This study approaches the representation of Guinevere of the Arthurian legend from a Jungian-feminist perspective. Employing a revised quaternity of feminine archetypes, I indicate how the figure of Guinevere generally attracted to itself the negative aspects of the archetypes of the Mother, Maiden, Wise Woman, and Warrior. Viewed within the cultural context of the last quarter century, even the favorable depiction of the queen in several medieval romances and in nineteenth and twentieth century texts, has been perceived by modern fantasy authors as a negative portrayal. These modern fantasy writers, working within a genre favorable to revisionist characterization and drawing upon highly speculative theories of primitive goddess worship, have created a Guinevere that reflects ongoing feminist concerns.

This dissertation positions South African "colored" author Bessie Head as a political novelist. The dissertation also explores the nature of Head's art-form and content situating her achievements in the context of African traditions. The dissertation further highlights elements which distinguish Head as a political writer who both participates in and resists male-defined political discourse. Head's work appears to be an exploration of the possibility of defining "a new code of honour which all nations can abide by." This venture, which she seems to approach from an original angle in every text, leads her to embrace a redemptive kind of politics which is not readily recognizable as "political" writing because of its reliance on African spirituality. A Question of Power in particular, as this dissertation proposes, reveals what I have named the concept of consciousness-invasion, a notion which seems to be informed by African spirituality. Additionally, the thesis analyzes the critical reception accorded Head in the last two decades. It explains two discoveries: that, in general the attempts of Headian scholars to articulate the author's novelistic vision has yielded limited results because they have not seen her work as primarily political; that the view of Head's texts as political exposes the complexity of her canon as represented by her ability to simultaneously depict, with a fine balance, colonialism, racism, sexism, tribalism, and the self-interest which lies in every character who champions these oppression devices. In its redefinition of "political" writing the dissertation further argues that Head's novels exhibit the power dynamics of "macropolitics" in relation to those apparent in "micropolitics" and in "metapolitics". ("Macropolitics" and "micropolitics" are terms adopted from the work of linguist Robin Tolmach Lakoff while "metapolitics" is my own coinage.)

The paradoxical principle I explore in the fiction of Dickens and O'Connor is perhaps best expressed this way: the archetype of the child reveals that isolation, smallness, and apparent insignificance can create connectedness, expansiveness, and meaning. The archetype surfaces in any character that suffers these first three fates, be it the solitary child or the seemingly insignificant, outcast adult (or "little man," in O'Connor's words). Central to the study is my suggestion that the small, often childlike narrative consciousness O'Connor describes as fundamental--even exclusive--to the short story can exist in the novel, as well. The "little man" of the short story, O'Connor writes, "impose(s) his image over that of the crucified Jesus" (The Lonely Voice 16). I believe that by looking at the way in which O'Connor characterizes the paradoxical rhythm of smallness and expansiveness, as well as the way that rhythm manifests itself mythologically, we can open up new avenues (through the small portal of the childlike figure) to larger works of fiction, as well. The fiction of Charles Dickens, which includes some of the most sprawling novels in all of literature, becomes illuminated in the context of the myth and the short story. Dickens's short installments (a feature of the literary tradition of nineteenth-century England); his oral, fireside narrative voice; and his extensive depiction of small and childlike characters all reveal the explosion of events in tiny but potent milieus.

The cuckold has been a neglected character in Western literary history, subject to derision and often cruel comic effects. Yet three major modern novelists portrayed the cuckold as a protagonist: Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary, Henry James in The Golden Bowl, and James Joyce in Ulysses. This study compares their portrayal of the cuckold with medieval storytellers' portrayal of him in the fabliau tales. The comparison shows that modern writers used the cuckold to critique Enlightenment modes of knowing, such as setting up territorial boundaries for emerging disciplines and professions. Modern writers also attributed a greater value than medieval writers did to the cuckold's position as a non-phallic man, because he allowed his wife sexual freedom. Finally, they saw the cuckold as the other side of the artist; through him, they explore the possibility that the Everyman can be a vehicle for reflected action, rather than heroic action. This study combines Lacanian psychoanalysis with narratology to analyze the cuckold as a subject and as a compositional resource for modern novelists. / English

In the latter half of the twentieth-century, fewer U. S. poets translated foreign poetry than their modernist predecessors. The scope of their translation projects correspondingly narrowed. Gone, for example, were projects like Ezra Pound's reaching back to thirteenth-century Italy to see how U. S. poets could push forward. Instead, translations of European and Latin American modernism prevailed. Often, multiple translations of the same author were produced by different translators at the expense of presenting a more well-rounded vision of national literatures. Of these translations, a surprisingly large number were of poets who were either loosely or explicitly connected to surrealism as a literary movement. This dissertation locates this explosion of interest in surrealism as an attraction to the surrealist emphasis on reconciling binaries. This emphasis allows American poets a convenient frame through which to confront the difficult questions of place and nation that arise as the U. S. position in the field of world literature shifts from periphery to core. Previous researchers have traced the history of surrealism's early reception in the United States, but these studies tend to not only focus on the movement's influence on American art, but also stop shortly after surrealist expatriates returned to Europe following WWII. This dissertation extends these approaches both by bringing the conversation up to the present and by examining the key role that translation and other forms of rewriting play in mediating the relationship between surrealism and American audiences. As surrealism enters the U. S. literary system, the transformed product is often not what one might expect. U. S. rewritings of surrealist literature are primarily carried out by poets and critics whose fundamental interest in the movement lies in finding a foreign mirror for their own aesthetic or ideological preoccupations. This in turn provokes the development of a strand of surrealist-influenced writing whose aims and goals are vastly different from those of the movement's founders. / English

In our contemporary cultural setting, the notion of “trauma” has been extended far beyond a clinical diagnosis and cultural trope into a signifier denoting a subjective reaction to experiences ranging from small grievances to large-scale tragedies. In a world where stories featuring traumatic subject matter have become part of our daily reading, is how we read, understand, and teach trauma still effective? This dissertation explores the ahistorical, subjective experience of trauma as represented in a selection of contemporary global literature, pushing back against canonical trauma literary theory posed by scholars such as Cathy Caruth and instead, suggests a new mode of reading traumatic representation. I argue that, by exploring both the wounded mind and the wounded body, with attention to the influence of the traumatic context and close-reading the nuance of the figurative language of representation, we have much new knowledge to gain. Additionally, as trauma narratives appear regularly in higher education as Common Reads and on literature class syllabi, this dissertation offers practical suggestions for a teaching of traumatic narratives which is sensitive to both the subject matter and the student audience. Chapter 1 begins by exploring contemporary, media-based accounts of trauma, highlighting the dangers of the fetishization and commodification of the traumatized body, particularly traumatized bodies of color, before discussing two examples of public trauma performance: Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a national protest against the “disappearing” of dissentients of Argentina’s “Dirty War” and Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), a work of endurance performance art by former Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary study of trauma and the main arguments and criticisms of literary trauma theory, including the marginalization of non-Western trauma, the prioritization of a Western understanding of trauma and recovery, the emphasizing of traumatic representation through a Modernist, fragmented approach, and the disregarding of the connections between Western and non-Western traumas. From this foundation, I pose my own approach for reading and teaching trauma narratives, suggesting that by close reading trauma in context, with the inclusion of the traumatized body, readers and students more effectively understand trauma and traumatic situations and therefore, are better prepared as global citizens. Chapters 3-5 then demonstrates my application of this lens to a selection of texts, exploring the trauma of both well-known novels and unknown novels and memoirs. Chapter 3 centers on war trauma in Hanan al-Shaykh's Beirut Blues (1992), Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost (2000) and Nora Okja Keller’s Fox Girl (2002) in an effort to extend war trauma discussions to the unheard voices of non-combatants. Chapter 4 explicates the notion of intergenerational trauma, time, and memory before offering a new and potentially fresh reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1988), a novel heralded as the preeminent example of the trauma narrative genre, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries: A Memoir (2018), concluding that intergenerational trauma manifests in different ways within different marginalized populations. In Chapter 5, I address the mind-body split heralded by canonical trauma theory, focusing on the body as a “text” of cultural trauma, and then apply the theory to critical readings of the traumatized and othered bodies of Edwidge Danicat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and Fadia Faqir’s The Cry of the Dove (2007). In sum, I emphasized looking both looking at the trauma trope and beyond it. It is my hope that this evolved understanding will have broad applications for reading trauma narratives, as using this mode of inquiry will more fully achieve active witnessing, especially when reading non-Western literature. I conclude by offering a pragmatic, theoretical approach for teaching trauma narratives which connects trauma to historical or cultural context and therefore, offers a greater avenue for education about experiences which may be very different than one’s own experiences. / English

Inaug.-Diss.--Münster. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Stockholm, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-123).

Tesis--Bologna, 1966. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Stockholm. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 288-308).