The first part of my master's thesis in creative writing explores the way the leading character's identity is structured as a function of memory. The protagonist, limited to a confined space, does not have access to his existence other than through the senses which are drawn from different episodes of his past. These reminiscences, that open the way to experience, forge his becoming, and allow him to superimpose his own individual path to memories that he has of those persons who have shaped his experience of the world. / The critical part of my work concerns the genesis and the elaboration of the last draft of Hubert Aquin's novel entitled "Obombre" in which the fragmented identity of the protagonist is defined through the destiny of other characters with whom he shares a common experience. The genetic studies approach in literature sheds light on the creative mechanisms and, in this particular case, the construction of a literary work by the superimposition of different narrative threads in a unique discourse.

Zugl.: Mainz, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2005

Mémoire (M.A.) - Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2000. / Bibliogr. : f. 80-87.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [176]-186).

Thèse - Université de Lausanne. / At head of title: Université de Lausanne. Faculté de droit. "Bibliographie": p. 167-171.

Thèse - Université de Lausanne. / At head of title: Université de Lausanne. Faculté de droit. "Bibliographie": p. 167-171.

This study concentrates on the piano music of Hubert du Plessis, a South African composer who, apart from some years spent studying in England, has lived and worked in this country. He was born in 1922 on a farm in the Malmesbury district. After completing his schooling, he studied at the University of Stellenbosch , gaining a B A degree. Later, he continued his studies at Rhodes University, obtaining a B Mus degree. The Performing Right Society's scholarship gave him the opportunity of studying in London for three years (1951-1953). After his return, he became involved in the academic sphere, and lectured simultaneously at U C T and Stellenbosch, and then later just at Stellenbosch until his retirement in 1982. A number of his compositions for piano are as yet unpublished. This thesis has been limited to the published works for solo piano . The works studied are: Four Piano Pieces (Op. 1 ), Six Miniatures (Op. 3 ), Sonata No . 1 (Op. 8 ), Seven Preludes (Op. 18), Toe ek 'n kind was (Op. 33). Some biographical details have been given - in most cases to provide the background for the writing of each work - but the main thrust of this study has been towards a detailed structural analysis of each work. In my analysis, I have favoured the type of "Formal analysis" defined by Groves¹ in the article on analysis. In other words, I have used the traditional structural patterns i.e. Binary and Ternary form , Sonata form etc. insofar as it applied to the music under discussion. However, I felt that this was not sufficient for a study in depth of the music, as I had envisaged. Like Beethoven, du Plessis is a meticulous craftsman, who constructs and re- constructs , revises and rethinks. This means that the fullest attention is given to every detail of composition. Hence, like Tovey in his analysis of Beethoven sonatas, I have tended towards a bar-by-bar approach which, I hope, will reveal not only the structural detail, but also the relationships between phrases and motifs, where this is relevant. I felt that it was imperative to take this down to the real fundamentals, for without that basic approach, certain compositional techniques might be overlooked. Hence, I then hoped to draw some general conclusions about du Plessis' work. Groves¹ says of Tovey's method that it " represents the tradition of analysis and descriptive criticism in Britain as a whole . " However , despite this rather dry and academic approach there are times when, like Tovey, my analysis contains metaphor, or personification of the music. I have chosen what may be criticised as a rather old-fashioned approach to the analysis because of the basic intention behind this piece of research. As a school teacher I am aware of the pitiful paucity of source material on the music of the South African composers, which are set for study by Matriculation candidates. By this work, I had hoped to shed some light on at least one corner of this section of the syllabus, for both teacher and pupils. Hence, I did not attempt a distributional analysis or a category analysis , coded by computer and shown in graphical form. I chose a straightforward linear and logical progression through the pieces which, even with the limited musical vocabulary of the average school pupil, should be easily comprehensible. ] have also attempted to draw attention to interrelationships between movements or sets of pieces, and to see each work as a unit. In a study limited, by necessity, in its subject matter, as this is, it would be presumptuous to draw conclusions about du Plessis' work in general. This would necessitate an indepth survey of his other genres, especially his vocal works, which are so important an area of his creativity. However, it is possible, even in so limited a study, to gain an appreciation of Hubert du Plessis' meticulous craftsmanship and attention to detail that must gain him his rightful place among the South African musical "greats " of this century.

In the Sellarsian idiom, the space of reasons distinguishes rational beings as those invested in the game of giving and asking for reasons as set apart from beings merely susceptible to the space of causes, i.e. the realm of law. In this work I open a path toward perceiving and thinking that human beings characteristically live their lives in the space of motivations, an intelligible realm of perception, thought, and action whereby non-rational, non-causal descriptions and explanations of behavior serve as the primary and legitimating backdrop of those lives. The idea of motivations stems from the underdeveloped notion within the corpus of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In preparing a path toward the space of motivations, I argue for three claims. First, in the philosophy of mind, I argue for what I call the attentionality thesis (chapter 1), which states that the mind is primarily structured by attention in two senses: that consciousness has the capacity for re-direction toward different and multiple intentional objects, and that remaining directed toward an intentional object reveals different qualitative features of that object or mode of comportment. The attentionality thesis, which I draw from Merleau-Ponty's work, broadens the Brentano-Husserl intentionality thesis. I further argue that the attentionality thesis undercuts the distinction in kind between cognitive intentionality and motor intentionality (chapter 2), reveals shared problematic presuppositions of qualia theorists and functionalists (chapter 3), and challenges key concepts in Alva Noë's enactive theory of mind. Second, in light of the attentionality thesis, I diagnose concerns about whether perception is conceptual or nonconceptual, particularly with respect to John McDowell's conceptualism and Hubert Dreyfus's and Sean Kelly's nonconceptualism. I show that considerations of these arguments suggest an impasse between the claims that perception is conceptual, even in motor intentional comportments (chapter 2), and nonconceptual, in light of the fineness of grain argument (chapter 4). This leads to the final claim that the primary way to understand human perception, thought, and action is not via conceptual or nonconceptual considerations, but rather via motivations in the significance they lend (chapter 5). / Philosophy

No description available.

Reprendre contact avec les réalités de l’âme, rouvrir la source où l’être rejaillit éternellement : tel est l’idéal occulte, inavouable, d’où procède la poétique d’Hubert Aquin. Depuis sa jeunesse, Aquin s’emploie clandestinement à défaire les mailles de la conscience et à rebrousser chemin vers les arrière-plans ténébreux du Moi, vers le Plérôme de la vie nue. Il manœuvre pour se mettre au service de l’intentionnalité impersonnelle inscrite au plus profond de sa psyché, pour devenir l’instrument du vouloir aveugle « qui opère en lui comme une force d’inertie ». Son œuvre ne s’accomplit pas dans le texte, mais à rebours du texte, voire à rebours du langage ; elle se déploie sur le terrain d’une confrontation enivrée avec le Négatif — avec la Parole sacrée issue de l’abîme. En d’autres termes, elle prend la forme d’une Gnose, c’est-à-dire d’un exercice de dé-subjectivation, de destruction de soi, consistant à réaliser la connaissance participative de l’empreinte imaginale scellée derrière les barreaux de la finitude. Essentiellement consacrée à l’analyse de la dimension gnostique de l’œuvre d’Hubert Aquin, cette thèse vise à montrer que la connaissance du hiéroglyphe mystérieux gravé au fond de l’âme n’est pas une sinécure. Il s’agit plutôt d’un opus contra naturam qui comporte bien des risques (en tout premier lieu celui d’une inflation psychique). Pourtant, ce travail est aussi, aux yeux de l’auteur, le seul véritablement digne d’être accompli, celui qui donne à l’homme le moyen de se soustraire à l’engloutissement de la mort et la possibilité de renaître. Comme l’écrit Aquin dans un texte de jeunesse, l’ouverture inconditionnelle au Négatif (la destruction de soi) est « une façon privilégiée d’expérimenter la vie et un préalable à toute entreprise artistique » ; elle correspond à « un mode supérieur de connaissance », à un savoir « impersonnel » qui offre immédiatement le salut. / To reestablish contact with the realities of the soul, to reopen the source from which Being eternally resurges: such is the occult and unspeakable ideal from which Hubert Aquin’s poetics proceeds. From his youth onwards, Aquin secretly seeks to unravel the mesh of consciousness, in order to retrace the path leading back towards the dark nether regions of the Self, towards the Pleroma of the naked life. Thus he operates exclusively in the service of the impersonal intentionality inscribed in the depths of his psyche, as the instrument of the blind will that acts inside of him “like an inertial force”. His work does not fulfill itself in the text, but rather runs counter to the text, even counter to language itself; it deploys as an exhilarating confrontation with the Negative, with the sacred Word issuing from the abyss. In other words, Aquin’s work takes the form of a Gnosis: an exercise in de-subjectivization and self-destruction that consists in attaining participative knowledge of the imaginal seal imprinted behind the bars of finitude. This thesis, principally devoted to an analysis of the gnostic dimension of Hubert Aquin’s œuvre, aims to show that to decipher the mysterious hieroglyph engraved in the depths of the soul is no simple task: it is rather an opus contra naturam, involving great dangers (of which the first is the risk of psychic inflation); yet, to the author’s eyes, only this task is really necessary and truly worthy of being undertaken, for only by this means can the human being escape from engulfment in death – by being reborn. As Aquin writes in an early work, to open oneself unconditionally to the Negative (i.e., self-destruction) is “a special way of experiencing life and a prerequisite to any artistic enterprise”; it is equivalent to “a superior mode of knowledge” of an “impersonal” kind, promising immediate salvation.