When an author produces a frame narrative, she simultaneously makes language both a represented object and a representing agent; when we imagine framed speech, we imagine both the scene its words represent and a mouth that speaks those words. Framed language is thus perfectly mimetic: the words we imagine being spoken within the fictional world are the same we use to effect that fiction's representation. Since its first function is to represent itself, the framed word acts both to push us out of the frame into our own temporality and to draw us into fictional times and spaces. This dissertation explores how first Dante and subsequently his successors, Boccaccio and Chaucer, deploy this structural feature of frames to engage difficult philosophical and theological disputes of their age. In the Divine Comedy, framed language allows Dante to approach the perfect presence of God without transgressing into a spatial conception of the divine. Intensifying Dante's procedure in his House of Fame, Chaucer forecloses the possibility of representation; he transforms every speech act into an image of its utterer rather than its referent, thus violently thrusting us back into the time we pass as we read. Boccaccio--first in his Ameto then in the Decameron--eschews this framed temporality in favor of the temporality of the fetish: while his narratives threaten to dissolve into their basic linguistic matters, the erotic energy of the people that populate those narratives forces them to cohere as fully imagined spaces and times. Finally the Chaucer who writes the Canterbury Tales fuses his initial reading of Dante with Boccaccio's response to it; he constructs the Canterbury pilgrims as grotesques who each open up a limited angle of vision on the time and space they collectively inhabit. These angles overlap and stutter over one another, unsettling the easy assignations of identity any given pilgrim would enforce on a tale or agent within the narrative. In doing so, Chaucer makes the temporality within his Tales strange and poignant in a way that fully mimics our own experience of extra-narrative time.

This dissertation is a study of how various German narratives from the nineteenth century to the present tell stories that are interrupted or framed by discourse on storytelling itself. More specifically, I examine the various means by which authors in different periods have sought to address and undermine the idea that a story must be believable. The classic frame narrative is one example of how the problem of credibility has been confronted, and yet I suggest that frames are often employed by authors for the very reason that contrary to their perceived function, they are inherently unstable. Frame narratives, interwoven stories, unbelievable occurrences, or less than credible storytellers are all ways by which the texts examined here reflect on their own production and create ambiguity about levels of reality and the connections between different story levels.

Ce travail étudie les discours sur les songes dans la philosophie spéculative du siècle des Lumières jusqu’à Diderot, en revenant préalablement aux sources du cartésianisme. Puis il s’intéresse aux songes brefs comme récits-cadres des années 1730 à 1790.Dans un premier temps, il montre que le rêve est de plus en plus étudié comme un épisode de la vie de l’esprit ; il gagne la veille et en vient à éclairer le fonctionnement de l’esprit, dans les opérations de la mémoire ou de l’imagination. C’est un fonctionnement pétri par la matière et par le monde, qui devient comme chez Denis Diderot un modèle pour aborder l’esprit et un modèle de découverte scientifique. Dans un second temps, nous nous tournons vers les songes littéraires comme récits-cadre, petits textes désinvoltes, rassemblés en série comme chez d’Argens ou Mercier. Cette forme favorise l’exploration des confins obscurs du sujet, dans le pèlerinage amoureux, la satire ou le songe philosophique : hédonisme triomphant, sentiment océanique, pulsion scopique, pulsion de mort dirigé contre les autres ou contre soi. / The Dream in the Eighteenth Century or the Testing of the Self This thesis investigates the discourse about dreams in philosophy of mind of the Enlightenment to Diderot, after an initial examination of the sources of Cartesianism. Next it proceeds to study the dream frame narratives produced in the 1730-1790 period.First, it shows that the dream is increasingly studied as an episode in the life of the mind; dreams pervade the wake, soon unfolding the operations of our mind, memory and imagination. They involve world and matter, and become a model reflecting all aspects of the mind, finally turning into a model of scientific discovery in Denis Diderot’s writings. Secondly, we turn to literary dreams as frame narratives, short flippant texts, significantly grouped together in series by Argens or by Mercier. This form favours the exploration of the dark confines of the self, in the love pilgrimage, in satirical or philosophical dreams : triumph of hedonism, Oceanic Feeling, scopic drive, drive towards death and self destruction.

Este estudo propõe-se a avaliar as relações existentes entre dois pares narrativos formados por uma narrativa curta e outra longa, da autora Lídia Jorge, compostos pelo conto Os Gafanhotos, inserido no romance A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988) e seu próprio romance, e o conto A Instrumentalina (1992) e o romance A Manta do Soldado (1996), fundando-se, desta forma, a nossa tetralogia construída. Esta análise procurou debruçar-se sobre as questões que a narrativa moldura, no primeiro par, incita, da mesma forma que dedicou-se a outras relações narrativas observadas nos dois pares, como a preocupação em denunciar o perigo da história única, a questão da emigração e da identidade portuguesa durante o período do Estado Novo, além da construção e utilização dos símbolos como potência dentro destas obras. Tendo como eixos de pesquisa identidade e alteridade, memória e herança, procuramos analisar como os conceitos impregnados nestas obras operam em sua elaboração, contribuindo para o melhor entendimento da complexidade da obra da autora. / This study intends to evaluate the relations between two narrative pairs formed by a short and a long story by Lídia Jorge, composed by the short story Os Gafanhotos, inserted in the novel A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988) and its own novel, and the tale A Instrumentalina (1992) and the novel A Manta do Soldado (1996), therefore, forming our constructed tetralogy. This analysis was looked for to focus on the issues of the narrative frame, in the first pair, as it was devoted to other narrative relations observed in the two pairs, such as concern to denounce the danger of single history, the question of emigration and Portuguese identity during the Estado Novo period, as well as the construction and use of symbols as power within these works. Having as axes of research identity and alterity, memory and inheritance, we try to analyze how the concepts that these works help in their elaboration, contributing to a better understanding of the complexity of the work of the author.

Este estudo propõe-se a avaliar as relações existentes entre dois pares narrativos formados por uma narrativa curta e outra longa, da autora Lídia Jorge, compostos pelo conto Os Gafanhotos, inserido no romance A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988) e seu próprio romance, e o conto A Instrumentalina (1992) e o romance A Manta do Soldado (1996), fundando-se, desta forma, a nossa tetralogia construída. Esta análise procurou debruçar-se sobre as questões que a narrativa moldura, no primeiro par, incita, da mesma forma que dedicou-se a outras relações narrativas observadas nos dois pares, como a preocupação em denunciar o perigo da história única, a questão da emigração e da identidade portuguesa durante o período do Estado Novo, além da construção e utilização dos símbolos como potência dentro destas obras. Tendo como eixos de pesquisa identidade e alteridade, memória e herança, procuramos analisar como os conceitos impregnados nestas obras operam em sua elaboração, contribuindo para o melhor entendimento da complexidade da obra da autora. / This study intends to evaluate the relations between two narrative pairs formed by a short and a long story by Lídia Jorge, composed by the short story Os Gafanhotos, inserted in the novel A Costa dos Murmúrios (1988) and its own novel, and the tale A Instrumentalina (1992) and the novel A Manta do Soldado (1996), therefore, forming our constructed tetralogy. This analysis was looked for to focus on the issues of the narrative frame, in the first pair, as it was devoted to other narrative relations observed in the two pairs, such as concern to denounce the danger of single history, the question of emigration and Portuguese identity during the Estado Novo period, as well as the construction and use of symbols as power within these works. Having as axes of research identity and alterity, memory and inheritance, we try to analyze how the concepts that these works help in their elaboration, contributing to a better understanding of the complexity of the work of the author.

H. G Wells’s novel The Time Machine is a significant work of science fiction that dramatizes the themes of degeneration and social inequality, themes that were very relevant during the Victorian era in relation to the discovery of evolution. Degeneration was seen as the degradation of society into primitiveness far from the Victorian standards, and the problem of social difference, where the gap between poor and rich was very wide, became the visible proof of the difference between the evolved and civilized and the degenerated and primitive. The purpose of this essay is to analyse how the frame narrative, the story surrounding the main adventure, affects the theme of degeneration in the novel. The framework reveals the reactions of the people present at the dinner parties, where the Time Traveller recounts his journey into a degenerated future. The guests are all representing different factions of Victorian society, such as the Provincial Mayor, the Very Young Man and the Editor who all have their own motives and agendas in relation to degeneration, social differences and time travel. By examining the guests’ individual motives, the essay argues that they do not want to believe in time travel since it would include believing in a degenerated future where all the glory of their present-day Victorian era would crumble into chaos and pandemonium. This essay shows that by denying the relevance of the Time Traveller’s story, despite the evidence presented, the dinner guests are condemning themselves to the degenerated future they are afraid of, hence making the novel a warning example of not accepting new ideas.

In the first chapter of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Gilbert Markham invites his reader to join him as he attempts to recall the past. Because Gilbert uses the journal of another to supplement his own memories, the novel's frame narrative structure becomes saturated with complex memory-based issues and problems. Thus, the complicated frame narrative provides fertile ground for exploring the novel through memory. In studying the frame narrative, scholars have typically devoted their criticism to Gilbert and how he shapes the frame. Few scholars afford the other primary narrator of the novel, Helen, any power in shaping that frame. However, both Gilbert's and Helen's narratives exist separately yet function codependently. Using recent studies in memory as well as Derridean and Foucaultian archive theory as a lens, I will explore how Tenant presents an anarchic narrative structure that simultaneously gives its own semblance of power and order without assigning complete narrative power to one person or to one gender.

The characterization of the Markan disciples has been and continues to be the object of much scholarly reflection and speculation. For many, the Markan author's presentation of Jesus' disciples holds a key, if not the key, to unlocking the purpose and function of the gospel as a whole. Commentators differ as to whether the Markan disciples ultimately serve a pedagogical or polemical function, yet they are generally agreed that the disciples in Mark come off rather badly, especially when compared to their literary counterparts in Matthew, Luke, and John. This narrative-critical study considers the characterization of the Markan disciples within the Sea Crossing movement (Mark 4:1-8:30). While commentators have, on the whole, interpreted the disciples' negative characterization in this movement in terms of lack of faith and/or incomprehension, neither of these, nor a combination of the two, fully accounts for the severity of language leveled against the disciples by the narrator (6:52) and Jesus (8:17-18). Taking as its starting point an argument by Jeffrey B. Gibson (1986) that the harshness of Jesus' rebuke in Mark 8:14-21 is occasioned not by the disciples' lack of faith or incomprehension but by their active resistance to his Gentile mission, this investigation uncovers additional examples of the disciples' resistance to Gentile mission, offering a better account of their negative portrayal within the Sea Crossing movement and helping explain many of their other failures. In short, this study argues that in Mark 4:1-8:26, the disciples are characterized as resistant to Jesus' Gentile mission and to their participation in that mission, the chief consequence being that they are rendered incapable of recognizing Jesus' vocational identity as Israel's Messiah (Thesis A). This leads to a secondary thesis, namely, that in Mark 8:27-30, Peter's recognition of Jesus' messianic identity indicates that the disciples have finally come to accept Jesus' Gentile mission and their participation in it (Thesis B). Chapter One: Introduction: offers a selective review of scholarly treatments of the Markan disciples, which shows that few scholars attribute resistance, let alone purposeful resistance, to the disciples. Chapter Two: The Rhetoric of Repetition: introduces the methodological tools, concepts, and perspectives employed in the study. It includes a section on narrative criticism, which focuses upon the story-as-discoursed and the implied author and reader, and a section on Construction Grammar, a branch of cognitive linguistics founded by Charles Fillmore and further developed by Paul Danove, which focuses upon semantic and narrative frames and case frame analysis. Chapter Three: The Sea Crossing Movement, Mark 4:1-8:30: addresses the question of Markan structure and argues that Mark 4:1-8:30 comprises a single, unified, narrative movement, whose action and plot is oriented to the Sea of Galilee and whose most distinctive feature is the network of sea crossings that transport Jesus and his disciples back and forth between Jewish and Gentile geopolitical spaces. Following William Freedman, Chapter Four: The Literary Motif: introduces two criteria (frequency and avoidability) for determining objectively what constitutes a literary motif and provides the methodological basis and starting point for the analyses performed in chapters five and six. Chapter Five: The Sea Crossing Motif: establishes and then carries out a lengthy narrative analysis of the Sea Crossing motif, which is oriented around Mark's use of ‎θάλασσα (thalassa) and πλοῖον (ploion), and Chapter Six: The Loaves Motif: does the same for The Loaves motif, oriented around Mark's use of ἄρτος (artos). Finally, Chapter Seven: The Narrative Logic of the Disciples (In)comprehension: draws together all narrative, linguistic, and exegetical insights of the previous chapters and offers a single coherent reading of the Sea Crossing movement that establishes Theses A and B.