This thesis is concerned with situating the works of Anna Kavan (1901-1968), Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984) and Ann Quin (1936-1973) within a discussion of British mid-twentieth century fiction. The relative neglect of these authors in academic criticism may be due to the fact that much British experimental writing has previously been ignored in surveys of this period. This thesis argues that a study of their work warrants a more nuanced understanding of the mid-twentieth century literary landscape than conventional accounts have allowed for. In that sense, it aims to contribute to research undertaken in more recent years which is concerned with revising dominant accounts of this period. The broader framework for the thesis is provided in Chapter 1 which examines past and present accounts and categorizations of mid-twentieth century British fiction. The remaining three chapters then focus on the 1940s work of Kavan, the fiction written during the 1950s by Trocchi and Quin’s novels of the 1960s. As well as contributing to research concerned with overviews of this period, this thesis furthers individual studies of each of the novelists presented here. By drawing on archival material and reading their works in conversation with their time and place, it attempts to understand the ways in which the experimental fiction of these three authors responded to the social, cultural and historical forces at work in Britain between the forties and the sixties. Whilst all three authors started out from a strategy of subjectivity, rooting their experimentation in a turn inwards, their works, as this thesis suggests, can be construed of as political in their concern with drawing attention to the osmotic effects of exteriority on interiority.

The submitted thesis focuses on traditionalist conceptions in the Czech interwar literature. In the First Chapter were considered some literary theories, mainly distinctions between continuity and discontinuity in literary history (modernism and anti-modernism). Author consider tradition in the dialogue with the hermeneutic theories (mainly Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur and New Historicism) regarding tradition as a problem of historical meaning opposite sociological conception of tradition. Tradition suggests interdependence of anti-modern and modern art. The Second Chapter focuses on the polemic about tradition around 1928. Polemics about tradition related with discussions about philosophical sense of the Czech history, revision state and national traditions and also with the traditional character of literature. Further chapter consider tradition in the context of rural literature (ruralismus) and rural novel published in rural library Hlasy země (conception and varieties of time in novels - progress, ancestral continuity, eternity). In this contemporary negotiations over rural themes had an important role regional literature (regionalismus) as a specific variant of the rural novels. On the basis of theoretical disputes and reviews of reception of the French regionalism (Giono, Ramuz, Pourrat)...

La quotidienneté se construit au XIXe siècle comme un objet de représentation majeur parce qu'elle est le prisme privilégié à travers lequel la société tente de comprendre son histoire, son présent, ses mœurs. Avec l'entrée dans l'ère médiatique, dans les années 1830, l'écriture de la vie quotidienne tend à se superposer au rythme quotidien : l'écriture des jours est désormais informée par la cadence du jour le jour. Cette culture de la périodicité, installée par le système médiatique, a des conséquences formelles – poétiques et narratives – sur l'écriture romanesque, et notamment sur le roman réaliste. L'attachement aux mœurs contemporaines n'implique pas seulement un renouvellement des thématiques du roman mais aussi, surtout, du temps représenté et de la narrativité. Car au contact du temps médiatique et des écritures journalistiques du quotidien, le roman réaliste invente une quotidienneté complexe bâtie sur deux gestes poétiques fondamentaux, la quotidianisation et la romantisation. Or la mise au jour de ces deux gestes, qui empruntent à la matrice médiatique, permet non seulement de penser à nouveaux frais l'esthétique réaliste mais aussi de mettre en évidence une continuité thématique et formelle entre des corpus que l'histoire littéraire a eu tendance à séparer. Au bout du compte, une réflexion d'ordre générique est engagée. Puisque le quotidien se présente comme le point nodal (thématique, poétique et esthétique) du roman dit « réaliste » et qu'il rassemble des romans souvent séparés en corpus distincts, ne peut-On pas envisager un genre intertextuel et intermédial, le « roman-Quotidien », qui correspondrait plus rigoureusement à une poétique historique du roman ? / In the 19th century everyday nature takes shape as a predominant object of representation because it is a privileged looking-Glass through which society tries to make sense of its history, present existence and manners. With the advent of the media era in the 1830's, writing on everyday life tends to overlap the rhythm of days. From now on, the written representation of days is modelled on a day-To-Day pace. Brought about by the media system, this culture of periodicity will have formal consequences – poetic as well as narrative – on fiction writing and more particularly on the Realist Novel. The attachment for contemporary customs will imply for the novel not only a complete renewal of subject matters but also, above all, new images of the times and narrative techniques. As a matter of course, through its contact with media time and journalists' writings on everyday life, the Realist Novel has invented a complex everyday nature based on two fundamental poetic forms, the “quotidianisation” and the “romantisation”. However, the discovery of these two forms deriving directly from the media matrix, not only allows to reconsider new realist aesthetics but also to highlight a thematic and formal continuity between corpora that literary history tended to separate. In the end some fresh thinking of new genres is engaged. Since the quotidian presents itself as the nodal point – thematic, poetic and aesthetic – of the novel called “Realist” and brings together novels often classified in distinct corpora, why don't we call this new genre which is at the same time intertextual and intermedial, the “roman-Quotidien” which would more strictly correspond to a historical poetics of the novel?

This study aims to investigate the challenges of translating metaphors of the Quran. It examines English speakers' understanding of a number of Quran metaphors which are selected from three well known English versions of the Quran translations. In addition, the study highlights the root causes which may be deemed to be a source of misunderstanding Quran metaphors. The study also aims to find out to what extant metaphors of the Quran can maintain their sense in today's context. Translation in today's globalised world is gaining relevance as a means to enhance communication among multicultural nations. Translation studies have contributed significantly in bridging the linguistic and the cultural gap among languages. However, the key literature of this study suggests that, translating metaphors and translating metaphors of the Quran in particular have been under researched as they are very often overlooked in translation studies. The conclusion that can be drawn from the predominant literature related to translation studies is that the on-going debates over the faithful, loyal approaches of translating vs. the free and dynamic methods have generated in parts insightful explanations and interesting and useful, but they have fallen short of providing a general consensus. This study takes the view that there is no master plan for translating and that a word for word approach often leads to stilted translation particularly when dealing with metaphors. Given the nature of the topic under consideration, this study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods. The advantage of the use of both methods for collecting data is highly considered and recommended. Utilization of this combination enhances the trustworthiness of findings as well as reduces limitations. The qualitative method in this study represents scholars' interpretations and views and a questionnaire as a data collection instrument is adopted to enhance the result of this study. The findings suggest that the three selected English versions of the Quran have fallen short of conveying the meaning of Quran metaphors. The findings also indicate that the meaning is often mistranslated or misleading or misunderstood by English readers.

This thesis comprises three main components: firstly, close readings and critical analyses of four major poetical works by W.H. Auden—“The Watershed”, The Sea and the Mirror, “New Year Letter”, and “In Time of War”; secondly, ten semi-informal letters addressed to W.H. Auden; and thirdly, a serial poem consisting of short and long poems based on the speeches of the public figure, Barack Obama. The thesis proposes a creative writing discipline founded on the productive and intensive exchange between reading and writing poetry, and reflection through letter writing. The chapters of critical analysis argue the following: firstly, that through his idiosyncratic handling of syntax and voice in poems like “The Watershed”, Auden introduced a new element of the uncanny into English poetry; secondly, that in The Sea and the Mirror, Auden re-evaluated his poetics and altered his poetic voice in response to a new reading public; thirdly, that in the “New Year Letter,” Auden uses tone to expand the range of his poetic voice; and fourthly, that in the sonnet sequence “In Time of War”, Auden uses parable to combine lyric and narrative elements in order to universalise the Sino-Japanese War. Some of the issues raised in the chapters of critical analysis, such as poetic truth, poetic voice, the lyric subject, and parabolic writing, are elaborated on in the letters to W.H. Auden. Finally, the Serial Poem presents 74 short and long poems produced using appropriative writing procedures. The idea that runs through all parts of this thesis is that speech, voice, and parable are crucial elements in the poetic practice of W.H. Auden, and that close attention to these three elements through all stages of this project— critical reading and writing, letter writing, and creative writing—has contributed to the development of a rich and productive poetic writing practice.

Dans la deuxième moitié du XVe siècle, les Croniques et conquestes de Charlemaine de David Aubert, l’Histoire de Charlemagne de Jean Bagnyon et l’anonyme Cronique associee ont cherché à rassembler et compiler les récits associés à Charlemagne. Composées dans des milieux différents à un moment où tant la réécriture en prose que le personnage de l’empereur étaient en vogue, ces compilations ont recyclé des chansons de geste et des chroniques des siècles précédents pour (re)constituer une histoire cohérente du personnage. Leur résultat est tantôt une biographie princière, tantôt un fragment cyclique qui s’arrête à la mort de l’empereur. La prose donne une forme nouvelle à ces récits inédits par leur organisation et leur extension, mais banals par leur matériau, recyclé de compilation en compilation. Par l’étude du contexte historique, et surtout la comparaison des versions proposées, dans leur récit, leurs articulations et leur présentation, nous souhaitons montrer comment la compilation est le reflet d’une lecture critique et organisée propre aux nouvelles habitudes de la fin du Moyen Âge. Le remaniement oriente sa propre lecture en fonction d’un public familier de la tradition littéraire : les morceaux de bravoure sont réécrits, comme l’épisode de Roncevaux, d’autres sont triés et oubliés en fonction du projet propre à chacune des œuvres. La compilation oscille entre la reconnaissance des textes et la déprise introduite par le nouvel ensemble. Au cœur de notre questionnement se trouve la double dynamique de fixation et de malléabilité de la mémoire, érigée au Moyen Âge comme modalité de l’activité littéraire. Nous proposons en annexe la transcription de la Cronique associee (ms Paris, Arsenal 3324) pour rendre ce texte plus facilement accessible. / In the second half of the fifteenth century, David Aubert’s Croniques et conquestes de Charlemaine, Jean Bagnyon’s Histoire de Charlemagne and the anonymous Cronique associee tried to collect and compile the stories linked to Charlemagne. Composed in various circles, when both rewriting in prose and Charlemagne himself were popular, these compilations recycled epic songs and chronicles written in the previous centuries to piece together a coherent story of this character. What results is either a princely biography or a cyclic fragment that is interrupted when the emperor dies. The prose form revives these stories whose structure and scope were novel but whose material had become trite after being compiled again and again. By studying the historical context, and especially by comparing the composition, narrative structure and presentation of different versions, I wish to show how the compilation reflects a critical and organized reading which epitomizes the new practices of the late Middle Ages. The rewriting process bears its own guidelines, depending on a reading public who is familiar with literary tradition: the purple patches, such as the Roncesvalles episode, are rewritten, while other passages are sorted away or forgotten, in keeping with the objective of each specific work. Through compilation, texts are either recognized or abandoned, blended within the new unit. At the heart of my investigation is the twofold dynamic of the fixation and malleability of memory, fashioned in the Middle Ages as a modality of literary activity. A transcript of the Cronique associee (ms Arsenal 3324) is appended to the dissertation in order to make this text more readily accessible.

C. S. Lewis is best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but Lewis’s poetry tends to be treated separately from his other works, or as an antecedent to his more famous prose works. This thesis shows that Lewis’s paradoxical views of literary history, cultural death, reason and imagination are reflected in his narrative poems. George Watson says that Lewis was “a paradoxical thing, a conservative iconoclast, and he came to the task well-armed” (1). He is both a traditionalist and a rebel against his times. I explain Lewis’s paradoxes in terms of the concepts of history, memory, reason and imagination, and show that Lewis’s position was a negotiation of his own historical and cultural context. Lewis’s poems and scholarly work indicate that his approach to historical terms is first to underline divergence, and then to emphasize a use of seemingly polarized terms in order to unify them.

This dissertation studies the role of translation in the emergence of political concepts as they traveled through the Atlantic world in various discourses, documents, and genres of writing. A practice vital to new revolutionary governments, exiled or internal dissidents, and international abolitionists alike, the translation of political writing supported movements and expanded their scope by, I argue, not merely circulating, but actively transforming the meaning of such concepts as “liberty,” “equality,” “emancipation,” “public feeling,” “the people,” and “abolition.” Our study of this phenomenon has been limited—even stifled altogether—by the still prevailing tendency, academically and colloquially, to misconstrue translation as transparent communication, as the transfer of meaning unchanged from one language to another. Against this tendency, my study proceeds from the understanding that translation is an interpretive act that necessarily varies the meaning, form, and effects of whatever materials are translated. I examine cases of translation that generatively intervened in two decisive moments for the transnational production of the ideas that would become foundational for so-called Western modernity: the Age of Revolutions and the abolitionist period. I offer close readings of the translation of state papers, political theory, and literature by African American educator Prince Saunders, Venezuelan diplomat Manuel García de Sena, Irish abolitionist R.R. Madden, and French writer Louise Swanton Belloc. They demonstrate how key insurgent ideas were forged through cultural exchange in more textured, dynamic historical complexity than we have yet grasped. As the project traces the resignification of political concepts that circulated the ports of the slaveholding Atlantic, into and out of French, Spanish, and English, it seeks to push the disciplinary boundaries of comparative Americanist or Atlanticist frameworks to treat translations as objects of study in their own right, worthy of sustained and systematic analysis. / English

Many histories of modern Japanese literature see the "completion" of the modern vernacular style in the writings of Shiga Naoya (1883--1971), Mushakōji Saneatsu (1885--1976) and Takamura Kōtarō (1883--1956). Why and how this critical-historical perception of stylistic normalcy arose and still continues is better understood, I propose, through a close reading of key texts that identifies instances and patterns of creative manipulation of-as opposed to mere determination by or complicity with-certain philosophical, social, and historical discourses.How this creative manipulation plays out varies in prose and poetry and from text to text. In Mushakōji's Omedetaki hito (1911; The Simpleton), temporal and generic transitions establish a doubled discourse of sincerity that normalizes the genbun itchi prose into the background. In Shiga's An’ya kōro (1921--37; A Dark Night's Passing), certain syntactical and lexical innovations construct a new and rigid model of intuitive interiority. Takamura's Dōtei (1914; The Journey) reverses, to its own literary historical advantage, gendered discourses on the Japanese language and Japanese literary history.

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