<p>This thesis argues that Wendell Berry’s idea of a healthy community and his understanding of membership is embodied in his fiction. The imagined community of Port William is neither an ideal blueprint for instantiating a new form of collective life in modern society, nor is it a nostalgic recreation of lost rural communities for representing an alternative culture. Berry’s imagination—both the creative process and its material products—is a funding current for both analyzing North American democracy and its failings as well as cultivating pluralities of communities that address these inadequacies. The form and discipline of Berry’s imaginative engagement with the particularities of his place uncovers the divine creativity operating in it; his fictional writing incarnates his conception and experience of this divine presence as God’s kenotic love. The upshot is not a simplistic return to traditional life but rather an affectionate and self-effacing approach to nature that converges with God’s manner of creating and relating to the world as it is conceived within the Christian tradition. Berry’s moral imagination emerges from a cultural approach to Christianity that engenders people who seek out those aspects of society and moments in life that are struggles—for justice, happiness, reconciliation—in order to incarnate a loving openness to others that does not re-inscribe further failures of Western consumer culture and political economy.</p> <p>Berry’s imagined community educates the affections in order to transform the way in which we relate to one another and treat the environment. His fiction is an education in being at home in the world as it is where we find it. Rather than theorizing the structure of a locally adapted community, or offering techniques for establishing the existence of such a community, Berry shows us how to live where we are through literary biography.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The text that I have translated below, and for which the paper that precedes it is a critical introduction, is Hagiwara Sakutarō's Zetsubō no Tōsō, a collection of 204 aphorisms which I have translated as The Flight from Despair. My introduction concentrates on Sakutarō's use of the aphoristic form in order to show how he both follows and subverts the genre's conventions. First, I concentrate on the author's goal to tackle the "everyday" matters of life through his text rather than intellectual abstractions. I also bring attention to the concision of Sakutarō's style and the protean nature of the aphorism, which occupies an ambiguous zone between poetry and philosophy. Finally, I demonstrate how The Flight from Despair is a modernist text, and that Sakutarō's brand of modernism reveals itself most distinctly through his use of irony and paradox. However, I also indicate that Sakutarō remained a maverick in the literary establishment, and that pigeonholing him into any particular literary movement is risky.

The Girl Who Became a Rabbit is a book-length poem which explores the metamorphoses of the body, psychological and physical, after abuse. The poem engages with the language of fables, fairy tale, and myth, and through an examination of these forms considers how memories and trace of abuse and grief might be experienced as acts of transformation and haunting. Additionally, The Girl Who Became a Rabbit explores genre boundaries between prose and poetry through a prose-poem lyric essay hybrid form.

Concentrating on six plays in the 1610s, this thesis explores the ways theatrical visual effects described as “strange” channel the period’s moral anxieties about rhetoric, technology, and scepticism. It contributes to debates in repertory studies, textual and material culture, intellectual history, theatre history, and to recent revisionist considerations of spectacle. I argue that “strange” spectacle has its roots in the materialisation of morality: the presentation of moral ideas not as abstract concepts but in physical things. The first part of my PhD is a detailed study of early modern moral philosophy, scepticism, and material and textual culture. The second part of my thesis concentrates on Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (1609-10) and The Tempest (1611), John Webster’s The White Devil (1612), and Thomas Heywood’s first three Age plays (1611-13). These spectacular plays are all written and performed within the years 1610-13, a period in which the changes, challenges, and developments in both stage technology and moral philosophy are at their peak. I set these plays in the context of the wider historical moment, showing that the idiosyncrasy of their “strange” stagecraft reflects the period’s interest in materialisation and its attendant moral anxieties. This thesis implicitly challenges some of the conclusions of repertory studies, which sometimes threatens to hierarchise early modern theatre companies by seeing repertories as indications of audience taste and making too strong a divide between, say, “elite” indoor and “citizen” outdoor playhouses. It is also aligned with recent revisionist considerations of spectacle, and I elide divisions in criticism between interest in original performance conditions, close textual analysis, or historical-contextual readings. I present “strangeness” as a model for appreciating the distinct aesthetic of these plays, by reading them as part of their cultural milieu and the material conditions of their original performance.

I contend in this study that commercial novels and theater from early twentiethcentury Spain often present male (homo)sexual characters as a point of constellation for anxieties regarding modernization in Madrid and Barcelona. In works by Jacinto Benavente, Josep Maria de Sagarra, El Caballero Audaz (José María Carretero), Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent, Carmen de Burgos, Álvaro Retana, Eduardo Zamacois, and Alfonso Hernández-Catá, concerns about technological and socioeconomic change converge upon hustlers and blackmailers, queer seducers, and chaste inverts. I examine these figures alongside an allegorical interpretation of Goethe’s Faust in Marshall Berman’s book All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1982) in order to foreground their varying responses to modern innovation. They alternately sell themselves to prosper under consumer capitalism, seduce others into savoring the pleasures of city life, or fall tragically to the conflicting pressures of tradition and change. In the process, they reveal the fear and enthusiasm of their creators vis-à-vis rapid urbanization, fluctuating class hierarchies, the commercialization of art, and the medicalization of sex from the turn of the nineteenth century to the Spanish Civil War. From a methodological standpoint, I argue that close readings of commercial works are worthwhile for what they reveal about the discursive framing of modernity and male (homo)sexualities in Spain in the early 1900s. Hence, I use techniques of literary analysis previously reserved for canonical writers such as Federico García Lorca and Luis Cernuda to discuss texts produced by their bestselling contemporaries, none of whom has been equally scrutinized by subsequent criticism. Existing scholarship on modernity and sexuality in Spain and abroad helps contextualize my detailed interpretations. Although my project is not a sustained exercise in comparative literature, I do situate Spanish works within historical and literary trends beyond Spain so as to acknowledge the interplay of transnational and local concerns surrounding modern change and sexual customs. By considering the primary texts in relation to varying temporal and geographic contexts, the dissertation aims to be of interest to a readership in and outside Hispanism, and to supplement important studies of modernity, (homo)sexualities, and literature that overlook Spain.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) a mix of right-wing ideologies existed among the Francoist forces. In sharp contrast with the Republican forces, the Francoist insurgents were successful in banding together despite their ideological differences. However, in the postwar era, this relative unity gave way to a struggle among the different ideological positions, each striving to impose its agenda for the new State. The party Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS) assumed power, but was not entirely successful in advancing its totalitarian project, which it had inherited from the prewar FE de las JONS party. Unsatisfied with this outcome, staunch Falangists employed political strategies to squelch the opposition of the military, conservatives, royalists and the Church, whose ideals differed in many ways. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the political strategies used by the Falangists against opposing factions are mirrored in the cultural sphere, especially in literary and cinematographic portrayals of war. The propagandistic nature of these works is reflected in their narrative structures and literary characters, as in what Susan Suleiman refers to as “authoritarian fictions.” This study examines the ways in which Falangists propaganda exploits distinct features of the Rif War, the Civil War, and the Second World War, in order to promote key parts of the Nationalist Syndicalist ideology endorsed by core Falangists. This essay traces the transformation of these authoritarian narrative schemes as the hegemonic political position of National Syndicalism begins to deteriorate. In response to this unwelcome political change, Falangists propaganda becomes increasingly critical toward the other ideological positions of the Francoist Regime. This dissertation thus shows the way in which shifting political tides are mirrored in the cultural production of Falangist propaganda.

6 Abstract The diploma thesis concerns the topic of nautical metaphorics in modern literature in a broad sense of the term as defined by Silvio Vietta. Thus besides the topic itself and its main focus on the work of Franz Kafka it also covers the process of evolution of its attributes, which led to the specific imagery of modernism on the brink of the 20th century. The work as a whole derives from the conception of the nautical space as a smooth space of nomadism as proposed by Deleuze and Guattari. The first part is based on the propositions of Bachelard's theory of material imagination. It deals with the characteristics of the literary space shaped by the sea element and the possibility of alogorical reading of such images. The hydraulics of the sea provides the nautical space with its unique qualities: shapelessness, flexibility and ambivalence. These enable to percieve the nautical space not only as the space of happenings, but also as the happenings of the space. Thus it puts emphasis on the activity and dynamic plasticity of the substance. The second part reveals the ancient and Christian roots of nautical imagery and its tradition in the European literature. The work of Comenius exemplifies the change in the symbolism of the ship with the arrival of the Age of Exploration which rendered the ship a...

Inspired by Vladimir Nabokov’s metafiction novel Pale Fire and with Joseph Campbell’s research in comparative mythology and religion in mind, I explore the act of mythmaking and the composition of metafictional text in this work of fiction. The myth aspect combines elements of Classical, biblical, medieval, Romantic, and original materials to form a product that should strike readers as both familiar and alien, demonstrating Campbell’s notion of the monomyth as well as the ongoing tradition of mythmaking that continues to captivate both readers and writers. The metafictional portion of the text emphasizes a reader’s relationship to a work of fiction, a scholar’s relationship to his or her scholarly work, and a subtext’s relationship to its primary text. Combining the texts encourages the reader to read critically and reevaluate his or her conceptions of genre in order to piece together the greater story of tyranny and rebellion.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:58:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ANTONIO PANCIARELLI.pdf: 397710 bytes, checksum: 539e93eacb11b3e3f0399c3f554bf192 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-05-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation belongs to area of literature and literary criticism and deals specifically about analysis of Romanesque prose in Fado Alexandrino, by António Lobo Antunes. In this study, we sought to make an immanent analysis of the work, however without disregarding the ideological, political, historical and social aspects that permeate the romance and are of fundamental importance to the understanding of the fable. The analysis presents a theoretical-analytical procedure, in a way that the privileged theoretical aspects were applied, by aiming: to identify in the romance the characteristics that define it as a post-modern literature; to approach the hybridization of genders: prose and poetry, the polyphony of voices, and also the aspects of intertextuality and, of course, the strong political and social contents. The results obtained allow concluding that Fado Alexandrino cannot be characterized only as Romanesque prose nor framed in a predetermined structure. It is a complex construction in which the author uses features of hybridism, heteroglossy and interdiscursivity elements radiographed by Mikhail Bakhtin and by him denominated as prosaic practices that different uses of language make of discourse, offering them as manifestation of plurality. At last, we can affirm that Fado Alexandrino is a work that gives voice to characters that speak, discuss ideas and seek to reposition themselves in a country that attempted a transformation in ten years that has not occurred for five centuries / Esta dissertação pertence à área da literatura e crítica literária e trata, especificamente, da análise da prosa romanesca em Fado Alexandrino, de António Lobo Antunes. Procurou-se, neste estudo, fazer uma análise imanente da obra sem, entretanto, desconsiderar os aspectos ideológicos, políticos, históricos e sociais que permeiam o romance e que têm fundamental importância para a compreensão da fábula. A análise apresenta um procedimento teórico-analítico, de forma que os aspectos teóricos privilegiados foram aplicados tendo em vista: identificar no romance as características que o definem como obra literária pós-moderna; abordar a hibridização dos gêneros prosa e poesia, a polifonia de vozes, além dos aspectos de intertextualidade e, claro, do forte conteúdo político, histórico e social. Os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que Fado Alexandrino não pode ser caracterizado apenas como prosa romanesca, nem enquadrado em uma estrutura predeterminada. Trata-se de uma complexa construção em que o autor utiliza recursos de hibridismo, heteroglossia e interdiscursividade B elementos esses Aradiografados@ por Mikhail Bakhtin e por ele denominados como práticas prosáicas que diferentes usos da linguagem fazem do discurso, oferecendo-os como manifestação de pluralidade. Pode-se afirmar, enfim, que Fado Alexandrino é uma obra que dá voz a personagens que falam, discutem idéias e procuram reposicionar-se em um país que experimentou, em dez anos, uma transformação que não acontecia havia cinco séculos

Fazil Iskander (1929- ) é um dos mais representativos escritores soviéticos remanescentes da geração do degelo. Devido ao desconhecimento deste autor no Brasil, este trabalho consiste na tradução da novela que lhe deu notoriedade, precedida por uma apresentação e comentário: Sozvezdie Kozlotura, em português, A constelação do capriuro, de 1966. Apesar de pertencer à tradição satírica russa, junto a nomes como Nikolai Gógol e Mikhail Bulgákov, a prosa de Iskander carrega as singularidades da sua origem não-russa. A sua terra natal, a Abkházia, com a sua história e costumes, além de reverberarem na obra do autor, entrecruzam-se com a cultura russo-soviética numa relação complexa que dá às suas narrativas um caráter único. Neste trabalho, foram analisados os elementos que tornam a sátira de Iskander tão inovadora. / Fazil Iskander (1929- ) is one of the most representative remaining writers of the Thaw Generation. Due to the lack of recognition of this author in Brazil, the present dissertation consists in the translation of the short-novel that has made him internationally renowned, preceded by a presentation and commentary: Sozvezdie Kozlotura from 1966, or A constelação do Capriuro in Portuguese. Though the prose of Iskander belongs to the Russian satire tradition, along with names like Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, it carries the singularities of his non-Russian origin. His motherland, Abkhazia, with its proper history and customs, besides reverberating on his works, entwines itself with the Russian-soviet culture in a complex and tense relationship that gives these narratives their unique nature. In this research, it is analyzed the characteristics that make the satire of Iskander so innovative.