Thesis (doctoral)--Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux III. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 536-[549]).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

The texts in this study interrogate the dominant myths which have affected the constructs of identity and history in the white Australian socio-historical context. These myths are exposed by White as ideologically determined and as operating by processes of exclusion, repression and marginalisation. White challenges the autonomy of both European and Australian cultures, reveals the ideological complicity between them and adopts a critical approach to all Western cultural assumptions. As a post-colonial writer, White shares the need of both post-colonising and post-colonised groups for an identity established not in terms of the colonial power but in terms of themselves. As a dissident white male, he is a privileged member of the post- colonising group but one who rejects the dominant discourses as illegitimate and unlegitimating. He offers a re-writing of the myths underpinning colonial and post-colonising discourses which privileges their suppressed and repressed elements. His re-writings affect aboriginal men and women, white women and the 'privileged' white male whose subjection to social control is masked as unproblematic freedom. White's re-writing of myth enbraces the post-modern as well as the post- colonial. He not only deconstructs and demystifies the phallogocentric/ethnocentric order of things; he also attempts to avoid totalization by privileging indeterminacy, fragmentation, hybridization and those liminary states which defy articulation: the ecstatic, the abject, the unspeakable. He himself is denied authority in that his re-writings are presented as mere acts in the always provisional process of making interpretations. White acknowledges the problematics of both presentation and re-presentation - an unresolved tension between the post-colonial desire for self-definition and the post-modern decentring of all meaning and interpretation permeates his discourse. The close readings of the texts attempt, accordingly, to reflect varying oppositional strategies: those which seek to overturn hierarchies and expose power-relations and those which seek an idiom in which contemporary Australia may find its least distorted reflexion. Within this ideological context, the Lacanian thematics of the subject, and their re-writing by Kristeva, are linked with dialectical criticism in an attempt to reflect a strictly provisional process of (re) construction

This thesis contextualises and explores the reconceptualization of the myth of Eteokles and Polyneices in Greek, Latin and Italian tragedy, the literary genre that more than any other offers the opportunity to trace its progressive transformation across a series of relatively continuous and consistent phases. Within these limits, this study represents the first comprehensive, systematic and detailed comparative analysis of the cultural development of this myth, charting the shaping of its key themes: war and rivalry, autochthony and patriotism, the connection between incest, parricide and fratricide, the effects of predestination/family curse, the clash between private and public interests, and the legitimate limits of power. By means of a close examination of the thesis' main corpus (constituted by Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes, Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus, Euripides' Phoenician Women, Seneca's Oedipus and Phoenissae, Dolce's Giocasta and Alfieri's Polinice) this dissertation demonstrates that the brothers are not merely two stereotypical types whose characterisation as mortal enemies remains static and unvaried. Although their rivalry never stops, the meaning, dynamic and purpose of their struggle are progressively but profoundly transformed throughout the centuries. In particular, I argue that the martial component that initially defined this myth, admittedly important throughout its legacy, is variously adapted to accommodate either a warning against the horrors of violence and subjugation, a cautionary appeal against overly aggressive foreign policy, a denunciation of the unbearable price of civil strife, or an aspiration to pacifism. In parallel, I analyse how the reflection on power and power struggle becomes increasingly predominant, eventually displacing the war theme as the main focus of this myth with a warning against the dangers of tyranny.

Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, establishes a pattern for the hero to answer the call to adventure, ask the question of the goddess and receive her boon, and return to his homeland. Campbell does not, however, make any suggestions about a myth whose protagonist is female. Erich Neumann, in The Origins and History of Consciousness, hints that the woman may, indeed, be her own goddess, that she must give herself the boon she already carries. The novels of Anita Brookner illustrate the dual nature of the feminine protagonist: the seeker and the boon giver. The feminine hero (even when Brookner's protagonist is masculine, he exhibits feminine qualities) hears the call to adventure, receives the teachings of the goddess and/or her representative, receives help fromother beings (in myth these would be supernatural beings), realizes that she carries the answer to the cosmic question of selfhood within her, and, following an apotheosis, makes a return to society. Much of the present work is spent delving into both the monomythic and feminist structures of Brookner's novels. Although Brookner characterizes herself as a "reluctant feminist," examination of her novels reveals a subtle adherence to feminist principles which can be ascertained by viewing each novel in terms of the monomyth schema.

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D'Annunzio e Pirandello come uomini e come artisti si pongono agli antipodi della scena culturale del loro tempo, eppure e nel mito, inteso come categoria psichica oltre che artistica, che la loro antitetica opera trova un punto d'incontro. In questo studio si analizza, dunque, il mito nelle tre tragedie dannunziane in cui l'elemento mitico si manifesta nel modo piu palese (La citta morta, La figlia di Iorio e Fedra) e nella trilogia dei miti pirandelliana, summa e approdo finale di tutta la sua opera. Per entrambi la necessita di mito nasce dalla sofferta consapevolezza della crisi moderna: valori relativi, personalita atemporale scissa, e fuori nessun dello l'aspirazione alla totalita. sen so spazio di direzione. del mito e Nella ancora dimensione possibile La teoria junghiana degli archetipi dell'inconscio collettivo, di cui i miti sarebbero le manifestazioni culturali, si e rivelata un importante ausilio analitico che consente, tramite uno scavo in profondita oltre le scorze e le sovrastrutture culturali e storiche, di cogliere la sapiente orditura di immagini e motivi archetipici nelle opere, confermando l'idea dell'artista anche come uomo collettivo oltre che come individuo. In tale prospettiva il confronto tra le opere ha portato ad importanti conclusioni, che non solo chiariscono la loro opera di scrittori, ma anche la loro funzione all'interno della societa in cui sono vissuti e, per esteso, della nostra. Per entrambi recuperare il mito e ridargli una veste moderna, pur nei rispettivi distinti modi, significa essenzialmente cercare di superare il relativo, la frammentarieta e la mediocrita del mondo contemporaneo. Nel processo di recupero, tuttavia, il mito stesso viene modificato e, facendosi specchio della condizione psichica moderna, non solo ne interpreta le piu profonde istanze, ma giunge anche a precorrerne quelle future. La posizione centrale nelle opere dei due scrittori dell'inconscio, il grande rimosso dell'Io raziocinante moderno, emergente nella possente figura della Grande Madre primordiale, rivela la direzione della futura coscienza umana nella necessita di riaccedere alle fonti piu profonde della psiche da cui nasca l'incontro e la fusione degli opposti, inconscio e coscienza, l'elemento ctonio, fertile e generatore, e quello uranico, spirituale e trascendente. / D'Annunzio and Pirandello both as men and as artists can only be placed at the opposite ends of the cultural scene of their times. Yet, it is in myth that their antithetical works finally converge. This study, therefore, analyzes myth in three of D'Annunzio's tragedies where the mythical dimension is more apparent (The dead city, Iorio/s daughter and Fedra) and in the trilogy of myths by Pirandello, which brings his work to its ultimate expression. For both authors the need for myth is born of the painful awareness of modern man's crisis: relative values, a divided personality and no sense of direction. In the timeless and universal dimension of myth it is still possible to achieve totality. The Junghian theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, of which myths are cultural manifestations, has proved to be an analytical tool of great importance. By giving access to the deepest level of the texts beyond their cultural and historical layers, it brings to light the otherwise elusive meaning of archetypal images and motives, revealing the true nature of art to be not just the work of an individual but also of collective man. The works, different as they may be, when compared in this perspective have nevertheless yielded some important common conclusions, not only on D'Annunzio and Pirandello as writers but also on their role within the society they lived in and, by extension, our own. For both of them myth, even in a modern context, means essentially the overcoming of the fragmentation, the relativity and the mediocrity of contemporary life. However, in the process of recapturing this mythical dimension, myth itself is bound to be modified. Because it mirrors the modern psyche, it not only interprets its deepest present needs, but also points to its future ones. The central position occupied in their works by the subconscious, emerging from behind the powerful image of the primordial Great Mother, points the way to future psychological development and to the need to regain access to the deepest levels of the human psyche so that its opposing forces, subconscious and consciousness, can meet and be reconciled. / Classics & Modern European Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Italian)

Critical reactions to the religious experiences contained in William Faulkner's fiction have tended to fall within the context of traditional Christian belief systems. In most instances, the characters' beliefs have been judged by the tenets of belief systems or religions that are not necessarily those on which the characters base their lives. There has been no effort to understand the characters' spirituality as the basis of an independent religious belief system. Mircea Eliade's methods and models in the study of comparative religion, in particular his explanation of the interaction of the sacred and the profane during a hierophany (the manifestation of the sacred), can be applied to the belief systems of Faulkner's characters to reveal the theologies of the characters' religions, the nature of the belief systems on which they base their lives. Identification of those stories associated with hierophanies in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha fiction enables the isolation and analysis of the sacred stories and sacraments of Yoknapatawpha County's civil religion. The storytellings examined appear in Flags in the Dust, "A Justice," and Absalom, Absalom!. The storytellers and the audiences are all a part of the Yoknapatawpha community, and the stories are drawn from a common history. The sacralization and use of particular stories to explain certain events reflects the faith life of the community as a whole, as well as that of the individual participating in the ritual. The explication of the profane experiences the myths are meant to sanctify will reveal that the individuals, and consequently, the community, are in the process of discarding their old, civil religion. As a result, they have lost the ability to adapt their ancestral myths to fit the existential crises they presently face. Unable to infuse the present with the sacred, Yoknapatawpha1s younger generation is overwhelmed by the chaos that surrounds it.