Cette étude tente de saisir l’ambiguïté du propos pessimiste dans trois romans de Catulle Mendès (1841-1909). D’un côté, la construction du héros suggère une critique psychopathologique du pessimisme conforme au moralisme de la doxa fin-de-siècle qui dénie à cette pensée toute valeur spéculative. De l’autre, la représentation d’une société dissimulatrice contre laquelle le héros est en lutte confère à celui-ci un pouvoir de dévoilement. Cette tension se trouve condensée dans le concept de monstre qui fait l’objet d’une double lecture, à la fois pathologique et herméneutique. La conscience du héros étant conforme par sa stérilité à la conscience décadente telle qu’elle est définie par Jankélévitch, le système de pensée qu’elle féconde peut être assimilé à un monstre. Or, le sens premier du monstre pessimiste est le caractère inhumain de la vérité, autant comme quête que comme révélation. Seul un monstre peut porter la vérité car celle-ci est à sa mesure, intolérable. Elle renvoie l’homme à la toute-puissance de l’instinct dont découlent ses idéaux. Partant d’une conception pessimiste, le propos de Mendès débouche ainsi sur une morale idéaliste qui prône contre l’universelle tare le mensonge universel. / This thesis tries to make sense of the ambiguity of pessimism in three of Catulle Mendès’s novels. On the one hand, the construction of the hero indicates a criticism of pessimism based on psychopathology, typical of late nineteenth-century moralism as it denies the doctrine any speculative value. On the other hand, the representation of a society full of liars against which the hero leads a struggle bestows upon him a power of revelation. This tension is condensed in the concept of monster which is submitted here to both a pathological and an hermeneutic reading. The hero’s conscience conforms to the type of decadent conscience as defined by Jankélévitch: the system of thought produced by it cannot be considered other than monstous. In addition, the primary feature of the pessimistic monster lies in the inhuman nature of the truth, as search and as revelation. Only a monster can profess the truth because it is made to his measure that is: intolerable. The truth reflects the supremacy of instinct and negates all ideals. Based on a thoroughly pessimistic conception, Mendès’point lies in an idealistic morals which advocates the universal lying against universal vice.

Due to the fact that many of the secondary school pupils who experience difficulty in choosing a career, also appear to have problems with their time perspective, an investigation into the possible link between these concepts was undertaken. A literature study was done where the major dimensions of time perspective were identified continuity/directionality and locus of control; optimism/pessimism; structure. Analyses were done on the principal factors influencing time perspective and career choice. A reliable measuring instrument was developed in order to measure the secondary school pupil's time perspective. The results of the empirical investigation indicated that time perspective does play a significant role in the career choice of secondary school pupils. Gender and intellectual potential do not appear to have a significant bearing on time perspective. The educational implications of the findings are discussed, and guidelines regarding methods of improving a child's time perspective are given to both teachers and parents. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (with specialisation in Guidance and Counselling (Psychology of Education))

This work deals with positive thinking and its impact on quality of the life. The theoretical part describes positive thinking, what affects it, and if is the possibility to change the thinking. It further describes concept of quality of the life and with it the most associated term the Health. In following chapters, I deal with concepts of optimism, pessimism, and the conclusion of theoretical work form chapters about failure, success and goals.The practical part contains data obtained from the questionnaire, which is aimed on finding the quality of life. To determine the quality of life was used assessment method named SEIQoL (KŘIVOHLAVÝ, 2001). Another part of the research includes interviews with selected individuals and finding a way of thinking by using the scale of prevailing way of thinking (Slezáčková, 2012). In selected individuals are results of SEIQoL methods compared with the results of the scale prevailing way of thinking.

[pt] Para Antero de Quental, acreditar num Deus supremo foi o alicerce onde firmou todo o seu projeto de vida. A perda desse fundamento transformou o poeta num ser angustiado, pessimista e cheio de dúvidas. Esses sentimentos permaneceram ao longo de toda a sua trajetória de vida, levando-o à busca de Deus pelos caminhos da Filosofia. Percorrendo-os, foi atribuindo novos nomes a Deus - Bem, Justiça, Verdade, Absoluto, Idéia, Ignotus, Inconsciente -, na tentativa de conciliação entre o seu novo ser e o que fôra em sua juventude. Nesta busca de um impossível, conseguiu apenas um simulacro de solução: a evasão pela morte. Como um romântico - que, no fundo, sempre foi - matou-se na sua Ilha de São Miguel, sentado em um banco de praça, diante de um muro onde se lia a palavra cujo sentido perdera: Esperança. / [en] For Antero de Quental, believing in a supreme God was the foundation on which he based his whole lifes project. The loss of this belief transformed the poet into an anguished, pessimistic and questioning being. These feelings remained throughout his whole life, leading him to a search for God by the ways of philosophy. Following those, he started to give new names to God - Goodness, Justice, Truth, Absolute, Idea, Ignotus, Unconscious -, in an attempt to conciliate his new being and what he had been in his youth. In this search for the impossible, he found only a fake solution: evasion trough death. As a romantic - which, deep down, he had always been - he killed himself in the Isle of São Miguel, sitting at a bench on a town square, facing a wall where one could read the word whose sense had been lost to him: Hope.

Cette thèse prend pour objet l’ensemble de l’œuvre en prose d’Alphonse Daudet pour rendre compte des multiples aspects qu’y assume le thème de la crise, cette dernière étant entendue moins comme un concept philosophique que comme le noyau fédérateur d’une représentation de l’histoire, articulant le domaine social et la sphère privée, largement redevable d’un imaginaire d’époque. L’analyse s’articule autour de trois axes principaux : d’abord, la composante historicisée de la crise, que favorise l’ancrage temporel propre au roman daudétien, est étudiée dans sa dimension chronologique, en relation aux événements marquants de l’époque, tels que la guerre de 1870, la Commune, le parlementarisme. Dans un deuxième temps, la problématisation de la quête identitaire et de la saisie idéologique des personnages permet de déceler les ressorts d’une crise se manifestant à l’intérieur du domaine privé, pour glisser progressivement vers la scène sociale. L’étude d’un personnage tel que l’artiste-écrivain fonctionne ainsi comme medium dans la représentation de ce passage qui aboutit, dans les derniers romans daudétiens, à une forme de nihilisme propre à la fin de siècle qui réactive l’héritage schopenhauerien et les théories darwiniennes. Une importance particulière a enfin été accordée au microcosme familial : l’hypothèse que cette institution sociale fonctionne comme espace privilégié d’inversion des valeurs a été démontrée à l’aide d’une analyse méthodique des fonctions thématiques de l’enfant et son parcours de formation, ainsi que du rôle de la mère et du père. La prise en compte de l’enjeu de la filiation et de l’institution du mariage a corroboré l’hypothèse consistant à considérer la famille comme un terrain potentiel de dysfonctionnement sur le plan privé, paradigmatique d’une crise de valeurs qui traverse les rôles sociaux. / The purpose of this thesis is to account for a variety of topics in Alphonse Daudet’s novels referring to the concept of crisis in values from a corpus of texts between 1866 and 1897. To offer a rewriting of the patterns of Daudet’s social perspective, I provide an original view of the crisis by articulating three different aspects: first, the references to the historical background underline a historical form of crisis that I analyze from a chronological point of view. Second, the ideological perception of the characters and their evolution reveal a process of search for identity characterized by an inner form of crisis which is extended to the entire society. The analysis of a typical character such as the artist and writer shows the extension of this devaluation in the social sphere: Daudet’s last novels explore the legacy of Schopenhauer’s and Darwin’s theories. The third part is based on the hypothesis that the social pattern of the family reveals a form of inversion in values. This hypothesis is confirmed by the study of the narrative function of three specific roles : the child and his process of development, motherhood and fatherhood as far as their evolution as a couple and the relationship with childhood is presented. The conclusion is the emergence of a dysfunction that might also affect the intimate sphere. Thus, reconstructing the structure of Daudet’s point of view as far as society is perceived might offer us new models of interpreting his role as a writer and the function of writing.

À travers l’étude des romans de trois écrivains jugés cyniques – au sens antique ou moderne du terme –, il s’agit de chercher à définir un nouveau statut auctorial dans l’histoire du champ littéraire du XIXe au XXIe siècles : celui de romancier cynique. Le fil conducteur de cette recherche procède, avant tout, du rapport fondamental qu’entretient le cynisme avec la vérité. Vérité historique, lorsque ces écrivains envisagent le cynisme (notion qui touche aussi bien à la philosophie, à la psychologie qu’à la morale) comme un matériau romanesque, autrement dit, un thème, un caractère, une attitude à exposer afin de dévoiler au mieux la réalité de leur siècle respectif. Vérité transhistorique, quand ils s’attachent à révéler ce que sont l’homme et le monde. Le cynisme relève alors d’une pratique, celle du dire-vrai, qui favorise le caractère aléthique du texte littéraire et conditionne la teneur du discours véhiculé par le roman : c’est un centre autour duquel gravitent des thèmes, des éléments narratifs et des procédés d’écriture communs aux écrits romanesques de Mirbeau, de Drieu et de Houellebecq, dont les horizons sont pourtant bien distincts. Cette forte implication du cynisme dans l’espace littéraire suppose nécessairement un rapport singulier au réel ; elle exige du romancier qu’il ménage la rencontre du fictif et du vécu, tout en déclenchant un processus de dévoilement, franc et lucide, à l’égard de la littérature elle-même. Le romancier cynique se doit de mettre à nu les faiblesses, les contradictions, voire les travers de la littérature afin d’être au plus près de ce qu’elle est vraiment. / The antique and modern study of the novels by these three cynical writers aims at trying to portray a new authorial status in the history of nineteenth to twenty-first century literature : the status of the cynical novelist. First and foremost, the common thread of this research comes from the essential link between cynicism and truth. On the one hand, truth as historic truth is defined when cynicism (in its philosophical, psychological and ethical terms) is considered by these novelists as a novel material, in other words, a theme, a character, and an attitude, which exposes the reality of their respective century. On the other hand, truth as transhistorical truth is when they endeavour to unveil what mankind and world are. Cynicism comes therefore from the habit of truth-telling, the one that promotes the alethic aspect of the literary text and determines the content of the speech conveyed by the novel. Mirbeau, Drieu and Houellebecq novels have really definite horizons of their owns. But if I consider the common points to these three writers, I can say that this truth-telling process is a centre around which themes, narrative elements and writing processes gravitate. This strong involvement of cynicism in the literary space necessarily implies a singular connection to reality, therefore, it implies for the novelist both to handle carefully this melting of fiction and real-life experiences and to trigger a process of a honest and lucid disclosure towards literature itself. A cynical novelist must expose the weaknesses, the contradictions and even the quirks of literature in order to be as close as possible to what it really is.

Among other factors, optimism has been shown to significantly influence the course of some diseases (cancer, HIV, coronary heart disease). This study investigated whether optimism of a patient before a total hip replacement can predict the functionality of the lower limbs 3 and 6 months after surgery. A total of 325 patients took part in the study (age: 58.7 years; w: 55%). The functionality was measured with the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities arthrosis index, and optimism with the Life Orientation Test. To analyse the influences of age, gender and optimism, general linear models were calculated. In optimistic patients, functionality improved significantly over time. The study showed a clear influence of dispositional optimism on the recovery after total hip replacement in the first 3 months after surgery.

This thesis argues that a socially conservative tendency informed much of George Orwell's commentary between 1934 and 1943, and that the same tendency reflected a general European trend. The main sources of this thesis are a large selection of George Orwell's works and a smaller selection of works by Frantz Fanon, Jose Ortega y Gasset, and Antonio Gramsci. This thesis relies upon Orwell's involvement in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1937 and his embrace of nationalism in 1940 as major organizational points of reference. This thesis concludes that Orwell's commentary was an example of a general European conservative reaction against Marxist-Leninist thought.

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