The works published by Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) between 1878 and 1889 exposed Italian culture to the most innovative European literary trend, French Naturalism, and marked a turning point in the landscape of Italian literature. While Verga’s stylistic choices are meant to create, in his own words, ‘the complete illusion of reality’ (having the author disappear from the text in order to make way for a supposedly unmediated representation), I argue that Verga’s Verist fiction ends up emphasizing precisely the ways in which people represent reality according to their own relative point of view. Since the narrative is given from the unreliable perspective of the characters, all the distortions inherent in every storytelling act become apparent. Their viewpoint is purposefully shown as being partial and informed by individual interests, feelings, and desires. These complex dynamics of representation, or misrepresentation, in Verga’s Verist production are at the heart of my enquiry. This critical focus allows me to reevaluate the traditional representation of Verism and Naturalism as backward-looking phenomena, firmly tied to a notion of art as a mirror up to nature. The present study is situated within a growing body of work (inaugurated by Luperini, Pellini, and Merola) that intends to re-frame Verga as having demonstrably paved the way for twentieth-century Modernism. The first chapter interrogates the way in which space is transfigured by characters in I Malavoglia (1881). By looking at how narratives of country vs city, past vs present are formed and shaped by the characters’ relative points of view, I argue that the novel should be read not simply as the account of the modernization of a rural village in post-unification Italy, but mainly as a study into how such oppositional narratives are formed and what aims they serve. The second chapter focuses on a specific character-type, the malevolent observer. I argue that this figure can be seen as a representation of the readers in the texts and that it is instrumental in exemplifying Verga’s skepticism toward the heuristic potential of literature. The third chapter examines the gap between reality and representation as articulated in Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889) by situating Verga in a completely new intellectual framework, that of elite theory as formulated by political theorist Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). This move allows me to re-read what has become a commonplace of Verga criticism – the theatrical conception of politics in Mastro-don Gesualdo as a bitter commentary on trasformismo – as a much wider point on social history, human nature, and on the inherently slippery essence of language, on its built-in capacity to deceive and dissimulate.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: C. Louis Leipoldt had, in his lifetime and after his death, a celebrated reputation as an important Afrikaans poet in South Africa. He remains most remembered for his contribution to the growth of Afrikaans literature and for the significance of his poetry in helping to establish Afrikaans literature in the early part of the twentieth century in South Africa. He is also mostly remembered for his recipe books and food and wine guides, as well as his career as a paediatrician. Between 1980 and 2001, scholarly work was done to offer a reappraisal of Leipoldt’s literary works. During this period, previously unpublished material written by Leipoldt was made publicly available. Three novels by Leipoldt, written in English, were published at irregular intervals between 1980 and 2001. The novels cast Leipoldt in a different light, suggesting that as an English-language writer he was against many of the ideas he was associated with when viewed as an Afrikaans-language writer. These ideas, for the most part, linked Leipoldt to the Afrikaner nationalist project of the twentieth century and co-opted him to Afrikaner nationalist policies of racial segregation based on the campaigning for group identity. The three English-language novels, collectively making up the Valley trilogy, not only reveal Leipoldt’s opposition to the nationalist project but also draw attention to some of his other work in Afrikaans, in which this same ideological opposition may be noted. In this thesis I argue that Leipoldt’s Valley trilogy, as well as some of his other, Afrikaans works, not only refute the nationalist project but offer a reading of South African modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This reading of historical events in South Africa that reveals the trajectory of the country’s modernity is strongly indicative of a unique literary modernism. It is my argument that Leipoldt’s Valley trilogy shows a modernist critique of the historical events it presents. Because the concept of a South African modernism in literature has not yet been fully defined, it is also an aim of this thesis to propose that Leipoldt’s works contribute a broad but sustained literary outlook that covers his own lifespan (1880-1947) as well as the historical period he examines in the Valley trilogy (the late 1830s -the late 1920s/early 1930s). This literary outlook, I argue, is a modernist outlook, but also a transplantation of a Western understanding of what modernism is to the South African context in which there are crucial differences. This thesis hopes to arrive at an outcome that binds Leipoldt’s anti-nationalism to his literary critique of the modernity he explores in the Valley trilogy, thereby proving that Leipoldt could be read as a South African literary modernist. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: C. Louis Leipoldt het in sy leeftyd en na sy dood 'n gevierde reputasie behou as 'n belangrike Afrikaanse digter in Suid-Afrika. Hy word die meeste onthou vir sy bydrae tot die groei van die Afrikaanse letterkunde en die belangrikeheid van sy poësie tot die Afrikaanse letterkunde, se stigting in die vroë deel van die twintigste eeu in Suid-Afrika. Hy word meestal ook onthou vir sy resepteboeke en kos en wyn gidse, sowel as vir sy loopbaan as 'n pediater. Tussen 1980 en 2001, is navorsingswerk gedoen om ‘n herwaardering van Leipoldt se literêre werk aan te bied. Gedurende hierdie tydperk was voorheen ongepubliseerde material geskryf deur Leipoldt publiek sigbaar gestel. Drie romans deur Leipoldt, wat in Engels geskryf is, is gepubliseer op ongereelde tussenposes tussen 1980 en 2001. Die romans stel Leipoldt in ‘n ander lig, wat daarop dui dat as 'n Engelse skrywer was hy gekant teen baie van die idees waarmee hy geassosieer was toe hy as 'n Afrikaanstalige skrywer beskou was. Hierdie idees het grootendeels vir Leipoldt gekoppel aan die Afrikaner-nasionalistiese projek van die twintigste eeu en het hom gekoöpteer tot Afrikaner nasionalistiese beleide van rasse-segregasie gegrond op die veldtog vir groepidentiteit. Die drie Engelstalige romans, gesamentlik die Valley-trilogie, openbaar nie net Leipoldt se teenkanting van die nasionalistiese projek nie, maar vestig ook aandag op sommige van sy ander werk in Afrikaans waarin hierdie selfde ideologiese opposisie aangeteken kan word. In hierdie tesis voer ek aan dat Leipoldt se Valley-trilogie, sowel as sommige van sy ander, Afrikaans werke, nie net die nasionalistiese projek weerlê nie, maar ook ‘n lesing aanbied van Suid-Afrikaanse moderniteit in die negentiende en twintigste eeus. Hierdie lesing van historiese gebeure in Suid-Afrika wat die trajek van die land se moderniteit openbaar is sterk aanduidend van 'n unieke literêre modernisme. Dit is my redenering dat Leipoldt se Valley-trilogie 'n modernistiese kritiek toon van die historiese gebeurtenisse wat dit aanbied. Omdat die konsep van 'n Suid-Afrikaanse modernisme in die letterkunde nog nie ten volle gedefineer is nie, is dit ook 'n doel van hierdie tesis om voor te stel dat Leipoldt se werke 'n breë maar volgehoue literêre kritiek bydra wat sy eie leeftyd dek (1880-1947) asook die historiese tydperk wat hy ondersoek in die Valley-trilogie (die laat 1830s tot die laat 1920s/vroë 1930s). Hierdie literêre vooruitsig, redeneer ek, is 'n modernistiese vooruitsig, maar ook 'n oorplanting van 'n Westerse begrip van wat die modernisme is tot die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks waarin daar belangrike verskille is. Hierdie tesis hoop tot 'n uitkoms wat Leipoldt se anti-nasionalisme bind tot aan sy literêre kritiek van die moderniteit wat hy ondersoek in die Valley-trilogie, en daardeur bewys dat Leipoldt gelees kan word word as 'n Suid-Afrikaanse literêre modernis

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation sets out from the assumption that there is a phenomenon one can call literature of impasse. By this is meant that there is a body of literature that can be defined as a literature of impasse because of the specific time of writing or of its setting. The definition used in this exploration is based upon the historical, social, political and psychological forces that shape literature of impasse. Broadly speaking the term refers to works of literature of which the authors are considered to be fully aware that what they were describing, analysing and exploring was the impasse which the Western individual had to navigate in order to arrive at any coherent sense of self. The authors in this study – Joseph Roth (1894-1939), Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) and Henri Fauconnier (1879-1973) – can be regarded as three such authors, and the aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate in what way they are indeed authors of impasse in the works under discussion and what the devices are that they have employed to convey their vision. Far from being a vision that (myopically) sees no resolution, the authors demonstrate a need to identify the impasse itself and its causes and consequences in a narrative style. As part of the acknowledgement of impasse, the description of the ontological impasse of the protagonists is also explored as is the central discussion of modernity and Modernism and how modernity appears to exacerbate the sense of impasse. The position of the protagonists in these works leads in turn to the exploration of individual attempts to overcome the impasse and, in so doing, the study inevitably has to explore the philosophical attributes reflected in each of the works. The comparative nature of this analysis, straddling three languages and literary traditions, and the complex contexts of “impasse”, necessitates studies in other disciplines. The works of Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) seemed particularly suited to this exploration as an analytical springboard inasmuch as his works examine the anthropological and philosophical aspects which have determined the historical forces and milieux with which the three novelists have to contend in the formulation of their respective visions. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif berus op die veronderstelling dat daar ‘n fenomeen bestaan wat letterkunde van impasse oftewel van die dooie punt genoem kan word. Dit beteken dat daar ‘n korpus van letterkundige werke is wat gedefinieer kan word as letterkunde van impasse op grond van die spesifieke tydperk waarin dit tot stand gekom het of die narratiewe agtergrond daarvan. Die definisie wat in hierdie studie gebruik word is gegrond op die geskiedkundige, sosiale, politiese en sielkundige kragte waardeur letterkunde van impasse gevorm word. Die term verwys in die breë na werke wat geskep word deur skrywers wat ten volle daarvan bewus is dat dit wat hulle beskryf, ontleed en verken die dooie punt is waardeur die Westerse individu moet beweeg om enige koherente sin van die self te bereik. Die skrywers in hierdie studie – Joseph Roth (1894-1939), Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) en Henri Fauconnier (1879-1973) – kan beskou word as drie sodanige skrywers en die doel van hierdie proefskrif is om aan te toon waarom hulle inderdaad skrywers van impasse is in die werke wat bespreek word en op watter maniere hulle hierdie persepsie oordra. Dit handel hoegenaamd nie oor ‘n persepsie wat stiksienig geen uitkoms sien nie en die skrywers toon veral ‘n behoefte om die impasse, sowel as die oorsake en gevolge daarvan, in ‘n narratiewe styl te identifiseer. As deel van die erkenning van impasse, word die beskrywing van die ontologiese impasse van die protagoniste ook ondersoek sowel as die sentrale bespreking van moderniteit en Modernisme en die wyse waarop moderniteit die gevoel van impasse blyk te vererger. Die posisie van die protagoniste in hierdie werke lei weer na die verkenning van individuele pogings om die dooie punt te oorkom en gevolglik moet die studie noodwendig ook die filosofiese standpunte ondersoek wat in die werke gereflekteer word. Die vergelykende aard van hierdie ontleding wat strek oor drie tale en literêre tradisies en die komplekse konteks van “impasse” maak verwysing na ander dissiplines noodsaaklik. Die werke van Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) het besonder geskik voorgekom vir hierdie verkenning as analitiese wegspringplek aangesien sy werk die antropologiese en filosofiese aspekte ondersoek van die geskiedkundige kragte en omgewings waarmee hierdie drie romanskrywers te kampe gehad het in die formulering van hulle onderskeie sienings.

Este trabalho consiste num estudo sobre o romance Macunaíma, de Mário de Andrade. Ele procura investigar o estilo enumerativo da obra. A intenção é relacionar tal procedimento, que toma sobretudo objetos da natureza brasileira, ao atraso material e cultural e à tentativa de preencher tal lacuna. Busca-se ainda interpretar as constantes metamorfoses ontológicas como um desdobramento desse estilo e do sentido a que ele dá forma. / This work is a study on Mário de Andrade\'s novel Macunaima. It focuses on numerative style wide used by the author, among others on the same period. The intent is relating such procedure, which involves above all objects from Brazilian nature, to the material and cultural backwardness and to a trial on fulfilling such lack. It seeks also to analyze the frequent ontological metamorphoses as a development of that style and of the meaning that it conceives.

A pesquisa ocupa-se da investigação sobre a construção do ponto de vista por Dyonélio Machado em seu segundo romance, O louco do Cati, publicado em 1942. Entende-se por ponto de vista o conjunto formado por narrador, foco narrativo e ângulo de acompanhamento em que se coloca o leitor. No romance em estudo a configuração do ponto de vista é peculiar, vez que apresenta a matéria narrada de modo tensionado entre narrador e ângulo de visão, como um objeto situado entre dois pontos de fuga, culminando em desfecho convergente ao final. Ainda assim, é pela exploração do ponto de vista que se obtém a unidade do romance, já que há dificuldade na identificação dos contornos e relações entre os elementos fundamentais da narrativa, a saber, enredo, personagem, tempo e espaço. Na aventura narrada, o desenrolar dos fatos não parece seguir nenhuma lógica, posto que tem ponto de partida desconhecido, ida para destino incerto, entraves diversos no meio do caminho e volta para ponto que não coincide com o de saída. Durante a narração, o personagem principal parece ausente, com limitações para perceber a realidade e interagir com ela e, ao mesmo tempo, está o tempo todo ali, quase ao fundo da ação. Esse indivíduo é visto e comentado pelo narrador e pelos demais personagens responsáveis pelo andamento da narrativa, porém ao mesmo tempo está sofrendo um processo que altera sua consciência e subjetividade. Descrever e analisar a construção do ponto de vista na obra, verificar as implicações que esse modo de composição traz para os elementos fundamentais da narrativa e apontar para possíveis efeitos de sentido decorrentes desta configuração formal é o que pretende o trabalho. / This research investigates the construction of the point of view by Dyonélio Machado in his second novel, O louco do Cati, published in 1942. It is understood by point of view the set formed by narrator, narrative focus and angle of accompaniment in which the reader is placed. In the novel under study the configuration of the point of view is peculiar, since it presents the matter narrated in a tensioned way between narrator and viewing angle, as an object located between two vanishing points, culminating in a convergent point of closure at the end. Nevertheless, it is due to the exploration of the point of view that the unity of the novel is obtained, since there is some difficulty in identifying the contours and relations between the fundamental elements of the narrative, namely, plot, character, time and space. In the narrated adventure, the sequence of the facts does not seem to follow any logic, since it begins at an unknown starting point, goes to an uncertain destination, deals with several obstacles in the middle of the path and goes back to a point that does not coincide with its first start. During the narration, the main character seems absent, with limitations to perceive reality and interact with it, and, at the same time, he is all the time there, almost at the background of the main action. This individual man is seen and commented by the narrator and by the other characters responsible for the progress of the narrative, but at the same time he is suffering a process that changes his consciousness and subjectivity. This research intends to describe and analyze the construction of the point of view in the mentioned novel, as well as to verify the implications that this mode of composition brings to the fundamental elements of the narrative and, yet, to point out possible effects of meaning resulting from this formal configuration.

A pesquisa ocupa-se da investigação sobre a construção do ponto de vista por Dyonélio Machado em seu segundo romance, O louco do Cati, publicado em 1942. Entende-se por ponto de vista o conjunto formado por narrador, foco narrativo e ângulo de acompanhamento em que se coloca o leitor. No romance em estudo a configuração do ponto de vista é peculiar, vez que apresenta a matéria narrada de modo tensionado entre narrador e ângulo de visão, como um objeto situado entre dois pontos de fuga, culminando em desfecho convergente ao final. Ainda assim, é pela exploração do ponto de vista que se obtém a unidade do romance, já que há dificuldade na identificação dos contornos e relações entre os elementos fundamentais da narrativa, a saber, enredo, personagem, tempo e espaço. Na aventura narrada, o desenrolar dos fatos não parece seguir nenhuma lógica, posto que tem ponto de partida desconhecido, ida para destino incerto, entraves diversos no meio do caminho e volta para ponto que não coincide com o de saída. Durante a narração, o personagem principal parece ausente, com limitações para perceber a realidade e interagir com ela e, ao mesmo tempo, está o tempo todo ali, quase ao fundo da ação. Esse indivíduo é visto e comentado pelo narrador e pelos demais personagens responsáveis pelo andamento da narrativa, porém ao mesmo tempo está sofrendo um processo que altera sua consciência e subjetividade. Descrever e analisar a construção do ponto de vista na obra, verificar as implicações que esse modo de composição traz para os elementos fundamentais da narrativa e apontar para possíveis efeitos de sentido decorrentes desta configuração formal é o que pretende o trabalho. / This research investigates the construction of the point of view by Dyonélio Machado in his second novel, O louco do Cati, published in 1942. It is understood by point of view the set formed by narrator, narrative focus and angle of accompaniment in which the reader is placed. In the novel under study the configuration of the point of view is peculiar, since it presents the matter narrated in a tensioned way between narrator and viewing angle, as an object located between two vanishing points, culminating in a convergent point of closure at the end. Nevertheless, it is due to the exploration of the point of view that the unity of the novel is obtained, since there is some difficulty in identifying the contours and relations between the fundamental elements of the narrative, namely, plot, character, time and space. In the narrated adventure, the sequence of the facts does not seem to follow any logic, since it begins at an unknown starting point, goes to an uncertain destination, deals with several obstacles in the middle of the path and goes back to a point that does not coincide with its first start. During the narration, the main character seems absent, with limitations to perceive reality and interact with it, and, at the same time, he is all the time there, almost at the background of the main action. This individual man is seen and commented by the narrator and by the other characters responsible for the progress of the narrative, but at the same time he is suffering a process that changes his consciousness and subjectivity. This research intends to describe and analyze the construction of the point of view in the mentioned novel, as well as to verify the implications that this mode of composition brings to the fundamental elements of the narrative and, yet, to point out possible effects of meaning resulting from this formal configuration.

Este trabalho consiste num estudo sobre o romance Macunaíma, de Mário de Andrade. Ele procura investigar o estilo enumerativo da obra. A intenção é relacionar tal procedimento, que toma sobretudo objetos da natureza brasileira, ao atraso material e cultural e à tentativa de preencher tal lacuna. Busca-se ainda interpretar as constantes metamorfoses ontológicas como um desdobramento desse estilo e do sentido a que ele dá forma. / This work is a study on Mário de Andrade\'s novel Macunaima. It focuses on numerative style wide used by the author, among others on the same period. The intent is relating such procedure, which involves above all objects from Brazilian nature, to the material and cultural backwardness and to a trial on fulfilling such lack. It seeks also to analyze the frequent ontological metamorphoses as a development of that style and of the meaning that it conceives.

This dissertation articulates the relationship between literary form and unconscious affect in fictions by Cesare Pavese, Samuel Beckett and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Drawing from contemporary psychoanalytic object-relations theory, including the work of W.R. Bion and the Bionian school, it defines three paradigmatic forms of psychic work — reparation, containment and construction — that structure the intersubjective unconscious responses to specific formal challenges. It claims that the psychic work involved in meeting those challenges is both “historical” — in the sense that it reveals elements of each text’s historicity and political valence within their cultural setting — and “productive,” in the sense that it entails a degree of psychic growth for the reader. This dissertation bridges literary history, psychoanalytic theory and reader-response theory. It seeks to intervene in each discipline’s debates: in literary-historical terms, it argues that the psychic work of reading must be understood as constitutive of the texts’ expression of the context of the postwar and as part of their struggle to move beyond the aesthetic of modernism. In psychoanalytic terms, it joins in the lively discussion about the historical specificity of the mechanisms theorized by object-relations theory. Finally, at the level of literary theory, it seeks to affirm the value of Bion’s model of object-relations in theorizing reading as a transformative process characterized by intense unconscious, intersubjective activity. The dissertation is organized in three literary chapters, followed by a theoretical chapter. Taken together, the first three chapters represent the evidence for the need of a concept of psychic work in reading late modernist fiction and for the potential payoffs of formulating such a concept. Chapter 4 consists of four theoretical “notes,” addressing, in broad terms, the resonance of intersubjective notions of psychic work for reading, criticism and literary theory.