This thesis addresses the contribution of Francesc Payarols and Andreu Nin to the Catalan literary system between 1928 and 1937 via the introduction of unmediated translations from Russian into Catalan. This contribution has been studied by comparing it to previous translation activity from Russian into Catalan, to translations in literary systems that due to prestige and geographical proximity can be considered neighbouring systems to the Catalan system (the French, the British and the Spanish), and by reviewing some of the critical reception that these publications gathered in the Catalan press of the time. Selected terminology and theoretical concepts of Polysystem Theory (PST) have been used critically in the methodological framing. This study occupies the gap of knowledge in current scholarship around the work of Payarols, whilst also building on previous and contemporaneous research on Nin. The evolution of translation from Russian into Catalan is contextualised from its introduction in 1879 until the establishment of Edicions Proa in 1928, the platform from which Payarols and Nin published the majority of the texts studied. The role of the translators as agents of the system is particularly highlighted, given both the influence of their translations in creating examples of models of prose that autochthonous novelists could use, and the power of their textual choices outside of the primary authors (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov). Joan Puig i Ferreter’s agency is also explored, as the figure behind Proa’s success and one of the main promoters of the reintroduction of novels into the literary repertoire in Catalan from the late 1920s. This research studies the unmediated Catalan translations of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and a selection of nineteenth and twentieth century authors carried out by Payarols and Nin, and reviews some of the impact that these had upon Catalan writers such as Mercè Rodoreda, Sebastià Juan Arbó and Joan Sales. Overall, these translations largely exceeded the previous available items of Russian literature in Catalan, and in cases such as Dostoevsky and Chekhov, they established a textual presence to go with their already existing literary fame. This process establishes that power dynamics were in operation between these translators, and that Nin had higher esteem from the literary milieu, which in turn affected the prestige of the texts he was commissioned to translate. I then contribute to the debate on the mythologisation of Nin’s work by suggesting a revision of his texts, supported by a comparison with the recently revised versions of some of Payarols translations.

Since the first definition of “italiano neostandard” appeared in the Eighties, more and more often “neostandard” forms, while already present in common speech, feature today in the written media, and even find their space in contemporary grammaticography. Through a corpus-based analysis, this dissertation aims at assessing the vitality of the neostandard as it appears in the written columns of three daily papers during a selected period of time in 2007. In particular, two phenomena are explored: the usage of the clitics ci, ne and lo in function of case marker (marca complementare); and the tendency to reduce the use of the subjunctive in epistemic modality. This contribution proposes the integration of different approaches into one interpretation of mechanism of cliticization as a continuum which goes from facultative usages of case markers to obligatory ones. In the second case the phenomenon of reduction of usage of epistemic subjunctive is described here as a reorganization (ristrutturazione). According to this study, within the category of epistemic subjunctive it is necessary to distinguish particular contexts after which the subjunctive preserves its status from the ones in which tends to be substituted by the indicative or the conditional.

This work discusses the theory of the Tragic and the Comic as revealed in the French approach to Shakespeare's tragedy and comedy, with particular reference to certain examples of each genre. In part I, chapters 1-4 inclusive examine questions which are basic to the understanding of Shakespeare in France. In part II, chapters 5-9 inclusive deal with the French approach to Shakespeare's tragedy, the first two of them being based on "Shakespeare and Corneille" and "Shakespeare and Racine" respectively. In part III, chapters 10-16 inclusive turn to the question of the French approach to Shakespeare's comedy, the first of them trying to throw some light on the complex differences and similarities between French and English comedy.

Valerius Maximus situates his ninth and final book (henceforth referred as V9) in clear contrast to the rest of his output by adopting an apotreptic approach and focusing entirely on 'vitia'. This makes a break from the dispersive manner in which 'vitia' had hitherto been treated by different authors across a myriad of works, nor was V9’s structure replicated in the same manner by any other Roman author since V. Worthy of note is also how V treats his subject exclusively in a single book, creating 'intensity' as a technique 'per se' to shock the reader into making them fully aware – beyond all reasonable doubt – how pernicious and dangerous 'vitia' are. At the heart of V9 is the ubiquity of vice that transcends ethnicity. In fact V brings domestic and external 'exempla' closer, vice is inherent in life itself; the characters inhabiting both the domestic and external sections are not opposites, but are presented as culpable of the same vices (although sometimes certain 'exempla' are graded worse than others).

This thesis examines female political imprisonment during the early part of Spain’s Franco regime through the life narratives by Carlota O’Neill, Tomasa Cuevas, Juana Doña, and Soledad Real published during the transition. It proposes the foregrounding notion of the ‘No/Body’ to describe the literary, social, and historical eradication and exemplification of the female prisoner as deviant. Using critical theories of genre, gender and sexuality, sociology and philosophy, and human geography, it discusses the concepts of subject, abject, spatiality, habitus, and the mirror to analyse the intersecting, influential factors in the (re)production of dominant discourses within Francoist and post-Francoist society that are interrogated throughout the corpus. In coining the concept of the ‘No/Body’ as a methodological approach, a narrative form, and a socio-political subject position, this thesis repositions the marginal and the (in)visible as an essential aspect of female carcerality. Read through this concept, the narratives begin to dismantle and rewrite dominant narratives of gender and genre for the female prisoner in such a way that the texts foreground the ‘No/Body’. This thesis thus presents the narrative corpus of lost testimonies as a form of radical textual and political practice within contemporary Spanish historiography.

Dada is often dismissed as an anti-art movement that engaged with a limited and merely destructive theoretical impetus. French Existentialism is often condemned for its perceived quietist implications. However, closer analysis reveals a preoccupation with philosophy in the former and with art in the latter. Neither was nonsensical or meaningless, but both reveal a rich individualist ethics aimed at the amelioration of the individual and society. It is through their combined analysis that we can view and productively utilise their alignment. Offering new critical aesthetic and philosophical approaches to Dada as a quintessential part of the European Avant-Garde, this thesis performs a reassessment of the movement as a form of (proto-)Existentialist philosophy. The thesis represents the first major comparative study of Dada and Existentialism, contributing a new perspective on Dada as a movement, a historical legacy, and a philosophical field of study. The five chapters analyse a range of Dada work through a lens of Existentialist literary and theoretical works across the themes of choice, alienation, responsibility, freedom and truth. These themes contribute to the overarching claim of the thesis that Dada and Existentialism both advocate the creation of a self that aims for authenticity through ambiguity.

The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part deals with the theatre in general, the second with the Comedie-Francaise in particular. The first chapters explain the reasons for the immense popularity of the theatre in Paris during the years of occupation, how the theatre was organised and how racial policies and material difficulties affected productions. Relations between the theatre and the press are examined in some detail as are those plays which either supported the ideals of the ''Revolution Nationale" or attacked them; reference is also made to the important part that the theatre played in prisoner-of- war camps, the effect that censorship had on certain plays, and how popular Joan of Arc was with both the Germans and the French as a theatrical heroine. The second part opens with a brief history of the Comedie-Francaise during other wars, an explanation of the role that the public expected of their national theatre up to the time of invasion, details of changes in the theatre's repertoire as a result of the declaration of war and an examination of the attitudes of two administrators, Copeau and Vaudoyer, to the invaders. The following chapters deal with the more important productions which were put on at the theatre during the occupation, and in Particular with plays by Montherlant, Cocteau and Claudel. The conclusions drawn are that although the theatre was important to Parisians during the years 1940 - 1944, there is no real case to be made for a theatre of resistance or collaboration, and that the Comedie-Francaise was not significantly affected by the German invasion.

No description available.

This thesis positions itself between two general approaches to Shelley, that of appreciating his poetics, on the one hand, and that of valuing his philosophical vision, on the other. Duffy has noted that “Shelley’s epistemological and political maturity is no longer in any serious doubt”, and he goes on to demonstrate that Shelley’s radical tendencies remained undiminished throughout his lifetime. My findings support Duffy’s contention, and broaden it to include not only Shelley’s writings but the actions of his life. At the same time, O’Neill has highlighted the importance of exploring Shelley’s poetry for “its imaginative effect as much as its ideological or philosophical coherence”, and that approach will be utilized here as well. My hypothesis is that Shelley’s early fiction, in particular his two early novels, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne, possess value and deserve attention, and can shed light on his poetics as well as his politics. Moreover, conducting my research has revealed issues of sexism, gender, class and feminism, all of which will be explored. The thesis consists of four main chapters, and four lyric interludes. Chapter one deals with the novels themselves, including their association with the Gothic genre, and offers specific details concerning the delineation and focus of the thesis. Chapter two examines the novels in light of Laon and Cythna or The Revolt of Islam, raising issues of domestic happiness and familial relationships. This lengthy poem, which is frequently neglected in close readings of Shelley, occupies a starring role here. Chapter three continues the examination of the novels as pertains The Cenci, in addition to grappling with matters raised in chapters one and two in a more general context. Finally, chapter four scrutinizes Prometheus Unbound in terms of the Gothic or Romance novels and suggests a new possible interpretation. Interspersed between and complementary to the main chapters is a series of chronologically arranged lyric interludes. This organizational structure, similar to Molière’s use of interludes in The Hypochondriac (Le Malade imaginaire), was adopted because these poems are shorter and can stand apart from one another, and it was deemed more appropriate to incorporate them with flexibility into the main argument, like a moon orbiting its planet, rather than grouping them together as a single unit.

James Joyce remains a logocentric figure, a position confirmed in his perceived relation to Dante within a patriarchal canonical lineage and its philosophical implications. Joyce also occupies this position within the writing and thought of Jacques Derrida, for whom his work then represents both the logos and its own deconstruction. In contrast, this thesis proposes that Joyce in fact is not a logocentric author, and that his writing is explicitly directed towards a deconstruction of the idea of the logos. This claim is advanced through the suggestion that there is in Joyce a deconstruction rather than a validation of the phonocentric linguistic theory and practice of Dante, and concomitantly of a patriarchal Joyce construed through that Dante. In this interrogation of the Dantean logos by Joyce’s writing the thesis then reads the Derridean view on Joyce and examines its investments, proposing that in it there are wider implications for a critical reading of Derrida’s work and for an understanding of his grammatology. It does so in three imagined papers on Joyce and Dante, an insert, a lecture and an essay. They constitute phantom artefacts in which to read deconstructively, and to read deconstruction, by unbinding Derrida’s Joyce. The first chapter is an imagined insert from Joyce and Dante into Of Grammatology and its first chapter, ‘The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing’. In the folds of the insert it is proposed that Derrida cleaves to the idea of the book and is bound to it in Joyce. This binding initiates a retrospective reading of ‘The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing’ and of the wider grammatological opening; its implications are unfolded in the insert. By then unbinding the thread of a logocentric Dante in Joyce, the insert unbinds Joyce from the Derridean idea of the book and furthermore suggests that Joyce, read in the deconstruction of Dante, represents the closure of the book as imagined in that essay. Building upon the proposal of a Joycean closure of the book as unfolded in chapter one, the second chapter advances and outlines the shape of that closure in an imagined lecture by Joyce. The chapter follows the displaced letter a in Ulysses as it interrogates mimesis, tracing the development of a subject in différance. The lecture performs that deconstruction of mimesis and, in doing so, announces not the apotheosis but the death of the realist novel in Ulysses. The final chapter draws together the conclusions of the previous two chapters in an imagined essay that arche-writes ‘Two Words for Joyce’ as an example of its own thesis. It does so in a previously untraced Dantean connection, through a conversation between Joyce and Beckett on Dante that finds its way into Finnegans Wake and is archived in the two words Derrida extracts as the spur for his essay. The imagined essay brings together Derrida, Beckett and Joyce in Dante as a concatenation of pairs within the pair of essays; it also shadows another pair, the Derridean Joyce and his other from whom the imagined essay comes. It both performs a deconstructive reading of Derrida in ‘Two Words for Joyce’ and then, through that reading, more widely affirms a Derridean grammatology. The argument of the thesis as it has advanced through the three chapters is here brought to a conclusion, suggesting that in Joyce’s writing it can be proposed that the relationship of deconstructive reading to its own practice is mediated through literature; it also proposes what might be a relationship between deconstructive reading and literature beyond those consequences.