published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Also available in print.

Much of Tennessee Williams' work features mentally ill characters; his devotion to and interest in the subject has led to the composition of many plays that highlight the humanity of the insane, rather that caricaturize them with the usual stereotypes. In Suddenly Last Summer, Williams challenges the social stigmas most "normal" people attach to madness. Throughout the course of the action, the lines dividing sane and insane, normate and non-normate, gradually blur disrupting the audience's social equilibrium. By undermining presumed viewer prejudices toward the mentally ill, Williams creates the opportunity for redrawing the social boundaries of exclusion and inclusion. / by Kathleen Rush. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Germanic Languange, March 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-71).

by Lui Sha-Lee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-149). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Ideological Implications of “Madness´ح in Western and Chinese Culture --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Madwoman as the Murderous Daughter: Kitty Fitzgerald's Marge and Tie Ning's The Cliff in the Afternoon --- p.36 / Chapter Chapter Four --- "Madwoman as the Murderous Wife: Elsa Lewin's I, Anna and Li Ang's The Butcher ´ةs Wife" --- p.83 / Chapter Chapter Five --- Conclusion --- p.121 / Notes --- p.134 / Works Cited --- p.143

This dissertation engages in a critical analysis of the poetry of Emily Dickinson which, to me, suggests that the poet suffered from a type of manic-depression known specifically in psychiatric parlance as bipolar disorder. I argue that although Dickinson experienced much pain and suffering she learnt, through time, to address, understand and contain adversity - that ultimately, she transformed these experiences into the raw materials for poetic creation. Dickinson's poetic achievements are often obscured by a misunderstanding of her mental and emotional constitution. This thesis provides an alternative to the views of those commentators who maintain that Emily Dickinson was insane, neurotic or delusional. I intend, ultimately, to offer the reader a fresh insight into Emily Dickinson's poetry by reading it from the assumption that she suffered from bipolar disorder. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

Figure obsédante de l’imaginaire collectif, le fou a longtemps été chargé de significations qui le dépassent ; le mythe de la folie fait recette sur la scène littéraire mais les malades n’en sont que des figurants. Alors que le fou réel est maintenu dans les marges de la littérature comme de la société, le fantasme culturel de la folie est nourri et modelé au XIXe siècle par la littérature romantique ou fantastique et exalté au début du siècle suivant par les avant-gardes historiques. Un certain nombre de textes de romanciers du XXe siècle, parmi lesquels Georges Duhamel, André Baillon, Julien Green, Henry de Montherlant ou encore Alexandre Vialatte, mettent au contraire en œuvre un décentrement du regard littéraire de la folie vers le fou – du mythe à l’individu. Ce sont les modalités et les logiques de cette émancipation de la figure du fou et de son affirmation comme sujet – au sens de thème comme de subjectivité – autonome dans l’espace romanesque que ce travail s’applique à éclairer. Ces récits fictionnels qui font de la conscience aliénée à la fois le foyer et l’objet principal de la narration mettent en scène une folie presque familière, où l’idéalisation cède le pas à la représentation de troubles intimes et ordinaires, qui atteignent un personnage banal menant une existence modeste. Par leurs affinités sémantiques, syntaxiques et pragmatiques, ils forment un « sous-genre » romanesque, celui des "histoires de fous". L’enjeu de cette thèse est de déterminer le répertoire générique de ces romans tout en examinant la manière dont la folie interroge les moyens et les pouvoirs de la fiction romanesque. Il s’agit également de mettre au jour ce que la littérature nous aide à comprendre de cet impensable, envers de l’expérience partagée de la raison, et d’observer comment les romanciers contribuent à refléter tout autant qu’à remodeler les formes de cet objet social et culturel. / Haunting our collective imagination, the madman has always been laden with symbolic significance. The myth of madness is abundantly present in literature, however those characters with an actual mental illness are ultimately overshadowed. While mental patients are pushed to the margins of literature, just as they are pushed to the outskirts of society, this particular cultural legend of madness develops during the nineteenth century in Romantic and fantastic literature and stays in the spotlight at the beginning of the following century through the avant-garde artists. In contrast to the aforementioned representation of madness, a number of novelists of the twentieth century, including Georges Duhamel, André Baillon, Julien Green, Henry de Montherlant or Alexandre Vialatte, brought on a literary shift away from “madness” towards “the madman” – from the myth to the individual. The focus of this piece of work is on the modality and logic leading to the emancipation of the figure of the madman and its affirmation as an autonomous subject – in every sense of the world – in the literary field. These fictional stories, where the alienated consciousness is both the focus and the main subject of the narrative, present the reader with an almost familiar madness. They don’t idealize insanity but provide representations of almost ordinary disorders, which affect a banal character living a modest life. Through their semantic, syntactic and pragmatic preferences, these stories form a fictional “sub-genre”, called “histoires de fous”. This research aims at determining the generic features of these novels and at considering the way madness questions the means and powers of fiction. Another purpose is to shed light on how literature helps us understand this inconceivable experience, which represents the other side of the commonly shared human experience of reason and logic, and to study how novelists help to reveal as well as reshape the characterization of this social and cultural topic.