This thesis hopes to contribute to a reconciliation of the apparent conflict between Eliot's conservative outlook and his formally innovative poetry. I do not advocate stripping Eliot of his modernist label. I would rather amend the term "modernism." This qualification is important because the modernist label carries connotations that simply do not do justice to Eliot. For example, the label implies that modernists wanted to move forward, away from the past. Eliot wanted to move backwards, partly because he felt other artists had left the past behind. In an essay introducing the early twentieth-century modernists, the Norton Anthology of British Literature describes T.S. Eliot's critical and creative projects as "efforts to reinvent poetry."4 That is exactly the opposite of what he was doing. He wanted to stop people from trying to reinvent poetry, because he thought doing so would only lead to bad poems. How can the editors of the Norton Anthology, the closest thing I know to a record of the academic consensus, so completely misunderstand Eliot's project? They fail to appreciate the relationship between Eliot's literary ideas and his attitude toward modernity. I believe the best way to think about Eliot's intellectual project is as an effort to save poetry from the threatening forces of modernity and modernism. The modernist movement and Eliot's ideas are both responses to the same set of dramatic historical changes. Europe transformed itself from 1890 to 1918. In the context of drastic political, technological and social changes described by historians as "the emergence of modernity," Europe's dominant artistic and intellectual value system reorientated itself in favor of newness and forward movement. T.S. Eliot had a different response to historical change. He felt the ongoing historical transformations, self-perpetuated by the resultant emphasis on progress, threatened to uproot and destroy England’s literary tradition. So he took it on himself to save that tradition. 4 Greenblatt, Norton Anthology, 1834.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2004. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-09, Section: A, page: 3375. Adviser: Mikhail Iampolski.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 300-320).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, Jun. 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-196). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 313-332). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This thesis contextualises and explores the reconceptualization of the myth of Eteokles and Polyneices in Greek, Latin and Italian tragedy, the literary genre that more than any other offers the opportunity to trace its progressive transformation across a series of relatively continuous and consistent phases. Within these limits, this study represents the first comprehensive, systematic and detailed comparative analysis of the cultural development of this myth, charting the shaping of its key themes: war and rivalry, autochthony and patriotism, the connection between incest, parricide and fratricide, the effects of predestination/family curse, the clash between private and public interests, and the legitimate limits of power. By means of a close examination of the thesis' main corpus (constituted by Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes, Sophocles' Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus, Euripides' Phoenician Women, Seneca's Oedipus and Phoenissae, Dolce's Giocasta and Alfieri's Polinice) this dissertation demonstrates that the brothers are not merely two stereotypical types whose characterisation as mortal enemies remains static and unvaried. Although their rivalry never stops, the meaning, dynamic and purpose of their struggle are progressively but profoundly transformed throughout the centuries. In particular, I argue that the martial component that initially defined this myth, admittedly important throughout its legacy, is variously adapted to accommodate either a warning against the horrors of violence and subjugation, a cautionary appeal against overly aggressive foreign policy, a denunciation of the unbearable price of civil strife, or an aspiration to pacifism. In parallel, I analyse how the reflection on power and power struggle becomes increasingly predominant, eventually displacing the war theme as the main focus of this myth with a warning against the dangers of tyranny.

La trace peut être définie comme le vestige sensible qui provoque, chez qui l’observe, le trouble d’une présence-absence. Les récits d’Antonio Tabucchi, Peter Handke et Pierre Péju,trois écrivains nés dans les années 1940 dans des pays – l’Italie, l’Autriche et la France – ayant collaboré avec l’Allemagne nazie, sont habités d’une inquiétude aussi bien historique qu’ontologique et déclinent les modalités d’une représentation de la présence spectrale. Le caractère spectral du réel n’implique pas seulement le sentiment d’une douloureuse dépossession, mais aussi l’ouverture à un monde vécu dans le mouvement même de son apparition. Celui-ci se manifeste tour à tour comme une épiphanie, révélation d’un avènement originel, et comme un retour des spectres du passé, et plus particulièrement de ceux de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’œuvre-trace transmet ainsi – par ses thèmes, sa diégèse et ses choix stylistiques – une injonction éthique. Elle se fait l’écho d’une double responsabilité :celle, historique, des cendres du XXe siècle et celle, ontologique, de la fidélité à un présents cindé, qui ne peut être appréhendé qu’à travers la faille qui le constitue. L’oeuvre-trace se fait représentation littéraire d’un jeu interstitiel : blessure qui ne peut cicatriser et condition même de l’à venir ; et la quête heuristique, en refusant toute assertion, rejoint la démarche de la philosophie sceptique. La connaissance ne se laisse approcher que de façon asymptotique, trace de ce qui a été et esquisse de ce qui sera. / The trace can be defined as the tangible relic which provokes confusion in theobserver’s mind by revealing a form of absent presence. The narratives of Antonio Tabucchi,Peter Handke and Pierre Péju, three writers born in the 1940s in countries – Italy, Austria and France – that collaborated with Nazi Germany, are filled with an anxiety which is historical aswell as it is ontological, and display the various forms of the spectral presence of the trace. Butthis spectral presence, which classically entails a distressing feeling of dispossession, also manifests the emergence of a new world which is physically perceived as it reveals itself. It is successively an epiphany, the revelation of an original advent, and the return of past spectres,and more particularly those of the Second World War. Through its themes, diegesis and stylisticchoices, the narrative as trace thus conveys an ethical injunction. It discloses the importance of atwofold responsibility: the historical legacy of the 20thcentury’s ashes, and the ontologicalrequest of accepting a present without certainty, that can only be apprehended through the verybreach that constitutes it. The narrative as trace thereby becomes the literary representation of asplit state of being, everlastingly wounded and ultimate condition of the coming future; and the heuristic pursuit, by rejecting any possibilities of assertion, concurs with the reasoning ofsceptical philosophy. Understanding can only be approached in an asymptotic way, trace ofwhat has been and sketched glimmer of what will be.

<p>While the body in medieval literature can be compared to a text, the nature of this text varies depending on the classification of the body in question. For a monster, the body is static: it indicates victory, marks borders, and is not engaged with beyond the initial dismemberment and display. Conversely, the saintly body is a dynamic body, constantly called upon to continue acting on behalf of the community in the form of miracles. The saintly body is a body in flux—changing and accruing narratives to itself over time. Despite these differences, however, the body itself exists on a spectrum, ranging from human to non-human, and from monstrous to beatific. I therefore further argue that it is the relationship of the deceased individual and the community that determines how a body is treated and understood after death, even if the postmortem body in question bears signs that could easily be interpreted as either monstrous or saintly. This reception, in turn, is reflected in the body’s role within the community.</p>

The diploma thesis tries to define the problematic of the fantastic and magic in Central European literature. It captures a selection of works published between the second half of the 20th century until today in which unrealistic elements are markedly presented (such as imaginary space, function of dreams, blending of natural and unnatural as well as myths) and time has a specific function. The main focus is on authors such as Daniela Hodrová, Daniel Kehlmann, Saša Stanišić, Olga Tokarczuk and Jáchym Topol. The aim of this work is to find out whether it is possible to understand Central European literature in categories such as magical realism or the fantastic, or whether Central Europe is so saturated with Western rationalism that all attempts to find magic fail.

This roundtable gathers scholars of early modern translation and book culture to investigate the various forms of mediation (textual, linguistic, material, interpretive etc.) that intervene in the production of indirect translations – that is translations based on previous translations – in the early modern period. Traditionally perceived as merely derivative, “second-hand” literary works, indirect translations have been given marginal attention (apart from a few famous examples) in early modern scholarship. Conversely, researchers in Translation Studies have recently started to address this phenomenon and to offer some theoretical and methodological tools towards its study, but with little attention to the early modern period. The objectives of the proposed roundtable are therefore to present some cases of early modern indirect translations, to explore conceptual, archival, and digital resources available to study them, and to highlight the critical relevance of examining the various mediations involved in their production and dissemination.