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.

L'univers romanesque d'André Malraux est traditionnellement qualifié de masculin et viril. Dans ses six romans, trois personnages féminins seulement sont réellement développés: May Gisors et Valérie Serge dans La condition humaine et Anna Kassner dans Le temps du mépris. Alors que la relation père/fils est constamment privilégiée, la mère des héros est toujours morte et n'est généralement que très brièvement évoquée. Mis à part quelques figurantes, le personnage de la mère semble avoir été volontairement évacué de l'univers romanesque de Malraux. Dans ce contexte, il est particulièrement intéressant de noter que l'on trouve, dans chacun des six romans de l'auteur, des allusions à la grossesse, à l'accouchement et à la naissance, sous forme d'images et de comparaisons, appliquées aux personnages féminins, mais aussi aux personnages masculins. A partir de cette constatation, cette thèse propose, dans un premier chapitre, de montrer comment les écrits farfelus de Malraux posent des jalons importants pour la suite de l'œuvre romanesque en soulignant l'ambigüité de l'identité sexuelle et l'androgynie fondamentale des êtres. Ces écrits de jeunesse constituent également une première tentative de la part de l'auteur d'éliminer le personnage de la mère et de présenter la maternité de façon négative. Les thèmes du travestissement, de la féminisation, et de l'angoisse de castration, qui seront repris dans les romans, sont également ici déjà bien présents. Le deuxième chapitre traite de ces mêmes thèmes dans les romans et étudie des cas de masculinisation de personnages féminins, des cas de féminisation de personnages masculins—ainsi que l'humiliation qui y est associée—et finalement, les liens entre féminisation, sadisme et angoisse de castration. Le troisième chapitre explore le rapport de l'homme à la féminité et aux traces du lien maternel à travers une étude de la représentation négative et stéréotypée de la maternité. Le quatrième chapitre pose finalement qu'à la maternité traditionnelle présentée comme source de souffrance et d'impuissance, s'oppose un idéal d'auto-formation et d'auto-création des personnages masculins, de l'homme qui se donne naissance à lui-même, sans rien devoir à la mère, mis en valeur dans les trois derniers romans de Malraux.

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El presente estudio trata de armonizar diversas teorias aplicandolas al analisis del personaje. Partiendo de una base estructuralista, se considera al personaje--siguiendo a Claude Levi-Strauss--como una estructura ordenada en el axis vertical que forman los diversos niveles de suturas que entran en su construccion. El concepto de sutura, desarrollado por Jacques Lacan, se aplica a aquello que figura como lo que esta ausente, relacionando al sujeto con la cadena de su discurso. Esta sutura se da basicamente entre lo que denomino los dos constituyentes del personaje: personaje-en-la-historia y personaje-en-el-discurso, construye el personaje, el personaje-en-la-historia es aquello que, estando ausente, se hace presente por medio del personaje-en-el-discurso. Este, a su vez, y a pesar de ser lo que podriamos llamar el "generador" del personaje como tal y, por tanto, anterior en el tiempo, se presenta como posterior en el tiempo narrado quedando disuelto en un flujo de palabras. Los dos constituyentes basicos del personaje determinan y sirven para anudar los distintos niveles de suturas que se dan en su construccion: (a) a nivel espacio-temporal entre el personaje en un tiempo y un espacio que hipoteticamente anteceden a la historia narrada (personaje-en-la-historia), y su ilusoria existencia en el presente del discurso como flujo de palabras (personaje-en-el-discurso), (b) a nivel de discurso entre la descripcion del personaje y su construccion como tal, (c) a nivel de estructura entre el paradigma antropomorfo que informa al personaje y su disolucion en discurso y (d) a nivel constitutivo entre el personaje y el lector que lo construye. Siguiendo mas bien a Heidegger, se considera el personaje-en-el-discurso como algo que a la vez oculta y revela al personaje-en-la-historia, el cual aparece simultaneamente como ausente y como un ser-que-esta-ahi. El analisis de los distintos niveles a los cuales se dan las suturas de las que surge el personaje permite percibir los cambios que este ha sufrido dentro de la novelistica espanola contemporanea. Estos cambios trazan una trayectoria que va desde un intento, por parte del realismo, de re-crear algo muy cercano a una persona hasta una determinada intencion--dentro de nuestra actualidad posmoderna--de recrear al lector. Este, jugando con el texto, simultaneamente construye y destruye al personaje el cual se convierte asi en una imagen especular del mismo lector en su frustrada busqueda de una identidad que se le escapa.

The general purpose of this work is to demonstrate that deconstructive theory can explain the function of humor, or, conversely, that the process of humor can illustrate deconstructive theory. The points at which the two discourses converge or illuminate each other are highlighted, using as a literary focus a historic period in which literature explicitly designated as "humorous" flourished in Spain--specifically the 1920s and 1930s--and, more exactly, four authors identified with this movement--Ramon Gomez de la Serna, Wenceslao Fernandez Florez, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, and Julio Camba. These four authors pragmatically and theoretically sustain a concept of humor as a linguistic game that deconstructs our collective disease--the language through which we create our world and our being. Humor is principally a linguistic phenomenon that, in a peculiar manner, explains the process of signifying. Its fundamental resource is playing with words, making meaning indefinite, divided, and even impossible. As is true of all linguistic games, humor is intimately bound to the cultural context in which it manifests itself, and which, simultaneously, it helps to create. These, then, would be the two main divisions of the present analysis: (1) humor as seen from within itself--its structures and mechanisms; and (2) humor within its context, with which it maintains a constant exchange of mutual support and annihilation.

This dissertation examines the conflictive poetics of Federico Garcia Lorca’s drama Doña Rosita la soltera o El lenguaje de las flores. Poema granadino del novecientos, dividido en varios jardines, con escenas de canto y baile (Doña Rosita the Spinster or The Language of Flowers. A Poem of Turn-of-the-Century Granada, Divided into Various Gardens with Scenes of Song and Dance), which premiered in 1935, less than a year before his early death. The play brings into confrontation different, essential, even contradictory poetic and theatrical elements present in his work from his very first writings. Closely examining primary and secondary sources, including a variety of Lorca’s manuscript versions and the staging of Doña Rosita in Spain in 1935 and thereafter, my dissertation proposes a new approach to Lorca’s theater. Doña Rosita reveals one of the main characteristics of all of Lorca’s work: his innate tendency to deal with the unity of contraries. The complexity of Lorca’s play is revealed in comments by the playwright and by reviewers of its earliest performances. While some (Doménec Guansé, Andreu Artis, Antonio Espina) applauded Doña Rosita as a well-structured work that reflected Lorca’s maturity as a writer, others (for example, the literary critic Ignasi Agustí) panned the bewildering and “impossible” transition from Acts I and II, with their placid fin de siècle romance and their song, dance, and dialogue about the “Language of Flowers,” to Act III, which takes place in an empty, disturbing, and morgue-like space. What has been unnoticed in previous scholarship, is that Doña Rosita enacts the theatrical project and poetics that Lorca sketched out in El público (The Audience). Although most critics and, to some extent, Lorca himself, placed these plays in two different theatrical worlds, Doña Rosita and El público show that Lorca’s theater is not constrained by irreconcilable dualities but instead demonstrates a radical synthesis of contraries. My dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework: the “dialectics of abscission,” a metatheatrical approach based on dichotomies relevant to Lorca’s vision of theater. In conclusion, I show that Lorca’s play, one of his least studied, offers essential epistemological and aesthetic clues to a better understanding of his theater in general.

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