For many years critics apparently accepted Boroja's own affirmation that his novels were written without a plan. It was customary to gloss over structure in his works by explaining that they reflected his view of life, which he saw as chaotic and disordered, and therefore it was useless to expect a compact and well-defined framework. Especially since 1972, the centenary year of Baroja's birth, there has been a reappraisal of many apsects of his work, including the structure of his novels. Many critics have questioned the 'traditional' concept of structure in Baroja by analyzing its role in given novels, and have been quite successful in disproving the 'chaos and disorder' theory which was the critical reaction perpetuated for many years This dissertation explores the relationship between structure and theme in five of Baroja's most famous novels. The study is divided into six chapters. In Chapter I we summarize scholarly efforts to date which have dealt with the topic of structure in Baroja's novels. Each of the subsequent five chapters is devoted to one novel. In each case we discuss how the work is constructed in order to determine how structure and theme affect and support each other Chapter II, Camino de perfeccion, elaborates on Jose Ares Montes' identification of a mystical structure in that novel, with Fernando Ossorio passing through the three mystical v(')ias in his wanderings through Spain. Baroja used the novel's title as its theme, having drawn both from Santa Teresa's book. Other elements support this sturcture, including secondary characters, nature descriptions, and point of view In Chapter III, Zalaca(')in el aventurero, Baroja writes his most intrahistorical novel. He saw to it that the structure enhances the historical theme by surrounding the Carlist War on either side with two relatively short intrahistorical sections that resemble each other structurally. Tying the three parts together is the ancient antagonism between the Ohandos and the Zalaca(')ins, itself an intrahistorical conflict. Popular songs and stories serve as a secondary support for the structure Cesar o nada, Chapter IV, is essentially a novel of setting and characters. The two divisions, 'Roma' and 'Castro Duro,' which comprise the novel are basic to an understanding of its major theme, which is the Church and its effect on Spanish life. The events in Rome and the presentation of the city prepare us for what is to happen in Spain when Moncada returns. Also, the negation with which Barojo treats the characters foreshadows Cesar's failure in Castro Duro El arbol de la ciencia, the fifth chapter, follows a quite symmetrical plan. The center of the book (Andres' philosophical discussions with his uncle) acts as the central 'trunk' or heart of the narration, in such a way that the other parts spread from it like branches of a tree. These sections preceding the central part concern Andres and the tree of knowledge; those which follow deal with the tree of life The theme of el gran torbellino del mundo, Chapter VI, is the torbellino to which the title refers, the confusion and lack of direction of modern life. The structure mirrors this theme by its lack of cohesion and well-defined orientation. Jose's acceptance of the world at the end of the novel is prepared by the vignettes which precede each chapter. They act as a calming influence on life's disorder as well as providing another point of view, that of the quieter, more static aspects of the chapters which they precede There is a final section summarizing our conclusions. Principal among them is that these five novels are well-constructed pieces of literature in which the structure is used to reflect the main theme. Implicit in our view is that this relationship may exist in Baroja's work in general; however, much investigation is yet to be done before this can be stated with certainty / acase@tulane.edu

My study of the early Romantic novel explores the model of identity presented through the the mal du siecle theme. The analysis of five texts--Chateaubriands Rene, Stendhal's Armance, Constant's Adolphe, Stael's Corinne, and Sand's Lelia--supports my argument that while the events of the Revolution effectively removed Christian institutions from direct participation in the political sphere, this by no means weakened the power Christian dogma held over the individual. On the contrary, the ensuing perception of religion as a matter of individual choice only strengthened the influence of such dogma as the authority previously held by the clergy was adopted by the private individual. The self-development of early Romantic heroes and heroines depends upon the Christian institution of Confession as well as on paradigmatic models of Christian Conversion. Thus, when deconstructed, the Romantic individual reveals himself to be more aptly associated with the modern concept of the subject The model of identity based upon Christian dogma is particularly problematic when posited as a universal. The notion that sexual desire must be overcome is essential to Christian thought and fully incorporated into the Confessional and Conversional processes to which the heroes and heroines adhere in their quest for self-definition. A double standard is ingrained in this model of self, for religious ideals of spirituality demand the shedding of corporality and thus the binds imposed by a sexed state, yet societal existence is ruled by a discourse promoting ideals of male nobility. The self constructed according to this model is an impossibility: the very sexuality upon which it is dependent must paradoxically be disavowed in order to achieve full selfhood. With this dissertation, I hope not only to offer an alternative criticism of the Romantic hero, but also to contribute to our current understanding of identity by acknowledging the Christian origins of self-definition in the early Romantic novel / acase@tulane.edu

There is almost no mention of suicide in Spanish literature until late into the eighteenth century, with the exception of a brief period during the Renaissance. With the advent of Romanticism, suicide became a common literary topic, and what had previously been virtually a taboo subject quickly was transformed into a common theme. Throughout the nineteenth century, authors remained interested in the subject, adapting it to Realism and Naturalism. This dissertation studies the portrayal of suicide by representative writers of the period and traces the evolution of artistic and ideological beliefs in the light of the differing attitudes that they displayed Suicide became popular among the Romantics as an emblem for their rejection of and revolt against society. Our study finds that Romantic suicides almost always occurred in a political context, even if it was an adversary relationship. Self-destruction was also treated as a metaphor in several Social-Thesis novels. In such cases, ideological principles were usually much more clear-cut and specific than was the case in Romanticism. By and large, however, even artists such as Galdos and Pardo Bazan, who were passionate in their commitment to social issues, refused to simplify suicide into a black and white matter. Both authors evolved from a more or less clear-cut point of view, as exemplified in Marianela and Un viaje de novios, where the characters were primarily symbolic representations of ideological or social beliefs, to a more psychological approach that avoided moral absolutes. Very few of the protagonists in the works studied considered their suicides from a moral standpoint. Self-destruction most often was motivated by a sense of revenge in the Romantics; characters who committed suicide in the Realist and Naturalist novels primarily did so in order to resolve an unbearable conflict in their life This dissertation finds that Romanticism situates suicide in an essentially political context and avoids the study of it as a social vice. Although none of the works studied here are explicitly political, they all share a social context of oppression that readily yields a revolutionary moral. There is a political dimension to the portrayal of suicide by the Realists and Naturalists also. In these cases, however, it is impossible to attribute it to any particular orientation--it is used by both liberals and conservatives. None of the Naturalist writers studied here wrote about suicide in the sense of a social ill to be analyzed and remedied. We have concluded that, given the Spanish tradition of individualism and a private, moral preoccupation with death, authors such as Galdos and Pardo Bazan understandably approach suicide primarily from a psychological and ethical point of view. The use of suicide as a literary theme seems to have coincided with an upsurge in the actual rate of suicide in Spain. Its treatment by writers became increasingly complex as the century progressed, reflecting the revolutionary changes in politics, science, and religion that characterized the period / acase@tulane.edu

My dissertation addresses the taxonomic dilemma reflected in the paradox: 'How can true tragedy exist within the framework of an optimistic Christian worldview?' I scrutinize a play from the Baroque period in which the Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600--1681) succeeds in combining these antithetical concepts---fatalistic tragedy and Providential Christianity---in an unprecedented harmony on the stage. Informed by Henry Sullivan's concept of 'Christian catharsis' as a pathorational purification of the emotions, and exploring the geo-political forces, religious beliefs, legal systems, and cultural attitudes of the era, this dissertation strips aside a veil of neglect shrouding Las tres justicias en una . It enables the play to serve, moreover, as a paradigm of Calderon's extant corpus of tragedies In Chapter One I analyze 'three Calderons': the dramatist, the jurist, and the soldier. I approach the play as a political allegory, convinced that the work is a metaphor for internal dismemberment of Spanish hegemonic unity due to Catalonia's attempt at secession in 1640. Using the dialectics of father-son conflict, filial rebellion, and duality of fathers on the stage, I initiate a metaphorical dialogue between contemporary official archive documents and the fictional play In Chapter Two I study the conflict between father and son, in which an Oedipal inversion is articulated. Calderon presents an expiatory victim, a Christ-like son who is sacrificed to redeem the sins of others. A second Calderonian inversion of the Oedipus is adumbrated in Chapter Three. Here the themes of power relationships and knowledge as truth invoke the theories of Michel Foucault as set out in La verdad y las formas juridicas In Chapter Four I argue that character in Golden Age drama deserves a much higher rank than that assigned to it by Alexander Parker in his canonical 'Towards a Definition of Calderonian Tragedy'. I also develop the Calderonian theme of incest broached, but not consummated. The figure of the jester is crucial in accentuating rather than attenuating this tragic argument. Amid tragic catharsis, the fool functions as catalyst of a 'comic catharsis' by his premonitory comments, thus lending ironical resonance to the tragic outcome / acase@tulane.edu

The purpose of this dissertation is to present a critical edition of Antonio Mira de Amescua's La Confusion de Hungr(')ia. This edition consists of two parts, an introduction and the play itself. The introduction presents a brief biography of the dramatist, comments on his other plays and gives a critical evaluation of his place in the theatre of the Golden Age. Also included is a study of the text of 1671, which describes the revisions made in the present edition, and makes observations on the mythological figures used in the play. Their significance and role in mythology is related to their use in the play. For example, Mira de Amescua skillfully uses the symbol of the Labyrinth of Crete to represent the confusion of events basic in the play. Included in the introduction is a plot summary of each act, as well as a table of versification and a bibliography. The basis for this text is a microfilm of the printed copy found in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid. The text of this critical edition consists a the modernized version of La Confusion de Hungr(')ia. Capitalization, punctuated and orthography have been adjusted to reflect modern conventions. The notes to the text list variants, explain enmendations, difficult passages, and define difficult vocabulary / acase@tulane.edu

In examining Valle-Inclan's modernistic works written before 1905, and the Sonatas in particular, some literary critics have noted the frequent use of religious terminology and imagery, which has been explained from various perspectives: style, irreverence, sadism, or satanism. This dissertation does not attempt to refute these interpretations, but to add another dimension to them. Therefore, the religious symbolism in the Sonatas, certain cuentos, and Flor de santidad has been examined under two aspects: mysticism and modernism San Juan de la Cruz, in order to describe his mystical union with God, employed, through metaphor and simile, the erotic language of love to suggest the emotional heights of his intimate experience with the divine. This study shows how Valle-Inclan, in order to suggest the heights of sensual delights, employs the technique of the mystics, but in inverse process. In short, Valle-Inclan's aesthetic purpose is to employ religion, both in its positive terms of salvation, heaven, and God and in its negative terms of damnation, hell, and Satan, as an aphrodisiac Valle-Inclan's works have been studied here from the perspective of the specific mystical symbols of the road, resting place, soldier of Christ, guide, stairway, and night, making parallels where appropriate to the works of San Juan de la Cruz and Santa Teresa. Included also is Valle-Inclan's simulation of the stages of the mystical way: awakening, purgation, illumination, surrender, union Characteristic of modernism is the use of religion to intensify the emotional experiences of the personages, especially in the mujer ideal and the mujer fatal. Valle-Inclan, in keeping with his modernistic aesthetic, has used religious symbolism in these works to emphasize the sensual aspects of his women: those who are devout and sexually unawakened and those who are devout and adulterous. To further his end of elevating erotic, sensual, physical ecstasy to the same level and intensity as mystical, religious spiritual ecstasy, Valle-Inclan often gives his hero priestly and even satanical qualities. Sexual love becomes the sine qua non, and arrogance, blasphemy, and perversity are clothed in divine glorification Finally, in the Comedias barbaras and Divinas palabras, although an interest in religious imagery, especially conventional mystical imagery, remains, Valle-Inclan's intention is religiously conventional / acase@tulane.edu

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The innutrition or enrichment metaphor, commonly used by Renaissance philologists to promote the fertilization of the French language and of French literature with Latin 'nutrients,' portrays language as solid matter. This materiality is often translated by corporeal images and metaphors of ingestion. Du Bellay's suggestion in the Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse that French writers 'devour' and 'digest' the ancients in order to enrich their own language is part of a larger move to naturalize the Renaissance text This dissertation explores the hybridization that occurs in Renaissance poetics as a function of the 'cannibalistic' mode of imitation through innutrition. The issue is traced through analyses of the poetics and poems of four authors, Sceve, Ronsard, Desportes, and D'Aubigne, as well as through Montaigne's essai I,31, 'Des Cannibales,' a late prose treatment. In particular, the economy of desire which circulates through myths of consumption or 'consuming myths' is studied. Renaissance literary legacies such as Ovidian metamorphosis, Petrarchan fire and ice, the Platonic androgyny myth, and Christian incarnation and transubstantiation are explored for the relation they establish between identity and form In the poems of Maurice Sceve and of Ronsard, rhetorical or metaphorical cannibalism is seen to function as a means of authorial identification with an absent beloved by way of a feminizing fusion with her. Cannibalism as a poetic figure in the poetry of Desportes and d'Aubigne enters more overtly into the realm of political and religious conflicts. D'Aubigne's Tragiques reenacts the horror of war and religious persecution by mimetically staging their violence in his text. In Montaigne's 'Des Cannibales,' anthropophagy abroad sparks discussion of cruelty at home, as cannibalism of antiquity meets its match in the New World This study shows that it is in the realm of Self versus Other that cannibalism is most deeply inscribed in these works, The ambivalence inherent in the notion of devouring what is like oneself--whether out of desire or aversion for the object in question--contributes to the tension and movement of each author's text / acase@tulane.edu

The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of the Virgin in the dramatic works of Tirso de Molina based on two premises: the sources utilized, and the presence, images and miracles of the Virgin. This investigation concludes that Tirso uses certain dramatic sources as antecedent to this plays: the Historia, vida y milagros, extasis y revelaciones de la Bienaventurada Virgen Santa Juana de la Cruz by Antonio Daza, the Historia de la Santa y deuotissima Imagen Ntra. Sra. de Atocha Patrona de Madrid by Francisco Pereda and Flos sanctorum by Alfonso de Villegas are all used for the creation of the trilogy of La Santa Juana. For the creation of Los lagos de San Vicente, Tirso refers to the Historia del origen, fundacion, progresso y milagros de la Cafa y monasterio de Ntra. Sra. de Sopetran. Tirso mentions in his Historia general de la Merced that he read the biography of San Pedro de Nolasco (written by Father Amer in 1271). It is upon this work that he bases the creation of the legends of Ntra. Sra. de la Merced and Ntra. Sra. del Puche in his work La dama del Olivar. Tirso's artistic talent is manifested in the dramatization of Nuestra Senora del Olivar. Based on Tirso's familiarity with his contemporary Hipolite de Vergara and his work La Reina de los reyes, one concludes that Tirso wanted only to rewrite the work and revive this illustrous author. There is no doubt in Dona Beatriz de Silva that Tirso was well-acquainted with Pedro de Alcocer's Hystoria o descripcion de la Imperial cibdad de Toledo. In writing the play La Pena de Francia, Tirso employs the legend of Simon Vela by Bartolome de Miranda, the chronicles of Juan II, the Flos sanctorum and his own imagination. A possible source for Tirso's "auto" La Madrina del cielo is Juan Sagastizabal's Exortacion. More than just a literary source, however, Tirso creates in this work an "auto" / that is very much allegorical, full of imagination and of veneration of the Virgin to whom he was very devoted. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-12, Section: A, page: 4347. / Major Professor: David H. Darst. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.