Displacing the Mask: Jorge Luis Borges and the Translation of Narrative studies the transformations that occur in Jorge Luis Borges's translations of Anglo-American fiction into Spanish. This project argues that Borges inscribed his tastes, values, and judgments about the literature he was translating onto the target-language texts, and in doing so altered important aspects of the source-language narratives: the identities of their characters, the ethical and rhetorical positioning of their narrators, their plots, and even the genres to which those narratives belong. The dissertation focuses on Borges's four book-length translations from the English, A Room of One's Own (1929, translated 1936) and Orlando (1928, translated 1937) by Virginia Woolf, The Wild Palms (1939, translated 1940) by William Faulkner and Bartleby (1853, translated 1943) by Herman Melville, as well as Borges's translation fragment of "Penelope" from James Joyce's Ulysses (1922, translated 1925). There are two major influences that guide the transformations this project explores, one aesthetic and one ideological. The aesthetic motivation is Borges's preference for plot-driven over character-driven fiction, which culminates in a strong distaste for what he terms "psychological narrative." Borges preferred adventure novels and detective fiction; correspondingly, wherever possible, he made changes to the form and content of the novels he translated to move them closer to the action-centered, personality-effacing fiction he preferred. The primary ideological influence I have found is a heteronormative understanding of gender and sexuality, which gives way to polarized representations of masculinity and femininity. In almost every translation, Borges pushes back against non-normative representations of gender and sexuality, reorienting characters toward traditional gender stereotypes. These two motivations, gender and genre, show themselves to be intertwined in Borges's translation practice; removing or rewriting the psychological aspects of narrative texts frequently comes about by shifting the gender and sexuality of a text's characters and the ideological positioning of its author. By focusing on a substantial subset of his translation work--Anglo-American fiction--this project fills a gap in the scholarship on Borges and translation, which to date has only selectively analyzed isolated texts. It also affords scholars of Borges's writing style access to perspectives previously unavailable, by demonstrating what his transformations to source texts' styles say about his own. A scholarly intention of this dissertation is also to demonstrate the relevance of translation to a number of academic fields, including narratology, women's studies, sexuality studies, and comparative literature. Comparative translation analyses reveal cultural representations of gender, ideological positions on sexuality, and radical reformulations of texts' narrative communication situations, all of which open important new avenues these disciplines may follow. At the same time, this project encourages the linguistics-based and empirically oriented branches of translation studies to employ comparative translation analysis not only to study translation itself, but as a basis for the critical analysis of translated literature.

Virginia Woolf is perhaps best known for her explorations and depictions of human consciousness. However, more contemporary science reveals that consciousness is only a small part of what constitutes our brain function. Rather, there are a dual functions within the human brain: consciousness and cognition. This nonconscious cognition is what allows us to see patterns, to make judgements, and to act reflexively, while consciousness is the function that shapes our individual identity and the story we tell about ourselves. Though previous studies have focused primarily on Woolf's representations of consciousness in her short stories and novels, there is much left to be explored when we look at her works through the lens of nonconscious cognitions, or as Woolf might call them, "moments of non-being" (Sketch 70). In my reading of The Waves, I leverage cognitive theory and new materialism to demonstrate how Woolf creates a world in which humankind--and therefore consciousness--is not entirely absent, but radically decentered. What remains is a world that is purely nonconscious cognition: still full of life and movement, but resistant to the individual identity and narrative structure so deeply sought after by humans. This cognitive project becomes especially apparent in the juxtaposition to the human characters' consciousness-driven narratives about their individual views of the world. I suggest that in the italicized interludes interspersed throughout The Waves, Woolf is writing moments of non-being, what Bernard calls the "world seen without a self"--a world in which human life is only marginal, leaving a quiet scenery full of microscopic action that often remains unseen in the self-focused, stream-of-consciousness narration of the chapters (Waves 287). I argue that by marginalizing humankind and shedding consciousness in the interludes of The Waves, Woolf places humans on the same ontological plane as the rest of the world. In this process, the scenes lose individual identity and traditional narrative, but reveal a connection with lively materials outside of the human self and with the rhythmic circularity of the universe.

This paper investigates the relationship between the two modernist writers Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. The two authors had a frail and complicated friendship that influenced their fiction and fictional characters more than the general public knows. My paper investigates how Woolf can have found her fictional story ideas direct from their friendship. With a comparative theory I’m finding and giving examples of how their friendship is reflected in their fictional stories, and I’m backing up my examples with citations from their own diaries, letters and notebooks. Another important part in my paper is the theme of masks and multiple identities. The two authors both expressed the need to hide behind different masks in order to please the society and their surroundings. This feeling, and this theme of multi pleidentities, also shines through in their fiction, and I will exemplify it with parts from their novels and short stories, and also develop my own thoughts on why they felt the need to use these false masks.

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Thesis (Ph.D. (English)) - Rhodes University, 2009.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-05-11T11:57:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 soniamariacostafajardo.pdf: 913658 bytes, checksum: d0908cb96a049994caf209fade188bdd (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-11T13:24:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 soniamariacostafajardo.pdf: 913658 bytes, checksum: d0908cb96a049994caf209fade188bdd (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-11T13:24:20Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 soniamariacostafajardo.pdf: 913658 bytes, checksum: d0908cb96a049994caf209fade188bdd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-11T13:24:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 soniamariacostafajardo.pdf: 913658 bytes, checksum: d0908cb96a049994caf209fade188bdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-24 / Esta dissertação de mestrado busca refletir sobre a importância da interface entre os Estudos Literários e os Estudos de Gênero, a partir da análise de Orlando, uma biografia, de Virginia Woolf, cujo personagem principal, Orlando, desafia as fronteiras entre o masculino e o feminino, ao passar por uma transformação sexual, de forma natural. O enredo dessa biografia ficcional permite traçar pontos de interseção entre as considerações sobre androginia, não-linearidade, flexibilidade e mutabilidade dos sexos promovidas por Woolf. Para a análise da proposta inusitada de Woolf, que constrói a metamorfose de Orlando, foram utilizados os estudos de Um teto todo seu (2014), de Virginia Woolf, e A crítica feminista no território selvagem, de Elaine Showalter (1994). Para a realização da congruência de Orlando, uma biografia, com os Estudos de Gênero, tornou-se essencial a compreensão dos conceitos elaborados por Simone de Beauvoir, em O segundo sexo, v. 2: a experiência vivida, (1967); Joan Scott, em Gênero: uma categoria útil de análise histórica (1995) e Judith Butler, em Problemas de gênero: feminismo e subversão da identidade (2003). A flexibilidade e as variações de gênero suscitadas por Woolf contrapõem-se aos rígidos conceitos construídos para o masculino e para o feminino, assim como a característica inalterável da sexualidade. Em 1928, com Orlando, uma biografia, Virginia Woolf antecipou a questão de gênero, tão atual e pertinente na busca do respeito às liberdades e na extinção dos formatos preestabelecidos que insistem em determinar o comportamento mais intrínseco dos indivíduos. / This present Master's Thesis aims to reflect upon the importance of the correlation between Literary Studies and Gender Studies, based on the analysis of Orlando, a biography, by Virginia Woolf, in which the main character, Orlando, defies the borders between male and female, when transforming himself sexually, in a natural way. The plot of the fictional biography allows to trace intersection points concerning androgyny, non-linearity, flexibility and changeability of gender, created by Woolf. For the analysis of Woolf's unusual proposal, which constructs Orlando's metamorphosis, the following studies were used: A room of One's Own (2014), by Virginia Woolf, and Criticism and the Wilderness (1994), by Elaine Showalter. To accomplish the congruency of Orlando, a biography, with Gender Studies, it is essential to comprehend the concepts proposed by Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, v. 2: a living experience, (1967); Jon Scott, in Gender: a useful category of Historical Analysis (1995) and Judith Butler, in Gender Problems: Feminism and Subversion of Identity (2003). The flexibility and gender variations expressed by Woolf contrast with the strict concepts once built concerning male and female, as well as the unchangeable characteristic of the sexuality. In 1928, with Orlando, a biography, Virginia Woolf anticipated the gender issue, so recent and pertinent in the search for respect to the liberty and the extinction of the preestablished forms that insist on determining the most inherent behaviour of the individuals.