Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Amsterdam, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-[232]) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: p. 292-268.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Amsterdam, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-[232]) and index.

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This thesis argues that Patrick White’s Voss, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life depict landscape in a manner that reveals the inadequacies of imperial epistemological discourses and the rationalist model of subjectivity which enables them. The study demonstrates that these novels all emphasise the instabilities inherent in imperial epistemology. White, Ondaatje and Malouf chart their protagonists’ inability to comprehend and document the landscapes they encounter, and the ways in which this failure calls into question their subjectivity and the epistemologies that underpin it. One of the principal contentions of the study, then, is that the novels under consideration deploy a postmodern aesthetic of the sublime to undermine colonial discourses. The first chapter of the thesis outlines the postcolonial and poststructural theory that informs the readings in the later chapters. Chapter Two analyses White’s representation of subjectivity, imperial discourse and the Outback in Voss. The third chapter examines Ondaatje’s depiction of the Sahara Desert in The English Patient, and focuses on his concern with the ways in which language and cartographic discourse influence the subject’s perception of the natural world. Chapter Four investigates the representation of landscape, language and subjectivity in Malouf’s An Imaginary Life. Finally, then, this study argues that literature’s unique ability to acknowledge alterity enables it to serve as an effective tool for critiquing colonial discourses.

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)

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T12:05:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maia_LudmiladeSouza_M.pdf: 993926 bytes, checksum: 64b05d09592660e1a62b9845a8551faa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: Este trabalho se dedica ao estudo do romance epistolar 'Clarissa, or the history of a young lady', de autoria do inglês Samuel Richardson, publicado entre os de anos 1747-48. O propósito é realizar uma pesquisa historiográfica através da interpretação da narrativa literária. A obra, objeto deste estudo, recria muitas das tensões sociais, políticas e religiosas latentes na sociedade inglesa do século XVIII. Os percalços vividos pela heroína da trama, entre o campo e a cidade, permitem analisar as relações sociais e de gênero da Inglaterra das Luzes. A trama conta a história de Clarissa, donzela d aristocracia rural inglesa que recebe a herança do avô, motivando disputas familiares. O primogênito preterido convence a família a casá-la com um homem odioso, para evitar sua independência e lucrar com o negócio. Clarissa se recusa ao matrimônio e passa a ser perseguida dentro de casa. Para escapar da tirania, ela foge para Londres com Lovelace, libertino que lhe faz a corte contra a vontade de sua família. Seu desejo de autonomia é interrompido quando seu raptor a aprisiona num bordel e a violenta. Para preservar sua vontade de virtude e a independência de seu espírito, Clarissa escolhe a morte como única saída moral possível. Com efeito, meu objetivo foi entender aquela sociedade a partir das páginas do romance, cuja análise, também, derivou de questões e referências exteriores à trama / Abstract: This work is dedicated to the novel 'Clarissa, or the history of a Young lady', written by Samuel Richardson, and published in 1747-48. My purpose was to make a historiographic research by using a literary narrative. This novel creates, in a literary way, many of the most important social, political, and religious conflicts of the Eighteenth Century English society. The mishaps of the life of the novel's protagonist, between the country and the city, allowed me to analyze the social and gender relations in the Enlightenment England. The plot tells us the story of Clarissa, an aristocratic maiden in rural England. She inherits an estate from her grandfather, which provokes a familiar disturbance. The deprecated old brother convinces the family to marry her to an odious man, to avoid her independence and to profit from the business. She refuses the marriage and her persecution begins at home. In order to escape from tyranny, she fled to London with the libertine Lovelace, who courts her against her family's will. Her wish for autonomy is interrupted when his abductor imprisons and rapes in a brothel. She wishes virtue and an independent soul, and that's why she chooses death, as the only possible way to maintain her moral intact. Indeed, my goal with this research was to understand the mentioned society from the pages of the novel,whose analysis also comes from questions and references external to the plot / Mestrado / Politica, Memoria e Cidade / Mestre em História