Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 432-446).

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft--Mannheim, 1977. / Bibliogr. p. 499-523.

Thèse--Lettres--Zurich, 1979. / Bibliogr. p. 127-131.

Th. doct.--Langues romanes--Université d'Uppsala, 1998. / Résumé en anglais. Bibliogr. p. 176-185. Index.

Diss.--Aachen--Technische Hochschule, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 158-164.

Humour, as Alain Robbe-Grillet presents it in his six novels, comprises the comic, which makes us laugh at or about someone other than ourselves, and humour, as defined by Freud which differs from black humour only in intensity. This study discusses comedy before humour, mainly because the former appears towards the beginning of the evolution of Robbe-Grillet's novels. Considering the reader's viewpoint, the comic is also more obvious, less complex than humour arid exists almost exclusively in the narrative story. The three principle elements of any comedy may also be found in Robbe-Grillet's first four novels, that is: character, situation, and language. The mechanisation of characters, as described by Henry Bergson, identifies the comic of the first two elements. The last cannot demand earnestness for all its superfluous pomp in expression and vocabulary. In comedy, the reader is unconscious of the narrator's intervention. For this reason, the narrative viewpoint passing suddenly from one character to another finds a place here. Dramatic, often tragic incidents ending on an incongruous playful note therefore also fall into this category. To the extent that these elements express a certain aggressiveness in reflecting our weaknesses and attacking our emotions, humour is inevitably the cause. Only at the level of the "ecriture", however, does Robbe-Grillet's humour attain its full expression. The narrator is evidently the inventor of his text and also often participates in it; his uncertainty, illogical transitions and repetitions are quite contrary to the conventional expectations of the reader. The playfulness that spurs the narration on tests the reader's capacity to laugh at his own misjudgements and unfulfilled expectations, and his capacity to laugh at his own weaknesses. Robbe-Grillet's treatment of eroticism is also another way of playing with the illusions or hidden complexes of the reader who can, at the realisation of the text's intention laugh or show disappointment and frustration. Black humour is evident here, but its full realisation occurs only in Robbe-Grillet’s last book: "Projet pour une revolution a New York", where the reader is brought to experience himself. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Eric Le Calvez, committee chair; Bruno Braunrot, committee member. Electronic text (58 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan. 29, 2008; title from file title page. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-58).

Diss. Univ. Trier, 2006.

Dissertation--Universität Trier, 2006. / Bibliogr. p. 349-361.

The aim of this study is to analyse the web of meaning underlying the presence of plots and images from paralitterature in the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet. This presence is explained by a transformation in the bookmarket, cultural environment and literary landscape, and corresponds to the malaise in the social discourse raised by the crisis. / The bookmarket changed rapidly in the years following the war. Its reorganization along industrial lines lead to recurrent periods of crisis. That part of the market consisting of mass produced books came under the influence of American popular fiction. This situation had repurcussions on the literary field. People no longer saw books and authors as special, and the readership of serious literature decreased markedly. The avant garde itself seemed exhausted. Works of paralitterature, on the other hand, entered in a process of legitimation. / The New Novelists, and especially Robbe-Grillet, find in paralitterature expressions of the social discourse more powerful than those available in canonical literature. Popular fictions, rife with violence and agression, capture the worries and pessimism about society and the alienation of the individual. In Robbe-Grillet's work, the world is conceived as containing a cancer, one that threatens the social order. Reality is distorted in his fiction, and the characters are fragmented and lost in their imaginary world. The image of a cancerous society is crystallized in the motif of the ritual sacrifice of a woman. For Robbe-Grillet, though, this motif also suggests the origin of fantasy, and in doing so might rejuvenate the creative impulse. Behind the violence and eroticism of his fiction, then, and behind the anomia contaminating literature, is the desire to retrace the lightening of fantasy in the hope of dealing with both the modern world and the predicament of the novel, and possibly find a catharsis through it.