This study is launched from the general understanding that History is a dialectical process comprised by the contributions of multiple actors, all of which interact in a contentious give-and-take. Keeping in mind this precept, ,I look at the novel La carga, by contemporary Equatoguinean author Juan Tomas Avila Laurel, as an alternative source of history, and assess that history as he has constructed it. This entails not only a detailed exploration of the world he creates within the novel, but a look at the intertextual bonds he establishes with such nineteenth-century writers as Manuel Iradier and Jose Marti. My analysis begins with the general notion that in Avila's granting of textual agency to natural elements one can begin to see the first inklings of a challenge to typical Eurocentric historiography. In the first major, section I look at what for all intents and purposes has been deemed the colonial dialectic, or the greater social dynamic that maintained colonial hegemony, as it is presented in the vignettes of 1940 Equatorial Guinea that we see in La carga. In the next section, I look at what Avila does with some of the discursive tenets of Spanish imperialism, especially those associated with the monolithic conception of Africa and Europe. And finally, I look at the way that relations between spatiality—mainly the geographic classifications inherent in colonial discourses—and subjectivity give way to Avila's commentary on modern-day Equatorial Guinea. I try to close with some speculation on the strategic formation of which Avila and La carga may form part, beginning with a look at his prefacio and concluding with a questioning of where the attitudes outlined in the prefacio may place him on the grand scale of African discourses of resistance.

No description available.

This dissertation explores the influence of European and Mesoamerican traditions of urbanization on the plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, a sixteen- seventeenth-century dramatist born in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain. The objective of this dissertation is to study the analogy between urban designs and their representation in theatre from the Ancient Greece until the Golden Age Spanish Theatre. As we acknowledge the influence of the urban configuration on the mentality of that particular period, we also seek to explain how the surrounding reality becomes like an ideological postulate with the passing of time. By analysing and defining the cities from the Ancient Greece to the period known as the Baroque, we aim at defining the new form taken by their inherent spatial notions when they merge with those of the ancient historic capital of the Mexica empire, that is, Mexico-Tenochtitlan. As the two worlds were coming into contact, the changes as well as the exchange of cultural legacies and urban experiences endowed the author's town of birth with a new way of communicating, which was at the same time both Spanish and non-Spanish. This allowed the author to write plots where the urban setting would not determine all the characters' actions and reactions, as was the case with the Golden Age dramatists in Spain.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

No description available.

This dissertation examines Byron's Don Juan and his attitude towards profits from the copyright money for publishing his poems. Recent studies on Don Juan and Byron have paid great attention to the poem especially in terms of the author's status as an unprecedented noble literary celebrity. Thus the hermeneutics of the poem has very often had a tendency to bind itself within the biographical understanding of the poet's socio-political practices. It is true that these studies are meaningful in that they highlighted and reconsidered the significance of the author's unique life so as to illustrate biographical and historical contexts of this Romantic text. Admitting the significance of the biographical approach, however, the current dissertation also argues that an interpretation of a literary work should consider a number of outside influences that affect the meaning of a text, which is in and of itself a creation of historical, political, economic, and material aspects of a specific time and place, not merely of an individual author. After the theoretical background suggested in Chapter I, Chapter II emphasizes the history of the publication of the first two cantos and investigates John Murray's publishing practices. Chapter III addresses some of the external influences on the reading of Don Juan to show that non-political content of the early five cantos came to be treated as politically radical by the voluntary and involuntary association of Byron and his work with radical publishers such as Leigh Hunt and William Hone. Chapter IV is a study of the new cantos of Don Juan (from the sixth canto). Focusing on Byron's political stance which gradually developed from his early liberalism into a more radical activism, this chapter explores Percy Shelley's influence on Byron's political ideas, the new cantos of Don Juan, and Byron's use of radical satire to instigate the fight against tyranny. Chapter V investigates Byron's attitude towards the profits he earned from the copyright of his poems to argue that Byron?s attitude towards his brain-money gradually changed from an ambiguous position to a strong insistence on obtaining what he perceived to be fair payments for his poems.

Two characterization studies were undertaken to assess the concentrations and environmental loadings of 125 pharmaceuticals, personal care products, illicit drugs and their metabolites (PPCPs) in screened municipal wastewaters being discharged into Juan de Fuca Strait from two marine outfalls in the Capital Regional District, British Columbia, Canada. Two up-stream pump stations were also sampled. The PPCP concentration profiles were generally similar between the four sampling locations. Qualitative seasonal patterns in PPCP concentrations were also observed, primarily due to rainfall events that diluted wastewater contaminants during the winter. Increases in wastewater flow volumes following a rain event appeared to result in consistent shifts in PPCP concentration profiles for at least three of the four sites. Results indicated that the concentrations of PPCPs were similar to those observed in influents from other jurisdictions. Predicted environmental concentrations were predominantly well below literature concentration thresholds known to induce acute or chronic effects in organisms in the environment. However, there was slight potential for adverse chronic effects as a result of the predicted environmental concentrations of ibuprofen around the outfalls based on comparison to literature environmental effects thresholds. In general, sub-lethal and chronic effects endpoints were relatively limited in availability in the literature, as were literature thresholds derived from exposures to PPCP mixtures. Additional adverse chronic effects of these substances may be discovered in the future. Comparisons were made to regional prescription rates and population demographics to determine whether these factors could be good predictors of PPCP concentrations or loadings. Although wastewater concentrations and loadings were proportional to both prescription rates and population size, the regression relationships were statistically weak or insignificant. As such, prescription rates and population size could not be used to accurately predict pharmaceutical wastewater concentrations and loadings on their own. No qualitative relationships were observed between wastewater PPCP concentrations and either population age or gender breakdown. Overall, wastewater flow volumes, derived population equivalents and analytical method variability were also important factors to consider. Minor proportional deviations were observed following a preliminary loading comparison based on the relative population equivalent sizes of each of the four wastewater system catchment areas. These deviations could have been a result of disproportional hospital loading inputs and/or wastewater system inflow and infiltration. Comparisons were also made between the concentrations of PPCPs and the concentrations of conventional wastewater parameters typically used to characterize bulk wastewater loadings (i.e., carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, total suspended solids, volatile suspended solids). Only 18 of the 125 PPCPs were positively correlated with all four conventional parameters. This suggests that designing and optimizing treatment plants to efficiently reduce conventional parameter loadings may not lead to as efficient or consistent reductions in the concentrations of all of the assessed PPCPs. However, the PPCP results were based on analyses of the filtered aqueous fraction of the wastewater samples, whereas the conventional parameter results were based on whole unfiltered effluent samples. As such, there was no direct link between the two sets of results. / Graduate / 0306

Juan Marse is generally acknowledged to be one of Spain's leading writers, his work having achieved both critical acclaim and popular success. Despite this author's extensive use of references and allusion to, and quotations from, others' texts, previous research on Marse's novels has largely ignored the important role played by intertextuality in his work. This thesis explores Marse's use of others' texts in five of his later novels, viz. Ultimas tardes con Teresa (1965), La oscura historia de in prima Montse (1970), Si to diesen que cai (1973), La muchacha de las bragas de oro (1978) and Un dia volvere (1982). A general overview of theories of intertextuality is followed by a detailed discussion of Gerard Genette's theory of hypertextuality, as discussed in his work Palimpsestes: La litterature au second degre (1982). It is his theoretical model and terminology, together with insights from Linda Hutcheon's book, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (1985), which inform the detailed analysis of Marse's novels which makes up the greater part of this thesis. This analysis focusses on Marse's extensive hypertextual use not only of literary texts but also of films, pictures, comic books and song lyrics. It also examines the ways in which Marse signals the presence of these borrowed texts to his readers and considers the connections in his work between metafiction and hypertextuality. It is argued in conclusion that hypertextual analysis of Marsd's later novels reveals hidden dimensions in the author's work not previously commented on in other critical studies of Marse's fiction.

No description available.

Desde que aparecieron los poemas de Juan Arolas (Barcelona, 1805 - Valencia, 1849), primero en los periódicos de la época romántica y más adelante en libro, han pasado muchos años, el tiempo suficiente para sentir despego por lo que parece viejo, sin tener aún pátina de antigüedad. Tras unos primeros artículos laudatorios, la estrella de Arolas fue eclipsándose y la crítica moderna ha olvidado que en torno al año 1840 ("annus mirabilis" para la poesía romántica española), el autor de las "Orientales" escribió casi todo lo que entonces le quitaban de las manos los lectores, no tan sólo en Valencia (su ciudad de adopción), sino en el resto de España y hasta en Hispanoamérica, en donde se multiplicaron las ediciones "piratas" de algunas de sus antologías. Sólo en 1898, José Ramón Lomba y Pedraja publicó su estudio de la obra de Arolas, el primero con unas ciertas pretensiones de rigor. Sin embargo, este trabajo, si bien es digno de alabanza, adolece de una ligereza como de vuela pluma, que a veces acaba en la inexactitud. Desde entonces, han sido escasísimos los entendidos que han recogido el envite planteado por Lomba. Sólo han aparecido algunos aspectos parciales o notas introductorias, pero en tan insignificante proporción con respecto a la bibliografía publicada sobre la literatura del siglo XIX, que resulta sospechoso este desinterés. Desde esta perspectiva, creo en la validez de emprender la revisión de la figura y la obra de Arolas, porque si al estudiar un determinado período de la Literatura sólo nos interesan las figuras más destacadas del momento, corremos el riesgo de escamotear el ámbito cultural en el que éstas surgieron y que les da su significación. Por el contrario, cuando nos aproximamos a la obra de los autores considerados como menos trascendentes, los rasgos generacionales quedan más evidentes y son una fuente preciosa para estudiar el punto de partida de los escritores más relevantes. A lo largo de los diez capítulos en que he estructurado la presente Tesis Doctoral, he querido dejar clara la significación que la figura de Juan Arolas tiene en el panorama de la poesía romántica española. Entre otras cosas, Arolas asumió la responsabilidad de divulgar entre sus paisanos el nuevo estilo literario, pero esta misión (que llevó a través de sus colaboraciones en la prensa) le hizo caer en un cierto adocenamiento, en repeticiones, en clichés. A pesar de ello, su fama traspasó las fronteras regionales y llegó hasta Hispanoamérica, según lo demuestra el gran número de ediciones de sus poesías aparecidas en aquellas latitudes. Fue, en definitiva, un poeta popular, que supo aunar en su estilo los de otros, cuyo mérito mayor consistió en ser pionero iniciando una senda que otros intentarían seguir con desigual fortuna.