The topic of this thesis is the gothic fiction of Selma Lagerlöf. Its primary purpose is to investigate how Lagerlöf's work can be understood in relation to the gothic genre; what particular themes, motifs and formal aspects appear when making this connection and how they can be interpreted, as well as which literary and cultural contexts become relevant. The study is based on close readings of six short stories that, in comparison, appear to be some of the most gloomy and horrific in her production: "Karln. En julsägen" (1891), "De fågelfrie", "Stenkumlet", "Riddardottern och havsmannen" (1892), "Spökhanden" (1898) and "Frid på jorden" (1917). The gothic was an important feature of the literature of the last decade of the nineteenth century, when Lagerlöf made her debut. Therefore one of the main purposes of this study is to highlight her as one of the key writers of gothic fiction in Sweden by the time. In this context the gothic might be considered as closely related to the currents of decadence and fin-de-siècle. However, the gothic continued to be an important element throughout Lagerlöf's production, and this is illustrated by the inclusion of a story from a later period among the primary sources. The gothic genre can be defined by certain themes and motifs, but also by its narrative strategies. The analyses of the six stories show how themes and composition are used to create an atmosphere of fear and darkness, but also, more importantly, to create a sense of ambiguity. The study also discusses the relationship between the gothic and the fantastic and special attention is paid to aspects such as the hesitation concerning how to interpret the supernatural, as well as the fragmentary bodies and psyches of the stories. The main themes of the six stories can be summarized as dealing with the haunting and return of the past, as well as the fear associated with the transgression of limits - between fantasy and reality, the civilized and the primitive, life and death and self and other. Central to the argument in this study is das Unheimliche - the uncanny - a concept that links a certain kind of fear to uncertainty, doubles, ghostliness and haunting. Sigmund Freud has described it as a paradox, as something terrifyingly strange and yet familiar at the same time. The gothic reproduces the experience of reality expressed by this concept - a sense that the self is the source of horror and that identity is something highly unstable.

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Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) is an important work of American fiction that deserves greater critical attention. My intention in creating a website devoted to Frederic's masterpiece is not only to promote awareness of the novel but also to provide high school and undergraduate students, as well as their teachers, with a resource that will situate The Damnation of Theron Ware within an historical as well as a literary and cultural context. Significant events and discoveries in the fields of science, technology, religion, philosophy, art, and literature shaped Frederic's thinking and writing, particularly the events and characters of The Damnation of Theron Ware. An understanding of this milieu is critical to understanding the issues of the richly complicated novel. The Damnation of Theron Ware, or Illumination as it is known in England, is the story of a Methodist minister who loses his faith when he makes the acquaintance of a Catholic priest, a post-Darwinian scientist, a New Woman, and a pragmatic con artist. In the end, critics are in disagreement as to the extent of Theron's damnation or illumination. A best seller in the 1890s, The Damnation of Theron Ware was heralded as both "the great American novel" and as "anti-American" in its sentiments. Conceived as an ongoing project and research tool, my thesis is an online study guide with annotated bibliography of criticism devoted specifically to The Damnation of Theron Ware. The website is divided into six main sections: (1) the home page, which briefly introduces users to the site, identifies the scope of the project and provides links to other pages; (2) "Harold Frederic," which includes a biography of the author, a timeline of significant events during his lifetime, a select bibliography of his writing, and a sampling of interviews with and articles on Frederic as author and critic; (3) "Bibliographical Studies," which lists bibliographies, checklists, catalogues, critical overviews, and online resources; (4) "The Damnation of Theron Ware," which includes a discussion of the contemporaneous critical reception of the novel, an annotated bibliography of criticism in list form and broken down by subject, a bibliography of dissertations and theses, and recommended discussion questions or topics for essays; (5) a "Glossary," which includes terms that may be unfamiliar to students; and (6) "Links of Interest," which directs users to other websites relevant to a study of The Damnation of Theron Ware.

In this thesis I explore the importance of elite women in early twentieth-century Vienna in relation to the Wiener Werkstätte. My research has led me to believe that the Werkstätte held a more egalitarian view of women than other contemporary European applied arts workshops. Unfortunately the art-historical canon has generally overlooked the applied arts of the Wiener Werkstätte, as well as the significant roles of women in the Werkstätte as artists, clients, patrons, and promoters. In this thesis, I consider cases of women in these roles in early twentieth-century Vienna in order to gain a greater understanding of Viennese women's place economically and politically, as well as socially and culturally. In particular, I examine the Werkstätte's primary records of sales and production (called model books), housed in the Wiener Werkstätte archives at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, as a means to better understanding their participation. The evidence of the importance of women in relation to the Wiener Werkstätte, includes: 1) the creation of new opportunities for women in the arts; 2) the emergence and popularity of a liberating reformed fashion; 3) the focus of the Werkstätte on creating objects that would appeal to a female clientele; and 4) the Werkstätte's success, particularly among prominent wealthy female art patrons. I conclude that women's roles as artists, clients, patrons, and promoters can be seen as positions of empowerment for Viennese women of the early twentieth century.

This dissertation examines the relationship between Minoan art and Art Nouveau. The Minoan civilization was rediscovered at the turn of the twentieth century when the Art Nouveau movement reached its peak. Due to this coincidental timing, their artistic resemblance has raised questions about whether Minoan art had inspired Art Nouveau and whether Art Nouveau played a role in the restoration of Minoan art. The possibility of a Minoan influence on Art Nouveau is considered through a number of aspects, which include news reports on the excavations, Minoan collections acquired by museums, reference to the Minoans in various fields, application of Minoan motifs, and the attractiveness of the Minoans to Art Nouveau artists. As for the reversed influence, the research analyzes how archaeologists came to see the Minoans as a “modern” civilization, investigates the background of the restorers of Minoan objects, and provides examples of fresco restorations that illustrate an Art Nouveau preference of the early archaeologists and restorers. With the evidence and the discussion, I argue that the existing connection between Minoan art and Art Nouveau is beyond doubt. / Art History

In interpretations of The Dance of Life (1899-1900) by Edvard Munch, the femme fragile and the femme fatale have been considered jointly (i.e. as allusions to the cyclicality of life) or as individuals. Their unique characteristics have been recognized as such: whereas the femme fragile dons white to signify her prepubescent state and thus her innocence, the femme fatale wears red to suggest her sexuality and even her availability. Yet, scholars have failed to probe their iconographical complexities. Doing so would not only lend greater conviction to Munch’s historical identity as a Symbolist (as his archetypes would be recognized for their multivalence), but it would also reveal the didactic possibilities of the work of art itself. Given this void in the literature, the purpose of this thesis will be to elaborate on the formal and narrative qualities of the femme fragile and femme fatale in this painting. These archetypes ultimately allude to misogynistic anxieties, with the femme fragile in particular representing the sickly female body. / Art History

L’art symboliste pictural ou théâtral qui s’est développé à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle est habité par le sacré, que celui-ci se manifeste sous la forme du spirituel, du religieux ou sous toute autre forme (spiritisme, occultisme, mysticisme). Quelle que soit sa forme, le sacré est pour tous les symbolistes lié à l’art. Leurs recherches formelles, multiples et variées, tendent toutes à faire surgir l’invisible du visible. Or toutes voient l’émergence, dans les œuvres, de la représentation de la femme, qui dès lors devient intimement liée au «symbolisme». En véhiculant le sacré, la femme devient le symbole des idées des artistes sur leur art, voire le symbole du rapport de l’artiste à son art. Ainsi la thèse étudie la femme dans son rapport aux idées et à l’esthétique propres à chaque artiste, dans son interrelation avec l’art et le sacré et les études détaillées des œuvres dramatiques et picturales visent à montrer la variété et la complexité de ses représentations. En même temps, cette recherche est une étude d’ensemble concernant les relations entre le théâtre et la peinture dans la période fin-de-siècle, abordées non pas de l’extérieur, mais de l’intérieur (c’est-à-dire par les caractéristiques propres des œuvres), dans le cadre de la théorie de l’image ouverte, telle qu’elle a été développée par Georges Didi-Huberman. Finalement, que la forme d’expression artistique soit celle de l’art dramatique ou celle de l’art pictural, la femme n’est dans les œuvres que la manifestation d’une réflexion esthétique qui est aussi une réflexion philosophique, elle est le lieu de rencontre entre le Moi et l’Autre à partir duquel s’origine l’œuvre. / Symbolist art, be it pictorial or theatrical, which developed in the late nineteenth century was filled with sacredness, whatever its form: spiritual, religious or any other (spiritualism, occultism, mysticism). However in all its forms, sacredness is for all symbolists linked to Art. Formal research by symbolists, which is numerous and diverse, all tends to make the invisible visible. However all symbolists formal research saw in the works the emergence of the representation of women, which therefore becomes intimately linked to the "symbolism". By conveying sacredness, woman becomes the symbol of the ideas of the artists on their Art; even the symbol of the relationship of the artist to his Art. Thus this thesis studies woman in its relationship to the ideas and aesthetics of each artist, in its interrelationship with Art and the sacredness. The detailed studies of drama and paintings aim to show the variety and complexity of its representations. At the same time, this research is a global study on the relationship between theatre and painting in the end-of-century period, approached not from outside but from within (i.e. by the characteristics of works), as part of the theory of the open image developed by Georges Didi-Huberman. Finally, whatever the form of artistic expression – drama or painting – woman is only in the works, the manifestation of aesthetic reflection that is also a philosophical reflection, situated at the crossroads between the Ego and the Other, from which the work originates.

English: In this thesis I examine the concept of satirical silence as the compositional principle of Karl Kraus’s drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit to demonstrate the ways in which the features of modern satire introduce the recipient to the construction of its critique. In Kraus’s drama, silence manifests itself twofold: as a reaction to the First World War and as the only remaining form of satire in the context of public war-euphoria and the widespread use of the press and war-coverage as propaganda tools. From the interruption of Kraus’s periodical Die Fackel at the beginning of the war to the satirical treatment of the homefront in his drama, Kraus’s silence represents a performance of imposed powerlessness. By approaching Kraus’s drama with Walter Benjamin’s concept of storytelling, I analyze satirical silence as an appropriate aesthetic response to the prevailing social conditions and thus to the changing character of the public sphere in modern society. Benjamin’s concept of storytelling and his description of incommunicability as a characteristic of post-war society are at the center of my analysis of modern satire as a reception-based literary practice. Given that satire is a social conversation practice between satirist and recipient, I argue that Kraus’s use of drama as a medium for reprocessing the First World War is built upon the ability of the dramatic form to show how silence emerges as the result of a break between the conversation partners of satire. German: In dieser Arbeit beschreibe ich das Konzept des satirischen Schweigens als Gestaltungsform von Karl Kraus’ Drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, um hierin die Züge der modernen Satire in der Hinwendung zum Rezipienten zur Formulierung der satirischen Kritik zu erweisen. Das Schweigen manifestiert sich in Kraus’ Drama sowohl als Reaktion gegenüber dem Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges, wie auch als die einzig verbleibende Gestaltungsform der Satire angesichts des Verlusts ihres Publikums an den Kriegsenthusiasmus und die propagandistisch gestimmte mediale Berichterstattung. Von der Unterbrechung der Publikation seiner Zeitschrift Die Fackel zu Beginn des Krieges hin zur Dokumentation der Heimatfront in seinem Drama bekundet das Schweigen des Satirikers eine Ausdruckskraft in der erzwungenen Ausdruckslosigkeit. Mit Walter Benjamins Konzept des Erzählens analysiere ich das satirische Schweigen als angemessene ästhetische Reaktion auf die gesellschaftlichen Gegebenheiten und somit veränderten Umstände der öffentlichen Rezeption in der modernen Gesellschaft. Benjamins Konzept des Erzählens sowie seine Beschreibung der Unmitteilbarkeit der Nachkriegsgesellschaft bilden die theoretische Fundierung meiner Analyse der modernen Satire als rezeptionsästhetische Kategorie. Ausgehend von dem Verständnis der Satire als ein soziales Gespräch zwischen Satiriker und Rezipient, sehe ich Kraus’ Zuwendung zum Drama als Medium der Aufarbeitung des Ersten Weltkrieges in dem dramatischen Vermögen begründet, das Schweigen als Bruch der Gesprächsteilnehmer, als Bruch der Beziehung von Satire und Öffentlichkeit zu dialogisieren. / Graduate / 2020-09-25

La fin du XIXe siècle voit éclore un grand nombre de « petites » revues littéraires et artistiques, liées aux avant-gardes et à la bohème. Parmi elles, Le Chat Noir (1882-1897), créée par Rodolphe Salis et Émile Goudeau pour assurer la promotion du désormais célèbre cabaret éponyme. On y publie des contes, des histoires drôles et sans paroles, mais aussi de la poésie. Le présent travail entend étudier de plus près ces poèmes, à la lumière de la crise qui agite alors la production littéraire. Il s’agit plus précisément d’analyser le traitement qui est fait de la notion de sujet lyrique, « principe structurel » (Käte Hamburger) du lyrisme. Dire " je" semble en effet perdre tout sens aux yeux de ces poètes, non seulement du fait du poids de la tradition qu’il est de bon ton de subvertir au nom de l’esprit fumiste dont ils se réclament, mais encore du régime collectif au sein duquel ils s’expriment. Toutefois, les multiples provocations à son encontre permettent aussi à ces artistes de disséquer et de questionner cette notion, et même de se la réapproprier, tant collectivement qu’individuellement. Une réflexion croisée, à la fois poétique, esthétique et sociopoétique, nous amènera à définir les logiques, enjeux et stratégies d’un tel positionnement. / The end of the 19th Century is a key period for the « little » literary and artistic journals, produced by avant-garde and bohemian groups. One of them, Le Chat Noir (1882-1897), created by Rodolphe Salis and Émile Goudeau to promote the famous and eponymous cabaret. Tales, humoristic texts, illustrations or poetry appear in its columns. The present thesis aims for a closer study of these poems, in the light of the crisis which troubles the literary production. It is more precisely to analyse how the notion of the lyric subject, which is considered as the « structural principle » (Käte Hamburger) of lyricism, is treated. Indeed, saying « I » seems to lose sense for these poets, not only because of a tradition that is to subvert for the « fumiste » spirit’s sake which they claim, but also because of the collective context in which they find a space of expression. However, those provocations against the lyrical « I » is also for these artists a way to question and dissect it, and even to reappropriate it, for the collective as much as the individual distinction. A mixed reflexion, based on poetic, esthetic and « sociopoétique » analysis, will lead us to define the logics, stakes and strategies of such a position.

<p>Den här studien har sitt fokus inom krimnalromangenren. Det finns två huvudlinjer. Först koncentrerar studien sig på vilka strategier två kvinnliga protagonister är tvungna att anta för att nå yrkesmässig framgång i en mansdominerad miljö. För att var mer specifik så undersöks Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta från serien om Scarpetta av Patricia Cornwell och D.S Annie Cabbot från serien om Inspector Banks av Peter Robinson och deras förhållande till auktoritet, makt, äktenskap och moderskap. Fin-de-Siècle ger den underliggande definitionen av kön genom sin skeva syn på vad som anses vara normen för kvinnlighet. Kvinnan förväntades då att centrera sin existens inom hemmets sfär som den perfekta hustrun och modern. Hon ansågs dessutom vara olämpliga för en yrkeskarriär då hennes hälsa var alltför vacklande och tänkandet dominerat av känslor snarare än förnuft.</p><p>I denna uppsats argumenteras för att spår av detta sätt att tänka om kvinnan fortfarande står att finna i de aktuella romanerna. Protagonisterna tvingas därför att öppet utmana dessa normer för att nå framgång.</p><p>I överesnstämmelse med argument presenterade av Judith Halberstam i <em>Female Masculinity</em>, ger studien dessutom exempel på hur de valda protagonisterna blir bestraffade på grund av sin ovilja att följa den etablerade normen av kvinnlighet. Bestraffningen tar sig tre uttryck: psykologiskt genom att protagonisterna kritiseras, ignoreras och undervärderas; yrkesmässigt, genom att ifrågasättas rättsligt och genom anklagelser om allvarlig inkompetens, samt fysiskt genom att bli offer för sexuella övergrepp. Eftersom protagonisterna agerar enligt de traditionella normerna finns en indikation på att dessa normer fortfarande lever.</p><p>Som slutsats anges att även om hundra år har passerat sedan fin-de-siècle och etablerandet av de könsnormer som här nämns agerar protagnisterna enligt dessa. Karakteriseringen av Scarpetta och Cabbot är dessutom beroende av den tradition som finns etablerad inom kriminalgenrenvilket begränsar uttrycket av kön. Studien föreslår att kategoriseringen av kön i två kategorier enbart: män och kvinnor, är alltför snäv och att könsdefinitionen behöver utökas. I studien framkommer att de kvinnliga protagonisterna anses vara icke-typiska kvinnor eller homosexuella genom sitt sätt att utmana den traditionella synen på kvinnlighet.</p> / <p>This study maintains a focus within the genre: crime fiction.  There are two main strands. First, there is an exploration of what strategies are adopted by two female protagonists to achieve professional success in a male dominated setting. More specifically, it investigates Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta from the Scarpetta-series by Patricia Cornwell and D.S Annie Cabbot from the Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson and their relationship to authority, power, marriage and children. The Fin-de-Siècle provides the basis for the under-lying definition of gender through its skewed formulation of female norms. Women were to centre their existence within the domestic domain of life as perfect wives and mothers. Furthermore, they were considered unsuitable for professional commitments due to fragile health and domination of emotions over reason. In this essay it is argued that, in these novels, traces of these expectations regarding the nature of womanhood are still current and that the protagonists have to challenge these openly to reach success.</p><p>Secondly, in agreement with claims by Judith Halberstam in her work <em>Female Masculinity, </em>the study exemplifies how the selected protagonists are portrayed as punished because of their disobedience to the pre-established norm of womanhood. This punishment takes three forms: psychologically, by being devalued, criticised and ignored; professionally, by being legally questioned and accused of severe incompetence and physically by being victims of sexual assault.</p><p>The conclusion states that, in spite of a century having past since the establish-ment of the norms of womanhood referred to here, the female protagonists act accordingly which indicates that these norms are still current. Furthermore, the portrayal of Scarpetta and Cabbot is dependent on the genre in which they belong which limits the possible expression of gender. It is suggested that the gender categories: men and women are too narrow and that the definition of woman needs to be extended.Within the characterisation of the two prota-gonists in the study there is evidence that they are considered atypical women or homosexuals because of their opposing the traditional views of womanhood.</p>