Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 241 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-241).

"Encountering 'this season's retrieval': Historical Fiction, Literary Postmodernism and the Novels of Peter Ackroyd" engages the novels Peter Ackroyd has published, and situates them within broader generic considerations and critical dialogue. Part I, an extended prefatorial apparatus, places Ackroyd and his published fiction within three historicocritical contexts: the problem of author-as-reliable-source and the disparate histories of (a) the historical novel and (b) postmodernism in general (and literary postmodernism in particular). By interrogating the histories and points-of-contention of these areas, this Part aims to problematize critical discourse enveloping Ackroyd's fiction. Part II, comprised of four chapters, discusses specific groupings of Ackroyd's novels. After providing an overview of relevant aspects of the novels and their reception by critics, Chapter A, "Moulding History with Pastiche in The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde. Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem and Milton in America." considers the multiple functioning of pastiche—often considered a mainstay postmodern implement—in Ackroyd's work. The chapter concludes that rather than achieving a singular effect in the novels, pastiche works in divergent manners and confounds the reading of past historical actuality they ostensibly represent. Chapter B, "The Presence of the Past: Comedic and Non-Realist Historicism in The Great Fire of London and First Light." provides an overview of relevant aspects of the novels, and then analyzes how the presence of comedy in otherwise sombre historical fiction interrupts the realism of the narrative. This chapter argues that while camp comic effects disrupt the authority of quasi-historiographic techniques they cannot fully subvert realism and so create a suspensive modality. Chapter C, "PastlPresent: The Uses of History in Hawksmoor. Chatterton. The House of Doctor Dee and English Music." interrogates elements of the past-present fugue trajectories of these novels in order to problematize schematic readings of their supposed cultural politics. Finally, Chapter D, "Those Conventional Concluding Remarks: The Plato Papers. (National) History and Politics," places Ackroyd's most recent novel (one uncharacteristically set in the future) within the preoccupations of his earlier fiction. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of future scholarship that would investigate the national Englishness constructed throughout Ackroyd's biographical and novelistic work. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Einsteinian relativity forever altered our understanding of the metaphysics of time. This study considers how this scientific theory affects the formulation of time in postmodern narratives as a necessary step toward understanding the relationship between empirical science and literary art. Two novels by Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five, exemplify this synthesis. Close readings of these texts reveal an underlying temporal scheme deeply informed by relativity. Furthermore, this study explores how relativity manifests in these texts in light of the block universe concept, Gèodelian universes, and strange loop phenomena. Vonnegut's treatment of free will is also discussed. All of these considerations emphasize Vonnegut's role as a member of the Third Culture, an author who consciously bridges C.P. Snow's two cultures. / by Francis C. Altomare IV. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

by Wong Man-ki. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-163). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 論文提要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.v / "Introduction ""Intertextuality"": Definitions and Issues" --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter1 --- Intertextuality in the Eighteenth-Century Novels: Samuel Johnson's Rasselas and Ellis Cornelia Knight's Dinarbas --- p.34 / Chapter Chapter2 --- Postmodern Intertextuality (I): The Subversive Rewriting Project in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber --- p.61 / Chapter Chapter3 --- Postmodern Intertextuality (II): Toward a Broader Scope ´ؤ Multiple Art Forms in Marina Warner's The Mermaids in the Basement and Paula Rego's Nursery Rhymes --- p.100 / Selected Bibliography --- p.157

This thesis juxtaposes Plato's allegory of the cave with Jacques Derrida's concept of the always already aspect of meaning, a concept derived from Ferdinand de Saussure's work. This theoretical investigation examines the implications of universal Signified forms of word meanings for postmodern composition theory.

This thesis locates Abraham H. de Vries's Nag van ale Clown witbin the self-conscious South African socio-literary climate of the eighties and analyses postmodernist narrative strategies in five stories. Surveying the debate on postmodernism, this study describes postmodernism as a nomadic, inherently contradictory and mutually informing palimpsest of texts and views the De Vries text as a problematized inscribing of subjectivity into history. / Hierdie proefskrif situeer Nag van die Clown (1989) van Abraham H. de Vries binne die selfbewuste sosioliterere klimaat van die Suid-Afrika van die dekade tagtig en ontleed postmodernistiese vertelstrategiee in vyf verhale uit die bundel. Die studie bied 'n oorsig oor die debat rondom die postmodernisme as nomadiese, weersprekende en wedersyds voedende palimpses tekste en beskou die De Vries-teks as 'n problematiserende inskryf van subjektiwiteit in die geskiedenis.

This study is an examination of ocular imagery in the secular poetry of T.S. Eliot. As a symbol, eyes begin as a metonym for the panoptic vision of society. In the earliest poems, Michel Foucault's conceptions of discipline illuminate the acerbic paranoia attached to ocular imagery and its source in the culture of turn-of-the-century Boston. Towards 1919, the image of eyes becomes an objective correlative for the figure of Dante's Beatrice who represents both earthly and divine love. The loss of sight by the various speakers in both - "Gerontion" and The Waste Land is then the loss of connection to both the earthly woman and God. Finally, in The Hollow Men, the tenor and vehicle merge completely so the eyes themselves become the object of desire. / by Joshua RIchards. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.