Repenting Roguery: Penance in the Spanish Picaresque Novel and the Arabic and Hebrew Maqāma, investigates the significance of conversion narratives and penitential elements in the Spanish picaresque novels Vida de Guzmán de Alfarache (1599 and 1604) by Mateo Alemán and El guitón Onofre (circa 1606) by Gregorio González as well as Juan Ruiz’s Libro de buen amor (1330 and 1343) and El lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the Arabic maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī of Basra (circa 1100), and Ibn al-Ashtarkūwī al-Saraqusṭī (1126-1138), and the Hebrew maqāmāt of Yehudah al-Ḥarizi (circa 1220) and Isaac Ibn Sahula (1281-1284). In exploring the ways in which Christian, Muslim, and Jewish authors from medieval and early modern Iberia represent the repentance of a rogue, my study not only sheds light on the important commonalities that these religious and literary traditions share, but also illuminates the particular questions that these picaresque and proto-picaresque texts raise within their respective religious, political and cultural milieux. The ambiguity that characterizes the conversion narrative of a seemingly irredeemable rogue, I argue, provides these medieval and early modern writers with an ideal framework to address pressing problems such as controversies regarding free will and predestination, the legitimacy of claims to religious and political authority, and the understanding of social and religious marginality. / Comparative Literature

This dissertation explores the transcultural relationships between modern China and ancient Greece, with a view toward appreciating how Greek philosophical and literary visions have been received, reformulated, and repurposed by Chinese writers from the turn of the twentieth century to the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966. The project is a combination of intellectual inquisition and textual analysis. Contextualized in the narrative of modern Chinese intellectual history, my study focuses on critical analysis of certain literary texts that contain or appropriate Greek elements. The objective of this study is to uncover the sophisticated transcultural practice in Chinese writers’ creative representation of what they consider the original source of the Western civilization. This in turn has contributed to the making of new intellectual trends that characterize modern Chinese culture. While constructing “a Greek layer” in the characteristics of Chinese modernity, these intellectuals’ reception of Greek imagery was also conditioned by their own political and cultural purposes. This reception was a process of appropriation that turned ancient Greece into an integral element in the formulation of a new cultural subjectivity of modern China, a course defined by David Damrosch as to mobilize elements derived from the foreign works within a vital and ongoing home tradition. This dissertation considers the Chinese translations of, introductions to, and commentaries on texts of Greek antiquity as recreations adapted to the domestic context. My study does not only analyze what has been rendered and changed in the translations of the broad term when compared with the original texts, but also treat the translations as reformulated texts that succeeded in representing Greek imagery as an internal part of the intellectual history of modern China. As the first comprehensive study of the multi-layered literary relationships between ancient Greece and modern China, this study aims to better understand the modernization of Chinese literature and culture in the context of transculturation. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Examining the perception of literary decline in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Persian, this study unearths an enduring taboo, one little changed by place and time, against verbal creation too readily sacrificing “nature” and “truth” to artifice and phantasy. The fading of the taboo after the nineteenth century, when “Decadent” yields to a non-normative name for the present (“Modern”), is without precedent. Demonstrating the opprobrium’s enduring nature, this study compares for the first time four literary traditions’ confrontations with a “Decadence” whose similarities have been conjectured since philology’s “golden age.” Chapter I examines two ancient polemics against decline, the tableaux of decay painted by the Avestan liturgical texts and the Attic Greek thinkers before new attitudes towards verbal creation. A similar tableau emerges in Roman reactions to post-Augustan eloquentia’s “decline,” as the analysis of Tacitus in chapter II demonstrates. Chapter III gives voice to non-specialist Imperial reactions to the “decline” heralded by the Second Sophistic, analyzing Plutarch’s and Marcus Aurelius’s rejections of verbal art. Chapter IV considers the effort to regulate artifice within the rhetorical tradition, examining the two great Hellenistic and Imperial authorities (Demetrius and Quintilian). Chapter V finds the prohibition unbroken in the earliest Arabic debate over suqāṭ (“Decadence”). Al-Āmidī’s Muwāzana is a summary statement of the rejection of verbal creation too enamored of facticity. Conversely, chapter VI looks to post-Classical Persian voices enshrining this very conception of verbal creation. Suhrawardī, Mullā Ṣadrā, and Ṣāʾib call for a language reflective of little other than wahm (“imagination”) and himma (“desire”). Chapter VII examines “Decadence” in Greek and Arabic post-Classical fiction. The erosion of μῦθος by ψυχή as the banal desire of non-heroic protagonists eclipses action, as phantasy, shown through the pathetic fallacy, irradiates out into the world, supports critics’ contention: Imperiousness of imagination goes with the genera dicendi’s loosening and the pull of language from the inhuman towards personal fancy. “Decadence” in fiction reflects a literature democratized, one mirroring (petty-) bourgeois interests. This is, argues chapter VIII, a premonition of Modernity: With Gutenberg and Calvin, with an unprecedented accessibility and banality of letters, the taboo against subjectivism and facticity recedes. / Comparative Literature

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Dans plusieurs romans québécois récents, nous observons une tendance chez les auteurs féminins à exploiter le corps de la femme dans des écrits, souvent à connotation érotique. Ce corps devient un outil de séduction et sert au personnage féminin dans une quête quelconque (attention, affection, admiration, etc.) Cette approche surprend si nous considérons la démarche entreprise par les féministes des années 1970-80 pour libérer la femme de l'emprise qu'exercaient les hommes sur son corps et pour la faire passer d'objet à sujet, entre autres au sein d'une littérature féministe. Nous abordons donc, dans cette analyse d'oeuvres de nouvelles écrivaines, la conception du personnage féminin ainsi que son rôle, pour savoir si ce dernier renvoie à une fonction de sujet où s'il exerce plutôt un retour à la fonction d'objet, idéologie véhiculée par les valeurs patriarcales. À l'aide de romans contemporains, Borderline de Marie-Sissi Labrèche, Putain de Nelly Arcan et Ainsi font-elles toutes de Clara Ness, nous constatons que les personnages féminins donnent l'impression d'être sujets par la façon dont ils usent de leur corps pour se forger une identité et une personnalité forte. Par contre, les romancières récupèrent des idées misogynes entourant la femme, la ramenant à sa condition de femme-objet dont le corps sert au plaisir des hommes. Des études sur l'érotisme et la pornographie permettent de déterminer les limites et les différences entre ce qui est conçu pour le regard masculin et ce qui renvoie aux intérêts féminins. De plus, les théories sur l'agentivité qui étudient le pouvoir et le contrôle qu'exercent les personnages féminins sur leur propre vie nous permettent de mieux délimiter les frontières entre femme-objet, femme-objet "volontaire" et "assumée" et femme-sujet.

En Chine, le Mouvement du 4 mai 1919 entraîne une métamorphose de la littérature classique chinoise qui acquiert, alors, sa forme moderne sous l'impulsion de ses contacts avec la littérature occidentale. Mao Dun et Ba Jin, écrivains issus de ce mouvement, contribuent à cette transformation par leurs théories et leurs oeuvres littéraires influencées par leurs rencontres avec la littérature occidentale représentée, ici, surtout par le naturalisme d'Émile Zola. Aussi, est-ce avec les parutions, entre autres, des romans Minuit et L'Arc-en-ciel de Mao Dun et Famille de Ba Jin que le roman chinois s'inscrit dans la modernité. Le naturalisme, en tant que courant littéraire international du XIXeme siècle, a connu une grande diffusion en Chine au début des années vingt du XXe siècle, grâce aux essais de Mao Dun visant a présenter le naturalisme de Zola. La propagation du naturalisme constitue une partie importante de la théorie de Mao Dun en vue de construire une nouvelle littérature chinoise. Quant à Ba Jin, sa lecture systématique des Rougon-Macquart de Zola, lors de ses études en France, constitue une composante importante de sa formation littéraire. La présente étude porte sur la représentation des idéologies et des réalités sociales de deux époques en France et en Chine par Zola, Mao Dun et Ba Jin à travers une analyse théorique, esthétique, textuelle et narratologique. C'est en nous référant au naturalisme, en particulier les Rougon-Macquart de Zola, que nous réfléchissons sur la littérature chinoise moderne, à savoir comment Mao Dun et Ba Jin lisent Zola, l'acceptent, le rejettent et le reconstruisent pour faire accéder la littérature chinoise à la modernité. Ainsi avons-nous mis en lumière les progrès, les détours et les limites du développement de la littérature chinoise moderne née au carrefour de sa rencontre avec les littératures française et occidentale dans les 80 premières années du XXe siècle.

This comparative study between eight fantastic narratives written by Jorge Luis Borges - Argentine poet, essayist and writer-, and Mircea Eliade -Romanian historian of religions and writer-focuses on the figure of the labyrinth as a metaphor of literature and an epistemic symbol. The approach is based on Hans Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical theory, holding that texts are "inexhaustible," in the sense that every historical moment generates a new interpretation, and therefore the meaning is produced during the reader's encounter with the text. The argument is twofold. Firstly, based on Mikhail Bakhtine's theory of the chronotope in literature, the work examines the way the labyrinth, a fundamentally spatial figure, acquires a temporal coordinate, in the literary text. Secondly, it argues that there is a significant difference between the two authors, regarding the connotations of the destination that the travellers reach. At the end of their voyage, the protagonists -motivated by the ancestral longing for immortality, the quest for an existential mystery, and the desire to transcend the human boundaries- find something that is linked to the way in which the literary texts integrate elements from anthropological, religious and philosophical discourses. The analysis of their journey toward the centre of the labyrinth leads to a questioning of the nature of the real, an aspect that each author envisions differently. The mythical and theological meanings that can be attributed to the labyrinth in other discourses function in Borges's literary universes according to a different logic. In his works, this figure is mostly a metaphorical configuration of literature, which becomes reproduction of and reflection on itself, and hence its non-referential nature. Paradoxically, in Borges, the real is the experience of the unreal and it is absurd, incomprehensible and unsubstantial. Eliade's literary labyrinths are closely connected to the works of the historian of religions. In his literature, the real is the experience of the sacred and it is, therefore, moving, significant and substantial. In conclusion, the experience through the labyrinth as a literary journey in Borges, and an encounter with the sacred in Eliade are means of accessing a different reality, in the ceaseless effort of the human being to transcend the chronological time.

Elsa Triolet, born Ella Jurievna Kagana in Moscow in 1896, brought into her French works ideas absorbed during her contact with Russian Futurist poets and theoreticians. This study traces these influences in her prose. Chapter I presents the biographical details of Triolet's Futurist acquaintanceship, and her shift from Russian to French as her literary language. Certain basic characteristics that underly all of Triolet's work, such as mobility and daily gesture, are presented to give background to the discussion. Chapter II starts the analysis at the level of the word. Triolet's acceptance of the Futurist principle of the word as something to create gives way to a creative use of cliche. Jakobsonian concepts are brought into play to demonstrate the significance of the repetition of words in Triolean narrative. Lastly, the word as sound and the use of colloquialisms are explained. Chapter III enlarges the sphere of study to specific literary devices. Sklovskij's concept of ostranenie ("making strange"), the representation of something without its cultural landmarks, is illustrated, and Jakobson's analysis of the incongruous stranger in Russian realist fiction is applied to Triolet's works. The importance of svoe mesto ("one's place") and the practice of collage, the appearance of real people or documents in the fictional narrative, are examined. Chapter IV takes on Triolet's narrative structure as a whole. Parallels are drawn between Futurist concepts and modern paradigms in general so as to situate Triolet's prose in contemporary models. The participatory nature of Triolean narrative is discussed, as are her different structural models, including those influenced by the Russian oral epic, similar in many ways to modern structure and a basis for Triolet's Le Cheval blanc. Chapter V is dominated by studies of multiplicity and perspective. Different aspects of character development are discussed, as is the expanding of the incongruous stranger into a structural element. Time, place, and perspective as foregrounded elements are examined. Chapter VI brings Triolet back to Russian. It analyses her thoughts on translation and self-translation, and offers examples of her work in that field.

Ethnic women in early twentieth-century America constituted a significant literary and political presence. Their gender politics were varied, according to the specifics of historical and cultural location. My dissertation demonstrates the heterogeneity of gender politics early in this century by detailing how ethnic women's fiction contests the political discourses of ethnic women. I use the multiplicity of issues in Native American, African American, and Jewish American women's texts to illustrate the importance of grounding gender in a particular historical moment. In addition, my study examines the ways in which ethnic women in the United States have used discourse to empower themselves. By reading fiction in relation to political history, I demonstrate how literary strategies of resistance are culturally constructed. An exploratory venture in method, this work develops a historically specific critical practice. Drawing on current feminist criticism as well as poststructuralist theory, I focus initially on the ways in which contemporary critical practices continue to obscure the political agendas in ethnic women's texts. The subsequent four chapters demonstrate how narrative contests rather than reflects history. History, like literature, is dynamic and conflicted; accordingly, I construct pluralistic histories in each chapter, detailing the debates over class, sexual, and ethnic politics within ethnic women's communities. I argue that novels appropriate and rewrite political discourses acting as interpreters, using history to legitimate particular politics. I argue, for instance, that Their Eyes Were Watching God employs the language of the black women's club movement and the "Classic Blues" to refute racist and classist sexual ideologies which position African American women as libidinous, while it simultaneously struggles to advocate sexual subjectivity for women. Drawing upon the writings of Jewish women labor organizers and social workers, as well as Orthodox teachings and the literature of the Haskalah movement, I suggest that Bread Givers challenges notions of femininity which were opposed to manual and wage labor. My final two chapters argue that Mourning Dove's Cogewea employs Native American women's writing from the turn-of-the-century Pan-Indian movement to counter assimilationist ideology and represent gender as a specific means of resisting cultural imperialism.