Diss.--Siegen--Univ., 1999. / Index.

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2006.

Diss.--Institut für Romanische Philologie--Berlin--Freien Universität, 1993. / Bibliogr. p. 261-279. Index.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of English, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

This essay engages in a Lacanian reading of identity in John Banville’s Eclipse and argues that the protagonist Alex Cleave illustrates certain of Jacques Lacan’s ideas concerning subjectivity and the subject. Alex Cleave has a fragmented sense of identity and experiences alienation as well as loss and lack of authenticity. He is an actor and tries to create identity within his roles. Alex’s confusion about himself is played out in his relationships. Alex Cleave is a self-absorbed character who does not care for other people but only for himself. He uses other people, his family, ghosts and his stalking victims, as sources for an ideal ego and as a contrast to himself. The essay argues further that the novel suggests that identity is unstable and constructed within language. Alex Cleave tries to actively create identity by incorporating characteristics he has studied in his roles as well as other people, and he writes down his story, giving himself an identity in a book, Eclipse. To support its claims, the essay draws upon theories of Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. Derrida’s concept of différance is used to explain the instability of identity. Lacan’s ideas about the development of identity in the course of the mirror stage and the Oedipal crisis are drawn upon. Furthermore, Lacan’s ideas about the unconscious, the Other and the imaginary and the symbolic order are employed.

The main thesis of this study is that John Banville's fictional scientific tetralogy makes an aesthetically challenging attempt to fuse renewed popular notions of science and scientific figures with renewed artistic forms. Banville is most interested in the creative mind of the scientist, astronomer, or mathematician, his life and times in Doctor Copernicus (1976) and Kepler (1981), and his modern day influence in The Newton Letter (1982) and Mefisto (1986). The novelist's writing is a movement of the subjective into what has normally been regarded as the objective domain of science. Chapter one gives a critical overview of the present state of Banville scholarship. It reveals that despite his focus on scientists, the novelist rarely invites more than narrow literary approaches. Chapter two discusses the cultural context of relations between science and literature. The theories of Gerald Holton on scientific history, of Arthur Koestler on creativity, and of Thomas Kuhn on paradigm change are shown to be germane to Banville's tetralogy. These theories support the general methodology throughout the dissertation. Chapter three examines the creation of the scientific genius Doctor Copernicus. In particular, the following areas are examined: the scientist's boyhood; the influences of his family, friends and colleagues; the link between science and public policy; the scientist's living and working conditions; and the scientist's thematic presuppositions. Chapter four continues the exploration of the social and artistic process of science with regard to the astronomer Kepler. This chapter's discussion of the brotherhood of science, astrology, physicalization, religion and dreams inevitably raises questions about the role of the scientist in society and how his ideas are developed. Chapter five reveals the importance of the extra—scientific factors that go into the composition of any purportedly objective science. In The Newton Letter, both the great English scientist and his Irish biographer seem to suffer from similar paradigm shifts. Chapter six on Mefisto argues that recent scientific theory, including the science of chaos, informs the work, particularly with regard to the notions of symmetry and asymmetry. Chapter seven concludes by advancing the argument that Banville's work is a much needed contribution to Irish culture, which has tended to ignore the social potential of science. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Em uma entrevista feita por Travis Elborough para uma edição especial de quarenta anos da editora Picador, exatamente no ano em que o romance The Sea (2005), de John Banville, recebe o Booker Prize, o escritor irlandês responde da seguinte maneira a uma indagação sobre o título da obra: Acho que eu tinha o título antes de qualquer coisa, e gosto de pensar num ritmo oceânico através de cada página (p.2, tradução nossa). Realmente Banville consegue produzir o deslumbrante efeito de um movimento marítimo que percorre ciclicamente os três eixos espaço-temporais e narratológicos do romance. Entretanto, não há linearidade cronológica na orquestração desses momentos. Apresentam-se na realidade os percursos criativos de uma mente irrequieta, revelando assim os diferentes estados de consciência de Max Morden, o narrador e estudioso dos quadros de Pierre Bonnard. Nota-se, sobretudo, que essa passagem fluida de informações mnemônicas e cognitivas dentro do universo subjetivo do herói é mediada pela presença de outras artes essencialmente as visuais, tais como a pintura e a fotografia , resultando não apenas numa prosa poética que é a marca registrada de Banville, mas igualmente numa rica linguagem interartística, as quais tornar-se-ão o instrumento essencial para a construção metaficcional da narrativa do romance. Não menos relevante é o centro catalisador dessas memórias, ou seja, o recorrente e doloroso sentimento de perda de pessoas queridas, o qual impulsiona Morden na escrita de seu diário. Portanto, buscaremos investigar as características, propósitos e desdobramentos dessa estética multiforme na obra Banvilliana, considerando, mediante noções teóricas sobre ekphrasis, como a interface entre uma linguagem incrivelmente embuizada de poeticidade e o recurso de representações visuais contribuem para uma nova síntese narratológica diante de um mundo mnemônico que tende a se esfacelar, e como a metaficção de The Sea reconstitui, reproduz e, em última instância, celebra os processos intrigantes das memórias de um ser humano. / In an interview carried out by Travis Elborough for a special edition celebrating Picadors 40th anniversary, in the same year the novel The Sea (2005) by John Banville is awarded the Booker Prize, the Irish writer gives the following answer to a question concerning the title of his work: I think I had the title before I had anything else, and I like to think an oceanic rhythm through every page (p. 2). In fact, Banville is able to convey a mesmerising effect of an oceanic movement that cyclically flows through the novels three narratological and spatiotemporal axes. However, there is no chronological linearity in the orchestration of these moments. Actually the creative meanderings of a restless mind are shown, thus revealing the different states of Mordens conscience, the narrator who studies Pierre Bonnards paintings. It is seen, above all, that this fluidic passage of mnemonic and cognitive pieces of information within the heros subjective domain is mediated by the presence of other forms of art especially the visual ones, such as painting and photography , resulting not only in a poetic prose that is Banvilles hallmark, but similarly in a rich interartistic language. These formal aspects will serve as the essential tool for the metafictional construction of the novel narrative. The galvanising centre of these memories has equal importance, that is, the recurrent and painful feeling of losing endeared people, which propels Morden to write his diary. Therefore, we will investigate the characteristics, purposes and unfoldings belonging to this multiform aesthetics of the Banvillian novel, considering by means of theoretical notions of ekphrasis how the interface between an incredibly poeticised language and the resource of visual representations contributes to a new narratological synthesis in the face of a mnemonic world that tends to fall apart, and how the metafiction of The Sea reconstitutes, reproduces and ultimately celebrates the intricate processes of a human beings memories.

Em uma entrevista feita por Travis Elborough para uma edição especial de quarenta anos da editora Picador, exatamente no ano em que o romance The Sea (2005), de John Banville, recebe o Booker Prize, o escritor irlandês responde da seguinte maneira a uma indagação sobre o título da obra: Acho que eu tinha o título antes de qualquer coisa, e gosto de pensar num ritmo oceânico através de cada página (p.2, tradução nossa). Realmente Banville consegue produzir o deslumbrante efeito de um movimento marítimo que percorre ciclicamente os três eixos espaço-temporais e narratológicos do romance. Entretanto, não há linearidade cronológica na orquestração desses momentos. Apresentam-se na realidade os percursos criativos de uma mente irrequieta, revelando assim os diferentes estados de consciência de Max Morden, o narrador e estudioso dos quadros de Pierre Bonnard. Nota-se, sobretudo, que essa passagem fluida de informações mnemônicas e cognitivas dentro do universo subjetivo do herói é mediada pela presença de outras artes essencialmente as visuais, tais como a pintura e a fotografia , resultando não apenas numa prosa poética que é a marca registrada de Banville, mas igualmente numa rica linguagem interartística, as quais tornar-se-ão o instrumento essencial para a construção metaficcional da narrativa do romance. Não menos relevante é o centro catalisador dessas memórias, ou seja, o recorrente e doloroso sentimento de perda de pessoas queridas, o qual impulsiona Morden na escrita de seu diário. Portanto, buscaremos investigar as características, propósitos e desdobramentos dessa estética multiforme na obra Banvilliana, considerando, mediante noções teóricas sobre ekphrasis, como a interface entre uma linguagem incrivelmente embuizada de poeticidade e o recurso de representações visuais contribuem para uma nova síntese narratológica diante de um mundo mnemônico que tende a se esfacelar, e como a metaficção de The Sea reconstitui, reproduz e, em última instância, celebra os processos intrigantes das memórias de um ser humano. / In an interview carried out by Travis Elborough for a special edition celebrating Picadors 40th anniversary, in the same year the novel The Sea (2005) by John Banville is awarded the Booker Prize, the Irish writer gives the following answer to a question concerning the title of his work: I think I had the title before I had anything else, and I like to think an oceanic rhythm through every page (p. 2). In fact, Banville is able to convey a mesmerising effect of an oceanic movement that cyclically flows through the novels three narratological and spatiotemporal axes. However, there is no chronological linearity in the orchestration of these moments. Actually the creative meanderings of a restless mind are shown, thus revealing the different states of Mordens conscience, the narrator who studies Pierre Bonnards paintings. It is seen, above all, that this fluidic passage of mnemonic and cognitive pieces of information within the heros subjective domain is mediated by the presence of other forms of art especially the visual ones, such as painting and photography , resulting not only in a poetic prose that is Banvilles hallmark, but similarly in a rich interartistic language. These formal aspects will serve as the essential tool for the metafictional construction of the novel narrative. The galvanising centre of these memories has equal importance, that is, the recurrent and painful feeling of losing endeared people, which propels Morden to write his diary. Therefore, we will investigate the characteristics, purposes and unfoldings belonging to this multiform aesthetics of the Banvillian novel, considering by means of theoretical notions of ekphrasis how the interface between an incredibly poeticised language and the resource of visual representations contributes to a new narratological synthesis in the face of a mnemonic world that tends to fall apart, and how the metafiction of The Sea reconstitutes, reproduces and ultimately celebrates the intricate processes of a human beings memories.

Inaug.-diss.--Kiel. / "Verzeichnis der benutzten litteratur": p. [1]-2.

Inaug.-diss.--Kiel. / "Verzeichnis der benutzten litteratur": p. [1]-2.