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Objective. The "melting pot" nature of our world has been intensified recently by the migration of Southeast Asian refugees. This socio-cultural interchange modifies the character of the East-West conflict (dating back to the beginning of colonialism), thus engendering a new anthropological figure. My intent is to enumerate and classify the signs of this figure as studied in six novels by Pham Van Ky, winner of the French Academy's Grand Prix for the Novel. This Vietnamese writer depicts the transformations of the Je, acquired at Western school, and contrasts it with the innate Moi: the motherland. In Asia, the family took precedence over the individual, who, subordinated to the ancestors, was to perpetuate the cult of the dead and of the tradition. Method. My analysis utilizes two critical perspectives: the conflict Je/Moi, and the chess-board. From the "living chess game" to the "chess-board of chess-boards," these boards constitute an increasingly complex battleground for the Je/Moi conflict. Conclusions. These critical perspectives highlight central concepts: mimesis and consciously borrowed behavior, disappointment in the Je, liberation of the Moi. The very principle of the chess-board permits recognition of the Other, the alien Je, the white man, who, by upsetting the norms of the Moi, introduces the element of comparison, creating the divergence between the Je and the Moi, the signs of change. Pham Van Ky relates the game of chess to the cosmic game of Yin and Yang which is at the very heart of Asian tradition; through his characters, he spans all Far-Eastern civilizations; he reduces the East/West conflict to the Je/Moi conflict: the Western Je, aspiring to a continual abolition of the infinite; the Tao(')ist or Buddhist Moi, to a continual abolition of the finite.

The works that Valle-Inclan wrote in the 1920's under the new aesthetic outlook of the 'esperpento' can be considered as a con- tribution from Spain to European expressionism for the similarities it has with the precepts that govern that avant-garde movement of German origin. These affinities consist mainly of distortive tech- niques that derive from the plastic arts and that both in the 'esperpento' and in expressionism are applied to human beings, objects and historical events alike. The distortive techniques that Valle-Inclan uses are varied and include such methods as the reduction of human beings to puppets or animals and the exaggeration of human traits, together with syn- tactic and historical distortion. All of these are characteristics that also shape expressionism. To this must be added the influence of expressionist cinema, which Valle-Inclan adapts to enhance the visual aspect of the realities he reproduces. The purpose of the techniques is invariably to degrade the character to the status of an aberration of nature, so as to characterize him externally just as he is inwardly. Other characteristics that allow us to identify the 'esperpento' with expressionism is the emphasis put on macabre and execrable aspects of contemporary man, which corresponds to the same desire to exteriorize the base moral values immanent in all mankind. Valle-Inclan and expressionist authors set this moral ugliness against the human integrity that the latter see exemplified in primitivism and the former in archaic societies that existed before modern society became institutionalized. Equally important for what they tell use about these affinities are the parallel circumstances that the history of Spain mirrored in the 'esperpentos' shares politically, socially and culturally with the Germany of the First World War and the Weimar Republic. The conclusions reached are that the historical period in which Valle-Inclan lived, together with the contact that he must have had directly with expressionist art through cinema, exhibitions, news- papers and art magazines was a sufficient stimulus to re-establish him in a tradition to which he was temperamentally predisposed. It is the tradition represented by Goya who, paradoxically, was as influential in German expressionist art as he was in the "esperpento."

This dissertation concentrates upon the examination of the country-inns as a stage in the El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha where Cervantes develops his dramatic technique and also the theme of the delusion of the senses. It is divided in two parts, each of which corresponds to each part of Cervantes' work: that of 1605 and that of 1615. Each part is in turn divided into two chapters, with their respective subdivisions. The theme of the author's preoccupation with the meaning of life and human behavior at the inns is the subject of Chapter I, first part; and also the importance of the forewords to both parts of the book, considered as a first indication of the theme of the delusion of the senses stated through what is properly aesthetic and literary, and through the play of opposites. Chapter II studies the inns in the Quijote of 1605, presenting the delusion of the senses as an aesthetic resource. The first inn presents the experience of reality-appearances, while the second inn, which appears in the story on three different occasions, the constant blending of dramatic technique and the delusion of the senses, the play and magic of costumes, and the inn seen as a starting point for the revaluation of the pastoral novel. The second part deals with the similarities and the differences between the Forewords of 1605 and 1615, and the delusion of the senses as an antecedent to the "Retablo de Maese Pedro". Chapter II studies the inns of the 1615 Quijote, where the theme of the unreachable limits of fiction appears. The study of the first inn is centered on the interpretation of the "Retablo de Maese Pedro" as the climax of Cervantes' exploration of the theme of the delusion of the senses; the second inn is studied from the point of view of the shift from the conflict of fiction-reality to the aspect of literary criticism. The study ends with the third inn, where Cervantes moves from the transposition of the arts (painting and the theater) to the literary perception.

Although critics agree on the inherent unity of vision found in Francisco Brines' poetry, no one had undertaken a comprehensive study of the poet's work from a perspective that does not rely on recourse to philosophical traditions. This dissertation fills that void. It investigates how Brines' unified cosmovision is established in his initial work, Las brasas, and how it develops in later collections. The theoretical and methodological framework for this study is provided principally by the criticism of Michael Riffaterre, in particular his Semiotics of Poetry (1978). Riffaterre's theory of poetic meaning allows us to identify important intertextual relationships and thereby establish poetic significance in a manner that is neither reductionist nor reliant on generalizations of a philosophical nature. Chapter One, the Introduction, identifies the essential characteristics of Brines' poetry and its relationship to the work of other poets of his generation. Riffaterre's theory of poetic meaning and its particular usefulness in explaining the work of Brines are also treated. Chapter two accounts for the essential unity of Las brasas and identifies important intertextual relationships with the poetry of Antonio Machado. Chapter three studies the love poems of Palabras a la oscuridad (1966), Aun no (1971), and Poemas a D. K. (1986). Particular attention is paid to intertextual relationships with the poetry of Luis Cernuda. Chapter four investigates the self-reflective qualities of Insistencias en Luzbel (1977) and how they are manifested through intratextual relationships with the author's previous work. Chapter five discusses the essential unity of El otono de las rosas (1986) and attributes that unity to the reader's ability to (re)articulate the collection's intratextual dependence on the poet's well established cosmovision, especially with regard to the road of life metaphor. By considering the whole collection as a single text, this chapter reveals how the work is ultimately a meditation on the paradoxical nature of knowledge. The short concluding chapter argues that search and paradox are the key concepts that confer uniqueness upon Brines' poetry, which is, indeed, a highly unified work.

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This thesis presents, in a critical edition, the poems contained 1n Grey Ms. 7.b.5 of the South African Library in Cape Town. It is the fruit of the first serious investigation to be undertaken of this manuscript and of its contents. Before a reconstruction of the text could.be attempted, problems of authorship, provenance and dating of the manuscript itself as well as of the poems containing verifiable historical allusions required to be resolved. The results of these investigations may be summarized as follows: The Grey manuscript contains an anthology of fourteenth and fifteenth century poems originating, for the most part, in the areas of Emilia, Romagna and the Marches. This collection was compiled by an otherwise unknown courtier and rhymester, Giovanni de' Mantelli di Canobio, nicknamed Tartaglia, between 1473 and 1483. Of the 150 poems it contains, 145 are unique to the Grey Ms.

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