Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English Language and Literature, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 396-399).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 277 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 268-277).

William Burroughs's profane life has been an affront to conventional morality, and his transgressive works have strained against the thematic and formal boundaries of literature. Although he has remained a problematic figure, he is gradually gaining recognition as a literary innovator. This thesis argues that his writings may be understood as technologies of the self, that is, the texts are tools that the writer Oses to transform himself. The Introduction outlines the problems that his writings pose for criticism; provides an overview of critical responses to his work; and demonstrates the appropriateness of Michel Foucault's theory of the technologies of the self as an approach to his texts. Furthermore, it makes a comparison between Burroughs's concerns and similar concerns evident in Foucault. The most prominent of these is a fear of control, and a desire to escape from control. It is argued that this similarity arises from the writers' shared experience of homosexuality in the twentieth century. This experience provokes them to undertake a·work of homographesis, in which they attempt to undermine the construction of identity in text, whilst simultaneously reinscribing identity in problematized autobiographical writing. Chapter One provides a corrective to the critical neglect of Burroughs's homosexuality and focuses on his sexual problematic as a key factor in the development of his literary style. It argues that the writer has an abject imagination that was precipitated by three principal traumatic experiences: his homosexuality, his addiction to opiates, and the accidental shooting of his wife. The chapter examines the way that the writer develops his unique literary style, the routine, in an attempt to express his psychic disintegration. The routine becomes the basic building block of Naked Lunch, serving both as a cathartic release of psychic anguish and as an attempt to subvert repressive social and linguistic structures. The metaphor of the anal aesthetic is introduced to describe the intersection of linguistic, psychic and political strategies in the texts. Chapter Two addresses the period,subsequent to Naked Lunch, in which Burroughs experimented extensively with the cut-up technique to develop a form of aleatory collage. The chapter argues that the writer hoped that the technique would enable him to transform himself and to~discover a new way of thinking, but suggests that its extreme nature both isolated him from his audience and intensified his psychic abjection. Chapter Three follows on from this to argue that the writer responds to the limitations of the cut-up in The Wild Boys by returning to a more intelligible form of writing. This return corresponds with an attempt to inscribe homosexual themes into his work directly. However, the combination of a homosexual agenda and the writer's defence against the identity loss of abjection leads him to assert a radical masculine identity that causes him to perceive women as the chief perpetrators of control. As a result, he rejects women from his mythological system. Chapter Four suggests that in Cities of the Red Night and The Place of Dead Roads the writer moves away from the radical queer agenda of The Wild Boys in the hope of discovering a form of ethics that avoids the traps of universalized humanism and the harsh "othering" of the queer agenda. The chapter draws a parallel between Burroughs's individualized ethics and Foucault's idea of an ethics grounded in aesthetic self-fashioning. Chapter Five examines The Western Lands, in which the writer confronts death in order to discover the nature of individual value in a normalized culture. Like Foucault, Burroughs believes that the most important task in a limited existence is the dandyistic creation of the self.

Bibliography: leaves 396-399 / 399 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English Language and Literature, 1993

This dissertation examines the techniques and themes of William Burroughs by placing him in the American Pragmatist tradition. Chapter One presents a pragmatic critical approach to literature based on Richard Rorty and John Dewey, focusing on the primacy of narration over argumentation, redescription and dialectic, the importance of texts as experiences, the end-products of textual experiences, and the role of critic as guide to experience rather than judge. Chapter Two uses this pragmatic critical lens to focus on the writing techniques of William Burroughs as a part of the American Pragmatist tradition, with most of the focus on his controversial cut-up technique. Burroughs is a writer who upsets many of the traditional expectations of the literary writing community, just as Rorty challenges the conventions of the philosophical discourse community. Chapter Three places Burroughs within a liberal democratic tradition with respect to Rorty and John Stuart Mill. Burroughs is a champion of individual liberty; this chapter shows how Burroughs' works are meant to edify readers about the social, political, biological, and technological systems which work to control individuals and limit their liberties and understandings. The chapter also shows how Burroughs' works help liberate readers from all control systems, and examines the alternative societies he envisions which work to uphold, rather than subvert, the freedom of human beings. Chapter Four concludes by suggesting some of the implications of Burroughs' work in literature, society, and politics, and by showing the value and importance of Pragmatism to the study of American literature and culture.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-09-12Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:13:29Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 encinas_lfc_me_mar.pdf: 428853 bytes, checksum: 7c30dd0cb34d306a24545b2793d64fc2 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Como consequência da experiência histórica, as formas de dominação ganharam cada vez mais espaço na produção literária, até se constituírem num dos principais temas do romance ao longo de todo o século XX. Vários escritores configuraram esteticamente o problema do poder, desenvolvendo uma narrativa cujo tema central é a dominação; dominação essa perpetrada pelos totalitarismos de direita e esquerda. Mas é na obra do escritor norte-americano William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) que os mecanismos de dominação ganharão um novo estatuto, em especial na obra Almoço Nu (1959), na qual aparecem configurados os novos modos de dominação que emergiram a partir da Segunda Grande Guerra: monopólios, burocracias, estruturas de controle, etc. Outras características formais, não menos relevantes, acompanham a emergência das novas temáticas, principalmente os signos de dissolução e aleatoriedade que percorrem o livro de Burroughs, abolindo em definitivo qualquer exigência de unidade configuradora ao instaurar uma nova combinação entre forma de expressão e forma de conteúdo. De qualquer modo, um estudo do romance de Burroughs que leve em consideração todas essas particularidades exige um aparato conceitual apropriado. Neste sentido, a obra de Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) fornece alguns elementos teóricos para a análise de Almoço Nu, a exemplo da noção de sociedades de controle, retirada da obra de Burroughs. Assim, o presente estudo busca apreender de que forma o romance Almoço Nu nos aponta as transformações temáticas e composicionais no romance da segunda metade do século XX correspondentes à experiência histórica na qual o problema da dominação veio a ocupar lugar de destaque nas produções literárias / As a consequence of historical experience, forms of domination have gained more space in the literary production, even if they constitute one of the main themes of the novel throughout the twentieth century. Several writers have shaped the aesthetic problem of power, developing a narrative whose central theme is domination, domination perpetrated by the totalitarian regimes of right and left. But it is the work of American writer William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) that the mechanisms of domination will gain a new status, especially in the work Naked Lunch (1959), in which they appear set new modes of domination that emerged from the Second World War: monopolies, bureaucratic structures, control, etc. Other formal features, not less relevant, accompanying the emergence of new themes, especially the signs of dissolution and randomness that run through the book of Burroughs, ultimately abolishing any requirement to establish a unit set up by combining new form of expression and form of content. In any case, a study of the Burroughs novel that takes into account all these specific requires a conceptual apparatus appropriate. In this sense, the work of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) provides some theoretical elements for the analysis of Naked Lunch, like the notion of societies of control, withdrawal from work of Burroughs. Thus, this study seeks to learn how the novel Naked Lunch points out the thematic and compositional changes in the novel of the second half of the twentieth century, corresponding to the historical experience in which the problem of domination came to occupy a prominent place in literary productions

This thesis considers the theme of suffering and its resolution in the novels of Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, and William Burroughs, three avant-garde contemporary writers. It discusses most of their work in a general way, with reference to the theme of suffering; and it also analyses in a much more detailed manner the Subterraneans by Kerouac, The Favorite Game and Beautiful Losers by Cohen, and Naked Lunch by Burroughs. Cohen envisions man as a suffering being who experiences his pain in many different ways. He criticizes the old ritual patterns in which suffering once took its form - the pattern of religion which teaches man that suffering is good, and History which teaches that the cycle of civilization operates only in terms of the torturer and his victim. He rejects, too, the contemporary form of pop art which ignores the fact that suffering is a very real and overwhelming part of man. Having lost the old ritual patterns of suffering, man feels alienated from his own personal pain. Through the magic of good art, Cohen feels, man can regain entrance to his own being, for by experiencing another's suffering in art, he can regain his own awareness of suffering. If we misinterpret or misuse our own pain, we become one of Cohen's 'losers,' for we lose the core of our being to false ritual. Cohen believes the ancient notion that suffering deepens character, and he argues that man, through an understanding of his own pain, becomes a richer and better person, more capable of recognizing the magic which exists along with pain. For magic does exist with pain, and in art we gain a momentary entrance into this world of magic. Through the investigation of self and the uniqueness of self, man comes to recognize the uniqueness and magic of all. The artist takes on the role of prophet visionary showing all men that "magic is afoot." Jack Kerouac suffered a different form of pain - a pain which originated in his desperate search for innocence. His Catholic heritage taught him that the world of mind and spirit could see God, while the physical body was the realm of the sinful and guilty. His life became a quest in search of an innocence in which man could, transcend his guilt and shame and become beatific. Kerouac named the entire beat generation beatific, but he could not evade his feeling of guilt and shame within his own life, and he fluctuated throughout life between ecstatic idealism and hopeless despair. His strong mother fixation was a major cause for the split between his sense of idealism and the life of the physical body - and his mother became associated in his mind with those aspects of consciousness he considered 'ideal.' Yet Kerouac also longed for freedom and individuality, realms of experience outside his mother's hold. He expressed his life within his art, showing his tension and anguish from the pull of these two forms of experience. Kerouac's final interpretation of suffering paralleled the Catholic vision, for art became, in his life, a means of personal confession and penance. William Burroughs' despair is expressed through fear and rage, and a figurative comparison with 'paranoia' defines the range of his suffering fairly closely. Burroughs fears persecution from society which controls man through his need, fearing especially the implosive and depersonalizing forces of society which threaten to degrade and annihilate man. Man's own body takes part in this social degradation, for it is man's body which succumbs to addictive need. Burroughs strives to preserve his sense of inner reality and freedom at all costs. He purges his own personal sense of fear through his art, and art becomes, in his use of it, a social act of exorcism. He shouts the unspeakable and becomes a priest in a cultural purification rite; he shows the absurdity of man's reality in the form of comedy and dream and these become the source of his release. He defends himself against social control by his ability to exaggerate the power of society to the point of the grotesque, and art becomes the written form of his protest. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Bibliography: p. 313-324. / xii, 324 p., [31] leaves of plates : col. ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2005

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004-03-11Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:20:14Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 paulinojunior_j_me_assis.pdf: 515440 bytes, checksum: 06e1d330c5483f056dc028fc22d894ac (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O principal assunto desta dissertação é a técnica narrativa cut-up, desenvolvida e empregada pela primeira vez no gênero romance em 1959, pelo escritor norte-americano William Burroughs, em sua obra-prima Naked Lunch. O processo da técnica consiste na sobreposição e justaposição de fragmentos textuais de diferentes teores. Esse processo é similar a alguns artifícios usados pelas Vanguardas, principalmente a “escrita automática” dos surrealistas. A intenção fundamental é conceder novos e inusitados significados às palavras e sentenças e, ao mesmo tempo, envolver o leitor num esforço cognitivo. Além disso, o escritor aponta a linguagem enquanto suporte ideológico, e assim revoga o sistema aristotélico presente nela. Os capítulos de abertura contêm uma exposição ampla a respeito da Beat Generation, um importante grupo literário surgido no período pós-guerra nos Estados Unidos. Os membros ligados à Geração militaram numa outra noção referente à vida intelectual e artística, e criaram obras guiadas nesse sentido. William Burroughs foi o mentor intelectual deles. A Beat Generation está incluída numa tradição literária norte-americana que começa com Thoreau e Whitman, uma tradição de enfrentamento social e estético. / The main subject of this research is the narrative technique called cut-up, developed and employed in the novel genre by American writer William Burroughs, for the first time in 1959, in his masterpiece Naked Lunch. The process of the technique consists in the superposition and juxtaposition of textual fragments with different purports. This process is similar to some artifices used by Vanguards, mainly the automatic writing by surrealists. The principal intention is to concede new and unusual meanings to the words and sentences, and, at the same time, to involve the reader in a cognitive effort. Besides, the writer notes the language while ideological bearer, and thus revokes the aristotelian system present in it. The opening chapters contain an ample exposition about the Beat Generation, an important literary group that arose at post-war period in the United States of America. The members linked to the Generation were engaged in another notion concerning artistical and intellectual life, and they created works guided in this sense. William Burroughs was their intellectual mentor. The Beat Generation is included in a literary tradition, in the U.S.A., that starts with Thoreau and Whitman, a tradition of social and esthetical struggle.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Engiish. / This dissertation grapples With the activity of critical production. It answers not to an interpretation which would constitute the writer within the institutionalised category of effect and object of knowledge, but rather to an explosion, a proliferation of critical paths at the limit of the doxa: a veritable labyrinth. The terms of my title open up a methodological field within which I enact the play of associations, contiguities, relations among four texts: The Name of the Rose, lost. in the Funhouse, The Naked Lunch and 'The library of Babel'. The terms themselves disseminate across the text argument in citations, references, echoes. The labyrinth is used throughout as a trope which deconstructs its own performance within the text. Legends are myths, inscriptions on maps, legenda or "things for reading" (through an etymological supplement), "lesser libraries." Barthes cites the biblical words of the man possessed by demons: "My name is Legion for we are many" and demonstrates how the demonlacal plural brings with it fundamental changes in reading strategies. The notion of the demoniacal plural is used to problernatlse the debates around subjectivity. The belief in unitary, rational selfhood is debunked and the subject is Seen to be plural, irreducible, heterogenous. Subjectivity is further problernatlsed by demonstrating the slippage among the labyrinthine multiplicity of discursive positions occupied by readers: the monoloqlcal models of meaning developed from each reading position constantly shift. The discursive position recuperated and sanctioned by the Law or the institution is impossible to maintain as Subjects are seduced by language into confrontation with other positions through their continuous renarnings of each other. Subjectivity and discursive positioning form .their own labyrinthine intentionality. The argument then moves towards an exploration of the current calculation of the subject for the writer. (Distinctions between author and critic begin to collapse here since meaning is shown to be governed by neither). The reading\writing subject strolls in a vast labyrinth of text - a postmodern flaneur who frustrates the work of exegesis by enacting the play of the signifier. The line traced by this hypothetical traveller does not engender a definitive theoretical or discursive map of the domain but rather a contingent and highly provisional, backward turning path. The demoniacal plural is also used to problematise notions of an original and innovative critical voice which "speaks" the dissertation. The logic regulating the argument is the already-written, The dissertation plavs with each text (both critical texts and fictions) looking for a practice which reproduces them but in another place. My imagined (ideal?) reader wmtreat the argument as that Which. lt was not simply meant to be,will. follow.the argument and be seduced by it: an echoing. structure with dead ends, wrong turns, false entrances fictitious exits; misleading threads and deceptive lines, / AC 2018