This study focuses on the parallel development of Antonio Buero Vallejo and Alfonso Sastre, two of Spain's most important contemporary dramatists. It is our purpose to compare the social and philosophical orientation of Buero and Sastre as well as their mutual interest in tragedy, its function in their theater, and the influence Bertolt Brecht has had on their plays. We begin by dividing their works into three chronological periods Chapter I deals with the plays of the first period which are characterized by a realistic approach in writing contemporary tragedies and are based upon the Aristotelian principles of unity of time, place, and action as well as the positive effect of catharsis Chapter II discusses the redirection evident in the plays of the second period. This new orientation is the result of the adaptation of various Brechtian alienation devices intended to provoke a critical attitude in the audience Chapter III centers on the participatory plays which fuse reality and illusion/reason and emotion. In these drama our perception of truth is obscured, yet the dramatists challenge us to find it by making us participants in a world of hallucinations Chapter IV concerns the development of each dramatist's theory of tragedy. Even when they acknowledge the influence of Brecht's anti-tragedies, their use of alienation devices is limited to heightening the rational perception of the themes, while they continue to use the identificaton devices of tragedy in order to increase the emotional impact of catharsis Chapter V treats the social themes found in each of the three chronological periods. As the plays evolve in the second and third periods, Buero becomes more daring, and his works begin to merge with Sastre's in their call for social and political reforms Chapter VI demonstrates that the position Buero and Sastre take regarding any compromise they may have to make in order to have their plays produced is reflected in the philosophical attitude of their protagonists. Both dramatists concur in emphasizing that the struggle for change must continue even when the goal is impossible to achieve / acase@tulane.edu

This study elucidates the nature of evil as manifested in three selected works of twentieth century French literature: La Condition humaine of Andre Malraux; Le Journal d'un cure de campagne of Georges Bernanos; and La Peste of Albert Camus. Since such manifestations suppose a theoretical perspective as well as a symbolic expression of an existential experience, a methodology that allowed a two-directional focus involving both an historical survey of prominent conceptualizations of evil and the application of those symbolic terms, themes and myths to the literary expression of evil was employed. The historical survey demonstrates a dramatic shift in the theoretical perception of evil: from a naturalistic interpre- tation to a traditional theodicy to a modern anthropodicy. The three selections studied demonstrate the strong influence of the shift in theodicy that interprets man's human condition in terms of Pascalian anguish of man without God. The portion of the study analyzing the symbolic manifestations of evil according to such diverse theological perspectives as atheism, theism, and humanism concludes that evil as portrayed in twentieth century French literature reflects a similar contextual framework as well as related symbolic expressions of evil. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-08, Section: A, page: 2291. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

This dissertation investigates meaning in postmodern culture through the interpretive lenses provided by Friedreich Nietzsche and Jean Baudrillard. It consists of two parts: The beginning section sets up the theoretical scaffolding by which to analyze works of contemporary literature in the second, including writings by Kathy Acker, Reese Williams, Clarence Major, and Jean Baudrillard. My readings of these texts concern the disappearance of, among other categories of meaning, "reality," "subjectivity," "identity," and the "body" into simulation models, TV images, and other forms of technological simulacra often constructed by the commercial coding systems of late-capitalism. While Baudrillard offers up the game of "seduction" to the surface play of signs and appearances without depth that define the postmodern moment, other possibilities emerge (and submerge) through reading Nietzsche, such as a Deleuzian (hence "rhizomatic") subject, maneuvering in social, institutional, and technological lines of flight (or "becoming") that recover desire from its (re)production and (re)territorialization within the simulation industries. Here, we confront two methods imbued with Nietzschean philosophy for reading the simulacra of postmodernity: one, as an "implosion"--stressing uncertainty and seduction--as do Baudrillard and Kroker, or its apparent opposite, as "rupture"--stressing multiple desires and rhizomatic becomings--as do Deleuze and Guattari. I do not intend to favor one method for interpreting our present moment over another, but to implement, in Nietzschean fashion, those methods that best contextually serve this important endeavor amidst the seemingly overwhelming postmodern condition of having to interpret simulacra. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1351. / Major Professor: S. E. Gontarski. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Etiqueté péjorativement « roman à l’eau de rose », le roman sentimental, critiqué et plutôt méconnu, est pourtant un genre paralittéraire à succès. Bien qu’inspirant mépris et indifférence, cette production et son lectorat francophone méritent dès lors qu’on s’y attarde. Produit emblématique de la culture médiatique, le roman sentimental représente en effet un indicateur de mutations culturelles d’importance. Articulée en deux temps, notre analyse se centre, d’une part, sur les spécificités de cette production et, d’autre part, sur son lectorat francophone. L’examen du roman sentimental sous l’angle textuel, éditorial et auctorial est donc couplé à une enquête qualitative basée sur un ensemble d’entretiens semi-directifs visant à circonscrire les pratiques du lectorat, à éclaircir les motifs à la base de la lecture sentimentale et à déterminer sa fonction principale.

Der Vortrag skizziert die Geschichte der deutschen Romanistik, gibt einen kurzen Überblick über den Stand 2003 im Bereich der Französischen Philologie und resümiert die fachlichen Herausforderungen im deutsch-französischen sowohl kulturellen wie politischen Kontext. Anschließend folgen drei Vorschläge zur Veränderung der Schulausbildung und Universitätslehre auf der Basis eines breiten Kulturverständnisses: 1. Einführung eines neuen allgemeinverbindlichen Schulfaches "Europa-Kunde" ("Connaissances de l'Europe"), das europaweit in Ergänzung oder Kooperation mit dem Fach Geschichte gelehrt werden sollte, 2. die systematische Ergänzung der traditionellen Literatur- und Sprachwissenschaft durch Kurse zu den deutsch-französischen Kulturbeziehungen, 3. die Ergänzung des traditionellen romanistischen Lehrkanons durch Seminare aus dem Bereich des Kulturmanagements.

Related but not limited to French studies, my work seeks to understand the variety and complexity of religion and religious experience today. With the rise of modernity, Western societies came first to doubt the foundations of religion in the name of reason, then to subject reason itself to critique. The result has been our now familiar circumstance in which we find ourselves wholly without grounds or foundations in any domain at all, and in which, since the nineteenth century, religion itself has become just one thing among others, one more institution among other institutions. Accordingly, the first step in my work is to describe, both as a philosophical project and as a practical necessity of social reality, the implications of this historical trajectory winch has culminated in what we today call a "pluralist society." The second part of my inquiry concerns the problematic status of religious experience in an environment dominated by individualism. The question arises: do we live in an entirely "disenchanted" world, or is religious experience still a real and significant phenomenon? Assuredly, the decline of religion as a social institution does not imply the utter destruction or impossibility of religious experience. It involves, rather, a major change in social relations, moral values and authority in general. I address these matters with reference to the works of Georges Bataille, Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, Mircea Eliade, or Friedrich Nietzsche. Naturally, my investigation includes historical references to philosophers and writers from the seventeenth century to our days (Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, on one hand and romanticism on the other). As a conclusion to my research I demonstrate that secularization is not a completed phenomenon but rather a partial process that guarantees neither the end of religion nor the retreat of religious experience. It does, however, require a reconfiguration of the traditional ways of conceiving modernity.

Phonological interactions among sonorant sounds, and between sonorants and obstruents, are widespread in Romance languages. In this dissertation, I examine in detail such interactions in two dialects of Sardinian (Italo-Romance), Campidanese and Nuorese, showing that sonorant relationships differentiate the synchronic grammars of these dialects. The synchronic patterning of nasals and liquids, and how these two sonorant subclasses interact with obstruents, is significantly different between the two dialects. In particular, nasals trigger phonological nasalization of vowels and of the rhotic in Campidanese but not in Nuorese. The arguments for a phonological analysis of vowel nasalization in Campidanese are reviewed, expanded, and tested against an acoustic study. The historical traces of interaction between /n/ and /r/ in this dialect are linked to the synchronic rhotic nasalization process highlighted by an acoustic study of fieldwork data. In Nuorese, on the other hand, /n/ does not initiate phonological nasalization either of vowels or of the rhotic, and it is the target of total assimilation when followed by any segments but an oral stop. Nasals in the two dialects thus pattern in two very different ways phonologically: nasals are process triggers in Campidanese and process targets in Nuorese. The rhotic also shows distinct patterns in the two dialects, interacting with /n/ in Campidanese and with /s/ in Nuorese. The two dialects, with those asymmetries, thus display complementary sonorant patterns. I argue that a model able to capture such complementarity of patterns is the theory of the contrastive hierarchy (Dresher 2008). The Campidanese and Nuorese sonorant patterns, so radically different, lead one to question whether sonorants form a homogeneous phonological class cross-linguistically. Campidanese and Nuorese show that the make-up of such a class appears to be language-specific. Since the sonorant class is a universal class of sounds, its heterogeneity, in turn, questions the notion of phonological classhood at large. The data and the analysis presented in this dissertation thus feed the debate around phonological classhood. According to the theoretical model adopted in the present dissertation, the language-specific make-up of a class of sounds is all that can be labeled a ‘phonological’ class. Classes of sounds can be described in phonetic terms, but classes phonetically defined do not necessarily amount to phonological classes.

This study seeks to present a philologically accurate and complete edition of Isabella Andreini’s collection of lyric poetry published in 1601. The collection comprises a total of 368 poems: 196 sonnets, 125 madrigals, 6 canzoni, 10 canzonette morali, 2 sestine, 2 epithalamia, 2 centoni, 3 capitoli, 9 scherzi, 4 versi funerali and 9 egloghe boscherecce. The investigation conducted on Andreini’s poems has led us to discover that the variety of metrical structures that make up her collection are perfectly in line with the trends of the century, as confirmed by both Chiabrera’s lyric poetry and the second part of Marino’s Rime. The present study highlights Isabella’s unique poetic personality and her innovative position in literary history. The interpretation of Isabella Andreini’s poetry in the entire thesis revolves around the statement of poetics she makes in the very first poem of the collection. In fact, in her proemial sonnet Andreini declares the non-autobiographical nature of the fervours expressed by her poems, thus declaring that her compositions are simply a poetic exercise. This is made clear further when she states that following her ability as an actress, she wrote in varying style a thousand pages, thus making reference to the variety of styles and metrical schemes she adopted in her poems. Using similar language, she warns the readers of the different narrating voices in the collection, stating that just as on stage she played different parts as woman and others as man, so she did in her poems. It is clear that the special feature of Andreini’s lyrical style is amenable to her talent as an actress, and it was in fact due to her acting skills that she could ably impersonate a man, or conceal the identity of the narrator in her poems, using this ‘invention’ as a key element in her creative process.

Phonological interactions among sonorant sounds, and between sonorants and obstruents, are widespread in Romance languages. In this dissertation, I examine in detail such interactions in two dialects of Sardinian (Italo-Romance), Campidanese and Nuorese, showing that sonorant relationships differentiate the synchronic grammars of these dialects. The synchronic patterning of nasals and liquids, and how these two sonorant subclasses interact with obstruents, is significantly different between the two dialects. In particular, nasals trigger phonological nasalization of vowels and of the rhotic in Campidanese but not in Nuorese. The arguments for a phonological analysis of vowel nasalization in Campidanese are reviewed, expanded, and tested against an acoustic study. The historical traces of interaction between /n/ and /r/ in this dialect are linked to the synchronic rhotic nasalization process highlighted by an acoustic study of fieldwork data. In Nuorese, on the other hand, /n/ does not initiate phonological nasalization either of vowels or of the rhotic, and it is the target of total assimilation when followed by any segments but an oral stop. Nasals in the two dialects thus pattern in two very different ways phonologically: nasals are process triggers in Campidanese and process targets in Nuorese. The rhotic also shows distinct patterns in the two dialects, interacting with /n/ in Campidanese and with /s/ in Nuorese. The two dialects, with those asymmetries, thus display complementary sonorant patterns. I argue that a model able to capture such complementarity of patterns is the theory of the contrastive hierarchy (Dresher 2008). The Campidanese and Nuorese sonorant patterns, so radically different, lead one to question whether sonorants form a homogeneous phonological class cross-linguistically. Campidanese and Nuorese show that the make-up of such a class appears to be language-specific. Since the sonorant class is a universal class of sounds, its heterogeneity, in turn, questions the notion of phonological classhood at large. The data and the analysis presented in this dissertation thus feed the debate around phonological classhood. According to the theoretical model adopted in the present dissertation, the language-specific make-up of a class of sounds is all that can be labeled a ‘phonological’ class. Classes of sounds can be described in phonetic terms, but classes phonetically defined do not necessarily amount to phonological classes.

Using textual analysis of 49 young adult paranormal romances, I answer what it is about the cultural milieu that makes these novels popular right now? This thesis argues that the discourse which emerges from the novels reflects contemporary discourse and narrative about the girls and young women who read the genre and who place themselves within this discourse and narrative. The novels respond to this discourse by offering instances where the girls' ideologies, built on the discourse taught to them, can be temporarily restored when the narrative proves false. These novels also undermine the confining discourse which the girls find themselves stuck in.