Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of English, General Literature and Rhetoric, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Linda Saladin-Adams, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Humanities. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 30, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Acadia University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-111). Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Habilitation - Universität, Bamberg, 2006/07. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [399]-433).

The primary thesis of this dissertation is that the development of narrative strategy and technique through the course of Samuel Beckett’s fictional oeuvre enacts a parody of the Cartesian method of doubt, in which the search for first principles, instead of providing grounds for certainty, is a hopeless, grotesque quest for a self which eludes any and every assertion. My chief concerns are thus, firstly, to explicate and elucidate the nature of such narrative strategies and techniques, and how these can be said to parody epistemological procedure; and secondly, to interrogate the implications of this parody for the epistemological and interpretative endeavour of which the human sciences are comprised. These two issues are explored by way of an examination of Beckett’s earliest novel, Murphy, and the narrative impasse that arises from the contradiction between this work’s largely realist form and quasi-postmodern content. I thereafter argue that the later fiction, most particularly the Trilogy, achieves formal and stylistic solutions to the aesthetic and epistemological challenges raised by the earlier work. Beckett’s fictional oeuvre, I contend, can best be construed as an attempt to attain that which exceeds and escapes narrative in and through narrative, namely madness or death. The achievement of either would entail the obliteration of the possibility of narrating at all, and the novels, engaging in a self-deconstructing endeavour, thus occupy a profoundly paradoxical position. Any attempt to interpret a body of work of this nature can only respond in an analogous manner, by trying to make meaning of the subversion of meaning, and deconstructing the assumptions that inform its procedures. This dissertation argues that it is precisely in the way in which it necessitates such selfreflexive discursive analysis that the import of Samuel Beckett’s fiction lies, and extrapolates the significance of this for an understanding of discourse, literary criticism, and epistemological procedure.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-04-30Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:06:26Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000805737.pdf: 1021604 bytes, checksum: 3fa1c6c1fc91491e57f0b4b57d6d41f6 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / O presente trabalho tem como escopo uma análise do conto contemporâneo de Angela Carter. Como ponto de partida, fizemos uma abordagem sobre algumas noções que permeiam a produção artística a partir da década de 60, do século passado, para, então, no capítulo primeiro, traçarmos alguns lineamentos sobre o conto como forma literária, observando os contextos em que Charles Perrault e Angela Carter produziram seus textos. Procuramos demonstrar características fundamentais não apenas destes autores, mas como a tipologia do conto, historicamente, pouco a pouco contribuiu para especificidade e sedimentação do gênero tal como o conhecemos hoje. Assim, classificações e formas de analisar seus procedimentos narrativos e discursivos permearam essa primeira parte de nosso estudo, quando nos deparamos com autores como Poe, Tchekhov, Maupassant, Joyce, Borges, Cortázar e Barth, entre outros. O segundo capítulo pretende melhor descrever uma nova abordagem da produção artística, pelo viés da pós-modernidade, quando elementos como saturação cultural, decadência, perda da energia, secundariedade e posterioridade, entre outros, canalizam para um novo ânimo produtivo, como observam teóricos como Moser, Jameson ou Lyotard, a quem recorremos, entre outros. A análise dessa descrição social permitiu-nos, como desdobramento do mesmo capítulo, chegar a algumas formas de arte que se sedimentam nesse novo contexto, fortalecendo tendências e vanguardas, tal como o feminismo, movimento a que se liga nossa autora. Interessa-nos, em particular, o atual conceito de paródia, conforme Linda Hutcheon, cujo texto, Uma teoria da paródia (1985), tornase arcabouço fundamental em nosso trabalho. Tendo definido estes conceitos, destacando a relevância do uso da ironia para o trabalho da reescrita, partimos para o capítulo fundamental, em que o texto paradigmático de Charles Perrault, O Barba-Azul é compara ... / Our goal with this research was constructed on an analysis of Angela Carter’s contemporary tales. From the bottom line we introduced an approach about some notions of her artistic productions-starting from the 60s of last century-for us to be able, in the first chapter, to start speculating about those tales, based on their literary forms, observing the contexts in which Charles Perrault and Angela Carter produced their texts. We expected to demonstrate fundamental characteristics, not only about these writers, but according to those tales' typology, constructed historically, step by step that contributed to gender’s specificity and fragmentation as we may live it, nowadays. This way, categorizations and forms to analyse some procedures used in narrative and discursive composition, surrounds this first part of our work, just when it allows us to mention Poe, Tchekhov, Maupassant, Joyce, Borges, Cortázar and Barth, among many others. The second chapter, intended to describe a new approach to the artistic production from a postmodern perspective when some elements as cultural satiety; decadence; loss of energy; secondariness and posteriority (surrounded by other possibilities), can point us to a new productive direction, as some researchers as Moser; Jameson and Lyotard (that represent a source for us) could have observed. The analysis of this social description allowed us in the development to reach some other forms of art, that compose all this new environment, reinforcing some tendencies and vanguards as feministic movement linked to the author. We were interested, particularly, in current parody’s concept, according to Linda Hutcheon, whose text: Uma teoria da paródia (1985), turned to a bases to this research. Due to these concepts, focusing to the relevance of irony, used to rewrite jobs, we keep on to reach our goal in the fundamental chapter, in which paradigmatic text is Charles Perrault’s: O Barba-Azul is compared ...

This study examines the settings in Jane Austen's six novels. Chapter I introduces the topic generally, and refers briefly to Jane Austen's aims and methods of creating her settings. Short accounts are given of the emphasis put on setting in the criticism of Jane Austen's work; of the chronology of the novels; and of the use made of this aspect of the novel in eighteenth-century predecessors. Chapter II deals with the treatment of place in Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. The consideration of five novels together makes it possible to generalize about aspects of place common to all , and to discuss particulars peculiar to individual novels without, I hope, excessive repetition. The chapter may be thought disproportionately long, but this aspect of setting is most prominent and important in the delineation of character. Chapter III discusses the handling of spatial detail and time in these five novels. Chapter IV offers a fuller analysis of what is the chief concern of this thesis, the nature and function of setting, in respect of the single novel Persuasion, and attempts to draw together into a coherent whole some of the points made in Chapters II and III. Persuasion separates conveniently from the other works, not only because it was written after them, but more importantly because in it there is a new development in Jane Austen's use of setting. Some critics, notably E.M. Forster and B.C. Southam, have found startlingly new qualities in the setting of Sanditon, and, certainly, the most striking feature of the fragment is the treatment of place. But Jane Austen left off writing Sanditon in March 1817 because of illness, and the twelve chapters make up too small and unfinished a piece to be considered in the same way as the other novels. The Watsons, too, except for some references to it in Chapter I, does not come within the scope of this dissertation. Another introductory point needs to be made briefly. Where it is necessary, the distinction between Jane Austen and the omniscient narrator is observed, but generally, partly because it is clear that Jane Austen's values are close to those of the narrator, and partly because it is convenient, traditional and sensible to do so, the name "Jane Austen" is used to refer both to the actual person and to the narrator of the novels.

British fiction and poetry explodes with textual visuality in the early twentieth century: color, shape, and form, as manifested in description, impression, and image. This dissertation computationally models that visuality, using the eye as a governing metaphor: retinal cones are modeled by inferring textual color, and retinal rods are modeled through object-detection via word sense disambiguation and categorization. Findings include a 93% increase in color expressions across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a 15% increase in the proportions of object and artifacts, and revealing correlations along lines of literary genre, subject heading, and more. These correlate with historical materialities such a dye manufacture, trends in the visual arts such as post-impressionism, and movements in literature such as imagism. A model of literary description, meanwhile, finds that, while visuality increases over time, proportions of description decrease, suggesting structural decompositions in fiction, occurring in parallel with disseminations of vision. NOTE: To view an interactive archived copy of this dissertation, please see the Columbia University Libraries Archive-It version here: https://wayback.archive-it.org/1914/20230920182940/https://dissertation.jonreeve.com/

The aristocratic novel in the twentieth century depicts the successes and failures of the aristocracy's efforts to come to terms with the social realities brought about by contemporary egalitarianism. Although several of the novels discussed are written by aristocrats, the aristocratic novel as such refers to novels about the aristocracy as a social grouping. Seven authors are selected to represent fictional treatment of a class in crisis, struggling between decadence and resilience: V. Sackville-West, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, L.P. Hartley and Emma Tennant. Sackville-West faces and chronicles the inevitable decay of her class, yet cannot refrain from mourning its gracious past. To her, the manor house symbolizes an ancient idyllic symbiosis between aristocrat and worker. To Evelyn Waugh, the aristocracy embodies the finest achievements of inherited English culture. He regards its decline as the crumbling of Christian civilization itself. Resilience against the rising proletariate lies in faith and a chivalrous other-worldliness associated with the old Catholic aristocracy. Mitford uses comedy to defend the ideals of service and honour which she sees undermined by vulgarity and mercantilism. She resists her opponents with lethal swipes of raillery. Bowen and Keane deal with the decline of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. The heirs of the ascendancy have to cope with the paralysing bequest of a more vital past. Ironically, resilience lies in breaking with their heritage. Hartley appears to criticize the class structure, but his work reveals a fascination for the captivating myth of patrician life. Tennant, representing an aristocracy which has profited from the resurgence of wealth in Thatcherite Britain, is unsparingly caustic on the condition of her class. Her satiric writing presents an ethical resurgence that goes beyond the mere financial recovery of her society. The genre examined suggests a primal need among urbanized citizens for the myth of an heroic order. In the finest aristocratic novels, admiration for an imitable superior order is used to rally a consciousness of a venerable ethical establishment. What is threatened or lost is not merely wealth and privilege, but aristokratos - government by the best. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This thesis examines the meanings and uses of the impression in the essays and late novels of Henry James. While James found fault with impressionism in French painting and literature, he repeatedly called the novel an ‘impression of life’, and used the term to figure important moments of perception and action for his protagonists. This thesis offers the first full-length study of the impression on its own terms, rather than through the lens of a wider artistic or philosophical movement, the most obvious example being impressionism. It locates James’s impression within an intertextual history comprising British empiricist philosophy (Locke and Hume), empiricist psychology (William James), British aestheticism (Pater and Wilde), and, looking forwards, twentieth-century theories of the performative (Austin, Derrida, de Man, Butler). It offers a series of close readings of James’s non-fictional and fictional treatments of the impression in his early criticism and travel writing (1872-88), his prefaces to the New York edition (1907-09), and the three novels of his major phase, The Ambassadors (1903), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904). This exploration does not produce any unified definition of the impression in the work of James. It finds, rather, that the impression crystallizes one of James’s main themes, the struggle between art and life, a consequence of the competing empiricist and aesthetic tendencies that the thesis distinguishes within accounts of the impression available to James. The thesis goes on to show that impressions in James may be made as well as received, and so introduces a further distinction, between ‘performative’ and ‘cognitive’ impressions. It argues that what James does with these competing impressions – empiricist and aesthetic, cognitive and performative – is to make them the narrative focus of his late novels and their drama of consciousness.