Ce travail est consacre au poeme "Le Demon" de Lermontov que l'auteur a ecrit durant presque toute son oeuvre poetique, soit de 1829 a 1839. On connai t les huits versions de ce poeme au moins. Toute une serie de questions fondamentales est a debattre bien que beaucoup de travaux soient ecrits sur ce poeme. En premier lieu, cela concerne le probleme de verification de l'authenticite de la version VIII, le fait du salut de l'ame de l'heroine ou l'attitude de l'auteur envers son heros principal. Pendant la periode prerevolutionnaire ainsi que postrevolutionnaire, les critiques litteraires, en portant le jugement sur ce poeme, l'interpretaient le plus souvent sous l'angle de l'ideologie. Ce qui a provoque une vive polemique et a rendu difficile les recherches des arguments concluants. Le transfert des discussions sur un terrain neutre s'est avere indispensable. A cet effet, il serait utile de s'en rapporter au materiel statistique qui permettrait de recourir aux interpretations mathematiques. Un schema du poeme, construit d'apres les notes de Lermontov, a ete applique a toutes les versions parachevees. Ce qui a permis d'elaborer une methode de lecture parallele de celles-ci et d'obtenir des criteres qualitatifs ainsi que quantitatifs. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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The dissertation defines Aksenov's style as intertextual. Aksenov's folklorism is identified in (1) the portrayal of characters as incongruous assemblages of emblems with archaic symbolism; (2) in the manner of bricolage work elicited in the structuring of folkloric figures; and (3) the intertextuality through which Aksenov fills his archaic images with modern content. A spontaneous religiosity of Aksenov's characters is apparent in the numinous feelings awakened by the quotidian presentiment of the sacred, the sign of a higher unnameable moral authority which gradually is elicited as an omen from God. Aksenov's novels from his second and third periods incorporate an iconology of totalitarian evil figures that function autotextually. The political and social evil is endowed with demonic features with a traditional symbolism embedded in Christian popular cultures. Their implicit hierarchy mimics the Soviet political structure. Aksenov's personification of the Soviet regime is an old Russian literary archetype designating the Russian homeland in the guise of an evil ogress, a double-mother that seduces and destroys its intellectual protegees. She is constructed as an intertext of folk tales, Soviet propaganda, Stalinist paraphernalia, and intellectual literary cliches. Aksenov's intellectual heroes yield to the temptation of the regime, a process described in clues that point to their gradual demonization and spiritual destruction. Others become or feel like traitors, with the folkloristic image of the Judas functioning as a double of Aksenov's heroes. Christ-like characters are collated as alternatives to the archaic brutality of the state and display numinous features as God's instruments of an impending moral miracle. Forgiveness as the central value does not preclude Aksenov's innocent macho heroes from practicing self-defense and manly valor. Their / personal God is non-violent and non-punishing. As the sacred is available in everyday life, man can experience at any moment the opening of his latent religiosity--a non-denominational capacity for goodness. The theophany in Aksenov is under the influence of Berdiaev. The hero's resurrection, alluded to through ascension and flight motifs, replaces the paschal mystery which is viewed in the Russina literary tradition as a general renewal of men's humanity and of the community bonds. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: A, page: 2946. / Major Professor: Richard L. Chapple. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study examines different aspects of the screen adaptation of literary works through the close analysis of three films based on Dostoyevsky's novels: Pierre Chenal's Crime and Punishment, Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal. Its originality lies in bringing to light the multifaceted nature of adaptation which is presented not only as a transfer, but also as a phenomenon having different degrees of occurrence, which can range from a simple borrowing to an elaboration of new artistic forms. The study is divided into three parts. It starts with the introduction which discusses adaptation in the light of the theory of Gerard Genette and establishes three major degrees of adaptation: formal, thematic and dialogic. The first part deals with the praxis of formal adaptation, specifically how Pierre Chenal adapted Crime and Punishment, i.e. what he borrowed from the original novel and how he created the atmosphere of nightmare by using expressionist elements such as a slightly deformed set, contrasting lights, projection of shadows. The second part focuses on the thematic adaptation by Robert Bresson who develops in his Pickpocket the themes of transgression, pride, the "will to power", and solitude, which were treated by Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment and The Gambler. It also highlights similarities between Bresson's and Dostoyevsky's aesthetic conceptions. The last part examines Denys Arcand's dialogic adaptation which contains a great variety of quotations and references, as well as a multiplicity of voices which composes a modern parable of the Passion. In focusing on the two main voices, the Gospels' voice and Dostoyevsky's voice, this final portion establishes their narrative functions, mode of occurrence, and relationship to one another.

This dissertation examines a counterintuitive artistic imperative that emerged from the struggles of Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Nabokov with an aesthetic problem of Kantian provenance. These two authors are widely considered to be opposed in their vision of art, but I show that their aesthetics in fact converge upon the same goal: to grant the reader a particular kind of freedom. These authors shared the Kantian view that aesthetic enjoyment requires that the reader not be constrained by any interest or concept. This feeling of freedom, they believed, is threatened not only when a reader looks to an artwork to satisfy his appetites (and thus remains bound by his sensuous interests), but also when he employs the artwork for a further intellectual or creative purpose of his own (and thus remains bound by his concepts). On the latter point, they concluded that too much interpretive license, rather than liberating the reader, actually leaves him trapped within his preexisting conceptual framework. To ensure that their own works grant the freedom necessary for genuine aesthetic pleasure, they developed narrative strategies that (in an apparent paradox) restrict how we read the text. / Slavic Languages and Literatures