This thesis focuses on the underlying mechanisms of Sciascia's writing, especially on its social destiny and literary scope. Beyond realism, Sciascia's writing comprises important information regarding the author's conception of the intellectual's work in the political and social domains. Sciascia had to develop writing techniques that enable him to efficiently merge his essayist bent and narrative inspiration, his penchant to document facts and his capacity to create them artistically. These are the origins of his unusual narrative technique--an amalgam of the eighteenth century essay and contemporary detective novel, locked in a crossroads of reason and non-reason. Sciascia's cultural background, a section between illuminism and Marxism, is the reason behind his need to ignore the traditional divisions between literary genres in order to originate a text which vehicles both his social and political engagement and his artistic creation. Although Sciascia's works reflect this unique pattern, critical studies to date have overlooked it, mislead, as they may be, by the polemic impact of the text and the man behind it.

Two characteristics prevail in the works of Natalia Ginzburg: the tendency towards reduction and the tendency towards repetition. Reduction and repetition resemble each other; they are analogous, complementary; both are efficient and dramatic means to express a reality which is partial and incomplete and to underline the inherent obscure suffering which results from that reality. Although Natalia Ginzburg does not belong to any of the various literary trends (and, in particular, not to neo-realism which coincides chronologically with the beginning of her career), she interprets a sorry and limited world and bears sensitive witness to its loneliness, to its "male di vivere". In this sense, Natalia Ginzburg's works, although not in the mainstream of literary currents, touch the heart of modern literary sensibility. / This is, in brief, the thrust of my thesis.

The evolution of the fantastic short story has followed a similar path as contemporary short story and also took inspiration from many literary forms. As a result, it has undergone profound changes since the 19$ rm sp{th}$ century. And yet, studies of this genre are just beginning to break away from the thematic interpretation originally designed to provide a temporary solution to an experimentation problem. The study of a selection of short stories by Julio Cortazar, very representative of these neo-fantastic tangents allows us to observe the techniques which the fantastic genre can now be based upon. / The second part of this thesis is made up of an anthology of short stories based for the most part on the fantastic. Certain writing techniques were inspired by Cortazar.

This thesis is dedicated to the work of one of the most brilliant representatives of the Soviet (Russian) literature of the past decades---Chinges Aitmatov. / In this thesis I concentrate on Aitmatov's short stories which I consider to be one of the most important aspects of his work. / What is so particular about Aitmatov's short stories? How does he manage to condense in his short stories such a deep meaning such a refined and sensitive world of heroes, together with the very essence of being? His pure and sometimes naive stories characterized by deep philosophical thought lead us to ponder over both contemporary and eternal problems of humanity and cultural consciousness. / I will be analyzing a few short stories which, in my opinion, best reflect how perfectly Aitmatov mastered the art of shaping material into an original text with peculiar structure and plot. / My work consists of an introduction, three chapters and conclusion where I define in detail the concepts of "structure", "plot", "fable" and other elements of prose, architechtonics, material organization, etc., and how these concepts are treated in Aitmatov's short stories.

Focusing on the entire literary works of Fernand Ouellette, that is to say all the writings published in collections from 1953 to 2000, the present thesis studies the evolution of his poetical writing in comparison with his writing of the essay, from a perspective both philosophical (development and evolution of concepts) and rhetorical (poetics and the form of thought). A chronological approach allows to draw three stages within the evolution of his works: (1) the period of lightning (1955--1973), which is linked to the poetics of revelation; (2) the period of wandering (1974--1986), when the poetics of relation is developed; (3) the mask of the augur (1987--2000), when occurs the meeting of the poetics of revelation and relation. / Fernand Ouellette is one of the most important writers of his generation (the so-called generation of l'Hexagone) as well as of Quebec's literary history. Owing to romanticism and existentialism, he belongs to a humanistic and idealistic movement which advocates the total commitment of the artist. Alternately poet, essayist, autobiographer, biographer, literary critic and novelist, his production is remarkable not only because of its literary quality but also because of its intellectual and spiritual requirements. His works foster a filiation relationship with many artists and philosophers, mostly European. / Centered between the desire of unity which sees an absolute in poetry, and the need of uniqueness which commands to take part in history, Ouellette's literary production, from the very first titles, is articulated on a dynamics, initially dual and then dialogical, establishing a relation between the lyrical subject, literally poetic, and the dialectical subject, corresponding to the figure of the essayist. By his commitment to fiction and self-portrait, two forms that are both privileged not only in autobiography but also within the novel and literary criticism, a dialectic is gradually developed, putting side by side poetry and essay without confusing them; it is through this dialectic that the figure of the subject is allowed to take shape. The result is an open literary production in which the function of the essay is essential to the poetical drive forward, while writing, based on movement, is both present to the World and oriented towards a mystical quest.

No description available.

Enclosed spaces dominate Anne Hebert's imaginary world. The house is usually depicted as a prison and a tomb, and only sometimes as a shelter. Products of a stagnant society whose laws they wish to perpetuate, parents give their children a loveless upbringing, in a house from which nature and the external world are rigorously excluded. A few of these captives think that happiness is to be found in marriage, but the conjugal home and that in which adultery occurs prove scarcely more welcoming. Some houses can even be dangerous. The house almost always appears as a forerunner of the tomb, inhabited by individuals unwilling to outgrow childhood, by the living dead, by the living who await death. Certain of Hebert's characters, however, revolt against this fate and flee the closed house. In order to be free, the Hebertian hero must exorcise the past and dissolve the obsessive image of the closed house. The rare open habitations of Hebert's universe are shelters to be found along the individual's road to liberation and life. Most are located near the sea or in the countryside, in a magnificent natural setting evocative of Paradise lost.

This thesis analyses Thomas Bernhard's partially autobiographical but at the same time critical works on society as well as on contemporary issues. The mendacity of the Austrian society and the related catastrophical consequences of it for the intellectual individual forms the central theme. The inability of the Austrian people to overcome their past is above all concentrated on. In the year 1988, the commemorative year of the fifty years since Austrian Annexation with Nazi-Germany, Bernhard made with Heldenplatz an essential contribution to the positive incorporation of history. / The careful study of Bernhard's works with particular references made to Beton and Heldenplatz, demonstrates his recognition of the symptoms of the neurotic behaviour of the Austrians. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis studies the way in which Robert Soulieres uses, in increasing complexity, four forms of humour in his novels for adolescents. The novels studied are: Le visiteur du soir, Un ete sur le Richelieu, Casse-tete chinois, and Ciel d'Afrique et pattes de gazelle. / These forms of humour are defined, identified, and classified. How they are used and interact with other components of the works are examined. / The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first looks at the way in which the author manipulates language. The second analyses the role of the narrator and the different narrative levels. The third section scrutinizes discursive intertextuality and literary styles, while the final chapter focuses on visual plays. The latter includes the use of original typographical characters and unusual formatting. / In studying these aspects of the novels, it becomes apparent that the author uses them to establish and maintain contact with his young readers.

According to the structuralist Claude Levi-Strauss, all myth has but one same structure. The purpose of this study is to expose the mythico-initiatory edifice that informs Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Le Roi des Aulnes, as well as Les Meteores, Michel Tournier's "trilogy". / To write, according to Tournier, cannot be a matter of literary creation, but simply of literary renewal. Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Le Roi des Aulnes and Les Meteores represent literary reflections on the primordial importance of Myth, for the Artist and above all, for Man; it is this mythic dimension that makes Tournier's entire oeuvre an "autobiography", or rather an autohagiography, according to Tournier's neologism. The three protagonists, Robinson, Tiffauges and Paul Surin, literary avatars of Tournier as Author, embark on a Quest for this lost mythic Unity; we will see that the voyage each makes is but one and the same, an allegorical odyssey toward the light$ ...$ of the City of the Sun.