Li Mei-yee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-106). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Contents --- p.vi / Introduction: Questions about Reading --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Waiting for Godot and the Issue of Absurdity --- p.28 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- At the Hawk's Well and the Drama of the Interior --- p.59 / Conclusion --- p.90 / Note --- p.100 / Works Cited --- p.101

This dissertation articulates the relationship between literary form and unconscious affect in fictions by Cesare Pavese, Samuel Beckett and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Drawing from contemporary psychoanalytic object-relations theory, including the work of W.R. Bion and the Bionian school, it defines three paradigmatic forms of psychic work — reparation, containment and construction — that structure the intersubjective unconscious responses to specific formal challenges. It claims that the psychic work involved in meeting those challenges is both “historical” — in the sense that it reveals elements of each text’s historicity and political valence within their cultural setting — and “productive,” in the sense that it entails a degree of psychic growth for the reader. This dissertation bridges literary history, psychoanalytic theory and reader-response theory. It seeks to intervene in each discipline’s debates: in literary-historical terms, it argues that the psychic work of reading must be understood as constitutive of the texts’ expression of the context of the postwar and as part of their struggle to move beyond the aesthetic of modernism. In psychoanalytic terms, it joins in the lively discussion about the historical specificity of the mechanisms theorized by object-relations theory. Finally, at the level of literary theory, it seeks to affirm the value of Bion’s model of object-relations in theorizing reading as a transformative process characterized by intense unconscious, intersubjective activity. The dissertation is organized in three literary chapters, followed by a theoretical chapter. Taken together, the first three chapters represent the evidence for the need of a concept of psychic work in reading late modernist fiction and for the potential payoffs of formulating such a concept. Chapter 4 consists of four theoretical “notes,” addressing, in broad terms, the resonance of intersubjective notions of psychic work for reading, criticism and literary theory.

<p>The aim of this two years master’s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ?</p><p>To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians. The recommendations were analysed through Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical framework concerning literary responses combined with Alan C. Purves' och Victoria Rippere's model of literary elements. The theoretical workings of Aidan Chambers were also used for drawing conclusions about how to connect the results of literary responses to everyday library work whether it is in a library or on the Internet.</p><p>The main results were that children turn inwards referring to themselves and their personal feelings when communicating a literary experience, while librarians turn outward communicating a literary content. Both parts do seem clearly aware that they are mediating a literary experience to a third part, which of course is expected of the librarians but a bit unexpected in the case of the children. Both parts refer basically to the same qualities when recommending books, even though they do it in different ways. And finally regarding the formula of writing a book recommendation, librarians tend to keep to a set structure of literary responses while children are more likely to mix the set of literary responses. The results also point to how important it is for library workers to understand the readers to better develop collections and programs that adress and respond to reader’s interests.</p>

Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 1999. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université Laval, 1999. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

The aim of this two years master’s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ? To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians. The recommendations were analysed through Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical framework concerning literary responses combined with Alan C. Purves' och Victoria Rippere's model of literary elements. The theoretical workings of Aidan Chambers were also used for drawing conclusions about how to connect the results of literary responses to everyday library work whether it is in a library or on the Internet. The main results were that children turn inwards referring to themselves and their personal feelings when communicating a literary experience, while librarians turn outward communicating a literary content. Both parts do seem clearly aware that they are mediating a literary experience to a third part, which of course is expected of the librarians but a bit unexpected in the case of the children. Both parts refer basically to the same qualities when recommending books, even though they do it in different ways. And finally regarding the formula of writing a book recommendation, librarians tend to keep to a set structure of literary responses while children are more likely to mix the set of literary responses. The results also point to how important it is for library workers to understand the readers to better develop collections and programs that adress and respond to reader’s interests.

Unreliable homodiegetic narration presents a unique mode of narrative transmission which demands the encoding within the text of 'translational indices', that is, signifiers of several kinds which justify the reader/receiver in over-riding the sincere first person avowals of the apparent mediator of the discourse. The argument establishes the presence of an epistemologically primary 'immanent' narrative situation within an ostensibly unitary narrative situation. Such a stereoscopic perspective upon the presented world of the literary 'work provides the reader/receiver with a warrant for a rejection of the epistemological validity of the homodiegetic narrator's discourse. Moreover, the thesis advances a typology of such translational indices as they occur in the dense ontology of the literary work of art. The narratological theory of unreliable homodiegetic narration developed in the first half of the dissertation is applied in the second half to selected exemplars of such narrative transmissions, demonstrating thereby the theoretical fecundity of the model for the discipline of narratology. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1988.

When youth novels were first written, Afrikaans speaking adolescents spent their time reading the original and absorbing youth novels then available. These suited their psychological and environmental development and they could identify with the language and style used in these novels. The contents were a representation of a world which they knew and in which they could feel secure. Although authors often dealt with issues relevant to the adolescent world, the plot reflected a secure and nurturing world where the readers and their life experiences were taken into account. In recent years the adolescent world has changed dramatically from a secure environment to a more exposed one, posing the question whether contemporary Afrikaans youth novels have retained the same traits mentioned earlier and answer to the same norms. The value of literature should never be underestimated; it can develop the imaginative skills and moral values of adolescent readers. Also, it has become clear that adolescents have a great need for reading material that deals with relevant issues. The main focus of this study is characterization and development of identity in selected youth novels by Barrie Hough, viz. My kat word herfs, Vlerkdans and Skilpoppe as revealed in textual analysis and empirical research. The literature study focuses on developmental psychology and the reading expectations of the adolescent, character development according to some narrative theories, e.g. reader response criticism and intertextuality theories. The main objective of this study is to analyze, interpret and evaluate the above three youth novels in order to establish whether or not the contemporary adolescent can identify with these specific stories. It has been found that the adolescent reader in the early years of the twenty first century is able to identify with the contemporary youth novels such as those by Barrie Hough. Although young readers do not want to steer clear of contentious themes and issues in youth novels, it seems that they still prefer evergreen classical topics and themes. This suggests that the modern adolescent is still positive about life and aspires to attain goodness and moral strength. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006

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