Texte remanié de : Dissertation : Philosophie : Universität Zürich : 2007. / Bibliogr. p. [201]-214. Index.

Thesis (M.A.)--Northern Michigan University, 2009. / "14-62709." Bibliography: leaves 54-59.

This thesis is prompted by a curiosity about the popularity of the image of Peter Pan. Realising that the familiar and ubiquitous image is as much a product of consumer culture as it is the result of multimodal adaptations and reinterpretations of J. M. Barrie?s Peter Pan, this study attempts to shovel aside present-day conceptions of Peter Pan stories, so as to unearth the bedrock, to see Peter Pan as it was when it was new, back in its own time. To do so, this study goes back to the original Peter Pan texts. Picking out elements that signal the presence of certain literary modes, this thesis explores how the Peter Pan narratives engage with these modes, genres and traditions. One of the motives of the thesis is to rescue Peter Pan from ghettoization in the cosy category of “children?s literature”, and through critical attention to take it seriously as an important work in the literature of the early twentieth century. Chapter I situates Peter Pan in the pastoral tradition. Adducing William Empson?s concept of the pastoral as the process of “putting the complex into the simple”, this thesis argues that Peter Pan portrays two competing pastoral spaces and lays claim to the tradition by challenging its parameters of innocence. The chapter also invokes Bakhtin?s idea of carnival, asserting that the Peter Pan texts are “carnivalesque” in both their self-referential play with narrative and generic conventions, and with various more or less satirical and transgressive themes. Chapter II traces elements of Pan myths in the texts, and argues that the texts engage with the late-Victorian and Edwardian interest in myth by re-envisioning an avatar of Pan that would take its place amongst other literary Pans of the era, such as those of E. M. Forster, Kenneth Grahame, Elizabeth Browning, and Arthur Machen. The final chapter sets Peter Pan in the midst of a battle of modes of representation and vision, with R. L. Stevenson championing romance and Henry James politely standing for realism. The chapter argues that while the Peter Pan texts belong more to romance, they play with the boundaries of each by critiquing both modes, all the time showing up and relishing the artificiality of narration. The chapter then picks up on the sense of play, pervading Peter Pan’s engagement with every literary mode that has been discussed, and examines the social meanings and aesthetic instances of play against the backdrop of Edwardian England. Throughout the chapters, by dint of its spirit of play, Peter Pan problematizes the modern family and deconstructs the hierarchy of generations, along with the fundamental anthropological categories of childhood and adulthood, categories which were coming under scrutiny and pressure from the modernizing forces at work at the beginning of the twentieth century. With its sustained exploration of the structure of generations, Peter Pan addresses a problem of modernity in spite of its fantasy setting, and there is a case therefore for considering it under the rubric, elaborated by Nicholas Daly, of “popular modernism”. / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

The title of our thesis is The Myth of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in Michel Tournier's Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique and J.M. Coetzee's Foe. We intend to show how Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story has become a renewed, transformed myth in the fictional works of Michel Tournier and J.M. Coetzee. In the first chapter, we will analyse the attitude of critics to Daniel Defoe, Michel Tournier and J.M. Coetzee's works, and we shall review the pertinent aspects of the three novelists' life. In the second chapter, we will define the concept of myth according to the African and European thinkers. We shall also stress the types, functions and myth's expressions in literary work. In the third chapter, we shall analyse and compare the characters of the three novels following the theory of A.J. Greimas which will be enriched by Evgueni Meletinski. We will divide the characters into protagonists, accessories, opponents, neutrals and absents. Analysis and comparison of the fictional characters will identify two major groups: colonizer and colonized. There will also be an examination of the meaning of characters' names used by the three novelists as well as our opinion on the fictional characters of Defoe, Tournier and Coetzee. Analysis of plot structures will show how the three novels are composed according to a cyclical pattern. The fourth chapter will be devoted to a comparative thematic analysis of solitude, sexuality and education. This will reveal the two faces of each theme as well as the hidden philosophy of the three novelists. And the fifth chapter will identify the narrative and stylistic techniques of the novels. It will show the kind of genre used by Defoe, Toumier and Coetzee as well as the letter and journal. It will also show the types of stylistic aspects of the three novels which are present in the novels. We will examine in the sixth chapter the spaces and the time framework of the three novels. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This dissertation attempts to compare and contrast the functions of cultural memory and myth in both Heaney and Krog's work. By doing so, I look at what it means for both writers to work within a culture or tradition, and how they both mediate their religious or racial identity within a fractured and divided society. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

The novel Children Of The Earth is about transformation. It uses Ovid's Metamorphoses as a metaphor for the processes which occur in the psyche of each character, and is based on Jungian insights into myth and alchemy. Archetypes that underlie the unconscious processes of all humanity are seen in the symbolism of three very different religious traditions, namely Greek mythology, the Hebrew Old Testament and Australian Aboriginal beliefs. I explore the ways in which these three great mythologies might have converged in colonial South Australia. The story deals with the troubled marriage of isolated settler couple, Hestia and Adam George, and the effects on it of three people who come into their lives. Itinerant German mineralogist Johannes Menge ( based on a real life pioneer ) is a self-taught, eccentric polymath, and a devout but unorthodox exponent of the Bible. In Jungian terms he fulfils the role of an archetypal, but flawed, ' Wise Old Man'. Menge represents nineteenth century Protestantism, albeit still trailing some arcane superstitions. His protégé, a disgraced young teacher of classics, calls himself Hermes, and represents the role of Greek mythology in European civilization. Reliving the life of the mercurial god in the antipodes, he becomes messenger, trickster and seducer. Unatildi, an Indigenous girl whom Adam finds in a burnt-out tree trunk, is an archetypal maiden. She introduces the Europeans to the mythology of their new land, as sacred for her people as the Bible is for Johannes Menge. Each of these three characters plays a part in transforming the marriage of Adam and Hestia, and each, in turn, undergoes a personal metamorphosis. Aboriginal women act as midwives at the birth of the love-child of Hestia and Hermes. Named Sophia, after the goddess of wisdom, the new child is thought to have inherited the miwi spirit of Unatildi's lost infant. On his deathbed, as Menge bequeaths his wisdom to his Australian friends, he predicts that Sophia will understand the sacredness of all spiritual life. Eventually Hestia and Adam find themselves changed by their encounters with the archetypes of myth. News of Menge's death on the goldfields gives them the courage they need to begin rebuilding an honest relationship. The novel is 107,400 words in length and is accompanied by an exegesis of 20,170 word, entitled Myth And Alchemy In Creative Writing. The exegesis describes the interactive process of researching and writing, as well as exploring the value of Jungian concepts for creative writing, and current issues of creating Indigenous characters. There is an emphasis on the Jungian approach to mythology and alchemy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Humanities, 2006.

In the Western cultural tradition there is a particular aspect of consciousness discernable in certain fictive literature; mythopoeic literary consciousness (MLC), the evolution of which may be traced back to its earliest manifestation in the cave paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic period in Europe. Researchers agree that those cave paintings are indicative of shamanic activity, which suggests an interesting relationship between shamanic consciousness and MLC. This research investigates contemporary experiences of this relationship in the context of place and the Imaginal Realm using a combination of empirical and textual methods. The evolution of the narrative psyche is described; beginning with recent interpretations of the aetiology and meaning of the European Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings. Shamanism is then examined and linkages are made with subsequent esoteric traditions such as Gnosticism, Hermeticism, the Imaginal Realm of the Sufi mystics, and the Romantic Movement in European literature. The Imaginal Realm, as a metaphysical construct, is posited in relationship to de Chardin’s Noosphere, Sheldrake’s Morphic Resonance, the Celtic Web of Wyrd and Jung’s Collective Unconscious. Empirical research is presented on contemporary expressions of this tradition. Three internationally recognised Australian authors, David Malouf, Thomas Keneally and Colleen McCullough, were either interviewed or completed a questionnaire on their backgrounds, the role of place relationships, states of consciousness when writing and reading, the role of literature and related questions. Five dedicated readers and two professionally credentialed practicing shamans completed similar questionnaires on their experiences and views on literature, the act of reading, and shamanic and creative consciousness. The responses are accompanied by textual analysis of the work of the three authors, drawing out themes of importance. Further discussion of the empirical and textual material in the context of broader literature establishes the epistemological dimensions of both mythopoeic literary consciousness and shamanic consciousness. The nature and relationship of consciousness and soul are examined from a perspective that unites them with the anima mundi and posits them in relationship with place and elsewhere-place. The concluding section revisits core themes to posit the mythopoeic writer and MLC within the heritage of a metaphysical tradition that delineates the existential boundaries of the psyche. It is argued that MLC is a manifestation of the narrative imperative of the psyche or soul to orientate itself along a place-elsewhere-place continuum, a continuum that parallels states of consciousness from the participation mystique to the de-centred self. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 269 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of St Andrews, April 2007.