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Cette thèse porte sur la critique du socialisme proposée par Fedor Dostoievski. Elle cherche plus précisement à comprendre le sens de la critique du socialisme offerte par l'auteur dans son roman Les Démons. L'hypothèse défendue est que c'est dans la question de la liberté que se trouve la clef de la critique du socialisme proposée par Dostoievski. Pour lui, le socialisme serait condamné parce qu'il constitue un rejet par l'homme de sa liberté, marque par une déresponsabilisation complète. Dostoievski voit dans le socialisme un effort pour évacuer la dimension métaphysique de la liberté pour tout ramener à l'homme, dépouillant ainsi la liberté de ce qui lui confère son essence. Ce faisant, l'homme procède à la stérilisation d'une valeur suprême, transcendante. Pour Dostoievski, le socialisme ne peut donc répondre au problème de la liberté. Pour lui, la réponse à la question de la liberté se trouve justement dans la transcendance, dans la liberté qu'offre le christianisme à l'homme. Le Christ fait le pont entre la liberté métaphysique et l'homme. Il permet à celui-ci d'aspirer à une liberté supérieure (ce que l'adhésion à un système politique tel que le socialisme rend impossible) tout en lui évitant de se perdre dans le gouffre du nihilisme. La liberté telle que comprise par le christianisme constitue, pour Dostoievski, la seule possibilité pour l'homme d'atteindre un degré de liberté supérieur, d'assouvir sa quête infinie pour une liberté illimitée et de régler definitivement le problème de la liberté.

This thesis is about the structure of prefixed verbs in Slavic and the syntax of resultative secondary predication. The topic is explored through four case studies of different prefixed-verb constructions (Slovenian na-laufati se [on-run self] 'get one' s fill of running', Slovenian/Russian na-brati/na-brat' [on-gather] 'gather a quantity of, Slovenian pre-sedeti [through-sit] and Russian pro-sidet' [through-sit] 'spend time sitting'). The discussion is cast against the often hypothesized distinction between VP-internal/resultative and VP-external prefixes, for which all four constructions present a puzzle. For example, some of the prefixes in these constructions can stack on a verbal base that already contains a VP-internal/resultative prefix, which is typically considered a diagnostic of VP-externality. On the other hand, these same prefixes also change the argument structure of their input, which is the hallmark of resultative secondary predication. The thesis argues that the constructions discussed all contain VP-internal/resultative prefixes. This conclusion opens another puzzle: when these prefixes stack over another resultative prefix, we have two resultative prefixes on one verbal root. This appears to go against the widely-assumed hypothesis that there can be only one resultative secondary predicate per verb. The thesis reconciles this hypothesis with the investigated data by proposing that, surface appearances notwithstanding, the syntactic structure of such doubly-prefixed 'verbs' in fact contains two VPs, each of which embeds a prefix-headed resultative secondary predicate; one of the V' s, however, is null. The postulation of two VPs is supported with various kinds of novel data, including adverbial modification, aspectual patterning, and the occurrence of two unselected objects. The two VPs are proposed to be concatenated in a manner similar to one that has been proposed for some serial verb constructions, in a conjunction-like structure under a single Tense node. The results of the thesis have consequences for the general theory of resultative secondary predication, for the theory of null verbs, and for the often hypothesized distinction between VP-internal/resultative and VP-external prefixation in Slavic.

This dissertation explores how the plot pattern intensifies the tragicomic effect by provoking the audience's creative response to the four absurdist plays: Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs (1950), Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1952), Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (1957), and Edward Albee's The American Dream (1961). / The plot pattern of absurdist plays is characterized by contradictory and disjointed elements in the characters' verbal or non-verbal actions. This plot pattern engages the audience's detached, intellectual response to the characters' situation, in which a comic sense of deviation from normal human behavior and a tragic sense of disjointedness from meaningful human life combine to produce a tragicomic effect on the audience. When the four absurdist plays listed above present characters who are outsiders, the plot pattern intensifies the tragicomic effect because the outsiders negate the audience's expectations, activate its intellectual responses to, and deepen its tragicomic perceptions of the disjointed stage situation. / Chapter One begins with a brief explanation of essential elements of tragedy and comedy and shows how earlier tragicomedies combine the elements of the opposite dramatic genres. This exposition will help to clarify how the absurdist plot pattern distinctively combines tragic and comic elements through disjointed devices, uses outsiders to intensify the tragicomic effect produced by these devices, and invites the audience's intellectual catharsis by provoking its probable resolution of the play's unresolved ending. / In the later chapters, this dissertation analyzes each of the four absurdist plays, focusing on how the distinctive plot pattern guides the audience's creative participation in giving tragicomic significance to the play. In doing so, this dissertation unfolds each analysis within the general framework of Wolfgang Iser's response theory which is useful for the systematic development of the analysis. According to Iser, the audience, through hermeneutic responses of expectation, frustration, retrospection, and reconstruction, fills in the indeterminate elements of the character's inconsequential behaviors and considers the unstated meaning of the play. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1240. / Major Professor: Karen L. Laughlin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.