Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Aberdeen University, 2009. / Title from web page (viewed on Dec. 1, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1980. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 279-289).

Rebellion and repudiation of the mainstream recur as motifs throughout Christopher Isherwood's novels and life, dating back to his early experience of the death of his father and continuing through to the end of his own life with his vituperative rant against the heterosexual majority. Threatened by the accepted, by the traditional, by the past, Isherwood and his characters escape to the margin, hoping to find there people who share alternative values and ways of living that might ultimately prove more meaningful and enlightened than those they leave behind in the mainstream. In so doing, they both discover that the margin is a complicated place that is more often menacing than redemptive. Consistently, Isherwood's fiction looks at margins and the impulse to flee from the mainstream in search of a marginal alternative. On the one hand, these alternative spaces are thought to be redemptive, thought to liberate and nourish. Isherwood reveals that they do neither. To explore this theme, the dissertation focuses on three novels, The Berlin Stories (The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin), A Meeting by the River, and A Single Man, because ach of these novels corresponds to marginal journeys of Isherwood--namely, his sexual and creative exile in Berlin from 1929 to 1933, his embrace of Hindu philosophy, and his life as a homosexual. Each of these novels positions characters outside of the mainstream in order to subvert a redemptive message and depict the margin as a very dark and dangerous place. Chapter 1 focuses on the period from 1929 to 1933 when Isherwood lived in Berlin and on the collection entitled The Berlin Stories, which includes The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. That fiction tells of the variegated landscape that was Weimar Berlin. In that landscape, Isherwood discovers and examines others who, like himself, seek alternatives to the mainstream: the bohemian Sally Bowles, the Landaurer family, who as Jews fear the rising Nazi tide, and the politically ambiguous Mr. Norris. His portraits of these people and the world they inhabit expose not only the darkest corners of mainstream Berlin, but also the futility of attempts to flee from the mainstream to more satisfying alternatives. Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to Vedanta, one of the six schools of Hindu thought that would become central to Isherwood's life from July of 1939 until he died in 1986 and that is at the heart of Isherwood's final novel, A Meeting by the River (1967). In that work the margin and the mainstream are juxtaposed throughout. Rhetorically, the novel is rich and clearly one of Isherwood's finest. One approach to the novel emphasizes the redemptive power of the margin. The monastic life and all that it entails spiritually free one from the burdens of the material world. A compatible approach to the novel emphasizes the power of self-discovery as a bonding agent between the brothers. I argue for an alternative reading of the novel, one that emphasizes Patrick's journey and the implicit peril of the moral relativism endorsed by Vedanta. Patrick is nothing more than a con artist. And finally, Chapter 4 examines Isherwood's finest novel, A Single Man, the story of George, who is left alone after the death of his lover, Jim. Isherwood's homosexuality asserts itself both covertly and overtly throughout the novels, though today many of the positions reveal themselves as nascent attempts to understand sexual identity in personal, social, and political terms. A Single Man is Isherwood's most sophisticated and probing look at what it means to be a homosexual. The militantly political is ever present. And yet, the novel is in many ways a contemplative piece, one of stunning beauty that grows out of the simple fact that George's lover of many years has died. In reflecting on the cottage where they lived, George reminisces early on that "they loved it because you could only get to it by the bridge across the creek; the surrounding trees and the steep bushy cliff behind shut it in like a house in a forest clearing. `As good as being on our own island,' George said." In essence, George and Jim cut themselves off from the world. They live unto each other and in a community of like-minded people. Together on the margin, they are content and fulfilled. And yet, when Jim dies, George is abandoned and adrift. He is deprived of mainstream consolation--public memorials, spousal recognition, and children--and deserted; he is a sobering portrait of isolation and despair.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 350-364.

Ce mémoire vise à explorer la situation de l’homosexualité sous la République de Weimar à travers la perspective de Christopher Isherwood. Durant ses séjours à travers l’Allemagne de Weimar, Isherwood à retranscrit et fictionnalisé un nombre important d’évènements et d’expériences qu’il a vécus. De cela découle une interprétation d’événements et d’émotions que je qualifie dans ce mémoire de traduction d’expérience. Cette expérience offre une perspective sur diverses problématiques liées à l’homosexualité dans la République de Weimar et présente la particularité d’être présentée d’un point de vue que s’affranchit de l’exigence de la vérité au profit du ressenti de l’auteur face à l’exactitude d’un évènement. Les œuvres de Christopher Isherwood telles que Goodbye to Berlin, Mr. Norris Changes Train, ou bien son mémoire Christopher And His Kind manipulent et interrogent divers discours sur la prostitution masculine, la dynamique des relations homosexuelles de l’époque, la relation entre le langage et la notion de « vérité », ainsi que la romantisation de la République de Weimar à travers les récits et les arts. / This memoir explores the state of homosexuality in the Weimar Republic from Christopher Isherwood’s perspective. During his stays throughout Weimar Germany, Isherwood transcribed and fictionalized a critical number of events and experiences he had. From this comes an interpretation of events and emotions, which I qualify in this memoir as a translation of experience. This experience offers a perspective on numerous questions linked to homosexuality in the Weimar Republic and has the particularity of being presented from a point of view which frees itself from the concept of truth, and benefits the emotions of the author instead of the accuracy of an event, Christopher Isherwood’s work like Goodbye to Berlin, Mr. Norris Changes Train, or his memoir Christopher And His Kind open many discourses on male prostitution, the dynamic in homosexual relationships of the era, the link between language and the notion of “truth,” and the romanticization of the Weimar Republic through stories and the arts. I decided to explore these topics through three respective chapters.

Die Dissertation behandelt die Texte britischer Schriftsteller_innen, die in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik nach Deutschland kamen und über ihre Erfahrungen mit Deutschland und den Deutschen schrieben. Sie umfasst sowohl Texte, die in den Jahren 1919-1933 entstanden sind, als auch Texte, die sich rückblickend mit Erfahrungen in der Weimarer Republik befassen und in den Jahren zwischen dem Ende der Weimarer Republik und dem Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs (1933-1939) entstanden sind. Die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit den Texten britischer Schriftsteller_innen über die Weimarer Republik hat sich bisher weitgehend auf die Werke von Christopher Isherwood und seinen Freunden W. H. Auden und Stephen Spender beschränkt. Durch die Fokussierung auf die Erfahrungen dieser Autoren legt die bisherige Forschung zu britischen Schriftsteller_innen in der Weimarer Republik einen starken Schwerpunkt auf die Erfahrungen junger homosexueller Männer in Berlin in den letzten Jahren der Weimarer Republik und vernachlässigt andere Aspekte der Erfahrungen dieser Schriftsteller sowie die Perspektiven der zahlreichen anderen schreibenden Brit_innen, die die Weimarer Republik besuchten und aufgrund ihrer Herkunft, ihres Alters und ihrer Beweggründe für ihren Aufenthalt sehr unterschiedliche Erfahrungen machten. Die Studie zeigt erstmals eine breit angelegte Untersuchung der unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, die sowohl die biografischen Erfahrungen der Schriftsteller analysiert als auch den Prozess der Fiktionalisierung dieser Erfahrungen in verschiedenen Phasen der Zwischen- und Nachkriegszeit erklärt. Die eingehende Analyse der verschiedenen literarischen Versionen der "Weimarer Erfahrung" durch britische Schriftsteller zeigt, wie diese Erfahrung in Fiktion umgewandelt wurde, wie die persönliche Auseinandersetzung mit Deutschland retrospektive Erzählungen verkompliziert und wie diese Komplikationen in fiktionalen Texten ausgetragen werden. Die Arbeit ist in drei chronologische Kapitel unterteilt, die sich jeweils mit einer Phase der Weimarer Republik befassen und eine Reihe von fiktionalen und nicht-fiktionalen Texten einbeziehen. / The dissertation analyses the texts of British writers who visited Germany during the years of the Weimar Republic and wrote about their experiences with Germany and the Germans. It includes texts that were written during the years 1919-1933 as well as texts that deal retrospectively with experiences in the Weimar Republic and were written in the years between the end of the Weimar Republic and the outbreak of the Second World War (1933-1939). Scholarly engagement with the writings of British writers on the Weimar Republic has so far been very much limited to the texts of Christopher Isherwood and his friends W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender. By focusing predominantly on the experiences of these authors, the existing research on British writers in the Weimar Republic places a strong emphasis on the experiences of young homosexual men in Berlin in the final years of the Weimar Republic and neglects other aspects of these writers' experiences as well as the perspectives of the numerous other British writers who visited the Weimar Republic and had very different experiences due to their background, age and motivations for their stay. For the first time, this study undertakes a wide-ranging investigation of diverse perspectives, which both analyses the biographical experiences of the writers and explains the fictionalisation process of these experiences in different phases of the interwar and post-war period. The in-depth analysis of the diverse literary versions of the 'Weimar experience' by British writers shows how this experience was transformed into fiction, how personal engagement with Germany complicates retrospective narratives, and how these complications are played out in fictional texts. The work is divided into three chronological chapters, each dealing with a phase of the Weimar Republic and drawing on a range of fictional and non-fictional texts.