Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf.

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig.

The analysis of three dramas by Gerhart Hauptmann and three by Anton Chekhov shows that loneliness is not only a motif for descriptive passages in prose works and for lyrical expression, but can also be strongly and movingly expressed in the drama in various forms of dialogues and monologues. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0237. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

This study advances the idea that the Dance of Death is more than just a medieval phenomenon; it is a constant manifestation, varying only in the form of appearance which is relative to history and cultural perspective. The Dance of Death in a broad sense is a recurring motif which mythically takes on the quality of a symbolic archetype and sociologically becomes a visible representation or legitimation of mankind's universal concern over death. Serving as an externalization of man's hidden fears, the Dance of Death is presented in this study as a universal metaphor projecting the collective concerns of man in his inevitable confrontation with Death. Manifested in a variety of forms, this motif projects a singular meaning, that man must die. Tracing this motif through the primitive cultures, those of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and those of the eighteenth century, this study shows the continuity underlying the surface variations. The major emphasis of this study is the development and variation of this motif in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from a multiplicity of viewpoints in relation to the Western cultures. While the Processional Dance of Death was a dominant theme in these two centuries, other interesting variations include Danseomanie, the Fertility Rite as a Dance of Death, the Satirical Dance of Death, War as a Dance of Death, and the most modern expression of this motif, the Psychological Dance of Death. Combinations of two or more of these motifs also offer a unique insight into the modern world. Thus, the Dance of Death is an evolutionary motif found throughout the history of mankind and manifested through the various art forms created by man. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-04, Section: A, page: 1138. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Diderot's "De la Poesie dramatique" became seminal in the German literary tradition as a result of Lessing's prompt translation in 1760; however, little more than half of this important treatise on theatrical theory has been translated into English, thus suggesting a need for the present annotated version after more than two centuries of neglect. Moreover, the concept of a unified work of art was so central to Diderot's aesthetics that it would seem natural to suspect that his own primary text on theatrical theory would itself be a coherent whole, which could not be fully appreciated in partial translations; rather, the more the coherence of his own aesthetic principles becomes evident, including their later developments in the Salons, the more the need becomes obvious to have access to as many of his related works as possible through translations. / Another way of measuring the importance of Diderot's theatrical treatise, translated as "Discourse on Drama," will be indicated by reference to the playwrights Beaumarchais and Brecht, since both have written accolades for Diderot's dramatic theories. Two chapters of this dissertation will therefore attempt to trace the nature of this influence, thereby illustrating which principles have proven important to two playwrights recognized to have international reputations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-03, Section: A, page: 0924. / Major Professor: William Cloonan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

Some comedies feature a protagonist strongly reminiscent of the archetypal hero as described by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Paul Radin. Thus various principles taken from their writings coalesce into a model which helps to elucidate characterization, plot, and theme within such comedies. / In those plays which conform to the model, character development for the protagonist follows a pattern analogous to psychological development through the process of individuation, while the protagonist's activities parallel the monomythic journey of the archetypal hero, exhibiting motifs of separation, initiation, and return. Thematic implications center around redemption for the hero or the salvation of his society. However, the significance of a protagonist's actions varies according to the type of hero portrayed in a particular comedy. Some heroes merely grow in rudimentary self-awareness; others attain full self-sufficiency and coincidentally provide fundamental benefits to others. Another form of hero protects his society from threatening external chaos while a fourth type learns to temper his ability at altering the environment thus preserving a beneficial existing order. Heroic comedies also have a special sort of humor. This humor emanates from the observer's initial feelings of superiority which shift to a realization of incongruity as a protagonist's substandard behavior at the beginning of the comedy turns towards increasingly commendable demeanor as the comic action progresses. / Aristophanes' Wasps provides a detailed illustration of the application of the model for heroic comedy. Other comedies by Aristophanes also correlate well with the model, including the Birds, Clouds, and Knights, but the Women in Assembly and Wealth do not. Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer is also an example of heroic comedy. / Finally, to delineate clearly heroic from non-heroic forms of comedy, a comparison of both types is provided, relying on examples taken from the broad spectrum of western literature. Non-heroic works include comedies by Menander, Moliere, Anton Chekhov, William Wycherley, and George Bernard Shaw. In contrast, certain other plays by Plautus, Moliere, George Etherege, Oscar Wilde, and Shaw conform well to the model for heroic comedy. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, Section: A, page: 1784. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

This study establishes that the lyricism of Mary Webb's early prose and poems has been enhanced in Precious Bane and her other five novels. In the study music is used as an analog to establish connections between the aural effect of Webb's narratives and structural techniques that are seen to be musical. / Webb achieves the effects of music in narrative by means of onomatopoeia, silence, motival repetition and change, varied rhythm and tempo, crescendo to climax, and large formal elements generally understood to create coherence. There are literary changes in tone analogous to harmonic shifts, resolved dissonances, rhythmic variation--devices habitually employed by the composer. / In the absence of a statement of specific intent to create a "musical" work, Webb's novels nevertheless manifest this quality because she expresses an imagistic vision of reality. All her novels are complex, poetic and dense with allusive meaning. Hence they point beyond themselves as does music in its capacity to be endlessly evocative. Webb's prose is improvisatory in its immediacy yet structurally unified on several levels. By means of near and far vision she incorporates both the displaced image (a Webb hallmark), and the suggestion of general three part form whose musical analogy is the double concerto for soloists and orchestra. Webb's consistent use of pairs of characters over a stable English rural background makes possible interplay in plot and characterization that suggests solo and orchestral dialogue. Between the poles of poetic detail and implicit large musical structure is a continual oscillation or transformation; this displacement followed by a new order is the essence of music and narration, tending toward unity and coherence. / The critical approach used in this study is seen to have wider application beyond what is implied in the choice of one author. The capacity of lyric prose to transcend its medium and suggest the condition of another art form is evident in Webb's narratives as referential meaning gives way to an aural, aesthetic state. Her use of language calls attention to itself, and in this Webb is an artist. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: A, page: 3902. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-10, Section: A, page: 5436. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Despite the long history of ironic imitation in the novel and statements that imitation is now the only mode available to the genre, the novel is still a viable literary form which is perhaps ready to move in new directions. According to John Barth and others, the literature of exhaustion is the direction the novel will take, and his The Sot-Weed Factor is a key example of deliberate ironic imitation of numerous literary models. Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey parodies the romantic gothic novel, Albert Camus's The Fall is an ironic confession, Barth's Sot-Weed Factor recreates the eighteenth-century mock-epic, and John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman is an imitation Victorian novel. Authorial presence and the fact of the fiction are combined with references to prior works, and protagonists are inversions of hero figures. Barth's novel draws most heavily from the epic, with the Odyssey and its successors providing epic characters, events, and devices presented in comically inverted forms. / The main plots of the four novels include mythic elements and follow the cycle of the hero who gets a call to depart from his home, journeys to an unknown world, and encounters impediments along the way. Austen's plot includes the complete cycle and the heroine returns home. Camus's and Barth's failed heroes choose to truncate the cycle and remain at the nadir. Fowles's protagonist is ready to move upward at the end of the novel but cannot return to his former world. Historical documents also provide sources of manipulation for Fowles's and Barth's characters and accurate evocations of earlier centuries. Barth takes audacious liberties with history, using real people and colonial records in a bewildering welter of fact, fancy, and fiction in a comic reinvention of the past. Within anachronistic settings, Barth and Fowles deal, as do Austen and Camus, with contemporary issues and philosophical views. Such relevance suggests continued viability of the novel despite the post-realist, post-modernist dilemma which the literature of exhaustion neither confronts nor solves. / While literature cannot be as abstract as other arts, it can be mimetic of an imagined construct, as in future fiction. Temporal distancing imparts freshness to such works regardless of narrative techniques. In Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, for example, epic, mythic, realist, and modernist devices are used in a rational consideration of contemporary concerns extrapolated into a possible future. Such fiction can be derivative in form but forward-looking in ideas and be an affirmation of the human spirit and imagination. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-11, Section: A, page: 4705. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-05, Section: A, page: 2761. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1977.