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This doctoral dissertation, «The Retrospective Novel: The Romance of the Self,» focuses on the relationship between literary genres, ideology, and history. The novels I analyze are widely regarded as masterpieces of the last two centuries of Western literature. They include works by authors such as Melville, Conrad, Gide, Pirandello, Svevo, Roth, Faulkner, and Mann. All these novels present a biographical structure, in which the life of the protagonist is narrated retrospectively either by the hero himself (like in Pirandello’s Mattia Pascal) or by one of his friends (as in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus). The research aims to examine the relationship between the retrospectivity of these novels and the rise of modern bourgeois society. The goal is to define the retrospective novel as a genre that, by continuing the Romantic tradition, reacts to Western ideas of modernity and to the realist novel. The dissertation discusses the formal features of retrospective novels to investigate the relationship between the crisis of linear plots and the existence of tragic heroes. The analysis takes into consideration the tension between polyphony and monologism, the combination of essayism and narration, and the importance of a centralized moral point of view that questions the predominant moral discourse of society. The discussion of these formal aspects of retrospective novels lets emerge the craving for epic anti-bourgeois heroes that characterizes retrospective novels. By employing a novel theoretical framework, the dissertation aims to reappraise capital texts of the Western canon and to reevaluate the underestimated influence of Romanticism on the development of the modern Western novel.

Lo studio ha riflettuto su alcune costanti della letteratura comparata che accomunano tale disciplina all’esilio, quando chi lo vive è in grado di contrastare i molti traumi che esso può comportare.L’emigrazione intellettuale avvenuta nel corso degli anni Trenta e Quaranta è l’evento storico a cui lo studio ha fatto riferimento. Costringendo molti intellettuali ad abbandonare i propri posti di lavoro e le proprie case, questa emigrazione ha contribuito a una notevole mobilitazione culturale soprattutto dall’Europa verso gli Stati Uniti d’America, dove ha cominciato a svilupparsi una nuova comparatistica sovranazionale e reazionaria. L’espressione “disciplina dell’esule” suggerisce un provocatorio inquadramento del modo di vedere e affrontare il testo come il mondo: crisi, apertura verso il nuovo e inclusività sono solo alcune parole chiave che, contraddistinguendo tanto la letteratura comparata quanto l’esilio, permettono di chiarire senso e prospettive di entrambe. Si è anche affermato che un tale atteggiamento ha come presupposto due processi culturali che sono caratterizzati da una spiccata dinamicità e disponibilità al cambiamento: la denazionalizzazione della scienza e l’ibridazione del sapere. Senza di essi non avrebbe potuto formalizzarsi una comparatistica “disciplina dell’esule”, da questo punto di vista intesa come un’utopica reazione a un percorso storico tendente sempre più al nazionalismo e all’esclusione. Lo studio ha infine individuato molte di queste idee e di questi valori nell’opera “americana” di Paolo Milano, intellettuale italiano esule negli Stati Uniti che lì si costruì una carriera come professore di letteratura comparata.

This dissertation tracks the literary afterlife of natural history in American literature, long past its term of relevance for scientific experts, and examines how natural history persists as idiom, cultural metaphor, and discursive framework in nineteenth-century literature in a way that informs poetic production. At the juncture of literary and cultural history, history of science, and environmental studies, I reconstruct the enduring literary rapport between poetry and natural history in US culture, showing how the aesthetic innovations of a wide current of poetic experimentalism variously draw upon natural history as a resource. I therefore push against major received narratives about natural history’s disappearance after the eighteenth century and the development of American poetry as a filiation of European Romanticism. As I read the texts of familiar literary figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Frances Watkins Harper, and Herman Melville, I recontextualize these figures into a shared poetic strain that reflexively develops upon natural history as a mode of thinking about the New World as a biophysical, social, and cultural habitat. My chapters analyze these writers’ accounts of poetry and their various experiments with not only the capacities of poetic genres—such as epic or elegy—but also the material production of their poems as objects in the world. In the process, I also show how the different poets of my dissertation confront the violent historical and social repercussions of scientific modernity, colonialism, enslavement and racism, mass extermination, or war, as they advance poetry as the fit vehicle for rethinking the grids of normativity and possibility in modern America.

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赫爾曼．梅爾維爾(Herman Melville)的小說《白鯨記》(Moby-Dick, 1851)以其極富深度的思維吸引著讀者，並將捕鯨船上的生活百態萌發為哲學領域的思考。《白鯨記》富有多重意義的特徵使之不乏多面向的解讀，其中若以「海上旅行」作為分析的視角切入，《白鯨記》的成就將益加彰顯。《白鯨記》體現了旅行者如何因心態的不同影響其感知，在伊息默爾(Ishmael)所重述的故事中，以「遇見他者」(encounter the other)的論點觀之，能夠促進存在於伊息默爾與亞哈船長(Captain Ahab)之間相異處的瞭解。自兩者身為彼此殊異的旅行者的對比中，探討旅行者是否真實地「遇見他者」與經歷轉變的過程，本論文將伊息默爾視為能夠真實「遇見他者」的旅行者，亞哈則因其狹隘的復仇心態導致他無法獲得「遇見他者」的機會。 　　緊接著檢視不同旅行者的探討後，對於旅行者更深層的審視將以德勒茲(Gilles Deleuze)與葛塔力(Félix Guattari)的「游牧理論」(nomadology)進行推論，從游牧推衍的概念如：「戰爭機器」(war-machine)與「國家機器」(the State apparatus)，適以處理由伊息默爾、亞哈船長與莫比．迪克(Moby Dick)所構築的關係維度。以啟迪於游牧學的反抗思維進行分析，使得亞哈的捕鯨之旅不再僅是被動地受對莫比．迪克的仇恨牽引，更是蘊藏著亞哈本身具備的能動性。游牧理論能夠開展無法以偏執狂(monomaniac)化約亞哈的特質，讓對亞哈追逐莫比．迪克的解析更形豐富，亞哈不僅具備「國家機器」的控制作為，也擁有「戰爭機器」的抵抗能力。此外，本論文更援引德勒茲與葛塔力的「變成動物」(becoming-animal)理論藉以瞭解亞哈與莫比．迪克之間可能的（變成）關係，「變成」(becoming)理論的應用並非強調外在型體上的相似，而是闡述亞哈身處與莫比．迪克居中關係內所經歷的非形體轉變，亞哈透過「逃逸線」(lines of flight)的模式，使之身處「變成莫比迪克」(becoming-Moby Dick)的進程，藉以顯示其強烈欲望的能量流動。 　　總體上，本論文旨在將「游牧」與「變成」理論的特質帶入《白鯨記》的文本中，產生進一步的對話空間，能使讀者從僅視《白鯨記》為單純冒險式的捕鯨敘事中進入「游牧思想」體現的思辨過程。 / Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) captivates readers with its exuberance and renders the experiences of shipboard life into a source of philosophy. Moby-Dick bears manifold characteristics worthy of exploration. Among the multiple entries into the literary research, Moby-Dick’s achievement becomes evident when being analyzed from the perspective of sea journey. Moby-Dick manifests how a traveler’s mind-set influences her/his perception along the way on the sea journey. In light of encounters with the other, Ishmael’s recounted narrative assists in the understanding of the distinction between him and Captain Ahab as different travelers. The contrast between Ishmael and Ahab concerns whether they really encounter the other and undergo transformation. This thesis considers Ishmael as a traveler who really encounters the other while Ahab keeps his one-track mind-set on his revenge, which halts the chance for his encounter with the other. Following the examination of different travelers, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s nomadology would be applied to further the reading of travelers. The triangular dimension among Ishmael, Ahab and Moby Dick is interpreted with the concepts derived from nomadology such as a war-machine and the State apparatus. Mainly focused on the power of resistance highlighted from nomadology, Ahab’s whale hunt deserves more attention to mobility rather than to the passiveness channeled by his revenge upon Moby Dick. More than what the monomaniac can show, the theory of nomadology would potentially enrich the analysis of Ahab’s pursuit of Moby Dick. Ahab plays both a role of the controlling force like the State apparatus and a role of the resisting power like the war-machine. Besides nomadology, Deleuze and Guattari also employ becoming-animal to suggest the possible inspirational resonance between Ahab and Moby Dick. Instead of an emphasis on the physical resemblance, “becoming” sheds light on the incorporeal transformation which Ahab undergoes within the in-between relationship with Moby Dick. Through his “lines of flight,” Ahab has been involved in becoming-Moby Dick to assert his energy flow out of the intense desire. Overall, this thesis aims at generating more dialogue by bringing nomadology and becoming in the context of Moby-Dick. This incorporation would allow readers to consider Moby-Dick as the manifestation of Deleuze and Guattari’s “nomad thought” rather than as a mere whale-hunting story of adventure.

Questo studio riguarda le rappresentazioni letterarie del rifiuto del lavoro nei testi di Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad e Samuel Beckett. Nell'introduzione mi occupo della definizione del rifiuto del lavoro quale tema letterario e delle questioni metodologiche connesse a tale problema. Al fine di situare l'analisi del tema in un più ampio contesto, i tre capitoli successivi si concentrano ciascuno su un autore in relazione a un 'sottotema': rispettivamente malinconia, degenerazione e abitudine. Il rifiuto del lavoro in Herman Melville, e in particolare in "Bartleby", emerge come una reazione contro la malinconia e il Romanticismo. "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'" di Joseph Conrad appare invece quale un modo di affrontare degenerazione e decadenza. Infine, l'abitudine si rivela un tema centrale dell'opera di Samuel Beckett: un'analisi delle fonti e dell'evoluzione di esso nelle sue opere offre una prospettiva d'interpretazione della sua produzione letteraria. L'ultimo capitolo affronta infine il modo in cui queste diverse traiettorie creative costituiscono diversi aspetti o fasi dello stesso fenomeno, e rappresentano manifestazioni di simili processi creativi. / This study concerns the literary representations of the refusal of work in the works of Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, and Samuel Beckett. In the introduction I deal with the definition of refusal of work as a literary theme and with the methodological issues of the chosen approach to the topic. In order to situate the analysis of the main theme in a broader context, each of the following three chapters focuses on one of the authors in relation to a sub-theme: melancholia, degeneration, and habit, respectively. The refusal of work in Herman Melville, and particularly in Bartleby, emerges as a reaction against melancholy and Romanticism. I read Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the "Narcissus" as a way of approaching a theory of degeneration and decadence. Finally, I identify the centrality of habit to Samuel Beckett's oeuvre: an examination of the sources and evolution of this theme in his oeuvre, provides a more nuanced understanding of his aesthetic project. My final chapter addresses how these very different aesthetic trajectories function as different facets, or stages, of the same phenomenon, and as manifestations of very similar creative processes.

"Rum, Rome, and Rebellion: The Reform of Reform in the Political Fiction of the Gilded Age" examines a collection of American political novelists who were active during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. These writers were not only active in politics, they also used their experience in politics to compose realist fiction that typically contained a great deal of humor and satire. Despite their different backgrounds, each of these writers challenged the literary and political conventions of Romanticism, championing ironic detachment and cosmopolitanism. Although fiction about quotidian political life rarely achieves canonical status, such literature has always enjoyed a large readership, both in the nineteenth-century and in our own time. This dissertation attempts to untangle why we find (or don’t find) literature about quotidian political life entertaining and/or instructive, while also providing insight into this transitional period in American history. Each chapter concentrates on the fifty-year period between 1848 and 1898 from a different location, forming what are essentially four cross-sectional samples. This serves two interconnected purposes. One, it reorients the periodization of American literature and history away from 1865 by highlighting cultural continuities between the periods before and after the Civil War And two, it serves to highlight the integration of American literature, culture, and politics, with the broader, nineteenth-century Atlantic world, where the year 1865 carries less cultural significance. The first chapter begins in the nation's capital and examines the anti-populist liberalism of Henry Adams and John Hay. From Washington, we move north to New England where we encounter Henry James’s Bostonians. With the exception of Lionel Trilling, few major critics have championed James’s "middle period," which provides quasi-ethnographic sketches of political movements on both sides of the Atlantic. I reveal James’s long-standing fascination and engagement with the political analyses of Alexis de Tocqueville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his friend, Henry Adams. I show how the novel anticipates George Santayana’s notion of "the genteel tradition" which dominated northern American culture during this period. After examining two canonical figures, I turn my attention in a more southerly direction, to two lesser known authors. The first is Maria Ruiz de Burton, a Mexican writer from the Southwestern Borderlands who immigrated to the U.S. after the Mexican-American War. Ruiz de Burton has primarily been read as a proto-Chicana/o author, but I view her as a cosmopolitan whose observations about American culture and politics resemble those of James and Santayana. My last chapter is set in Louisiana, where we encounter and recover an eccentric, Spanish-Creole politician and author named Charles Gayarré and his 1856 novel The School for Politics, a satire of local machine politics. Largely forgotten today, Gayarré was connected to intellectual circles in both Europe and Latin America, and was acquainted with American writers like Herman Melville and Henry Adams. I relate The School for Politics with his later political novels in which anti-imperialism and a pluralistic plea for the tolerance of ethnic minorities also implicitly serve as an apology for racial segregation in the Jim Crow South.

This document contains a meta-commentary on the article that I co-authored with Dr. Corry Cropper entitled Breaking the Duel's Rules: Brantôme, Mérimée, and Melville, that will be published in the next issue of Essays in French Literature and Culture, and an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources featuring summaries and important quotes dealing with duels, honor, honor codes, cheating, historical causality, chance, and sexuality. Also, several examples of film noir are cited with brief summaries and key events noted. The article we wrote studies two instances of cheating in duels: one found in Brantôme's Discours sur les duels and the other in Prosper Mérimée's Chronique du règne de Charles IX, and the traditional, as well as anti-causal, repercussions they had. Melville's Le Deuxième souffle is also analyzed with regards to the Gaullist Gu Minda and the end of the aristocratic codes of honor that those of his generation dearly respected but that were overcome by the commercial world of republican law and order.

Le réalisme pictural peut être conçu, par-delà la pensée ontologique dualiste, comme expérience perceptive cognitive du spectateur d’avoir l’impression de voir le « réel » dans une configuration imagée picturale. Cette impression de réel n’est pas illusoire, mais subjectivement factuelle, sans être nécessairement consciente. Elle pourrait résulter de la facilité perceptive ou de la fluidité opérationnelle du processus perceptif cognitif. Lorsque l’activité perceptive cognitive opérante dans l’expérience du réalisme pictural est régulée par la valence hédonique immanente à cette fluidité opérationnelle sous-jacente à l’impression de réel, cette expérience « subjective » peut être également « esthétique » pour cette autosuffisance fonctionnelle de la « conduite cognitive » du spectateur. Cependant, l’expérience du réalisme pictural comporte une dimension anthropo-transculutrelle, comme on peut le constater notamment dans les récits littéraires des spectateurs coréens du 18e siècle qui illustrent leurs expériences visuelles des peintures occidentales « illusionnistes » réalisées par des missionnaires jésuites à Pékin. La culture est néanmoins opérante dans l’expérience « esthétique » du réalisme pictural. Son effet est double. D’une part, la culture fonctionne comme une des variables de la fonction complexe de l’apprentissage perceptif qui pourrait modifier la dynamique du processus perceptif cognitif ainsi que l’attention perceptive visuelle. D’autre part, elle pourrait opérer un effet dans la valence hédonique globale en participant à la modélisation de l’« affect idéal » distingué de l’« affect effectif ». / The pictorial realism can be conceived, beyond ontological dualistic thought, as beholder’s perceptual cognitive experience to have the impression of seeing the “real” in a picture. This impression or feeling of real is not illusory, but subjectively factual, without being necessarily conscious. It may result from perceptual easiness or from perceptual cognitive processing fluency. When the perceptual cognitive activity working in the pictorial realism experience is regulated by hedonic valence immanent in this processing fluency that underlies the impression of real, this subjective experience can also be “aesthetic” by functional self-sufficiency of beholder’s “cognitive conduct”. However, the experience of pictorial realism contains an anthropo-transcultural dimension, as we can observe especially in the stories written by 18th century Korean beholders, which illustrate their visual experiences of the western “illusionist” paintings produced by jesuit missionary painters in Beijing. Nevertheless, the culture comes into play in the “esthetic experience” of pictorial realism. Its effect is double. On the one hand, the culture acts as one of the variables of the complexe function of perceptual learning which could make difference in the perceptual cognitive processing dynamics and in the visual or perceptual attention. On the other hand, the culture might influence the global state of hedonic valence by participating in the modeling of “ideal affect” distinguished from “actual affect”.