Mon projet de thèse démontre le rôle essentiel que tient la mélancolie dans les comédies de Shakespeare. J’analyse sa présence au travers de multiples pièces, des farces initiales, en passant par les comédies romantiques, jusqu’aux tragicomédies qui ponctuent les dernières années de sa carrière. Je dénote ainsi sa métamorphose au sein du genre comique, passant d’une représentation individuelle se rapportant à la théorie des humeurs, à un spectre émotionnel se greffant aux structures théâtrales dans lesquelles il évolue. Je suggère que cette progression s’apparent au cycle de joie et de tristesse qui forme la façon par laquelle Shakespeare dépeint l’émotion sur scène. Ma thèse délaisse donc les théories sur la mélancolie se rapportant aux humeurs et à la psychanalyse, afin de repositionner celle-ci dans un créneau shakespearien, comique, et historique, où le mot « mélancolie » évoque maintes définitions sur un plan social, scientifique, et surtout théâtrale. Suite à un bref aperçu de sa prévalence en Angleterre durant la Renaissance lors de mon introduction, les chapitres suivants démontrent la surabondance de mélancolie dans les comédies de Shakespeare. A priori, j’explore les façons par lesquelles elle est développée au travers de La Comedie des Erreurs et Peines d’Amour Perdues. Les efforts infructueux des deux pièces à se débarrasser de leur mélancolie par l’entremise de couplage hétérosexuels indique le malaise que celle-ci transmet au style comique de Shakespere et ce, dès ces premiers efforts de la sorte. Le troisième chapitre soutient que Beaucoup de Bruit pour Rien et Le Marchand de Venise offrent des exemples parangons du phénomène par lequel des personnages mélancoliques refusent de tempérer leurs comportements afin de se joindre aux célébrations qui clouent chaque pièce. La mélancolie que l’on retrouve ici génère une ambiguïté émotionnelle qui complique sa présence au sein du genre comique. Le chapitre suivant identifie Comme il vous plaira et La Nuit des Rois comme l’apogée du traitement comique de la mélancolie entrepris par Shakespeare. Je suggère que ces pièces démontrent l’instant où les caractérisations corporelles de la mélancolie ne sont plus de mise pour le style dramatique vers lequel Shakespeare se tourne progressivement. Le dernier chapitre analyse donc Périclès, prince de Tyr et Le Conte d’Hiver afin de démontrer que, dans la dernière phase de sa carrière théâtrale, Shakespeare a recours aux taxonomies comiques élucidées ultérieurement afin de créer une mélancolie spectrale qui s’attardent au-delà des pièces qu’elle hante. Cette caractérisation se rapporte aux principes de l’art impressionniste, puisqu’elle promeut l’abandon de la précision au niveau du texte pour favoriser les réponses émotionnelles que les pièces véhiculent. Finalement, ma conclusion démontre que Les Deux Nobles Cousins représente la culmination du développement de la mélancolie dans les comédies de Shakespeare, où l’incarnation spectrale du chapitre précèdent atteint son paroxysme. La nature collaborative de la pièce suggère également un certain rituel transitif entre la mélancolie dite Shakespearienne et celle développée par John Fletcher à l’intérieure de la même pièce. / My dissertation argues for a reconsideration of melancholy as an integral component of Shakespearean comedy. I analyse its presence across the comic canon, from early farcical plays through mature comic works, to the late romances that conclude Shakespeare’s career. In doing so, I denote its shift from an individual, humoural characterization to a more spectral incarnation that engrains itself in the dramatic fabric of the plays it inhabits. Ultimately, its manifestation purports to the cyclical nature of emotions and the mixture of mirth and sadness that the aforementioned late plays put forth. The thesis repositions Shakespearean melancholy away from humoural, psychoanalytical and other theoretical frameworks and towards an early modern context, where the term “melancholy” channels a plethora of social, scientific, and dramatic meanings. After a brief overview of the prevalence of melancholy in early modern England, the following chapters attest to the pervasiveness of melancholy within Shakespeare’s comic corpus, suggesting that, rather than a mere foil to the spirits of mirth and revelry, it proves elemental to comic structures as an agent of dramatic progression that fundamentally alters its generic make-up. I initially consider the ways in which melancholy is developed in The Comedy of Errors and Love’s Labor’s Lost, as an isolated condition, easily dismissible by what I refer to as the symmetrical structure of comic resolution. In both plays, I suggest, the failure to completely eradicate melancholy translates into highly ambiguous comic conclusions that pave the way for subsequent comic works, where melancholy’s presence grows increasingly cumbersome. Chapter three reads Much Ado about Nothing and The Merchant of Venice as prime dramatic examples of the phenomenon by which prominent comic characters not only fail to offer a clear cause for their overwhelming melancholy, but refuse to mitigate it for the benefit of the plays at hand. The melancholy found here creates emotional loose ends from which a sense of malaise that will take full effect in later comedies emanates. In the next chapter, As You Like It and Twelfth Night are held as a landmark in Shakespeare’s treatment of comic melancholy. The chapter suggests that these plays complete the break from individual melancholic characterization, which no longer seem suitable to the comic style towards which Shakespeare progressively turns. Consequently, the final chapter undertakes an analysis of Pericles and The Winter’s Tale to demonstrate the fact that, in his concluding dramatic phase, Shakespeare returns to the comic taxonomies of melancholy in order to foster more forceful, lingering emotional impacts as a form of dramatic impressionism, a relinquishing of details in favour of more powerful emotional responses. In a brief coda, I read The Two Noble Kinsmen as the culmination of the dramatic treatment in melancholy in Shakespeare, where the spectral wistfulness that characterized the late plays reaches a breaking point. I suggest that the play bears witness to a passing of the torch, as it were, between the Shakespearean dramatization of melancholy and the one propounded by Fletcher, which was to become the norm within subsequent seventeenth-century tragicomic works.

Est-il possible de détruire un homme ? Est-il possible pour un homme de se sentir inhumain au point de se négativer lui-même quand ce sentiment lui devient insupportable ? Il existe des situations extrêmes, des épreuves de vie insoutenables et des expériences honteuses qui remettent en question ce sentiment d’appartenance à l’humanité. Jean, Margaret et Abel questionnent leur place dans la relation à l’autre et au monde face à une maladie qui perturbe leur existence et les confronte à de nombreuses pertes : Perdre sa dignité, perdre un enfant, perdre sa mère et perdre, pour certains, l’ignorance d’un savoir sur sa propre mort. Le cancer, lorsqu’il est mis en place de l’Autre, fonctionne parfois comme une sentence de mort, comme un point de certitude, comme une lettre mortuaire qui se chronicise dans la pensée et qui réorganise la place du sujet dans son rapport à l’Autre et à l’objet. La clinique nous montre ici à quel point le signifiant « cancer » confronte certains patients à une épreuve de réel insoutenable qui se présente dans l’imaginaire, soit sous la forme d’un précipice, d’un vide dans lequel ils peuvent tomber, soit dans le tic-tac d’une bombe à retardement susceptible d’exploser à tout moment. La clinique nous montre aussi qu’il existe des métaphores difficiles à entendre mais qui ne peuvent demeurer dans les limbes de la pensée. Au-delà de la métaphore du cancer comme système concentrationnaire, notre travail consiste à dégager un mode de fonctionnement logique et un positionnement subjectif particuliers.À partir des traversées de la honte, des expériences douloureuses et de cette profonde douleur d’exister que la maladie cancéreuse peut réactiver, nous verrons qu’une trajectoire de vie peut s’inverser. Le concept de « déportation psychique » concerne, selon nous, une inversion temporelle et une réorganisation subjective qui fera dire à celui qui l’éprouve : « Si ce n’est pas aujourd’hui, c’est que je vais mourir demain ». La mort plantée ainsi dans l’horizon d’un regard obscurcit l’histoire de vie du sujet dans une sorte de mélancolisation de son existence et dans la présentification de son « être pour la mort ».Est-il possible de détruire un homme ? « Si c’est un homme » écrit Primo Levi en posant, selon nous, la question ontologique suivante : « Que suis-je donc pour avoir vécu tout cela ? Pour l’autre, pour moi ? Suis-je un sujet ou un objet ? » Il interrogerait ainsi la qualité et la valeur d’un homme lorsqu’il est traversé par la figure du muselmann. À cette question, Pierre Fédida y répond par la nécessité de la ressemblance, Jacques Lacan par la nécessité de la langue. Primo Levi nous le montre dans sa rencontre avec Hurbinek : Pour être un homme, il faut être pris dans la langue ; il est nécessaire soit de parler, soit d’être parlé. Pour le détruire, il faut l’en extraire et faire en sorte qu’il croie qu’il n’est rien que ça, un simple déchet qui fait « tache dans le tableau » de l’humanité. / Is it possible to wreck a human being? Is it possible for a man to feel inhuman enough as to annihilate himself when this feeling overwhelms him? There are situations, extreme ones, unbearable and shameful life experiences that can put someone in doubt of his affiliation to humanity.Jean, Margaret and Abel are questioning their position in their relations to the others and the world when confronted to a disease disrupting their existence and to the losses it involves: lose their dignity, lose a child, lose their mother and, for some of them, lose the ignorance of the knowledge of their own death. When cancer is implemented by the Other, it can operate as a death sentence, as a certitude, as a funeral letter lingering on one’s thought up to the point to reorganize the place of the subject in his relations to the Other and the object. Clinical experience thereby demonstrates how the signifier “cancer” may drive a subject to the unbearable encounter of the Real, represented in the Imaginary in the form of a chasm, an empty space one risks to fall in, or the ticking of a bomb about to explode from minute to minute. Clinical experience also demonstrates that some metaphors are hard to admit but they should not remain in the deep limbs of thought. Beyond the cancer metaphor of a concentration camp, our work consists in bringing out a personal logical way of functioning and a subjective positioning.Through the alleys of shame, painful experiences and pain of living - which cancer disease often reactivates- we see that the path of life can be inverted. For all we are concerned, the concept of “psychical deportation” is about time inversion and a subjective reorganization which makes the suffering person say: “If I don’t die today, it will be for tomorrow”. Death is this way implemented in a subject’s field of view on his life story, darkening it in a sort of melancholisation of his existence and the presentification of his “being-toward-death”.Is it possible to wreck a man? “If this is a man”, we can imagine Primo Levi write as to ask the following hontological question: “Then what am I after enduring all that? What am I for the others as for myself? Am I a subject or an object?” He could have questioned this way the quality and the value of the human being when seeing himself in the muselmann figure. To answer to this hypothetical question, Pierre Fédida would have used the necessity of resemblance while Jacques Lacan the necessity of the language. Primo Levi could have confirmed the above positionings when meeting with Hurbinek : To be a human being, you need to be in the language; it’s necessary whether to speak or to be spoken. To devastate him, you need to extract him from the language and make him believe that he’s only that: a pariah, a piece of trash that “spoils the image ” of humanity.

Para abordar nossa pergunta como se dá a sublimação na melancolia, tomaremos a escrita como modelo sublimatório, acreditando que ela demonstraria, com maior nitidez, os mecanismos que buscaremos descrever. Escolhemos como objeto de nossa investigação teórica, a obra de Ana Cristina César artista carioca, ícone da poesia dos anos 70 no Brasil. A particularidade de sua escrita é o entrelaçamento com sua vida, cuja autobiografia ficcional traz o que acreditamos ser um discurso melancólico. Através de uma leitura sistemática do legado literário e biográfico da autora, cuja escrita transitou entre cartas, poemas, diário e tradução, investigaremos os enlaces e desenlaces entre sublimação e melancolia. Faremos um exame apurado da metapsicologia freudiana da melancolia, do conceito de desfusão pulsional e da sublimação, tentando entender a relação entre as dimensões tópica, dinâmica e econômica. A fim de melhor atingir nossos objetivos traçados, buscamos nosso aporte teórico também nas obras de autores pós-freudianos que se dedicaram ao tema, como, por exemplo, Klein, Winnicott, Lambotte e Rosenberg. Foi realizada uma análise, observando a singularidade da pesquisa que inclui o campos da literatura e da psicanálise. Descobrimos que o processo sublimatório, quando faz uso do trabalho de melancolia, e não do trabalho de luto, aumenta o risco de desfusão pulsional. A partir da investigação da dimensão temporal e das instâncias ideais que possuem características próprias na melancolia, observamos que há uma especificidade da sublimação nesta afecção / In order to better approach our central question, how the sublimation occurs in melancholy, we are going to take writing as a sublimatory model, which pointedly demonstrates the mechanisms that we will try to describe. We have chosen as object of analysis for this theoretical investigation, the work of Ana Cristina César, artist from Rio de Janeiro, iconic in Brazils 1970s poetry. The particularity of her writing is the intertwining with her personal life, whose fictional autobiography surfaces what we believe to be a melancholic discourse. Through a systematic reading of the authors literary and biographical legacy, which covers a variety of genres and forms, such as collections of poetry, diaries, as well as translations, we will persecute the connections and outcomes in the processes of sublimation and melancholy. We are going to do an acute examination of the Freudian metapsychology of melancholy, the concept of pulsional defusion as well as sublimation, in an attempt to understand the relationship between the topic, dynamic, and economic dimensions. Such achievements will not be possible without the contributions of post-Freudian scholars, such as Klein, Winnicott, Lambotte, and Rosenberg, whose works will be our theoretical apparatus. Our analysis observed the particularity of the researche that embrace both the fields of psychology and literature. We have reached the conclusion that when the sublimatory process uses the work of melancholy, not grief, the risk of pulsional defusion increases. Through the investigation of the temporal dimensions and the ideal instances that possess proper characteristics in melancholy, we observed that there is a specificity of sublimation in this condition

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:38:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Roberto Kirschbaum.pdf: 937728 bytes, checksum: 89aa9c74ca98c54a3a3e700fa65730da (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In this research we want to examine the challenges and therapeutic possibilities in the analysis of melancholic narcissistic neuroses. For that, we ll first go over some conceptions of melancholy along History, arriving at the psychoanalytical conception, chiefly with Freud and Karl Abraham. These psychoanalysts locate melancholia among the narcissistic affections, so we ll follow examining post-freudian and contemporary authors and their approach to narcissism, amongst them Klein, Riviere and Rosenfeld. We ll try to focus, on the one hand, the factors that hamper the treatment of these affections, in special the patients difficulty with the work of mourning, and the negative therapeutic reaction; on the other hand, the elements that constitute or contribute to their therapy. The objective of this research is an enrichment of the comprehension of the metapsychology of melancholy, needed, among other reasons, due to a theoretical and clinical empoverishment that happened with the replacement of the term melancholy by the term depression, mainly in the second half of the 20th century. We propose that this enrichment in the comprehension of the melancholic clinical picture could be helpful in the treatment of narcissistic affections, that include many of the cases being recently diagnosed as depression. Our starting point will be the report of a case of melancholy, where the transferencial relationship raised questions to the analyst, such as: what are the specific defences and resistances in these cases, and how do these impact in the transference-countertransference? If the melancholic suffers from inertia, how to avoid that the analysis of melancholy suffers the same problem? What are the limits to the treatment of melancholy? What are its ways of treatment? How to help the melancholic to develop or recover the capacity to do the work of mourning, and the capacity to love? / Nesta pesquisa propomo-nos a examinar os desafios e possibilidades na análise das neuroses narcísicas melancólicas. Para isto, serão primeiramente resgatadas algumas concepções de melancolia ao longo da história, chegando-se à concepção psicanalítica, principalmente com Freud e Karl Abraham. Estes psicanalistas situam a melancolia entre as afecções narcísicas, portanto seguiremos fazendo articulações com autores pós-freudianos e contemporâneos que abordam o narcisismo, dentre eles Klein, Riviere e Rosenfeld. Procuraremos dar enfoque, por um lado, aos fatores que dificultam a clínica dessas afecções, em especial a dificuldade dos pacientes em realizar o trabalho de luto e a reação terapêutica negativa; por outro lado, aos elementos que compõem ou favorecem sua terapêutica. O objetivo desta pesquisa é um enriquecimento da compreensão da metapsicologia do melancólico, necessária, entre outras razões, em contrapartida ao empobrecimento teórico e clínico ocorridos com a substituição do termo melancolia pelo termo depressão, principalmente a partir de meados do séc. XX. Postulamos que esse enriquecimento na compreensão do quadro melancólico poderá ser de ajuda no exercício da clínica das afecções narcísicas, que incluem muitos dos casos recentemente diagnosticados como de depressão. Partiremos do relato de um caso clínico de quadro melancólico, cuja relação transferencial suscitou questionamentos ao terapeuta, tais como: quais são as defesas e as resistências específicas nestes quadros, e como impactam na transferência-contratransferência? Se o melancólico padece de inércia, como evitar que a análise da melancolia também padeça do mesmo mal? Quais os limites da clínica da melancolia? Quais são as vias terapêuticas? Como ajudar o melancólico a desenvolver ou recuperar a capacidade de realizar o trabalho de luto e a capacidade de amar?

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rafael Gonzaga de Macedo.pdf: 3194045 bytes, checksum: 194da81c2fb39b2567c36755e9f3764b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation had as its aim to build a visual history from the images produced by the Teutonic Danish traveler Paul Harro-Harring, who came to Brazil in 1840. Through a series of drawings and watercolor paintings, this traveler and artist portrayed landscapes and scenes from slave-related daily life in Rio de Janeiro. Our research treated such images as a visual source to a certain manner of producing and assigning meaning to the world, building our interpretation and interaction with its images in the core of a historiography tradition named Visual Studies. Visual Studies carry in their theoric outline the term visuality , which refers to the way a certain look will perceive and attribute meaning to the visible. Thus, the Visual Studies address on culture and the visual dimension in every kind of cultural production in a determined historical-cultural context. From these references, it was aimed to establish a relation between the landscape and nature conceptions in the romantic painting with the Rio de Janeiro‟s scenery created by the artist. There was a description and interpretation of images that pictured slave trade scenes and the cultural relationships between the slaves among themselves and with their landlords. To do such a study, it was considered not only the imaginary and the cultural background of the artist, but also the tension of the experience lived by him in 1840‟s Rio de Janeiro. It is concluded that his perception of the world, his political and philosophical conceptions on culture notions, nation and men and also the concrete conditions of the slaves‟ existence feeded his perception and constellated the visuality present in his images / Esta dissertação teve por objetivo construir uma história visual a partir de imagens produzidas pelo viajante teuto-dinamarquês Paul Harro-Harring, que veio ao Brasil em 1840. Por meio de uma série de desenhos e aquarelas esse viajante e artista retratou paisagens e cenas do cotidiano escravagista no Rio de Janeiro. Nossa pesquisa tratou essas imagens como fonte visual para uma dada maneira de produzir e atribuir sentido ao mundo e as diferenças culturais, construindo nossa interpretação e interação com suas imagens no interior de uma tradição historiográfica denominada Estudos Visuais. Os Estudos Visuais carregam, em seu arcabouço teórico, o termo visualidade que se refere à maneira como um determinado olhar vai perceber e atribuir significado ao visível e ao sensível. Assim, os Estudos Visuais, debruçam-se sobre as culturas e a dimensão visual contida em todos os tipos de produções culturais em um determinado contexto histórico-cultural. A partir dessas referências buscou-se estabelecer a relação entre as concepções de paisagem e natureza, no espírito da pintura romântica, com as paisagens do Rio de Janeiro elaboradas pelo artista. Foram descritas e interpretadas as imagens que retratavam cenas do tráfico negreiro e das relações culturais dos escravizados entre si e com os senhores. Para tanto, considerou-se, para além do imaginário e bagagem cultural do artista, a tensão das experiências por ele vividas naquele Rio de Janeiro de 1840. Conclui-se que a sua visão de mundo, suas concepções políticas e filosóficas acerca de noções de cultura, nação e homens, bem como as condições concretas de existência dos escravizados, nutriram o seu olhar e constelaram a visualidade presente em suas imagens

Cette thèse examine la pertinence d’une filiation beckettienne chez John Banville, et propose d’envisager les apparentes divergences d’écriture comme les manifestations d’une même affection mélancolique : en effet, l’économie beckettienne et la profusion banvillienne pourraient constituer deux produits d’une écriture placée sous le signe du double et du décalage. John Banville poursuit à sa manière le projet beckettien de l’esthétique de l’échec : il illustre, à l’instar de son devancier, l’impossibilité de concilier deux images contradictoires de la réalité, celle, idéale, d’une pensée conduite selon les règles de la science, et cette autre, proliférante, instable, de la matière même. Le principe selon lequel le double dégradé de l’idéal met en échec toute tentative d’ordonner les données du réel sous-tend et caractérise les œuvres de ces deux écrivains, que rassemble une même fascination pour la science et ses systèmes de pensée. Le fossé séparant idéal et contingence, ordonnancement de la pensée et chaos matériel, y abrite la source d’une écriture mélancolique. L’analyse du discours pseudo-scientifique, qui dans le même mouvement témoigne d’une volonté affichée d’apprivoiser le réel et révèle l’instabilité fondamentale de l’être et du langage, permet de mettre au jour une filiation mélancolique. C’est cette filiation que l’on peut suivre en observant les persistances visuelles et auditives, et plus largement la perpétuation du ressassement de la pensée spéculative : les images, voix et pensées de l’impuissance font perpétuellement retour au sein des œuvres, mais également d’une œuvre à l’autre, et de Beckett à Banville. / This thesis tries to uncover a literary filiation between Samuel Beckett and John Banville, with particular emphasis on Beckett’s Trilogy and John Banville’s scientific tetralogy. It proposes to consider their apparently diverging modes of writing as two manifestations of the same melancholy affection: the economy of means in Beckett and its profusion in Banville could be regarded as two modes of literary production characterized by discrepancy and error. John Banville follows the Beckettian project of an esthetics of failure – like his predecessor, he illustrates the impossibility of successfully combining two contradictory images of reality, one an ideal image driven by thought mechanisms modelled on scientific procedures, and the other, a buzzing, instable image of matter itself. The principle whereby the degraded double of the ideal necessarily defeats every attempt at ordering the data of reality underpins and defines the works of the two writers, displaying a fascination for science and systems of thought. In their fiction, the gap between ideal and contingency, between thought processes and material chaos, is the source of a melancholy inspiration. The analysis of pseudo-scientific discourse, which both testifies to a determination to gain control over chaotic reality and reveals the fundamental instability of being and language, allows us to uncover a link between the two writers, based on melancholy. This legacy can then be evidenced through the observation of the same visual and auditory perceptions, and more largely the perpetuation of boundless speculation: images, voices, and thoughts of impotence recur throughout the works, but also from one work to the next, and from Beckett to Banville.

<p>This dissertation is a study of the work of Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus). Born in Provence, France in 1503, this true "Renaissance man” (astrologer, doctor of medicine and translator) achieved fame with the publication of his Centuries or “Prophecies”. This work presents 10 centuries of quatrains – almost a thousand short poems of only four rhymed lines each. The first third was published in 1555, another third in 1557 and finally the ten Centuries all together, posthumously, in 1568. The present study concentrates on the first edition, consisting of the first 353 quatrains.</p><p>The main purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyse the language, the style and the genre of the Centuries, aspects rather neglected by the critics hitherto. The large number of quatrains analysed in detail provides a solid basis for accurately characterizing the distinctive features of the text. The methods applied are mainly quantitative and comparative.</p><p>Initially, a short presentation of Nostradamus’ life and work sketches in the background for the creation of the Centuries. The analysis of the poetic form illustrates the stylistic as well as linguistic consequences of the use of the quatrain: it is argued that the poetical structure of the text influences its language as well as its oracular genre. The language of the Centuries is quantitatively examined, first at the sentence level and then at the phrase level. In order to define its specific nature, comparisons are made with the language of other texts from the same period, i.e. the Délie by Maurice Scève and the Pantagrueline Pronostication by François Rabelais. The results demonstrate that the most prominent differences concern what may be referred to as Nostradamus’ strategy of omission, where the restrictive metrical form of the quatrain demands that he be sparing of words.</p><p>Thereafter, the dissertation concludes that the number of textual themes and motives of the Centuries is quite limited (war, catastrophe, government), the prodigy being identified as the general poetic topic that contributes to the coherence of the text. A subsequent section thoroughly investigates stylistic elements such as enumeration, repetition and onomastics. The objective of the final section is to define the genre of the Centuries. The close connection between the concepts of poetry and prophecy during the French Renaissance is well documented. It is thus suggested that the enigmatic, dark oeuvre of Nostradamus inspired several of the Pléiade poets, whose group that in many ways explored the oracular genre in the 1550s and 1560s. It is furthermore demonstrated that the concept of oracular poetry is appropriate for defining the style and the genre of the Centuries.</p><p>Together, the different results of our survey lead to a discussion of the poetic qualities of the Centuries. The present study promotes the conclusion that Nostradamus is to be considered much less a prophet than an author of oracular poetry.</p>

This dissertation is a study of the work of Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus). Born in Provence, France in 1503, this true "Renaissance man” (astrologer, doctor of medicine and translator) achieved fame with the publication of his Centuries or “Prophecies”. This work presents 10 centuries of quatrains – almost a thousand short poems of only four rhymed lines each. The first third was published in 1555, another third in 1557 and finally the ten Centuries all together, posthumously, in 1568. The present study concentrates on the first edition, consisting of the first 353 quatrains. The main purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyse the language, the style and the genre of the Centuries, aspects rather neglected by the critics hitherto. The large number of quatrains analysed in detail provides a solid basis for accurately characterizing the distinctive features of the text. The methods applied are mainly quantitative and comparative. Initially, a short presentation of Nostradamus’ life and work sketches in the background for the creation of the Centuries. The analysis of the poetic form illustrates the stylistic as well as linguistic consequences of the use of the quatrain: it is argued that the poetical structure of the text influences its language as well as its oracular genre. The language of the Centuries is quantitatively examined, first at the sentence level and then at the phrase level. In order to define its specific nature, comparisons are made with the language of other texts from the same period, i.e. the Délie by Maurice Scève and the Pantagrueline Pronostication by François Rabelais. The results demonstrate that the most prominent differences concern what may be referred to as Nostradamus’ strategy of omission, where the restrictive metrical form of the quatrain demands that he be sparing of words. Thereafter, the dissertation concludes that the number of textual themes and motives of the Centuries is quite limited (war, catastrophe, government), the prodigy being identified as the general poetic topic that contributes to the coherence of the text. A subsequent section thoroughly investigates stylistic elements such as enumeration, repetition and onomastics. The objective of the final section is to define the genre of the Centuries. The close connection between the concepts of poetry and prophecy during the French Renaissance is well documented. It is thus suggested that the enigmatic, dark oeuvre of Nostradamus inspired several of the Pléiade poets, whose group that in many ways explored the oracular genre in the 1550s and 1560s. It is furthermore demonstrated that the concept of oracular poetry is appropriate for defining the style and the genre of the Centuries. Together, the different results of our survey lead to a discussion of the poetic qualities of the Centuries. The present study promotes the conclusion that Nostradamus is to be considered much less a prophet than an author of oracular poetry.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the signification of identitary discourses in the novel Sefarad: Una novela de novelas by Antonio Muñoz Molina and determine to what extent these discourses represent and respond to identitary discourses in contemporary Spanish society. The analysis focuses on three principal questions: how is the narrative constructed, what is conveyed as a result, and what is the aim of the narrative. Identity is understood as a social construction, an individual and continuous process of assuming, defining, negotiating and maintaining cultural identities, elements of the surrounding world that provide the individual with a sense of meaning (Fromm 1956; Castiñeira 2005; Marsella 2008). The novel consists of different stories that manifest the social impact of the totalitarian regimes in Europe during the twentieth century, told by a diversity of voices. First, the analysis deals with the structure of the text, examined through the model of mise en abyme (Dällenbach 1989). Secondly, the significations of transition, transgression (Lotman 1978) and, analogically, stigmatization are deduced (Goffman 1972), processes that are related to the effects of the frontier as a metaphor (Pratt Ewing 1998) and to limit situations (Jaspers 1974). Thirdly, the study stresses the representation of the past, in which trauma, melancholy and mourning are significant (Benjamin 1992; Freud 1986). The conclusions confirm the claim that the novel corresponds to humanity’s treasure of suffering (Leidschatz), a cultural possession that thematizes the processes of memory and oblivion (Assmann 1999), represented through stories told by the victims of intolerance at different levels. The text is accordingly conceived as a mirror through which the narrator constructs his identity as a writer and transmits meaning to the reader by providing the opportunity to reflect upon identity issues today.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the signification of identitary discourses in the novel Sefarad: Una novela de novelas by Antonio Muñoz Molina and determine to what extent these discourses represent and respond to identitary discourses in contemporary Spanish society. The analysis focuses on three principal questions: how is the narrative constructed, what is conveyed as a result, and what is the aim of the narrative. Identity is understood as a social construction, an individual and continuous process of assuming, defining, negotiating and maintaining cultural identities, elements of the surrounding world that provide the individual with a sense of meaning (Fromm 1956; Castiñeira 2005; Marsella 2008). The novel consists of different stories that manifest the social impact of the totalitarian regimes in Europe during the twentieth century, told by a diversity of voices. First, the analysis deals with the structure of the text, examined through the model of mise en abyme (Dällenbach 1989). Secondly, the significations of transition, transgression (Lotman 1978) and, analogically, stigmatization are deduced (Goffman 1972), processes that are related to the effects of the frontier as a metaphor (Pratt Ewing 1998) and to limit situations (Jaspers 1974). Thirdly, the study stresses the representation of the past, in which trauma, melancholy and mourning are significant (Benjamin 1992; Freud 1986). The conclusions confirm the claim that the novel corresponds to humanity’s treasure of suffering (Leidschatz), a cultural possession that thematizes the processes of memory and oblivion (Assmann 1999), represented through stories told by the victims of intolerance at different levels. The text is accordingly conceived as a mirror through which the narrator constructs his identity as a writer and transmits meaning to the reader by providing the opportunity to reflect upon identity issues today.