Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4322. Adviser: Harriet Murav. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-193) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 15, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4669. Adviser: David Hertz.

Thesis--Columbia University. / Photocopy. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1981. 21 cm. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 414-431).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 347-353).

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1988. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-309) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1988. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 279-309) and index.

The following is a collection of works of fiction set in Kazakhstan during World War II, modern-day Budapest, with one short story taking place in Richmond, Virginia. No characters in this collecting of fiction is meant to depict any real, live person, though some of the settings are real. These works were written between February, 2012, and April, 2014.

Merciless Parallel Lines: Railways in European Literature 1830-1914 (Mgr. Michal Špína) Abstract The doctoral thesis addresses the so far underexplored subject of early literary depictions of railway, investigating the cultural impact of the new, mechanized means of transport, as reflected in fiction. The introduction explains the reasons to focus geographically on Europe (as opposed to the different social context of American and colonial railways), to limit the time span to the 1830-1914 period (after which railway gradually loses its leading role in transport) and the topic to the "look from the outside" (i.e. not the act of travelling itself or the interiors of railway stations and trains). Following up to Wolfgang Schivelbusch and Wojciech Tomasik, railway is seen as the paramount agent of industrialization and modernization. Further, spatial relations and the phenomenon of infrastructure are accentuated. The following four chapters each study two interconnected issues: the construction of railway lines and their linearity; the images of the ruining of the idyll in connection to railway noises; the signal box topos in connection to fatefulness; and the fully developed railway system, acquiring the function of a peculiar environment in the short story collection Mugby Junction by Charles Dickens and...

This dissertation expands the familiar concept of literary history in order to argue for the historiographic function of literary form in early modern poetry and drama. I propose that the “literary history” of early modern England is not merely the history of literature, but also these writers’ methods of evoking history by means of the literary. For Christopher Marlowe, George Herbert, and many of their contemporaries, the formal capacities of poetry offered methods for describing relationships between events in time, interpreting those events, and mobilizing those interpretations—in short, the formal capacities of poetry become ways of doing history. In the most familiar critical sense, literary history denotes canon-formations, literary influence, and the development of genres, trends, and fashions in poetic style. I demonstrate that early modern poets themselves recognized this sense of literary history, understanding their formal decisions in light of the history of poetic form. When Tudor and Stuart writers adopted a particular style or set of conventions, I argue, they did so with an awareness of how easily these styles could become—or had become—dated. While critics have demonstrated the political valences of writers’ recourse to specific genres and styles, I also insist on the specifically temporal and historical implications of poetic form as such, arguing that poets’ formal decisions, irrespective of earlier uses of those forms, encode ways of looking at and interpreting the past. The temporalities of verse—the way its meter produces forward momentum, its rhyme recalls earlier lines, its lyric voice arrests time—become, for the poets and dramatists I study, tools for understanding historical events and periods. By attending to the inherent temporality of poetry, I uncover the historical arguments poets and dramatists make, even in texts not overtly concerned with historical topics. Indeed, I suggest that the very structure of poetry can become a way of thinking about the past and the passage of time.

Les narrations de jeunesse ont souvent pour thème le développement d’un jeune protagoniste ; elles racontent alors des expériences transformatrices qui constituent pour les petits héros autant de moments de passage, d’initiations. L’initiation jouait autrefois un rôle très important dans la vie humaine, marquant un passage d’âge socialement reconnu par la communauté toute entière. Toutefois, l’histoire de la société occidentale a vu progressivement disparaître ces moments de passage officiels, comme déjà en 1956 Mircea Eliade l’annonçait. Une fois l’initiation disparue, une compensation au niveau de la vie intérieure s’est rendue nécessaire, et le rêve apparaît un des lieux et des moments possibles pour cette compensation. Ainsi, à partir de Alice in Wonderland et The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, les fictions de jeunesse contemporaines ont souvent exploré le potentiel initiatique du rêve, qui fournit aux protagonistes une expérience liminaire marquant un avant et un après dans leurs vies. Dans nombreux romans, le protagoniste vit un rêve initiatique qui le conduit à travers un chemin de mort et de résurrection symboliques, et duquel il se réveille renouvelé. Cette thèse se propose donc de questionner le rêve en tant que seuil entre deux formes d’existence et catalyseur du passage d’âge dans les narrations de jeunesse européennes au XXIe siècle. / Youth fiction often focus on the development of a young hero. Such stories tell us about transformative experiences which work as initiations. Initiation was once a very important moment in human life, marking a passage which was recognized by the community as a whole. However, in the history of Western society official rites of passage has gradually disappeared, as already in 1956 Mircea Eliade announced it. Since then, a compensation for the inner life has become necessary, and the dream has become one of the possible places and times for this compensation. Thus, from Alice in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, contemporary youth fiction has often explored the initiatory potential of dreams, which provides the protagonists with an introductory experience marking a turning point in their lives. In many novels, the protagonist lives an initiatory dream that leads him through a path of symbolic death and resurrection, from which he/she wakes up renewed. This thesis proposes to question the dream as a threshold between two forms of existence and a catalyst for initiation in contemporary European youth literature.