The purpose of the present study is to show that the metaphor, flor, of Pre-Conquest Nahuatl literature means much more than the most widely accepted rendering of that metaphor that classic scholars such as Miguel Le6n-Portilla and Angel M. Garibay have attributed to it. Typically flor is referred to as meaning poetry. It is explored in this study as a metaphor that refers to entheogenic plants, their use and the divine words or songs, or poetry, that resulted from their use. As evidence for the theory presented, I examine and discuss various religious practices and important archeological treasures in order to help us understand a broader concept of flor. I then present my findings in a purely literary context. Gordon Wasson's study of pertinent archeological evidences is important to the foundation of this study, especially his studies of mushroom stones, figures of ecstacy and more importantly his study of the statue of Xochipilli, which can be viewed as a three-dimensional chart of the entheogenic substances used by the nobility to create their true or divine words. The rhetoric the nobility used in their meditations was richly poetic, imaginative and filled with metaphors that are elusive to those not wellversed in their noble dialect. As the noble underwent an entheogenic experience, he was transported from the real world via magical flight to the ethereal world of mystical time, space and knowledge. It was there on a search for truth that he would gain wisdom from the divine and be able to express this wisdom through true or divine words in xochitl in cuicatl. Some of the more important themes common to many of the poems studied are the mystery of life, philosophical questions and the importance of friendship. It was found that the additional meaning that we have attributed to the metaphor flor in these poems is an adequate rendering of the metaphor.

Orientador: Wilton José Marques / Banca: Rejane Cristina Rocha / Banca: Juliana Santini / Banca: Carlos Rocha / Banca: Julio Cezar Bastoni da Silva / Resumo: O objetivo do presente trabalho é apresentar os 30 textos publicados na coluna Semana Literária, dado que eles nunca foram publicados integralmente e/ou reunidos numa mesma edição até o presente momento, e tratar das significações desse compêndio crítico-literário publicado por Machado de Assis de janeiro a julho de 1866 no Diário do Rio de Janeiro, pensando-o como uma produção decisiva na formação do escritor-crítico oitocentista. A coluna será lida considerando a formação crítico-literária do autor carioca, demarcada pelo período que precede à sua publicação. Nesse sentido, o estudo que se apresenta procurará apontar a importância da Semana Literária para o contexto oitocentista, revelando o papel de crítico literário machadiano e o seu trabalho pedagógico, ensinando a autores da época, e a si mesmo, os caminhos literários possíveis. Além disso, buscar-se-á confirmar que a coluna em questão foi decisiva para os rumos do escritor carioca, operando, ao mesmo tempo, como um projeto crítico-literário machadiano, no qual ele expôs suas principais ideias sobre a crítica e a concepção literárias defendidas por ele, e como um "manual de literatura" (MASSA, 2008) oitocentista, posto que seus textos se apresentavam no sentido de orientar e aperfeiçoar execuções literárias, apresentando, descrevendo e explicando noções e/ou diretrizes que nesse ponto da formação machadiana já estavam consideravelmente desenvolvidas. / Abstract: This thesis presents 30 articles published in the column Semana Literária that were never before reunited in a single volume up to the present time and discuss the meanings of this literary compendium written by Machado de Assis from January to July in 1866 for the Diário do Rio de Janeiro, a work that is analysed here as central in Machado de Assis' critical and literary formation. The column will be read considering the author's literary-critical formation, defined by the period that predates its publishing. In this sense, this study will seek to point at the relevance of the column to the 1800's context, revealing the role of the literary critic in Assis' work and his pedagogical effort, teaching other writers of the period and himself literary possible paths to follow. Besides that, this thesis intends to confirm that the column was decisive in Machado de Assis' formation, operating, simultaneously, as a literary-critical machadian project, in which he exposed his main ideas on the critical and literary conceptions defended by him, and as a 1800's "manual of Literature" (Massa, 2008), once his texts were written in the sense of orientating and perfecting literary executions, presenting, describing and explaining notions and/or orientations that in this point of his formation were already considerably well developed / Doutor

The main preoccupation in this thesis is to illustrate that, although there is no doubt that the missionaries deserve all the praise that they have been showered with, for their role in the development of Xhosa literature, there is a sense in which they can be said to have contributed as much also to its underdevelopment. It is my view that Xhosa literature has had a very unfortunate history, because of having an origin that is located in the history of Christianization. This history has haunted Xhosa literary creativity from its early beginnings to the present. The success of the mission to convert them to Christianity was anchored on the principle of total alienation of the Xhosa from their world-view: from their culture, from their religion, from their chiefs, from their literary art, and even from their homes. The intention was to turn them into new beings - Christian and loyal subjects of the British Crown - and to make them not only reject, but also despise their past. Therefore Western-style education for the Blacks in South Africa did not come out of any sense of altruism on the part of those by whom it was introduced. It was the interests of its initiators and their country that had to be served by the education of the Blacks. It was in this context that Xhosa literature was born. It was produced to promote the interests of the Christian church and therefore those of the British Crown. Its production was controlled by the missionaries, the owners of the publishing houses, but it was produced by the Christian and literate Xhosa most of whom had studied in mission schools. It was produced to crush the past and any aspirations that were in conflict with those of the Christian church and the British imperial designs. In short, it was a literature against its people. However, the Christian and literate Xhosa was never accepted as the equal of the other British subjects who were White. He was excluded from all law-making mechanisms and was affected by the many Native Laws that were passed, as badly as his non-Christian brothers and sisters. He witnessed land dispossession and all the other atrocities perpetrated by White rulers. His literary art had been harnessed to legitimize and perpetrate this situation and he dared not use his art to change it. It is in the light of this context that this thesis contends that Xhosa literature is between two worlds. It is argued that Xhosa literature, because of the writers' dilemma created by their position between these two conflicting universes, has been forced to be mute in the face of the Black people's experiences of oppression, and therefore to be indifferent to the Black people's struggles to resist colonization and to liberate themselves from this oppression. It is however, pointed out that some works are characterised by the writers' attempts to grapple with this dilemma. Finally this thesis advocates complete liberation of literary artists from state control, indirect though it may be, and also a change in the teaching and analysis of Xhosa literature.

Bibliography: pages 198-207. / In this dissertation, a study is made of two bodies of fiction documenting the South African soldier in Angola. The fiction was limited to Afrikaans short stories, as this genre is believed to best reflect the fragmentary, explosive experience of combat. This demarcation also served as a way of limiting the body of fiction for the study. A cut-off year of 1990 was taken. The rationale for this is that the late seventies and eighties was the golden age for the publication of border fiction, and that Southwest AfricaNamibia gained independence in 1990 with a SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organisation) government, thus largely defeating the purposes of South African military involvement in Namibia and Angola. The collections of short stories that were analyzed in this study, were divided into two categories. The stories published in popular family magazines such as Die Huisgenoot were considered to be popular fiction. These stories are overtly accepting of South Africa's involvement in Namibia and Angola, and are highly propagandistic. The collections Ses Wenverhale (1988) by Maretha Maartens and others, and Verby die wit brug (1978) by Johan Coetzee, were analyzed as examples of this category. In the category of literary short stories, Wie de hel het jou vertel? (1988) by Gawie Kellerman and 'n Wereld sonder grense (1984) by Alexander Strachan were analyzed. It is important to note that the texts were selected thematically i.e. the criterium was that they had to have the South African soldier in South West AfricaAngola as main theme. Analyses of the texts are based on the thesis formulated by H P van Coller in his article "Afrikaanse literatuur oor die gewapende konflik in Suider-Afrika sedert 1963 - 'n voorlopige verslag". In this report, Van Coller mentions that studies comparing the literary border fiction with the popular border fiction, have been left behind. The study aims at examining this unexplored territory and looks extensively at how these two bodies of fiction differ. It was found that two radically different images of the border war emerge from the two bodies of fiction: the popular fiction is uncritical, war is presented more as an exciting game in the popular fiction, whereas it is presented as deadly, yet addictive, in the literary fiction. The ideological backgrounds from which the stories are written, are fundamentally opposed: the popular fiction often sees the war as a continuation of the white man's struggle for survival on a violent continent, and God is assumed to be on the South African side. The literary fiction documents a loss of God and criticises the government, censorship and apartheid. The literary fiction also fulfills a function of reporting - that which has not been said in the media due to censorship by government. The scope of the popular fiction is much narrower than the literary fiction, ignoring issues such as homosexuality in the army, torture and atrocities. Finally, the conclusions differ, with a sentimental "all will be well" in the popular fiction, as opposed to the fundamental pessimism in the literary fiction.

Western civilization has been influenced by Indian thought in two ways - one through the Greeks, and the other through modern English scholarship. The former has affected us but slightly, being the result of oral interchange, rather than of immediate literary borrowing, - thus passing only indirectly into our system. The latter is reacting upon English literature today in a manner and to an extent which seems not to have been fully realized by either the East or the West. India still remains the western world something of a mystery, a succession of romantic and gorgeous pictures, or a fantastic fable, without form or meaning. To capture the flavor of this extraordinary land, to understand the inner life of her people, their experiences and ways of thought, their beliefs and aspirations, can only become possible by going back three thousand five hundred years in her history and tracing the wide and uninterrupted stream of her literary activity, up from the early Sanskrit Vedas of 1500 B.C. to the present time, when Sanskrit works still continue to be written side by side with modern works in English, whose modes of thought and expression are different from those of the West, because of their Sanskrit background, and which are offering what to us are new ways of solving problems, new interpretations of life, new modes of artistic expression, gleaned from the genius of their ancient culture. Thus, it runs through the whole history of India, through its three or four thousand years, a high road, or it is perhaps more accurate to say, a high mountain path of literature. With the exception of China, Max Muller tells us, there is nothing like this literary continuity in the whole world. It is the purpose of this thesis to trace the flow of the stream of literacy activity down to the present time when, with the birth of Indo-Anglian literature, the fundamental purpose of Indian literature has become revealed to the world,- with the earnest desire that this revelation may be one more means of strengthening the ties between East and West.

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