As a novel on contemporary issues (shishi xiaoshuo 时事小说), the unfinished novel The Stone of Goddess Nüwa (Nüwa shi 女娲石; 1904-1905) recounts a story about new women’s attempts to save the nation, which is a reflection of late-Qing China. From a historical perspective, I aim to provide a study of the Nüwa stone and characterization of new women in the novel with the help of multiple intertexts. My thesis explores how the stone and the characterization elaborate the theme and design of the novel: new women saving the nation, which includes radical ideas for women and national salvation in the late Qing. Against the socio-cultural context of The Stone of Goddess Nüwa, I argue that through the characterization and narrative designs of the stone, the novel presents its explorations to solve social and political problems for national salvation, in which female power plays a central and crucial role. This thesis endeavors to both enrich the understanding and value of The Stone of Goddess Nüwa from a historical perspective and call critical attention to its meaning in the decades’ exploration of improving both China and Chinese women in literary works from the late Qing.

This dissertation brings two recent strands of research together and attempts to contribute to two areas of study: (1) apocalyptic Paul studies and (2) the discipline of intertextuality. When apocalyptic Paul is concerned, many works utilize comparative literature approaches. The present study, however, is different in two respects. First, this study sees intertextuality and apocalyptic as a cultural semiotic that is a meaning potential in culture. Whereas many intertextual studies focus on how later texts employ earlier texts for literary and theological purposes, the present study views culture as a matrix of intertextuality. In addition, this study deems apocalyptic as a cultural discourse that society and culture share to understand transcendent phenomena and events. The second distinctiveness of this study is its analytic method. Instead of word-to-word comparison, we investigate whether Paul’s letters present similar patterns of semantic relations between apocalyptic thematic items. After identifying recurrent thematic formations throughout multiple texts, this study explores Paul’s heteroglossia (different voices) in the thematic formations. As such, the meaning of Paul’s apocalyptic can be construed, when we scrutinize, first, how the apocalyptic languages or themes are used in culture, and second, how Paul differently employs them from others. To paraphrase, the meaning of Paul’s apocalyptic language can be vivid when the same apocalyptic thematic formations in Paul’s letters present different linguistic features from other writings. Through this procedure, the present study argues that though Paul shares similar thematic formations with other texts in the Greco-Roman world, the apostle’s apocalyptic thought is significantly distinctive from others. In Paul’s apocalyptic discourse, Jesus is the primary participant that interacts with other thematic items. Also, the apostle’s peculiar linguistic features in the shared apocalyptic formations converge around one figure that is Christ. In other words, Christ takes the central role in his apocalyptic discourse. Christ, therefore, is the apocalyptic lens for Paul to shape his understandings of transcendent phenomena (i.e., otherworldly journey, resurrection, sin and evil, and the two-age apocalyptic eschatology) through Christ.

Scholars have proposed that Jude and 2 Peter are literarily dependent. However, there is no definitive conclusion among scholars concerning which one is literarily dependent on the other. There are arguments for and against each of the literary dependency theories. It is difficult to define what is meant by literary dependency and how to measure it. By utilizing Lemke’s notion of intertextuality, this study examines the thematic formations, axiological stance, and rhetorical formations of Jude and 2 Peter. This study demonstrates that there are significant intertextual relations that can account for the similarities between these two texts. There is substantial evidence which suggests that their differences are significant. Jude and 2 Peter do not provide essential intertextual background information to understand each other. Through the analysis of other intertexts, this study reveals a significant number of intertexts, like the LXX, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, and contemporary literature, that can account for the meaning formation of the two books. These texts can be considered as more significant intertexts for Jude and 2 Peter.

A proposta desta tese é fazer uma leitura do Cancioneiro Chinês, obra que contém poemas chineses traduzidos por António Feijó da versão francesa de Judith Gautier, e das Elegias Chinesas traduzidas por Camilo Pessanha a partir dos originais. Nosso objetivo é identificar, nos procedimentos desses autores presentes em suas reimaginações, os diferentes deslocamentos culturais, linguísticos e poéticos que se estabelecem no trânsito entre a poesia Oriental e a poesia Ocidental. Para tanto, buscamos, em teóricos da tradução, sinólogos e tradutores de poesia chinesa, reflexões e conceitos que alicercem este nosso estudo. / The purpose of this thesis is to interpret a reading of Cancioneiro Chinês, a work that contains Chinese poems translated by António Feijo from Judith Gautiers French version and of Elegias Chinesas, translated by Camilo Pessanha from the original texts. Our objective is to identify, from the procedures of these authors present in their re-imaginations, the different cultural linguistics and poetics deslocation which establish the exchange between Oriental and Occidental poetry. Therefore, we search, from the scholars of translation, sinologists and translators of Chinese poetry, reflections and concepts that form the fundamentals of this study.

A proposta desta tese é fazer uma leitura do Cancioneiro Chinês, obra que contém poemas chineses traduzidos por António Feijó da versão francesa de Judith Gautier, e das Elegias Chinesas traduzidas por Camilo Pessanha a partir dos originais. Nosso objetivo é identificar, nos procedimentos desses autores presentes em suas reimaginações, os diferentes deslocamentos culturais, linguísticos e poéticos que se estabelecem no trânsito entre a poesia Oriental e a poesia Ocidental. Para tanto, buscamos, em teóricos da tradução, sinólogos e tradutores de poesia chinesa, reflexões e conceitos que alicercem este nosso estudo. / The purpose of this thesis is to interpret a reading of Cancioneiro Chinês, a work that contains Chinese poems translated by António Feijo from Judith Gautiers French version and of Elegias Chinesas, translated by Camilo Pessanha from the original texts. Our objective is to identify, from the procedures of these authors present in their re-imaginations, the different cultural linguistics and poetics deslocation which establish the exchange between Oriental and Occidental poetry. Therefore, we search, from the scholars of translation, sinologists and translators of Chinese poetry, reflections and concepts that form the fundamentals of this study.