<p>Alice Lyttkens (1897-1991) was a very popular author in Sweden during several decades in the middle of the twentieth century. She was most famous for her historical novels. During her first period as a novelist in the 1930s, however, she wrote contemporary fiction, reflecting the situation of contemporary Women. The traditional view of the two sexes as “complementary” permeated the interwar period. Complementary at this time was presupposed as an asymmetrical and hierarchical relation between the two sexes. The male was seen as superior to the female in being strong when she was weak etc. According to the Swedish researcher Kristina Fjelkestam’s dissertation Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer this view was close at hand in representations of femininity. In this paper I discuss how the protagonists in Alice Lyttkens novels Flykten från vardagen (1933) and - kommer inte till middagen (1934) relate to this social norm, or ”doxa”. By making such an analysis I come to the conclusion that this ”doxa” is represented in both novels, but strongly challenged by the protagonists in their actions and life choices. The narrator also questions the predominated complementary view and demonstrates the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings throughout the novels. The author there by emphasizes a critical feminist attitude. The narrator is also critical of the superficial so-called modern characters, which apparently is under the influence of the ”doxa”.</p>

Alice Lyttkens (1897-1991) was a very popular author in Sweden during several decades in the middle of the twentieth century. She was most famous for her historical novels. During her first period as a novelist in the 1930s, however, she wrote contemporary fiction, reflecting the situation of contemporary Women. The traditional view of the two sexes as “complementary” permeated the interwar period. Complementary at this time was presupposed as an asymmetrical and hierarchical relation between the two sexes. The male was seen as superior to the female in being strong when she was weak etc. According to the Swedish researcher Kristina Fjelkestam’s dissertation Ungkarlsflickor, kamrathustrur och manhaftiga lesbianer this view was close at hand in representations of femininity. In this paper I discuss how the protagonists in Alice Lyttkens novels Flykten från vardagen (1933) and - kommer inte till middagen (1934) relate to this social norm, or ”doxa”. By making such an analysis I come to the conclusion that this ”doxa” is represented in both novels, but strongly challenged by the protagonists in their actions and life choices. The narrator also questions the predominated complementary view and demonstrates the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings throughout the novels. The author there by emphasizes a critical feminist attitude. The narrator is also critical of the superficial so-called modern characters, which apparently is under the influence of the ”doxa”.

This thesis uses the popular genre of detective fiction to explore the context of the heyday of the crime genre: the Golden Age. This sub-genre, best known for producing Agatha Christie, spanned the complicated history of Britain involving the Great Depression, two World Wars and huge changes to class structure. It is for these reasons that the Golden Age is such a pivotal period for changing notions of British identity. Through the very British Christie and the less well known New Zealander, Ngaio Marsh, expressions of national identity are explored as well as how the colonial fits in. Focusing heavily on the authors and their own personal experiences and views, this thesis is divided into four chapters to further break down how the Golden Age period affected its citizens and why this detective fiction held such a wide appeal. Chapter one explores gender roles and how Golden Age authors both conformed to them through their choice in detectives, yet also how they naturally resisted some through their own public image. Chapter two then examines the issue of class and how Golden Age detective fiction portrayed the changes. Contrary to popular criticism, Christie and Marsh were surprisingly progressive and forward thinking on this subject. Chapter three considers how both authors employed setting to emphasise these changes. Both Christie and Marsh used foreign settings to highlight British society and its flaws, and Marsh used her New Zealand settings to consider the relationship between Britain and her home. The final chapter will consider why Golden Age detective fiction was so popular: what was the appeal? For a period of violence and uncertainty, why were people drawn to crime fiction involving sometimes gruesome death? The appeal lay, and still does, in the puzzle: the game that diverted readers from their own problems. Golden Age fiction may have been highly formulaic and predictable, but it was also highly artificial and self-referential. This was a clever and diverting fiction that has been constantly underestimated by critics and deserves further study.

No description available.

Often hailed as “China’s Stephen King,” Chinese psychological suspense author Cai Jun occupies a position at the peak of the new wave of young authors flooding China’s popular literature market. In order to understand Cai’s popularity as an author, the impact his works and writing have on this market, and how he creates his particular brand of suspense fiction, it is both necessary to put his works into a larger context and analyze his writing. This thesis provides a brief overview of the recent literary scene in China, from the rise of internet literature and the comeback of genre fiction to the advent of mooks, the evolution of young adult literature, and the development of the author marketing industry, and also addresses the “pure vs. popular” controversy in China’s literary world, identifies how Cai fits into these trends, and determines who Cai is as a writer in terms of genre, story content, and literary reception through the translation and analysis of Cai’s short story “Kidnapped.”

Submitted by Josimara Dias Brumatti (bcgdigital@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-03-27T13:21:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Josimara Dias Brumatti (bcgdigital@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-03-27T13:22:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-27T13:22:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Esta dissertação busca analisar como o horror se apresenta na ficção de massa produzida durante a era vitoriana na Inglaterra, mais especificamente a que se enquadra em um subgênero do romance vulgarmente conhecido como penny blood. Para cumprir esse propósito, duas obras representativas desse subgênero foram escolhidas como objeto de estudo: The Mysteries of London (1844-1848), de G. W. M. Reynolds, e The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-1847), de autor anônimo. Nesta pesquisa, aborda-se a penny blood como uma das formas inauguradoras da ficção de massa, uma vez que ela surgiu a partir da combinação de fatores como a urbanização, a alfabetização em massa e o crescimento do mercado editorial e se caracterizou pela publicação extensiva de histórias sensacionalistas com o objetivo de atender à crescente demanda por leitura de entretenimento da classe trabalhadora e de produzir uma cultura impressa acessível e barata. Além disso, considera-se a penny blood como uma narrativa que se expressa por meio do gótico urbano, retratando a cidade como um lugar dominado pelo submundo do crime e povoado por vilões monstruosos. Desse modo, a penny blood, transpondo o horror para a cidade, refletiu certas ansiedades da sociedade vitoriana concernentes ao novo espaço urbano que se desenvolveu tão rapidamente ao longo do século XIX. / This dissertation aims to analyse how horror is represented in the popular fiction that was produced during the Victorian era in England, especially in the subgenre that came to be known as the penny blood. To this end, the selected body of work comprises two romances that have been considered typical of this subgenre: The Mysteries of London (1844-1848), by G. W. M. Reynolds, and The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-1847), by an anonymous author. In this research, the penny blood is claimed to be one of the earliest forms of popular fiction, for it emerged from a combination of factors such as urbanisation, mass literacy and the development of the publishing market, and it was also characterised by the massive publication of sensational stories catering to the growing demand for light reading by the working class and creating an accessible, cheap kind of print culture. In addition, the penny blood is studied here as a set of narratives that incarnates the urban Gothic, since it often depicts the criminal underworld of the city and the monstrous villains that inhabit it. In this sense, the penny blood, by placing horror within the city, reflected certain anxieties displayed by Victorian society regarding the new urban space that developed itself so rapidly throughout the nineteenth century.

This dissertation deals with Swedish crime fiction and its successes on the Swedish book market in the early 2000s. The genre’s expansion, marketing and literary content is mapped and analysed in three studies that together paint a thorough picture of this literary phenomena in Swedish book trade. In study no 1 the development of the genre in Sweden in the last 40 years is discussed from a quantitative perspective. With the base in bibliographies of Swedish crime fiction publication trends are analysed in several ways and concerning topics such as genre growth, gender balance, publishing houses, successful authorships, bestsellers and library lending. The results include: a significant genre expansion in the 2000s; a great dominance for the genre on the bestseller charts in the 2000s; and a shift in the author group, from male dominance to even gender balance. In study no 2 the marketing of the genre is examined through an analysis of book covers, titles and other elements in the concrete packaging of just over 150 Swedish crime fiction paperbacks. With book history as an important theoretical influence book covers and other peritextual elements are understood as a significant part of the marketing of the genre, but also – and wider – as of crucial importance for how genres themselves are established, withheld and re-negotiated in the interplay between different actors in the society of literature – publishers, authors, booksellers, readers. In study no 3 a quantitative content analysis of 116 Swedish crime novels published 1998–2015 is used to chart and discuss recurring themes and tropes within the genre. Focus is primarily directed towards what is understood as the most central parts of crime fiction: murderers and their motives; methods used in committing murder; victims of murder; and detectives and other protagonists. The results include: a distinct dominance of female protagonists; a partial realism, where depictions of everyday life in general is realistic while the murder plots are spectacular and sensational; and a dominance of normality, where main characters and innocent victims confirms normality, while killers and unsympathetic victims are depicted as deviants in stark contrast with normality.

本論文的研究論題，主要探討日治臺灣漢文通俗小說，如何在東／西文化的交互影響下生成；以及由東亞、西洋文學的脈絡出發，探究它對雙方小說的接受、移植與再造。就研究時間而言，本文論述範疇集中於日治時期（1895-1945）；就研究對象而言，主要是以刊載於各份報紙上的漢文通俗小說為文本分析對象，探究其敍事組成、文體變化與內容思想。外緣資料則考察此時期流動於東亞各地與臺灣間的小說書籍為重點，析論日治臺灣圖書文化如何與東亞脈絡相接軌，兩者相輔相成，以勾勒日治臺灣漢文通俗市場的面貌。 立基於上述議題，本論文由漢文通俗小說如何對東亞小說與西洋小說進行「接受」、「移植」與「再造」等各項觀點出發，考察日治臺灣漢文通俗小說生成的原由，探討日治臺灣漢文通俗小說如何在跨領域、跨文化的思考模式下，擁有匯聚各方文化的特點，並追問臺灣文人在對中國、日本或西洋翻譯小說閱讀後，如何將之透過傳抄、模擬的方法，再造為臺灣漢文通俗小說的形式與內容，最後傳達給日治臺灣讀者閱讀，日治臺灣閱讀者因此能從中接受到東、西文化交錯下多層次的閱讀體驗。 在內容、章節架構安排上，本論文由日治臺灣漢文通俗小說敍事手法和文體變化的討論為起點，以文本精讀的方式，分章論述小說敍事背景、敍事模式和敍事角度等問題。文體變化方面則探討漢文通俗小說由文言到白話的歷時性變化，以及文體分類的共時性問題。其次，論述中國、日本兩地小說書籍如何代銷和傳播進入日治時期的臺灣，此圖書傳播／接受的現象，將可作為東亞脈絡下臺灣與各地圖書往來互動的例證。最後，分別論述中國演義傳統、日本講談文化和西方翻譯小說在日治臺灣漢文通俗小說中的承衍、紮根和譯介過程，並研析其所表現出如「桃花源」意涵、忠孝精神的宣揚、復仇觀的建立，以及與西方啓蒙精神、政治隱寓和奇幻特點的交互融合。經由上述各項議題的研究，日治臺灣漢文通俗小說跨界容納多元文化，以成就己身繁盛面貌的特點，將被本論文所彰顯，而同時，日治臺灣通俗小說的研究價值也將更被學界所肯定。 / This research aims at the creation of Taiwanese popular fiction during the Japanese colonial period. The literary works were produced in the interaction with Eastern and Western cultures. Therefore, this research elaborates on the permeation, transplantation and reformation in the context of different cultures. In the time scale, it focus on the Japanese colonial period（1895-1945）In the main material, it emphasizes on the popular fiction published in the newspapers, and pays close attention on its narrative, genre and content. Besides, I also consider the catalogue of fiction prevailed over Eastern Asia, seeing how Taiwanese culture associated with Eastern world. In this way, we can have a better understanding of Taiwanese book market in Japanese colonial period. This thesis begins with the ideas of permeation, transplantation and reformation. It is my conviction that Taiwanese popular fiction possesses the characteristics of various cultures. When Taiwanese literati read the fiction translated from Chinese, Japan and Western world, we can notice that they are influenced and stimulated by this reading experiences, and create the new form and content as Taiwanese popular fiction. In the meantime, the reader live in the Japanese colonial period can experience styles combined with Eastern and Western cultures. In the structure of this thesis, I start with the discussion of narrative and genre. I take the close reading as the main strategy to discuss the narrative background, mode, angle and so on. In the transformation of the genre, it not only elaborates on the diachronic change from Classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese, but also researches on the synchrony existed in genre. Secondly, it demonstrates the situation that various books from Chinese and Japan was sold and transported into colonial Taiwan. This special transportation can be considered as a good example of the interaction between Taiwan and Eastern Asia. Finally, it illustrates the process of inheritance, reinforcement and translation of the Chinese novel tradition, Japanese Kōdan culture and the Western fiction, such as the metaphor as the “Utopia”, the spirit of loyalty and piety, the concept of revenge, and the integration of political metaphor and fantasy. After this research, it manifests the truth that Taiwanese popular fiction possesses the great importance in history.

One of the most striking features of contemporary Scottish fiction has been its shift from the predominantly realist novels of the 1960s and 1970s to an engagement with very different modes of writing, from the mixture of realism and visionary future satire in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981) to the Rabelaisian absurdity and excess of Irvine Welsh’s Filth (1998). This development has received considerable critical attention, energising debates concerning how such writing relates to or challenges familiar tropes of identity and national culture. At the same time, however, there has been a very striking and commercially successful rise in the production of popular genre literature in Scotland, in categories which have included speculative fiction and crime fiction. Although Scottish literary fiction of recent decades has been studied in great depth, Scottish popular genre literature has received considerably less critical scrutiny in comparison. Therefore, the aim of my research is to examine popular Scottish writing of the stated period in order to reflect upon whether a significant relationship can be discerned between genre fiction and the mainstream of Scottish literary fiction, and to consider the characteristics of such a connection between these different modes of writing. To achieve this objective, the dissertation will investigate whether the features of any such shared literary concerns are inclined to vary between the mainstream of literary fiction in Scotland and two different, distinct forms of popular genre writing. My research will take up the challenge of engaging with the popular genres of speculative fiction and crime fiction during the years 1975 to 2006. I intend to discuss the extent to which the national political and cultural climate of the period under discussion informed the narrative form and social commentary of such works, and to investigate the manner in which, and the extent to which, a specific and identifiably Scottish response to these ideological matters can be identified in popular prose fiction during this period. This will be done by discussing and comparing eight novels in total; four for each chosen popular genre. From the field of speculative fiction, I will examine texts by the authors Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Margaret Elphinstone and Matthew Fitt. The discussion will then turn to crime fiction, with an analysis of novels by Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina and Louise Welsh. As well as evaluating the work of each author and its relevance to other texts in the field, consideration will be given to the significance of each novel under discussion to wider considerations of ideology, genre and national identity which were ongoing both at the time of their publication and in subsequent years. The dissertation’s conclusion will then consider the nature of the relationship between the popular genres which have been examined and the mainstream of Scottish literary fiction within the period indicated above.

Robert Merle est au purgatoire des Belles-Lettres françaises. Quelque chose dans sa trajectoire, qui va du prix Goncourt avec son tout premier roman, Week-end à Zuydcoote, aux treize tomes d’une saga historique, Fortune de France, a semble-t-il sonné le glas de sa consécration. Et ce quelque chose tient sans doute à la singularité d’un écrivain franc-tireur, allergique à toute mode, à toute école, à tout parti et qui portera un demi-siècle durant son rêve d’un « roman romanesque » qui allie le populaire à la qualité, un roman démocratique, un roman des Trente Glorieuses qui réhabilite ce « vice impuni », comme disait André Wurmser, la lecture. Ce sont des voies singulières que Merle explore, des voies qui l’entraînent vers les champs en jachère de l’expérimentation, du « mauvais genre », de la politique-fiction et du roman populaire. L’écrivain démocrate choisit, contre une littérature « mandarinale », contre tout formalisme et esthétisme, une littérature accessible, un roman romanesque, un roman à histoire où règne, en maître, la tension narrative. Et ce, au risque de la déconsécration, au risque du middlebrow. Son œuvre pourtant, si éclectique en apparence, est une œuvre essentielle car Merle est un écrivain de l’événement et du pire. Ce pire qui fit qu’une génération entière fut happée par l’Histoire et n’en sortit pas indemne. Unde malum faciamus ? Cette question qui, en filigrane, traverse tous ses écrits de 1949 à 2003, ne cessa de tarauder Merle. Toujours il s’est agi, pour cet écrivain-militant, de poursuivre le combat, envers et contre l’amnésie, les œillères, les mensonges, et de le poursuivre pour les générations à venir. / Robert Merle is in the purgatory of the French Belles-Lettres. Something in his work, which goes from the Prix Goncourt with his first novel, Weekend at Dunkirk, to the thirteen volumes of a historical saga, Fortune de France, seems to have gone awry and ended this recognition. And that something is probably due to the singularity of an independent writer allergic to any fashion, school or party who will uphold for half a century his dream of a “novelistic” novel which would be both popular and good, a “democratic” novel, a novel of the postwar boom, which rehabilitates the pleasure of reading, the “unpunished vice”, in André Wurmser’s words. Merle treads unusual paths, which lead him to the fallow fields of experimentation, to the disreputable genres of political and popular fiction. As a democratic writer opposed to “elitist” literature, as well as formalism and aestheticism, he chooses a literature which is accessible, a “novelistic” novel, in which the story itself and narrative tension are paramount, at the risk of not being recognized any longer or being dubbed a middlebrow writer. If eclectic in appearance, his work, is an essential one: Merle is a writer of the event and of the worst-case scenario. A worst witnessed by an entire generation caught up by history which did not leave unscathed. Unde malum faciamus? This question which underlines all of his writings from 1949 to 2003, never stopped haunting Merle. His goal, as a writer-activist, was ever to continue the fight against amnesia, blinders and lies for generations to come.