This dissertation presents an account of fictional discourse which is teleological. According to it, questions about what is said in fiction and how it ought to be said are answerable in terms of the goals and methods belonging specifically to fiction-making as a practice. Viewed in such a way, it is argued that the incompleteness of fictional discourse and its apparent tolerance of inconsistency are distinctive of it. Moreover, it is argued that there is a sense in which one can produce true statements in fiction without thereby committing one self to the thesis that words made use of in fiction are endowed with reference. Throughout the dissertation, the view espoused in it is contrasted with rival positions on the issues of what fiction is about, and whether it can be true. It is argued that a teleological account of fictional discourse can present a coherent alternative to these.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

The idea of progress found in the poetry of Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Shelley germinated in the intersection of Enlightenment philosophy and the millennial tradition. In this dissertation, I show that the spirit of scientific inquiry and the tradition of millennial prophecy come together in Romantic poetry to form a secular conception of human destiny and spiritual restoration. Mingling the spirit of anticipation and hope associated with the millennial tradition and the spirit of empirical observation found in Enlightenment philosophy, the Romantic poets reinterpret divine providence as moral and intellectual progress. In their reinterpretation of human progress, the Romantics transfer initiative from an intervening deity to the human mind itself. In Romanticism, the notion of a guiding presence in human history is replaced by a secular idea of providence based upon faith in human nature's essential goodness and potential. Examining the influence of Enlightenment philosophy on Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Shelley, I show that the new Romantic myth of redemption was reinforced by empirical theories that promised to renovate society and the species through the rational observation of human behavior. In a reinterpretation of spiritual restoration and the millennial plot, the Romantic poets identify themselves as chosen prophets and internalize the saving and sanctifying power traditionally attributed to a divine redeemer. Combining Enlightenment philosophy's interest in cognitive processes with the millennial tradition's spirit of renewal and redemption, the Romantic poets introduce imagination as a visionary faculty capable of bringing a new world into creation. This dissertation focuses on the new myths of redemption forged by four Romantic poets. Close readings of Blake's Jerusalem, Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Wordsworth's The Prelude, and Shelley's Prometheus Unbound demonstrate how the Romantics adapt the millennial prospect and plot to a human and earth-centered theory of progress.

My purpose in this study is to analyze Fowles' existential philosophy and its correlation with his writing technique. Although Fowles places himself within the existentialist tradition--French existentialism, in particular--he also claims differences with it. Fowles' main particularity is that he tackles the major existentialist issue of freedom in a negative, but multi-focal, way by dealing at length with the deterministic forces which negate freedom: metaphysical, socio-political and psychological factors. Indeed, Fowles' fiction is to a large extent a negative reflection on French existentialism. A comparative study of Fowles, Sartre and Camus will clearly bring out the divergences, as well as the similarities, between their philosophies. Comparing Fowles to the French existentialists, one realizes how much more fluid and multi-faceted his philosophy is. However, if Fowles' eclecticism makes his existentialism richer than Sartre's and Camus', it also makes it quite dubious from an ideological point of view. It will be therefore interesting to deconstruct Fowles' progressive political claims from the points of view of race, gender and class before focusing on what Fowles sees as the only real possibility of freedom: the individual's power to transcend the conditioning forces at work in existence and create a personal and flexible mythology by which to live. Finally, a most fascinating aspect of Fowles' thought and fiction to examine is his transposing the philosophical problem of determinism versus freedom onto the literary field. Reflecting on art, Fowles realizes that his position as the inheritor of the realist literary tradition puts him at odds with his own existentialist precept according to which life is a fiction to be written by the individuals themselves. The realist narrative technique remains the only valid one in Fowles' eyes; but because it deprives the characters from the existential freedom and responsibility of becoming their own creators, Fowles feels increasingly forced into post-modernist experimentation. Fowles' attempts to solve this literary dilemma reflects, in fact, his conception of authentic living as being a perpetual quest for a middle truth which lies between extremes. With Fowles, living and writing begin and end in paradox.

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An important line of adverse criticism maintains that Faulknerian form reflects only confusion of the mind, thus reducing the felt tragic intensity in Faulkner's fiction to mere emotionalism. Using Nietzsche's philosophy as a model and examining closely four of Faulkner's most discussed novels, this dissertation proposes that the question raised about Faulknerian form has resonances beyond the evaluation of Faulkner's achievements. The clarity of Faulknerian form must be understood in connection with a mode of thought steeped in tragic pathos. At the core of tragic thought is supreme strength: in the modern era, tragic thought invariably begins with the nihilist belief that there is no moral world order; yet it overcomes the value of nil by affirming the plurality of life as the primal fund of creativity. As such, the tragic is the triumph of Art over the rational concept of knowledge, a true reaction to modernity. The tragic defined as an aesthetics of multiple affirmation is the informing idea of this study. In Part I, several implications of the aesthetics relevant to an evaluation of Faulknerian form are discussed: the principle of life, perspectivism, the plural I, tragic pathos. The term tragic reaction is used alternately to suggest that the basic Faulknerian form is an environment of reactions in which the tragic functions as a differential element. Part II is concerned with Faulkner's uses of voice. It is argued, in Chapter 4, that a single voice in Faulkner's fiction manifests the plurality of the ego fatum. In Chapter 5, polyphonic music is used as an analogy to illustrate how Dionysian depth of vision is created in Faulkner's fiction. Each of the four chapters in Part III examines a novel in the light of the defined aesthetics. In Chapter 6, the interaction of nihilisms as embodied by the troubled kinships is identified as the main theme and form in The Sound and the Fury. Chapter 7, concerning Absalom, Absalom!, begins with a premise which undermines any single, superior view of history, namely: history is made and reshaped by various creative uses of remembrance propelled by needs and desires. In Chapter 8, Ike's consciousness in Go Down, Moses is cited as an example of the plural soul. Chapter 9 discusses the joy of the circle as a structuring principle in Light in August in terms of Nietzsche's Eternal Return.

Chow Tin-ping, Balance. / Typescript (photocopy) / Bibliography: leaves [324]-336 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1983

This PhD presents a new term for contemporary ekphrastic poetry: curatorial ekphrasis. The thesis is composed of two elements, a critical essay followed by a collection of poetry that informs and is informed by the former, Entitled 'Curatorial Ekphrasis in Contemporary British Poetic Practice', the critical essay challenges established critical approaches to ekphrastic poetics by revealing a curatorial practice currently being undertaken by a number of contemporary poets writing about artworks. Chapter One identifies and evaluates key critical texts about ekphrasis and its role in the relationship between word and image and highlights how theorists have failed to account for the work of ekphrastic poets with a heightened interest or background in art- Chapter Two presents and defines the term curatorial ekphrasis. The chapter discusses the emergence of the contemporary curator in the art world and discusses how the term 'curator' can be appropriated for use in a literary context The following chapters analyse the work of contemporary poets who I argue are writing curatorial ekphrasis, Chapter Three analyses Roger Hilton's Sugar (2005), a poetic sequence by Kelvin Corcoran (b.1956). Chapter Four analyses Paul Klee's Diary (1995), a long poem by Peter Hughes (b.1956). Chapter Five analyses De Chirico's Threads (2011), a verse-drama with soundscape by Carol Rumens (b.1944). The conclusion summarizes my research and also anticipates the creative work, which follows, by highlighting elements in the analysed texts that resonate with my own poetry. The conclusion also suggests areas for future research by both critical and creative practitioners. The critical essay is followed by the creative component of the PhD, a collection of curatorial ekphrasis entitled 'Lucian Freud Portraits'. The poetry collection is sectioned into five rooms, reflecting the layout of an exhibition at an art gallery, The collection includes twenty-nine poems and a poem-libretto. The collection is precede-d by a Preface, which introduces the work, and is followed by a section of notes, The appendix of the thesis includes reproductions of the artworks referred to in the poetry collection, a chronology of Lucian Freud's life, a catalogue raisonne of his entire works and an extensive bibliography of material written about the artist and his works. This information is provided in a similar manner to the wall notes, exhibition guides and catalogues which are offered to visitors of a traditional art gallery. They are not prescribed reading material, but they may prove of interest to the reader seeking further information.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2000. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 377-380). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This dissertation works and is worked by the chiasmus in-between the language of space and the space of language. Fragmented narratives of live(d) experience from the everyday life of pedagogy are juxtaposed with theoretical traces from Lacanian psychoanalysis and Derridean deconstruction. The text(ure) of the work labours with and against the grain of hegemonic inscriptions in multiple sites of pedagogy - tarrying within uncertainty - on the tremulous grounds of a 'third' discourse. Located always already within the materiality of language, the work labours within spaces of provocative dissonance in-between theoretical positionings. Readings of spatiality from architecture and human geography intersect and disseminate with readings of language from post/colonial ethnography and cultural studies. Rereadings resonate within the vibrancy of a growing literature on writing otherwise within the spaces of interdisciplinarity. Reading outside the literature of pedagogy infuses the inside writing as boundaries are disturbed and subjectivities destabilized. Research is rewritten as messy text as/in a rigour of ruins in the gaps and intervals of the spaces in-between. As semiotic tropes of language shift toward performativity, the text ex-scribes in order to disrupt the circumscriptions of normative praxis. The text seeks invocations for risking radical responsibilities in the everyday experience of living pedagogy - in the tensionaliry of the always already and the not-yet there. The work of this dissertation labours beneath and beyond the text in semiotic dispositions - through an Aokian re-reading of Lacanian metonymy for pedagogy - a doubling movement of metonymy/metaphor in tropic moments - within a 'third' discourse generating openings for transformation. Excentric circumscriptions dis/appear into the space of no-thingness - a site of ambiguity that is both thing and nothing and yet neither thing nor nothing - an ongoing response to an invitation to write a paper/not paper. A writing that tarries within its inscription - ghosted by a reading relationship with itself. A writing that seeks a jouissance of vacancy in tracking the spectrality of paper ghosts. The possibilities for transformation happen in chiasmatic passages from trope to performativity through re-readings and mis-readings. From a working text emerge articulations of a radical rhetoricity evoking ongoing labour from the para-sitic spatial punctuations of AuthorTextReader.