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Maupassant et le realisme fantastiqueGranger, Mireille. January 2001 (has links)
Generally labelled as fantastic in nature, Maupassant's short stories pose a serious problem. The very term "fantastic" is itself highly ambiguous; there have been many attemps to define what makes a work of literature "fantastic" in nature, but none of these attempts have managed to capture the essence of the genre in its entirety. / What is most striking in Maupassant's narratives is precisely his rejection of the fantastic almost as soon as it occurs. Contrary to the more traditional literature of the fantastic, his narratives remain anchored in a realistic world, rendering the reader's experience even more unsettling. In a sense, Maupassant manages to tame the fantastic by normalizing it. / We intend, therefore, to position our work at the meeting point of these two concepts---realism and fantasy---in order to determine if the definition of "fantastic realism" we will be striving for can be verified through our analysis of the following stories: "Apparition", "La chevelure", "Le Horla" (first version), "La main", "La peur", "Magnetisme" and "Sur 1'eau". (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Fantasieliteratuur in die multikulturele Afrikaans klaskamer.Gumbi, Thembi Gloria. January 1999 (has links)
In hierdie mini-skripsie word daar na fantasieliteratuur in die multikulturele
Afrikaans klaskamer gekyk. Die aard van fantasieliteratuur, naamlik die fabel,
sprokie, volksverhaal, mite, legende en toekomsfiksie word omskryf. Die studie
poog ook om die ooreenkomste wat bestaan tussen fantasieliteratuur in Engels,
Afrikaans, Zoeloe en SeSotho uit te wys en om aan te dui wat die implikasie van
hierdie ooreenkomste binne die multikulturele Afrikaanse klas is. SUMMARY
This mini-thesis focuses on the study of Fantasy literature in the multicultural
Afrikaans classroom. Different genres, ego fable , myth, folktale, fairytale, legend
and science fiction will be looked at. The study will also try to look at the
similarities present in the fantasy literature of English, Afrikaans, Zulu and
seSotho and the implications thereof in the multicultural Afrikaans class. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1999.
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Stories of initiation for the modern age : explorations of textual and theatrical fantasy in Jules Verne's Voyage à travers l'impossible and Philip Pullman's His Dark MaterialsTheodoropoulou, Athanasia January 2009 (has links)
While the theatrical works of Jules Verne have gathered some critical attention over recent years, the text of the Voyage à travers l’Impossible has remained an obscure space in the author’s oeuvre or deemed unworthy by Vernian scholars. Jules Verne has predominantly been seen as a writer of adventure novels whereas the fantastic elements in his work have commonly been overlooked by critics. This thesis examines the ways in which the Voyage à travers l’Impossible amalgamates ideas that are representative not only of the Vernian work in general but also of the pre-freudian spirit of the nineteenth century. By viewing the play within the context of theatrical fantasy, this thesis opens up new paths of analysis in the genre. Part of this endeavour consists of a comparison with a seemingly disparate text: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, which, similarly to Verne’s play, facilitates an exploration of the function of fantasy both in literary and theatrical terms as it was first adapted for the stage in 2003. During the course of this thesis I offer an analysis of the trilogy and proceed to cover new ground by comparing this to an analysis of the adapted text. For the purpose of my examination I establish a connection between the two texts by regarding the Voyage à travers l’Impossible and His Dark Materials as dominated by the literary motif of initiation according to the model introduced by Vernian specialist Simone Vierne. I subsequently interweave an array of theories on fantasy, psychoanalysis, topography and the body as part of my analysis of the literary fantastic. Texts by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Tzvetan Todorov, Irène Bessière, Mircea Eliade, Judith Butler and Vernian critics such as William Butcher are amply used in my readings of Verne and Pullman before I proceed to examine their relevance to the theatrical experience of the fantastic. An analysis of the adaptation of His Dark Materials offers the opportunity for fresh critical insights by creating new perspectives on the function of fantasy in its fluctuation from page to stage and vice-versa. It is through these different perspectives that I revisit old questions and introduce new ones such as the difference between fantasy and the fantastic, their regressive or progressive character, the modification of ii fantastic elements on the passage from the literary to the theatrical and from pre-modernism to post-modernism. Basing my analysis on stories of initiation, I suggest that fantasy evades exclusive association with either progress or regress and only remains faithful to the notions of passage and blurring of frontiers. Read more
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What Fantasy Can Do for Her: A Critical and Creative Exploration of Secondary and Fractured WorldsChapin, Elizabeth 01 January 2015 (has links)
In making a distinction between secondary and fractured worlds, we can begin to determine the possibilities that fantasy literature, as a wider subject, holds for female characters and for feminine themes. These two areas of fantasy represent very different possibilities for women and the feminine, as a result of their approaches towards the presentation of ideology and authority. These approaches find their root most clearly in the creation of a story’s place and time, a fact I will explore through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the “chronotope.” For, though both high fantasy and the fantastic question the real, representing, as Rosemary Jackson writes, a “dissatisfaction with what ‘is,’” they undermine the structure of that reality to very different degrees, with one mode seeking out a stabilizing transcendence, while the other revels in an ambiguous immanence. The creative response to this critical exploration will both imaginatively reflect on and practically test the initial questions posed and arguments made, in an effort to more personally understand how each tradition does or does not make room for women and the feminine.
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Fantasy and Loss in Circumstantial ChildlessnessTonkin, Lois January 2014 (has links)
The incidence of unintentional childlessness in women who have, as popular comment puts it, 'left it too late', is rising markedly in many western nations, yet the experience is not well understood. This thesis focuses on issues of fantasy, loss, and grieving in the experience of 26 New Zealand women in their 30s and 40s who are what Cannold (2005) has termed 'circumstantially childless'; that is women who expected to have children but find themselves at the end of their natural fertility without having done so for - at least initially - social rather than biological reasons.
I explore the conscious and unconscious dimensions of the fantasies that many of the women interviewed have about themselves as mothers in relation to a child or children. I argue that these fantasies have their origins in these women's trans-subjective relationship with their mothers before birth, the intersubjective relationship after birth, and the mutual overlapping of their unique psychobiography and the social worlds in which they have become adults. Circumstantial childlessness entails a loss of the potential to embody their fantasies about themselves as mothers. The thesis uses psychoanalytic and contemporary grief theories to explore their experience of loss and grieving, and their adaptation of their fantasies when the potential to embody them has passed. It calls for a reconceptualization of maternal subjectivity to encompass the creative and satisfying alternative ways that women who do not have children embody 'mother' in their lives.
The study's psychoanalytically-informed psychosocial methodology entailed the innovative use of participant-produced drawings, and the development of a method of recording protocols - based on Bollas'(2007) notion of a symphonic score - to systematically record non-linguistic elements of the texts (such as sighs, hesitations, laughter, repetitions, and tears) across the range of the semi-structured individual and group interview transcripts. In this respect, the thesis contributes to investigations of social life that move beyond the limits of conventional text-based methods of inquiry and interpretation. Read more
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Fantasy as a mode in British and Irish literary decadence, 1885–1925Mercurio, Jeremiah Romano January 2011 (has links)
This Ph. D. thesis investigates the use of fantasy by British and Irish 'Decadent' authors and illustrators, including Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, 'Vernon Lee' (Violet Paget), Ernest Dowson, and Charles Ricketts. Furthermore, this study demonstrates why fantasy was an apposite form for literary Decadence, which is defined in this thesis as a supra-generic mode characterized by its anti-mimetic impulse, its view of language as autonomous and artificial, its frequent use of parody and pastiche, and its transgression of boundaries between art forms. Literary Decadence in the United Kingdom derives its view of autonomous language from Anglo-German Romantic philology and literature, consequently being distinguished from French Decadence by its resistance to realism and Naturalism, which assume language's power to signify the 'real world'. Understanding language to be inorganic, Decadent writers blithely countermand notions of linguistic fitness and employ devices such as catachresis, paradox, and tautology, which in turn emphasize the self-referentiality of Decadent texts. Fantasy furthers the Decadent argument about language because works of fantasy bear no specific relationship to 'reality'; they can express anything evocable within language, as J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates with his example of "the green sun" (a phrase that can exist independent of the sun's actually being green). The thesis argues that fantasy's usefulness in underscoring arguments about linguistic autonomy explains its widespread presence in Decadent prose and visual art, especially in genres that had become associated with realism and Naturalism, such as the novel (Chapter 1), the short story (Chapter 3), drama (Chapter 4), and textual illustration (Chapter 2). The thesis also analyzes Decadents' use of a wholly non-realistic genre, the fairy tale (see Chapter 5), in order to delineate the consequences of their use of fantasy for the construction of character and gender within their texts. Read more
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Pour une poétique des effets spéciaux dans les films de fantasy de 1990 à 2010 : un nouvel art de raconter ?Dulong, Guillaume 12 March 2012 (has links) (PDF)
Notre étude repose sur la mise en rapport de deux phénomènes qui ont marqué la production cinématographique anglo-saxonne et française de ces vingt dernières années. L'un économique et technique, est l'avènement de l'imagerie numérique remplaçant peu à peu le support argentique bouleversant les modes de composition, de diffusion et de réception des films. L'autre, esthétique et poétique, est la recrudescence et la popularité d'œuvres appartenant à un genre de récit de fantasy - ou de merveilleux. Comment comprendre la corrélation de l'innovation technique et du conservatisme narratif sans n'y voir que la manifestation d'un raidissement idéologique de la culture occidentale ? Celle-ci nous apparaîtra comme un rapport de forces essentiel entre les images cinématographiques et numériques, une hybridation. Si l'art du récit gagne en hyperréalisme grâce au potentiel de simulation de l'informatique, il réinjecte le sens de la durée, du temps traditionnel, dans l'image quand l'intelligence de l'imagerie numérique est régie par l'urgence d'un temps réitératif amnésique. Nous nous attacherons donc à définir le genre de la fantasy et ses propriétés dans le langage cinématographique poétique. Déterminant la différence spécifique de ce genre comme étant un certain usage des effets spéciaux, nous étudierons ceux-ci et leur emploi dans la fantasy comme effets de merveilleux. Enfin nous montrerons comment la mutation numérique de l'industrie et de l'imaginaire cinématographique met en crise le récit filmique et pourquoi nous pouvons considérer le retour de ce type de narrations comme une forme de résistance face à la nouvelle image, le néotraditionnalisme. Read more
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The flexible, low-tech environment : a kit of simple architectural elementsGunther, Jan-Stefan January 2002 (has links)
This creative project focuses on the research, planning, design and field-testing of a kit of basic architectural elements that can be used to build simple spaces and small constructions. These elements are reusable, easy to handle, and allow for a nearly infinite number of configurations.The environment in which the system was developed is a setting of an improvisational outdoor theatre, called 'Live-Action-Role-playing-Games'- (LARP). Therefore the system does not provide a high quality indoor space, but rather focuses on the critical requirements of theatrical stages, such as flexibility, ease of erection and variety. Additionally, the system dealt with the pragmatic issues of affordability and cost-effectiveness.The design process commenced with great attention being paid to the very special requirements of LARP and attempting to test initial assumptions. It included two surveys of LARP participants and use of charrettes to incorporate users input into the design process. Prototype elements were then constructed and field-tested during a full-scale replication of an actual LARP-event over afour-day testing period.Following this an evaluation was made, lessons were learned, and the information gained was incorporated in to the final design.This document then records the entire design process and concludes with extensive documentation of the system. / Department of Architecture Read more
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Paul Simon's Graceland : a fantasy theme analysisHorn, Kristina K. January 1989 (has links)
Chapter one began with an introduction to the rhetorical study of Paul Simon's Graceland album. The events which led to the recording and release of the album were discussed, showing the significance of the album in the context of 1985-86, and research questions were posed, showing the focus of the study. Furthermore, the definition of rhetoric was given beginning with Aristotle's "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" (Rhetoric I: 1356a) through the advancements made by the National Development Project on Rhetoric, which included music in the study of rhetoric. Finally the literature review included articles which showed the relationship between music and rhetorical theory, and James Irvine and Walter Kirkpatrick's six musical variables along with Ernest Bormann's method of fantasy theme analysis were discussed for the purposes of critical analysis. Chapter two presented the historical, political, and social contexts surrounding the recording and release of Graceland. Most importantly, U.S. attempts to intervene in the affairs of South Africa as well as musical attempts at intervention were discussed as background material to understand more clearly the impact of the Graceland album.Chapter three moved from the context to the people involved on Graceland. Paul Simon's and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's musical careers and interests were recounted. The importance of Paul Simon in boosting the careers of Ladysmith Black Mambazo as well as concert co-stars Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela was also emphasized.Chapter four presented the critical analysis. First the album analysis based on the musical variables of James Irvine and Walter Kirkpatrick was discussed. What was found on the album itself seemed very innocent and nonsensical; thus, the importance of the media and the ideas it imposed became very clear. However, the major section of analysis involved the identification of mediated fantasy themes based on Ernest Bormann's method of fantasy theme analysis. Chronologically, characters, plots, and settings were portrayed, which helped to explain the development of Graceland as a rhetorical drama. Finally, one overarching rhetorical vision was identified, "The Unification of an Unaware Public," which was evident throughout the drama.Chapter five concluded the findings of the study. Because of the unrealistic goals that the media placed on Graceland, the many successes that came as a result of Paul Simon and Graceland were overshadowed by political controversy. Thus, the impact of the media on the outcome of persuasive events is of the utmost importance to consider. / Department of Speech Communication Read more
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Fun with Death and Failure : An exploration of player experiences in a decentralized open world RPGLarsson, Jonathan, Amigo Arias, Alberto January 2014 (has links)
Many modern single-player role-playing games offer the player a power fantasy where the experience is designed to make the players feel powerful right from the start, with enemies and challenges that scale to the player characters level and abilities. This study explores what happens with play when power fantasy is replaced with decentralization and especially how this decentralization affects the player’s experience of failure and death. To explore this, three experienced The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim-players played the game with the modification Requiem - The Roleplaying Overhaul. After the participants had played at home for at least 8 hours they each participated in individual semi-structured interviews about their experiences. The interviews were transcribed and a grounded theory coding was performed. Finally the results were analyzed to find common themes. The study found that there was initial frustration due to expecting a power fantasy experience but once players adapted, the increased difficulty of decentralization was enjoyable as long as the player’s agency was not taken away and the world and its difficulty was logical. While the scope of the study is too small to draw generalizable conclusions it nevertheless shows that decentralized, difficult games work well for certain players. Future research is required on how to mitigate the effects of the initial obstacle. / Många moderna single-player-rollspel erbjuder spelaren en maktfantasi där denne ska känna sig kraftfull direkt från spelets start genom att spelets fiender och utmaningar är baserade på spelarkaraktärens nivå och förmågor. Den här studien utforskar vad som händer när denna maktfantasi ersätts med en värld som inte anpassar sig efter spelaren, en så kallad decentraliserad värld. Specifikt undersöks hur decentraliseringen påverkar spelarens upplevelse av misslyckande och spelardöd. För att utforska detta spelade tre spelare The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim med modifikationen Requiem - The Roleplaying Overhaul i åtta timmar. Efter att deltagarna spelat utfördes individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer och intervjuerna transkriberades. Därefter genomfördes en grounded-theory kodning och analys för att finna gemensamma teman. Resultatet visar att det till en början uppstod frustration hos spelarna på grund av att de väntade sig en maktfantasi. Men när spelarna anpassade sin spelstil kom det fram att svårighetsgraden i en decentraliserad värld ökade underhållningsvärdet så länge spelaren kände att denne kunde påverka sin situation och att svårighetsgraden är grundad i spelvärldens logik. Emedan omfånget av studien är för liten för att dra några generella slutsatser visar den att decentraliserade spel med hög svårighetsgrad är underhållande för vissa spelare. Vidare forskning behövs på hur spelare lättare ska komma över den initiala tröskeln. Read more
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