This study deals with questions of identity construction and self-representation: how a person comes to perceive, define, and represent himself or herself in a given society or social setting. It focuses, in particular, on the construction of sexual identity in works by artist-poet-playwright and film-maker Jean Cocteau, including works that are well-known (Orphée) and little-known (Le Livre Blanc). Cocteau's reputation has long been assured as innovator in the verbal and visual arts of the 20th century; but the complexity and power of his creative vision and technical virtuosity have not yet been fully appreciated in contemporary terms. The present study draws on recent work in cultural studies, philosophy, and sociology of literature (Althusser, Bakhtin, Foucault, Lacan), to focus on three questions: (1) What form of identity (what form of "self") does one reproduce in a system of heterosexual representation, when one happens to be a homosexual? (2) What system of representation convention can the homosexual artist employ (and what modifications of that system are necessary) in a culture that universalizes heterosexuality and, as a consequence, marginalizes homosexuality as deviant behaviour? (3) To what extent can the practice of an individual artist modify (by resistance, subversion, revision) both the traditional representation system and the underlying system of values and power relations in which that system functions? In assembling and confronting a certain number of texts and historical circumstances, this study looks at possible, probable and certain attempts by Cocteau to dissimulate a homosexual discourse in ostensibly heterosexual representations that are only now becoming 'readable' in a cultural climate that Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) did much to prepare, but which he could inhabit only in his imagination and in the powerful works it brought forth.

<p>Grant Morrison?s comics series The Invisibles invites the reader to explore the functioning of narrative gaps and the ways in which comics uniquely utilize them. The invisible territory of gaps within the narrative structure is, to the main characters in The Invisibles, the territory where text and image, where mere appearances, become a transgressive reality, a pushing of reality beyond itself. Such breaks are expressed as those within the structure of reality, but more fundamentally they reveal breaks in psychological structuration, in the system of symbols, in signs by which human reality is held together and manifested as such. This study seeks to show these gaps specifically as they function on conveying an experience to the reader through the involvement they bring. The psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan represent an instrumental framework to understanding both this psychological break Morrison expresses and the functioning of comics? invisible territory in involving the reader experientially, its ability to translate extreme psychological experiences directly to the reader. Here, what the text shows is not a reaching into a transcendental identity, nor an achievement of plentitude and resolution?there is no reconciliation to oneself as oneself given. Instead of providing a traditional view of balance and ?seeing things rightly,? there is the break, the uncharming intrusion, the trauma that needs to be faced, addressed, and assumed. This study, then, explores the act of constantly passing through and assuming the irreconcilable breaks the series shows in the reader?s reality

American writers Flannery O'Connor and Frederick Buechner may at first seem to have little in common. O'Connor is well-known, Buechner, not so; O'Connor is a "gothic Southerner", Buechner an "intellectual New Englander". On closer examination there emerge, however, not only striking parallels but complementary focuses and themes. / Both authors are obsessed with the operation of God's Grace in the lives of people. What is even more arresting is that both authors portray that operation in essentially three character categories: grotesques, intellectuals, and children. These categories not only indicate the range of the operation of Grace but also represent the range of humanity from the most essentially "innocent" to the most calculatedly sophisticated. The authors present their fictional characters as types of Everyman and the operation of Grace as normative and inescapable. / O'Connor's focus on Grace is that every person must confront God's grace although everyone must not or will not accept it positively; Buechner's focus is gentler: God's Grace is sought, found, and enjoyed when the character senses such a need. The two in tandem describe the activities then in a wide range, from inescapable to sought-after. / The dissertation traces the O'Connor novels and stories through the three character types, briefly examining the works to ascertain that O'Connor's God is a God of fire and dynamic activity. Frederick Buechner's ten novels and eight works of non-fiction are examined in the same way and the conclusion is that Buechner's God is a God of laughter and compassionate understanding. / As a final conclusion, it is demonstrated that O'Connor is more essentially doctrinally-oriented than Buechner who is more experience-oriented. To the modern mind at all concerned with Christianity, these writers cover the range of the operation of God's Grace: from those who say God is in sovereign control and will be confronted by every man to those who hold that God is available when and if Man wants Him. O'Connor and Buechner are not only complementary but almost needfully linked in order to see all of God's Grace at work. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, Section: A, page: 0179. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

A collection of poems dealing with sociocultural themes is developed in three segments: personal heredity and environment, correlations between the past and present through painting, and translation of two major symbolist poets. The first section stresses the problems involved in growing up and living in a bilingual culture that is at once American and French. The second section explores the milieu of the artist in a series of French Impressionist paintings. The third section investigates the work of Baudelaire and Rimbaud in their vision of the world through the use of the imagination as perceived by a present-day poet for today's reader of poetry. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-07, Section: A, page: 2097. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the ten novels that won the Nadal Prize, one of the most renowned literary prizes in Spain, from 1970 to 1979. The winners in chronological order are: Libro de las memorias de las cosas by Jesus Fernandez Santos, El cuajaron by Jose Mar(')ia Requena, Groovy by Jose Mar(')ia Carrascal, El rito by Jose Antonio Garc(')ia Blazquez, Culminacion de Montoya by Luis Gasulla, Las ninfas by Francisco Umbral, Lectura insolita de 'El Capital' by Raul Guerra Garrido, Conversacion sobre la guerra by Jose Asenjo Sedano, Narciso by German Sanchez Espeso and El ingenioso hidalgo y poeta Federico Garc(')ia Lorca asciende a los infiernos by Carlos Rojas. / These literary works are generally representative of the political, social and literary changes of the seventies in Spain. That decade was a period of democratic transition in Spain after almost forty years of dictatorship / The novels have been classified according to their main theme. Chapter I provides a historical and literary background of the Nadal Prize, from its institution in 1944 to the present. Chapter II includes the novels of social criticism. Chapter III is dedicated to the experimental novels and Chapter IV to the intellectual novel. / This study concludes that the works studied reflect the literary innovations of their decade in their structure, theme and language. The authors are concerned with man's problems in modern society: alienation and loneliness. The writers combine realism and experimentalism in the works. They want to reflect the total spectrum of reality in human existence, which is seen as a duality of mystery and reason, imagination and history. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-09, Section: A, page: 2870. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

This is a group of poems dealing primarily with the subjects of memory and the past and how these entities shape and limit an individual's present and future. Many of the poems are concerned with the author's working toward an understanding of his own psychological being through an examination of various events in his life. The focus here is primarily with childhood events, familial relationships, love relationships, and the author's conception of his role as an artist. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-08, Section: A, page: 2524. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

In Nach Mitternacht, the author Inngard Keun unveils a society that is a counter-image to that portrayed by the National Socialist regime. By giving the reader an amplified yet sharp picture oflife in the Third Reich, Keun not only exposes the Regime's repression mechanisms, but she also raises the question of individual responsibility among the petit-bourgeoisie, discussing very early-on the issue of co-participation. Keun's critical engagement does not fall short of aesthetical quality. A seemingly naive narrator deconstructs Nazi discourse through various literary devices which break the one-to-one system of signification typical of totalitarian discourses. Keun succeeds in deconstructing the Nazi regime by focusing on specific parts of society, zooming in on different situations and on the lives of different people, offering the reader a dissected picture of life in the Third Reich. Hence, Keun delivers a critical and complex political analysis of the early years of the Third Reich. VI / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modem Languages in partial fulfillment ofthe Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2002. / Date of Defense: April 26, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

A collection of poems, for which the organizing principle was the movement from birth to death, from innocence to experience. Thus the poems in section one were initiatory, and proceeded through themes of initiation into sex and knowledge of mortality. Part two contained poems of experience, collecting a diverse range of experiences and feelings, with suffering the unifying element. Some of the poems were essentially political, exploring the guilt and helplessness the speakers feel when confronted with pervasive poverty. The persistent need for transcendent belief in the face of entropy and the apparent meaninglessness of existence was the theme of most of the poems in the final section. The general movement was from an optimistic nihilism to the amorphous certainty that life is more than materiality. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: A, page: 2580. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

A collection of original poetry divided into four sections: Northern Latitudes, View from the Resort, River Under the Sand, and The Convergent Latitudes. These divisions correspond both to region--the geographical background of the poems--and time, with the chronological order extending sequentially through the four divisions. Moreover, the collection explores such genres as symbolism and Romanticism, from both a confessional and political standpoint. Finally, the poetry examines the problems of human relationships as they exist in nature, in society, and within the individual psyche. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-01, Section: A, page: 0175. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

The ten stories in The Driveway of Failed Possessions can be separated into three sections. The Rucar Trilogy brings together three love stories: "The Bear Tamers," in which a young woman from The Street of Spoons realizes that loving bears is easier than loving her husband; "The Church of Summer Sausage," in which a young sausage vendor falls in love with a horse guardian just as the jawbone of St. Ramfir passes her stall; and "The Pleasure Garden of the Root Vegetables," which proves to be even more romantic than the previous two stories. / The other two sections of the collection will be somewhat of a departure from the fablesque form encountered in the Rucar tales. Where we are prodded into the strange, the fabulous, and the spooky in the Rucar Trilogy, the next section will include a collection of miniatures that seem to squeeze realism down into its essential juices. "Infinite riches in a small room," Keats once said about poetry. The short-short stories contained in this section are infinite riches in many small rooms. / The final section will include three somewhat longer stories. The reader can think of this section as the literary equivalent of Papa Bear's bowl in "The Three Bears" on a night when Goldilocks doesn't show. / Literary clairvoyants will be able to divine some guardian spirits hovering over my shoulders as I type: the Hemingway of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "Hills Like White Elephants," the ideas of Gertrude Stein, and the delicious sense of the fabulous in Kafka's stories, particularly "First Sorrow." / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: A, page: 2581. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.