The aim of this dissertation was to critically analyse Terry Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell trilogy in terms of three areas, namely Pratchett’s use of various fantasy techniques; how comedy and satire function as distancing mechanisms; and how fantasy and comedy function in accordance with Erikson’s and Bettelheim’s theories concerning identity formation in adolescent and child readers. The primary aim of this dissertation was therefore to provide a literary reading of Pratchett’s trilogy, Only You Can Save Mankind (1992), Johnny and the Dead (1993) and Johnny and the Bomb (1996). However, it also acknowledges the possible didactic and developmental benefits of the books. The trilogy is entertaining, exciting, witty and child-friendly (Baldry cited in Butler, James and Mendlesohn, 2004:41), but it is also clear that Pratchett endeavours to challenge his child readers by presenting everyday situations from foreign and unusual perspectives. This dissertation argues that, as Baldry states, Pratchett ‘expands the thinking of his young readers with new ideas or unconventional ways of looking at familiar ideas’ which will ultimately help them consider their own lives in alternative and perhaps even more meaningful ways (quoted in Butler, James and Mendlesohn, 2004:41). The idea of ‘distancing techniques’ is vital for this study, because it proposes that readers can be transported from their Primary Realities (in which they live and function on a daily basis) into Secondary Realities or worlds which are unlike the Primary Reality in form and composition, but not unlike them in the way they function. Once this removal has taken place, bibliotherapists argue that readers are able to look back upon their primary world with new insight into their sense of industry and identity and also into the way their primary reality functions and the way they function within it. J.R.R. Tolkien (1985:35) explains that ‘…fact becomes that which is manipulated by the fantasy writer to produce a keener perception of the primary world and a greater ability to survive in it’. Owing to Pratchett’s specific comic brand of fantasy, a discussion of his comic and satiric techniques is also presented. Part of this discussion again concentrates on the ability of comedy to act as a distancing mechanism, while another discusses how Pratchett uses comedy to satirise certain aspects of society. As Bergson (1911:17) states in his book, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, laughter is a way of ‘correcting men’s manners’. Pratchett thus makes use of various comic techniques to mock and ridicule certain features of society, such as its obsession with television, its materialism, or its obsession with computer games. This research is important as the fantasy genre is often considered to be mere popular fiction, to which parents and school teachers are frequently averse. However, with the increase in sales of fantasy works over the past decade, especially in adolescent and children’s fantasy, study of the genre and its possible influence on readers is becoming increasingly necessary. This dissertation undertakes to show that fantasy works can be both complex and satisfying literary works while they also have a positive influence on child readers. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / English / unrestricted

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This study aims to examine a group of South African novels that have received very little critical attention. Part of the problem is that these works have never been grouped or assessed as belonging to a sub-genre, the South African small-town novel. Although individual texts have been treated to cursory commentary, the joint impact and significance of these works with regard to South African literature in English have never been properly assessed. It is suggested that clustering the works together as small-town novels of the Union period raises important issues and provides valuable insights on a significant period in South African (literary) history. The study’s theoretical orientation is based on a model that J.A Kearney proposes in his book Representing Dissension: Riot, Rebellion and Resistance in the South African English Novel (2003). Kearney (xv) suggests that an important criterion in the study of historical novels is the degree to which the writers’ recreation of particular events/historical phases leads them to an awareness of the gap between actual and ideal society. In the introductory chapter a comparative analysis of South African town and farm cultures and their respective representations in literature are used to throw some light on possible reasons for the critical neglect of the novels. A brief historical background is provided with regard to the momentous Union period (1910–1948) which forms the setting for all the novels which are discussed in chronological order in the successive chapters: Stephen Black’s The Dorp (1920), C. Louis Leipoldt’s The Mask, written in the 1930s though only published posthumously as part of his Valley Trilogy in 2001, Alan Paton’s Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Herman Charles Bosman’s Willemsdorp, written in the early 1950s but also only published posthumously in 1977 in a censored version and in 1998 in full. The authors uniformly use the small-town milieu effectively as a microcosmic setting from which to comment on the larger social and political issues affecting South Africa during this period. They provide a socio-political critique on a period in South African history marked by politically volatility and reactionary ideological developments. Black’s The Dorp satirizes social intrigue in a fictional town ironically yet appropriately called Unionstad. It reveals the ill effects of historical events such as the Boer War and the 1914 Rebellion (specifically the animosity that it created between English and Afrikaner townsmen) but suggests the possibility of reconciliation. In The Mask, Leipoldt reveals a bleak picture of South African town life that is emblematic of the collapse of Leipoldt’s utopian ideal for an egalitarian South African society. In Too Late the Phalarope, Paton dramatizes the devastating personal effects of racially discriminatory laws, which criminalized sexual congress between whites and blacks. Paton’s essentially Christian view exposes hypocrisy and moral corruption in the attitudes of racist townsmen (and by implication the national architects of institutionalized racism), but offers the possibility of restoration by means of personal acts of forgiveness. In Willemsdorp Bosman offers probably the most sophisticated exposé of small-town culture as exemplary of everything that was wrong in the society from which apartheid was emerging. The concluding chapter invokes Bawarshi’s notions on the value of genre classification and briefly focuses on post-1948 novels, confirming the notion that a continuum exists within the small-town novel sub-genre of the South African novel. Copyright / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / English / unrestricted

This study considers the way in which Margaret Atwood’s post-apocalyptic MaddAddam Trilogy functions as an environmental project. The main focus is on how the three novels, Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), simultaneously draw on and destabilise the apocalypticism inherent in so much environmental discourse, primarily through the use of satire. The trilogy is securely anchored in the concerns of contemporary readers, and transposition of the action to the near future is integral to Atwood’s environmental project: attention is focussed on the present causes of anticipated environmental catastrophe, which readers implicitly are implored to avoid. Atwood’s environmentalism is performed in the interplay between her literary stature, the equivocal content of her work, and the irreverence with which she metaleptically blurs distinctions between fact and fiction, art and commodity, and activism and aesthetics. Whereas the satiric mode serves as a way of avoiding some of the limitations of apocalyptic thinking by maintaining and even creating complexity, it also renders the entire project ambiguous. Uncertainty about the exact environmental injunction presented in the trilogy creates doubts about the degree to which Atwood’s extradiegetic environmental activism should be taken seriously, or conversely. Storytelling is foregrounded in all three novels, and through its concurrent critique of and reliance on market forces and the political potential of art, the MaddAddam Trilogy demonstrates that there is no external position from which the imagination can perform environmentalist miracles. As such, Atwood’s environmental project furthers a profoundly ecological understanding of the world. / Margaret Atwood routinely eludes her readers, and the MaddAddam Trilogy is no exception. These three novels, Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), are ostensibly written in the tradition of environmental apocalypse, yet they constantly undermine its conventions through satire. This study considers the trilogy as an environmental project, performed in the interplay between Atwood’s literary stature, the ambiguous content of her work, and the irreverence with which she blurs distinctions between fact and fiction, art and commodity, and activism and aesthetics. Atwood’s use of the MaddAddam Trilogy in her real-world environmental activism creates uncertainty about how seriously both her art and her activism should be taken. Her opinions on environmental matters are legitimised, but at the same time an urgent environmental ‘message’ is presented as entertainment. Atwood’s message often appears circular: her art carries no message, but Margaret Atwood the writer does have an important message, which she gets to deliver precisely because of her art. Storytelling is a central theme in all three novels, and through both critiquing and relying on commercialism, the MaddAddam Trilogy demonstrates that there is no external position from which the imagination can perform environmentalist miracles. As such, Atwood’s environmental project furthers a profoundly ecological understanding of the world.

This essay highlights The Happy Prince’s advantageous use of conventions of the fairy tale genre to stress critical issues of the Victorian period: the challenge of the established Christian socio-moral order, the rising of the bourgeois industrial society, and the advent of aestheticism as a response. Using the close reading technique supported by the Victorian socio-historical background, the analysis establishes that the criticism proceeds by double associations. Firstly, the clear structure of the tale, enriched by a plethora of aesthetical features and suitable narrative processes, is propitious for children’s access to a message calling for more human generosity. Meanwhile, subtle analogies to the Christian imagery appear blurred by paradoxical elements. This prevents a definite religious interpretation from adults to which those messages are intended. Secondly, in connection with aestheticism, a social and moral criticism takes the form of a satire of the utilitarian vision of the bourgeoisie and a questioning of the common Victorian beliefs: the link between beauty and moral integrity, as well as the moral code of femininity. Finally, the utilitarian discourse and the disapproval of the research for pleasure from beauty merging with a hedonist vision, advocate an “art for art’s sake” free of these respective considerations.

Denna kandidatuppsats består av en längre översättning i form av en undertextning från nederländska till svenska, samt en kommentar till översättningen. Källtexten utgörs av inslaget De online fabeltjesfuik (ordagrant ’fabelryssjan’) ur det nederländska satiriska nyhetsprogrammet Zondag met Lubach. I kommentarsdelen beskrivs den teoretiska bakgrunden bakom den översättningsprincip och rangordning av översättningsprioriteringar som styrt undertextningsarbetet. Därefter behandlas ett urval av översättningsproblem samt strategierna för att lösa dem, med ett särskilt fokus på kulturella referenser och humor. Det största problemet utgörs dock i slutändan av översättningsformens egna begränsningar när det kommer till tid och utrymme, vilka styr alla andra översättningsval. / This bachelor’s essay consists of a longer translation in the form of Dutch-to-Swedish subtitles, including a section commenting on the translation. The source text is made up of the segment De online fabeltjesfuik (literally ‘the fable fyke’) from the Dutch satirical news show Zondag met Lubach. The comment section describes the theoretical background behind the translation principle and the translation priorities which have guided the subtitling. Then a sample of translation problems along with the strategies used to solve them are presented, focusing on cultural references and humour. The largest issue remains the inherent limitations of subtitling as pertains to time and space, which influence all other translation choices made.

The diploma thesis deals with political satire in the Show Jana Krause at the time of selected elections in the Czech Republic in the years 2010-2019. Altogether six sub-periods in which the chosen elections were held were examined, which means that the general sample of episodes of the Show Jana Krause is formed from six smaller samples. The aim of the work was to find out what form political satire had in the show in the monitored period, how often it appeared in it and which political actors were most often its target. The research method was a quantitative content analysis with the help of which the work seeks answers to the following four research questions. RQ1: How much space was devoted to political satire in the Show Jana Krause? RQ2: What elements of political satire does the Show Jana Krause use? RQ3: What politicians, or which political subjects were most often satirically portrayed on the show? RQ4: What topics did political satire on the Show Jana Krause focus on the most? The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter theoretically defines key concepts and outlines the history of political satire. The second chapter deals in more detail with the genre of television political satire and its development, especially with a focus on the Czech environment. The intention of the...

This thesis attempts to clarify the period issue of satirical signs of socialism of the prose "Black Barons" with regard to the Czechoslovak normalization culture. It focuses primarily on the historical role of the work and its artistic components. It studies them with a particularly semiotic perspective of Lotman's texts culturally and literary. Its core is then an analysis of the literary structure of mentioned book. It is realized with regard to the partial characters and aims to find out which specific parts of the world of the story are ridiculed and for what exactly the title is (at the time of its first publication) censorial unacceptable. Keywords: sign, language, system, structure, culture, socialism, satire, Black Barons

Late night talk shows have been an integral part of U.S. television since the 1950s, and the genre continues to thrive today in an ever changing media landscape. In my dissertation, I argue that the contemporary programs of Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! make up a category of late night talk shows that I term as satirical network late night. From a visual standpoint, these programs look almost identical to past programs like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson or the Late Show with David Letterman with their sets, house bands, monologues, sketches, desk pieces, and guest appearances. However, these satirical network late night programs produce political content that differs vastly from their predecessors. I assert that these programs are steeped in brazen partisanship, amplify the news media, and function as a sensationalized form of infotainment. This is not the big-tent and “least objectionable programming” offered on past network programs like Carson’s Tonight Show. Additionally, this is not what was offered on cable parody news programs such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that presented a veiled partisanship, served as a watchdog over the media and political spheres, and lambasted the entertainment-laden modes of modern news reporting and punditry. In less than a decade, satirical network late night has disrupted genre conventions that existed on network television for over sixty years. This research breaks down what makes these new satirical network late night programs’ political content distinct and helps to decipher why these changes took place in mid-2010s.

The eighteenth century is famous for producing literary satire, primarily in verse (and later prose) form. However, during this period, a new dramatic form also arose of which satire was the controlling element. And like the writers of prose and verse satires, playwrights of dramatic satire claimed that their primary aim was the correction of moral faults and failings. Of course, they did not always succeed in this aim. History has shown a few, however, to have had a significant impact on the ideas and lives of their audiences. This thesis is an attempt to demonstrate how these satiric dramas achieved their reformative aims by tracing the theatrical experience of an eighteenth-century audience through Victor Turner's stages of liminality. Turner explains the different ways in which specific genres of theatre (1) create a performance space that is apart from, but still draws symbolically on, the outside world, (2) invite the participation of their audiences in that space, and (3) urge audiences to act in different ways as they leave the theatre space. By examining plays in these ways, we can see how the plays affected the ideas and outlooks of audience members. Because satiric drama invited a high level of participation from audience members, because it invited them into a very "liminal" space, it frequently served to sway audience members' tastes, and in some cases even helped to revolutionize social and literary institutions.