Throughout its long history, the Brahmanical literary tradition has demonstrated a deep concern with gifting and, thus, provides valuable data on this important institution in pre-modern South Asia. Significantly, this long tradition of reflection on the gift culminates in a class of texts called dānanibandhas, which start to appear in the early twelfth century CE and continue to be composed in widespread areas of the subcontinent until roughly the beginning of British rule. These dānanibandhas draw together, organize, and comment upon a vast array of earlier scriptures on dāna (Sanskrit: gift/gifting) and, therefore, represent a grand attempt to synthesize all earlier Brahmanical thought on the subject. Consequently, they are invaluable sources for the understanding of orthodox Brahmanical theories of the gift during much of South Asian history. Despite their potential value to modern scholarship, however, none of these texts has been translated into any Western language or even properly edited. Thus, the state of these primary sources greatly hampers any scholarly attempts at their analysis. This dissertation constitutes a first and crucial step toward remedying this situation, for it comprises a critical edition and annotated translation of the Dānakāṇḍa (“Book on Gifting”), the fifth section of the encyclopedic Kṛtyakalpataru of Lakṣmīdhara and the earliest extant dānanibandha. As a complement to this philological work, a more general study of Brahmanical theories of the gift with special emphasis on the early dānanibandhas has been included. / text

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This study explores Thomas Gray’s concepts of literary history, tradition, and the past. It proffers critical examinations of Gray’s literary and historical thoughts, illustrating the extent of the complexity of the mid‐century cultural and intellectual climate in which Gray and his contemporaries were writing. It shows the aesthetic, cultural, and political dimensions of canonicity in the course of examining the ideological motivation behind Gray’s literary history. Though much of Gray’s poetry is private and written for a narrow literary circle, his literary history seems engaged with issues of public concerns. Gray’s literary history must not be understood as a mere objective scholarly study, but as an ideological narrative invented to promote specific national and cultural agendas. Though Gray’s plan for his History of English Poetry was inspired directly by Pope’s scheme of writing a history of English poetry, Gray’s historiography represents a challenge to Pope’s most fundamental “neo‐classical” premises of canonicity in that it aligns English literary poetry back to the literary tradition of ancient Britain and resituates the English literary canon in an entirely different theoretical framework. Gray reworked Pope’s historical scheme to suits the need of the political and intellectual agendas of his own time: the national need for a distinctive cultural identity, which was promoted by and led to the emergence of a more national and less partisan atmosphere. Gray’s comprehensive project of literary history charts the birth and development of what he views as an English “high‐cultural” tradition, whose origins he attributes to the classical and Celtic antiquity. In Gray’s view, this tradition reaches its peak with the rise of Elizabethan literary culture; a culture which was later challenged by the “French” model which dominated British literary culture from the Restoration to Gray’s time. Gray’s literary history is to be examined in this study in relation to the concept of canonformation. Gray’s historiographical study of literary culture of ancient Britain, his historicization of Chaucerian and medieval texts, his celebration of Elizabethan literary culture, and his polemical attack on “neo‐classical” literary ideals intend to relocate the process of canon‐formation within a “pure” source of national literary heritage, something which provides cultural momentum for the emergence of a historiography and an aesthetics promoting Gray’s idea of the continuity of tradition. As is the case in his poetry, the concept of cultural continuity is also central to Gray’s literary history, and permeates through his periodization, historicism, criticism, and his concept of the transformation of tradition.

The style and themes central to Bukowski's prose have roots in the literary tradition of the grotesque. Bukowski uses grotesque imagery in his writings as a creative device, explaining the negative characteristics of modern life. His permanent mood of angry disgust at the world around him is similar to that of the eighteenth-century satirists, particularly Jonathan Swift. Bukowski confronts the reader with the uglier side of America--its grime, its corruption, the constricted lives of its lower class--all with a simplicity and directness of style impeccably and clearly distilled. Bukowski's style is ebullient, with grotesquely evocative descriptions, scatological detail, and dark humor.

Esta pesquisa propõe ler La ciudad ausente (1992) do escritor argentino Ricardo Piglia (1940) como uma obra que, a partir de uma máquina de narrar como metáfora de escritor, constrói e executa uma poética em consonância com a forma de encarar a literatura e o ato de escrita de seu autor. A primeira parte do trabalho está dedicada a três temas que serão levados em conta durante todo o texto: os nódulos brancos como elementos geradores de línguas e narrativas, o Estado como instância que também narra e a perda como origem da máquina e de histórias. A poética da máquina é tratada na segunda parte, na qual me detenho em sua formação como narradora. Partindo da proposta de um de seus inventores, identifico e divido sua programação / poética em três fases: tradução, criação por núcleos narrativos e captação do que ocorre na sociedade. Dialogando diretamente com a tradição literária argentina, proponho que a primeira fase tem como modelo o escritor Jorge Luis Borges e, seguindo as pistas de outros textos de Piglia, que a máquina insere-se em uma tradição argentina de escritores que tem a tradução como procedimento de escrita. Ainda no interior desta etapa analiso o Stephen Stevensen, tradução da máquina para o William Wilson de Edgar Allan Poe e o porquê de sua escolha. Nos capítulos dedicados à segunda fase de sua poética, verifico como a máquina desmembra o núcleo narrativo de origem do romance, o da perda, em quatro diferentes histórias: El gaucho invisible, Una mujer, Primer amor e La nena e como sua atuação resgata um papel antes atribuído aos antigos narradores. Em seguida, parto para a análise de espaços de representações dentro no romance, em especial o museu-biblioteca. Do museu à cidade, a leitura prossegue em direção à terceira fase da programação da máquina, na qual são analisadas as narrativas La grabación, Los nudos blancos e La isla, construídas a partir do que a máquina captou na sociedade e que refletiria a leitura que Piglia faz do narrador benjaminiano e da obra de escritores como Franz Kafka, Roberto Arlt e Rodolfo Walsh. Na última parte demonstro como todo o texto de La ciudad ausente pode ser lido também como uma produção da máquina de relatos e como essa ficção dentro da ficção dialoga com a visão de Macedonio Fernández e de Piglia de como devem ser encaradas as relações entre ficção, verdade e real empírico. A hipótese que norteia esta pesquisa baseia-se em ver em La ciudad ausente a reconstrução de um universo de escrita coerente com o restante da obra de Ricardo Piglia e com as leituras que ele faz de uma determinada tradição literária argentina formada especialmente por Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Arlt e Macedonio Fernández e da obra de autores exteriores a ela, tais como Edgar Allan Poe, Antón Tchecov, Bertold Brecht, Franz Kafka e James Joyce. / This research proposes reading La ciudad ausente (1992) by Argentinean writer Ricardo Piglia (1940) as a literary work that, beginning with a narrating machine as a metaphor of writer, constructs and implements a poetic in line with the authors way of facing literature and the act of writing. The first part of the work is dedicated to three issues to be taken into account during the whole text: the white nodes as the generators of languages and narratives, the State as instance that also narrates and the loss as the origin of the machine and stories. The machines poetic is treated in the second part, in which I focus its formation as a narrator. On the basis of the proposal of one of its inventors, I identify and split its programming / poetic in three stages: translation, the creation by narrative nuclei and apperception of what occurs in society. Dialoguing directly with the Argentinean literary tradition, I propose that the first stage has as a model the writer Jorge Luis Borges and, following the lines of other texts of Piglia, that the machinery is inserted in an Argentinean tradition of writers which has the translation as written procedure. Even within this stage I analyze the \"Stephen Stevensen\", translation of the machine for the Edgar Allan Poes \"William Wilson\" and why this choice. In chapters dedicated to the second phase of his poetic, I see how the machine dismembers the initial nucleus of the novels narrative , the loss, in four different histories: \"El gaucho invisible\", \"Una mujer\", \"Primer amor\" and \"La nena\" and as its playacting recovers a role before attributed to the ancient storytellers. Then, I start the analysis of Spaces of Representation inside the novel, especially the museum-library. From the museum to the city, the reading continues towards the third stage of machines programming, moment that are analyzed the narratives \"La grabación\", \"Los nudos blancos\" and \"La isla\", built up from what the machine has grasped in society and that would reflect the reading Piglia makes of the benjaminian narrator and the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Roberto Arlt and Rudolf Walsh. In the last part demonstrate how the whole text de La ciudad ausente may be read also as a production of the machine of reports and how this fiction within the fiction dialogues with the vision of Macedonio Fernandez and Piglia of how should be faced the relations between fiction, truth and empirical real. The hypothesis that guides this search is based in observing in La ciudad ausente the reconstruction of an universe of writing that is coherent with other pieces of Ricardo Piglias work and with the reading he has of a determined Argentinean literary tradition formed especially by Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Arlt and Macedonia Fernandez and the oeuvre of authors outside it, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Tchecov, Bertold Brecht, Franz Kafka and James Joyce.

Trataremos neste trabalho da poética surgida a partir da produção literária e do sarau da COOPERIFA (Cooperação Cultural da Periferia). Por meio das análises dos poemas advindos desse movimento cultural, verificaremos a contribuição dessa produção à Literatura Brasileira e ao cenário cultural que favorece o surgimento de escritores oriundos dos espaços historicamente marginalizados pelos contextos culturais e sociais hegemônicos brasileiros. / We will treat this work of poetry that emerged from the literary production and soiree of Cooperifa ( Cultural Cooperation outskirts ). Through the analysis of poems arising from this cultural movement , we find the contribution of this production to Brazilian literature and cultural scenario that favors the emergence of writers coming from areas historically marginalized by cultural and social contexts Brazilian hegemonic.

Bernard of Morlaix was a Cluniac monk who flourished around 1140. What little is known about him, including his visit to Rome, is examined in relation to the affairs of the Cluniac family in his day. A new conjecture is advanced that he was prior of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou. His poems are discussed as examples of the genre of complaint literature. His treatment of the end of the world, and of death, judgement, heaven and hell, is discussed in relation to twelfth-century monasticism. His castigation of the sins of his time includes some of the earliest estates satire. His anticlericalism and his misogyny are compared with those of his contemporaries, and discussed in the context of twelfth-century monastic culture. Bernard’s classical learning is analysed and compared with that of his contemporaries, especially John of Salisbury and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. His use of metre and rhyme is examined in the context of the development of metre based on stress rather than quantity and of systematic and sustained rhyme in the Latin verse of the twelfth century. Bernard’s use of interpretive and compositional allegory is explored. Bernard is seen as a man of his time, exemplifying a number of twelfth-century characteristics, religious, educational and cultural. Special attention is paid to the Latin literary tradition, and it is suggested that the culture of the twelfth-century was in many respects a culmination rather than a renaissance.

<p>In my study I analyse Reijo Mäki’s four books Pimeyden tango (1997), Pahan suudelma (1998), Keltainen leski (1999) and Black Jack (2003).  I’m interested whether Mäki as a writer belongs to traditional Finnish prose which started from Aleksis Kivi than genre of crime literature.</p><p>After Kai Laitinen humour, nature and democracy are typical to Finnish literature tradition.  Mäki’s milieu descriptions are closer to the Finnish literary tradition. Through nature the characters mirror their emotions, feelings and events. The environment is not only seen, but it is also smelled, touched and heard. Through the marks of the nature characters give right as well as misleading clues. It is particularly characteristic to the Finnish literary tradition to describe division of life, social status and the freedom and lack of it through weather, which is not typical to the crime literature.  Also Mäki’s characters are democratic and everyday and strongly individualistic and anti-social despite of person’s social standing.  Laitinen’s point of view is that in the Finnish literary tradition equality is only between men. In Mäki’s fiction women characters are narrow and they are only seen how they look.</p><p>Mäki represents the modern criminal literature in which are characteristics of puzzle, hard-boiled and police novels. Unlike hardboiled detective stories his books are full of verbal descriptions. In conclusion Mäki’s books clearly represent the Finnish literary tradition.</p>

<p>The dissertation takes as its starting-point the dichotomies between origin and modernity, periphery and centre. This is particularly the case in Astrid Väring’s novels Frosten (1926) and Vintermyren (1927), in which the author pays tribute to the homestead and the rural community in contrast to the industrial community, whilst her novels also express an ambivalent attitude towards modernity. Astrid Väring bases her works on a Norrland literary tradition, which often stood in opposition to the central power despite being dependent on it. In this respect, a similarity with postcolonialism is evident.</p><p>Access to a wealth of archive material, which has not previously been used in literary scholastic research, has resulted in a natural combination of a biographical method and socio-literary reading. When analysing the novels, the same external circumstances that had signifi cance for the author when the work was drafted, for example economic, social and political conditions, have therefore been taken into account.</p><p>With reference to the novel Katinka (1942), the view of popular literature during the 1940s is dealt with. The pejorative view, prevalent in those days, is compared with a contemporary understanding of it. Today, neither the canon nor popular literature stand out as particularly homogeneous categories. Katinka was written at the start of the Second World War. A comparison is made in the dissertation between Vilhelm Moberg’s Rid i natt! (Ride this Night) (1941) and Katinka in order to ascertain the novels’ attitude towards the offi cial Swedish position of neutrality. In Ride this Night rebellion against the enemy is encouraged, in Katinka a cautious, wait and see attitude is urged.</p><p>I som här inträden… (1944) is a novel with a purpose. In this novel Astrid Väring directs a harsh attack against the mental health care at Swedish mental hospitals. The dissertation contains a genre discussion concerning the various genres related to the novel with a purpose, for example roman à thèse. It can be concluded that theoretical work concerning the novel with a purpose is rare. But, when the issue pursued in the novel is no longer relevant, the novel with a purpose is often destined to be forgotten. Furthermore, Astrid Väring had the bad luck of falling in the shadow of Sara Lidman’s modernistic West-Bothnian accounts of the 1950s, which contributed to the fact that her entire works quickly fell into oblivion. This dissertation is the fi rst scholastic work on Astrid Väring’s works.</p>

The dissertation takes as its starting-point the dichotomies between origin and modernity, periphery and centre. This is particularly the case in Astrid Väring’s novels Frosten (1926) and Vintermyren (1927), in which the author pays tribute to the homestead and the rural community in contrast to the industrial community, whilst her novels also express an ambivalent attitude towards modernity. Astrid Väring bases her works on a Norrland literary tradition, which often stood in opposition to the central power despite being dependent on it. In this respect, a similarity with postcolonialism is evident. Access to a wealth of archive material, which has not previously been used in literary scholastic research, has resulted in a natural combination of a biographical method and socio-literary reading. When analysing the novels, the same external circumstances that had signifi cance for the author when the work was drafted, for example economic, social and political conditions, have therefore been taken into account. With reference to the novel Katinka (1942), the view of popular literature during the 1940s is dealt with. The pejorative view, prevalent in those days, is compared with a contemporary understanding of it. Today, neither the canon nor popular literature stand out as particularly homogeneous categories. Katinka was written at the start of the Second World War. A comparison is made in the dissertation between Vilhelm Moberg’s Rid i natt! (Ride this Night) (1941) and Katinka in order to ascertain the novels’ attitude towards the offi cial Swedish position of neutrality. In Ride this Night rebellion against the enemy is encouraged, in Katinka a cautious, wait and see attitude is urged. I som här inträden… (1944) is a novel with a purpose. In this novel Astrid Väring directs a harsh attack against the mental health care at Swedish mental hospitals. The dissertation contains a genre discussion concerning the various genres related to the novel with a purpose, for example roman à thèse. It can be concluded that theoretical work concerning the novel with a purpose is rare. But, when the issue pursued in the novel is no longer relevant, the novel with a purpose is often destined to be forgotten. Furthermore, Astrid Väring had the bad luck of falling in the shadow of Sara Lidman’s modernistic West-Bothnian accounts of the 1950s, which contributed to the fact that her entire works quickly fell into oblivion. This dissertation is the fi rst scholastic work on Astrid Väring’s works.