the null hypothesis was not rejected (those comparing the DRQ and CO groups on the literal and interpretive subtests and that comparing the DRQ group and CG on the interpretive subtest), existing differences, though not statistically significant, favored the Cognitive Organizer group over both the other two groups, and the Directed Reading Question group over the Control group. The findings of this study indicate in general that for these particular students, subject to the limitations of this investigation, the Cognitive Organizer type of introduction was superior to the Directed Reading Question type of introduction and to giving no introductions at all. Giving the Directed Reading Question introductions was more facilitative than giving no prereading assistance. While the results for the individual subtests were statistically significant in only three of the six cases, all existing differences favored the Cognitive Organizer treatment over the other two treatments, and the Directed Reading Question treatment over the Control treatment. It would appear that under the limitations of this study, students benefited most by being exposed to introductions which gave both general information about the topic and a preview of the sequence of events in the passage. Those who listened to the Directed Reading Questions and read to find answers for specific questions did better than those who were asked to read the passages without being provided any "mind-set" for the selections.

This thesis is an examination of the role of artistic intentions in the interpretation of art. Chapter 1 is a survey of the recent theories of interpretation that attempts to establish the shortcomings of anti-intentionalism and hypothetical intentionalism while making a case for the superiority of the view I prefer, moderate actual intentionalism. Chapter 2, then, is concerned, almost exclusively, with the major point of difference among its advocates: namely, the criteria for successfully realizing an intention. Chapter 3 is concerned with a latent tension in the position itself. Resolving this tension involves rethinking the role of conventions and context and placing a greater emphasis on intentions themselves. / Graduate

Denna uppsats kretsar kring andra satsen ur Sergei Prokofievs berömda verk Piano Sonata 7, Op 83. Syftet är att utforska Prokofievs sinne för musikalisk form, samt att reflektera kring varför hans musik var banbrytande genom att studera stycket från ett nytt perspektiv. Jag har tidigare själv spelat hela sonaten och djupdyker nu mer teoretiskt i verket för att hitta nya infallsvinklar. / <p>Bilaga: 1 CD</p>

Automated fusion welding processes play a fundamental role in modern manufacturing industries. The proliferation of joint geometries together with the large permutation of associated process variable configurations has given rise to research into complex system modelling and control strategies. Many of these techniques have involved monitoring of not only the electrical characteristics of the process but visual and acoustic information. Acoustic information derived from certain welding processes is well documented as it is an established fact that skilled manual welders utilise such information as an aid to creating an optimum weld. The experimental investigation presented in this thesis is dedicated to the feasibility of monitoring airborne acoustic emissions of Submerged Arc Welding (SAW) for diagnostic and real time control purposes. The experimental method adopted for this research takes a cybernetic approach to data processing and interpretation in an attempt to replicate the robustness of human biological functions. A custom designed audio hardware system was used to analyse signals obtained from bead on mild steel plate fusion welds. Time and frequency domains were used in an attempt to establish salient characteristics or identify the signatures associated with changes of the process variables. The featured parameters were voltage / current and weld travel speed, due to their ease of validation. However, consideration has also been given to weld defect prediction due to process instabilities. As the data proved to be highly correlated and erratic when subjected to off line statistical analysis, extensive investigation was given to the application of artificial neural networks to signal processing and real time control scenarios. As a consequence, a dedicated neural based software system was developed, utilising supervised and unsupervised neural techniques to monitor the process. The research was aimed at proving the feasibility of monitoring the electrical process parameters and stability of the welding process in real time. It was shown to be possible, by the exploitation of artificial neural networks, to generate a number of monitoring parameters indicative of the welding process state. The limitations of the present neural method and proposed developments are discussed, together with an overview of applied neural network technology and its impact on artificial intelligence and robotic control. Further developments are considered together with recommendations for future areas of research.

This thesis argues the case for the parodic voice in a range of works by Richard Strauss. In doing so, it challenges the long-held view of Strauss as a composer whose music has little to offer beyond superficial grandeur and shallow sentimentality; music which may be impressive in some respects but, ultimately, remains stubbornly one-dimensional. Parody — a double-voiced device — plays with texts and subtexts and, by definition, insists upon the presence of dimensions additional to the one located on the surface. Thus, the grandly pompous or sweetly sentimental exterior of a given passage may function within a context in which the pomposity or sentimentality is undone, critiqued, or, at very least, dented by the critical presence of a parodic voice. Indeed, I argue that we should be particularly sceptical of reading at face value those episodes in Strauss's works where the trivial, the banal, or, very often, the sublime is (apparently) projected, for this is frequently a cue for the parodic. The emergence of Strauss's parodic voice can be traced to a work relatively early in his career: the Burleske for piano and orchestra (1886). Here, in this quasi piano concerto (or, indeed, anti-piano concerto) we find double-voiced strategies used to telling effect. This study therefore takes the Burleske as its starting point and uses the work as a means of introducing parody theory generally. Subsequent chapters consider in detail specific episodes in Der Rosenkavalier (1910), Ariadne auf Naxos (both the 1912 version and the 1916 revision), and Intermezzo (1923). Thus, the body of works that form the core of this investigation are firmly rooted in the period of Strauss's so-called 'volte-face', the post-Elektra period when the composer was conventionally thought to have turned his back on progressive trends and produced one shallow, empty, irrelevant work after another. Examination of the composer's parodic voice suggests otherwise.

This thesis proceeds from the observation that Milton is concerned by the presence of surplus material in the physical world. The blind Pharisee in Samson Agonistes dismisses his 'redundant locks, / Robustious to no purpose clustering down.' In the Ludlow masque, Comus complains that the Lady's 'moral babble' would leave nature 'strangled with her waste fertility.' Creation, in Paradise Lost, requires the expulsion of 'black tartareous cold infernal dregs' and leaves behind an abyss full of matter. Adam and Eve live in a garden where the sun shines with more warmth than they need, where the nighttime sky is bright with a perplexing canopy of lights. Vines and overgrown branches threaten to make their walks unpassable, while fruit, uncollected and uneaten, falls to the ground. An interest in superfluity is a characteristic feature of Milton's imagination. He insists on limits, then turns to what is left out as excess or waste. This habit of mind influences Milton's description of acts of choosing and gives shape to his account of the relationship between creation and God. It complicates his answer to the sort of question Augustine asks of God in the Confessions: 'Do heaven and earth contain you because you have filled them? Or do you fill them and overflow them because they do not contain you?' Milton is troubled by the idea of purposeless divine work. He is bothered by the thought of a creation that is useless or unnecessary. In Paradise Lost, I argue, the reason for the existence for the world is tied to the reason for sin.