Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2019

Literary realism, that is, texts that seek to represent the actual in literature while achieving a sense of verisimilitude, have historically been analyzed and defined by a number of critics. These critics have, with differing approaches, attempted to make comprehensible what it is that constitutes the realist text. In their process of doing so, many have dismantled this specific category of text and isolated its distinguishing components. This study has sought to challenge and elaborate on three of the most influential, scholarly voices that have articulated such ideas about the realist text: Ian Watt, Eric Auerbach and Roland Barthes. The purpose has been to add to this field of knowledge by increasing our understanding of what it is that constitutes literary realism. This has been done by analyzing three realist works that have been previously examined by these critics, and then, by studying two further realist works, more recent in time. These works are, in the order that they have been approached and analyzed: Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (Published in 1722), Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Heart (Published in 1877), Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (Published in 1925), Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road (Published in 2006) and Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Published in 2022). As a result, the study has found that technology is a recurring textual element that functions as a coherence-making narrative device in these realist texts, and as a consequence, has laid bare a blind spot in these above-mentioned critics’ definitions of literary realism. Thus, the study suggests that technology should be understood as a distinguishing element in the literary text. The selection of works has, in turn, allowed for the study to both compare and contrast these texts, and to trace the effect that the technological development in the reality preceding the literary text can be said to have on these texts themselves. Here, the study has found that new technologies in the reality preceding the text often occur as new coherence-making textual devices in these literary works, and thus, that the technological development in the actual affects the realist text itself.

Ο Μίνως Βολανάκης ήταν ένας σημαντικός σκηνοθέτης της ελληνικής θεατρικής σκηνής, παρότι δεν απασχόλησε ακόμη τους μελετητές του θεάτρου. Τα βιβλιογραφικά κενά και η δράση του, τόσο στην Ελλάδα όσο και στο εξωτερικό, οδήγησαν στην εκπόνηση της παρούσας μελέτης, η οποία επικεντρώνεται στον τρόπο προσέγγισης του αρχαίου ελληνικού δράματος από τον Βολανάκη.Στόχος της εργασίας ήταν η μελέτη τριών παραστάσεων αρχαίας τραγωδίας, της Ηλέκτρας του Σοφοκλή (1975) και της Μήδειας του Ευριπίδη (1976) για το Κρατικό Θέατρο Βορείου Ελλάδος και του Οιδίποδα Τυράννου του Σοφοκλή (1982) για το Εθνικό Θέατρο, και η εξαγωγή συμπερασμάτων σχετικά με τον τρόπο προσέγγισης της αρχαίας ελληνικής τραγωδίας από τον σκηνοθέτη. Ένα από τα θέματα που μελετήθηκαν ήταν η επιλογή του σκηνοθέτη να αναθέτει στις παραστάσεις του τους πρωταγωνιστικούς ρόλους σε πολύ γνωστούς ηθοποιούς, χωρίς να έχουν απαραίτητα προηγούμενη εμπειρία στην αρχαία τραγωδία και χωρίς να προβληματίζεται ιδιαίτερα για το αν ήταν καλή η υπόκρισή τους. Τέλος, εξετάστηκε η ενδεχόμενη συμβολή του Μίνωος Βολανάκη στον εκσυγχρονισμό των παραστάσεων της αρχαίας ελληνικής τραγωδίας στην Ελλάδα. / Minos Volanakis was a popular director of the greek theatre scene, though he has not yet attracted the scholars of theater. The literature gaps and his action, both in Greece and abroad, led to the preparation of this study, which focuses on how Volanakis approached the ancient Greek drama. The aim of my work was to study three performances of ancient tragedy, Sophocles' Electra (1975) and Medea of Euripides (1976) for the State Theater of Northern Greece and Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (1982) for the National Theatre, and draw conclusions about how the director approached the ancient Greek tragedy. One of the issues studied was the director's choice to delegate the leading roles of his performances to well-known actors, who had not necessarily have previous experience in the ancient tragedy. The next issue studied was that he did not particularly worry whether their acting was good enough. To conclude, I studied the possible contribution of Minos Volanakis in the modernization of performances of ancient Greek tragedy in Greece.