This thesis explores Herman Melville’s relationship to sceptical philosophy. By reading Melville’s fictions of the 1840s and 1850s alongside the writings of Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, I seek to show that they manifest by turns expression, rebuttal, and mitigated acceptance of philosophical doubt. Melville was an attentive reader of philosophical texts, and he refers specifically to concepts such as Berkeleyan immaterialism and the Kantian “noumenon”. But Melville does not simply dramatise pre-existing theories; rather, in works such as Mardi, Moby-Dick, and Pierre he enacts sceptical and anti-sceptical ideas through his literary strategies, demonstrating their relevance in particular regions of human experience. In so doing he makes a substantive contribution to a philosophical discourse that has often been criticised – by commentators including Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift – for its tendency to abstraction. Melville’s interest in scepticism might be read as part of a wider cultural response to a period of unprecedented social and political change in antebellum America, and with this in mind I compare and contrast his work with that of Dickinson, Douglass, Emerson, and Thoreau. But in many respects Melville’s distinctive and original treatment of scepticism sets him apart from his contemporaries, and in order to fully make sense of it one must range more widely through the canons of philosophy and literature. His exploration of the ethical consequences of doubt in The Piazza Tales, for example, can be seen to anticipate with remarkable precision the theories of twentieth-century thinkers such as Emmanuel Levinas and Stanley Cavell. I work chronologically though selected prose from the period 1849-1857, paying close attention to the textual effects and philosophical allusions in each work. In so doing I hope to offer fresh ways of looking at Melville’s handling of literary form and the wider shape of his career. I conclude with reflections on how Melville’s normative emphasis on the acknowledgement of epistemological limitation might inform the practice of literary criticism.

李貴生. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 1999. / 參考文獻 (p. 323-341) / 中英文摘要. / Available also through the Internet via Dissertations & theses @ Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Li Guisheng. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 1999. / Can kao wen xian (p. 323-341) / Zhong Ying wen zhai yao

Édition de : Thèse 3e cycle : Etudes latines : Paris 4 : 1986. / Bibliogr. p. [225]-228 Notes bibliogr. Index.

This paper illustrates the ways in which Kezilahabi’s 1985 dissertation makes its own daring contribution to the field of aesthetic criticism through the proposition of a new critical approach to African literature. Kezilahabi’s starting point for the elaboration this new critical approach is the realization of a prevailing tendency among literary critics to read African literature against formal and aesthetic paradigms deeply rooted in the Western literary and philosophical traditions. Opposed to the adoption of interpretative frames that do not acknowledge the philosophical implications involved in literary analysis, Kezilahabi affirms the importance of approaching literary production from within the artistic and philosophical tradition it stems from. Inspired by hermeneutic philosophy, especially in its “ontological turn” embodied by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Kezilahabi’s focus is on literary interpretation as an ontological enterprise aimed at “situating” literature within a horizon of understanding where its proper universe of references can be disclosed.

This diploma thesis deals with literary work for children and youth of Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder and its use in leisure time education as a means of intentional ethical, personality and social education. The thesis contains a theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part deals with the introduction of the life and creation of contemporary Norwegian author and the analysis of key themes of selected works for children and youth. The practical part includes work with selected examples, on which suitable methods and activities are applied with respect to the studied subject. The diplomat uses activation methods for the development of critical thinking leading not only to the development of reading literacy, but also to the development of so-called functional literacy. The set of materials is verified in practice; work also includes reflection and (auto) evaluation.

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) war eine englische Schriftstellerin, Verlegerin, Essayistin, Tagebuchverfasserin, sowie Literatur- und Kulturkritikerin, die als Wegbereiterin der literarischen Moderne gilt. In zahlreichen kritischen Essays und Romanen reflektiert sie die geteilten Lebens- und Bildungssphären der Geschlechter und kritisiert die materiellen Umstände der durch das Geschlecht determinierten sozialen Rolle. Eine genderfokussierte kritische Rezeption von Woolfs Texten, welche sich mit weiblichem Schreiben und Lesen, Frauengeschichtsschreibung und weiblicher Ästhetik befassen, findet seit Mitte der 1970er Jahre statt.

The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct an intertextual study of two fantasy texts — Alice in Wonderland by Victorian author Lewis Carroll, and Stardust by postmodern fantasy author Neil Gaiman — and their filmic re-visionings by Tim Burton and Matthew Vaughn respectively. In scrutinising these texts, drawing on insights from feminist, children’s literature and intertextual theorists, the actions of ‘growing up’ and ‘falling down’ are shown to be indicative of a paradoxical becoming of the text’s central female protagonists, Alice and Yvaine. The social mechanisms of the Victorian age that educate the girl-child into becoming accepting of their domestic roles ultimately alienate her from her true state of being. While she may garner some sense of importance within the imaginary realms of fantasy narratives, as these female protagonists demonstrate, she is reduced to the position of submissive in reality – in ‘growing up’, she must assume a ‘fallen down’ state in relation to the male. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct an intertextual study of two fantasy texts — Alice in Wonderland by Victorian author Lewis Carroll, and Stardust by postmodern fantasy author Neil Gaiman — and their filmic re-visionings by Tim Burton and Matthew Vaughn respectively. In scrutinising these texts, drawing on insights from feminist, children’s literature and intertextual theorists, the actions of ‘growing up’ and ‘falling down’ are shown to be indicative of a paradoxical becoming of the text’s central female protagonists, Alice and Yvaine. The social mechanisms of the Victorian age that educate the girl-child into becoming accepting of their domestic roles ultimately alienate her from her true state of being. While she may garner some sense of importance within the imaginary realms of fantasy narratives, as these female protagonists demonstrate, she is reduced to the position of submissive in reality – in ‘growing up’, she must assume a ‘fallen down’ state in relation to the male. / English Studies / M.A. (English)