Between 1915 and 1929 J.C. Powys wrote five novels, Wood and Stone, Rodmoor, After My Fashion, Ducdame, and Wolf Solent, and two unpublished plays, Paddock Calls and a dramatisation of Dostoievsky's The Idiot. To each of these seven works a single chapter is devoted. In addition, three short chapters fill in biographical details and bridge chronological gaps; their subjects are Powys' unpublished writings, his work as a dramatist, and his contacts with modernism. The latter chapter provides biographical support for the main critical contention of the thesis, Powys' central place in twentieth-century literature. Bach chapter describes the biographical context in which the novel or play was written, before proceeding with a textual analysis. The critical aim is to demonstrate Powys' technique, his consciousness of aesthetic and formal questions, and his style. Powys' ideas and beliefs are discussed only with reference to his style and form of expression. The broad development from Wood and Stone to Wolf Solent is seen and analysed in terms of an increasing sophistication of technique. Particular stress is laid on Powys' treatment of his protagonist's self-consciousness, culminating in the formal solution of Wolf Solent. As literary history, apart from placing Powys among contemporaries such as Joyce, Pound, Mann, Faulkner and Dreiser, the thesis shows the influence on Powys of Henry James, Turgenev, Hardy and others. The most important and most widely recognised influence, of Dostoievsky, is examined from critical and biographical angles. Incidentally to its main purpose, the thesis provides the most detailed biographical record, to date, of Powys' life in these years. Contemporary documentation has been used whenever possible, and extensively; much of it, mainly correspondence, is unpublished.

published_or_final_version / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.

Inaug.-diss.--Würzburg. / Lebenslauf. Bibliographical foot-notes.

none

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

附作者簡歷. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學敎育學院. / Fu zuo zhe jian li. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-145). / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue jiao yu xue yuan. / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 / 問題說明 --- p.1 / 有關文獻 --- p.10 / 假設 --- p.31 / 定義 --- p.33 / Chapter 第二章 --- 研究方法 --- p.39 / 研究設計 --- p.39 / 研究對象 --- p.44 / 研究工具 --- p.46 / 實驗程序 --- p.56 / 資料分析 --- p.63 / Chapter 第三章 --- 結果與討論 --- p.69 / 結果 --- p.69 / 討論 --- p.101 / Chapter 第四章 --- 摘要，結論及建議 --- p.127 / 摘要與結論 --- p.127 / 建議 --- p.136 / 參考文獻 --- p.141 / 附錄 --- p.146 / Chapter 一 --- 虛實詞式填字測驗試卷 --- p.146 / Chapter 二 --- 實詞式填字測試試卷 --- p.151 / Chapter 三 --- 虛詞式填字測試試卷 --- p.154 / Chapter 四 --- 多項選擇式理解測驗試卷 --- p.157 / Chapter 五 --- 填字測驗各項平均分、標準差及「兩元次重複測量設計」之電腦計算程序 --- p.174 / Chapter 六 --- 填字測驗成績与理解測驗成績相關係數之電腦計算程序 --- p.178 / Chapter 七 --- 填字測驗中倆種計分法所得成績之相關係數之電腦計算程序 --- p.182

Depuis plusieurs décennies, la critique américaine bouscule les limites traditionnelles du concept de « canon ». Les « grands » auteurs n’ont pas pour autant été congédiés et la notion de canon continue à jouer un rôle central. Ce phénomène double est particulièrement frappant chez Mark Twain. Le corpus illustrant le mieux ce mélange d’hypercanonicité et d’obscurité totale est sans doute celui qui regroupe les textes composés après l’œuvre twainienne canonique par excellence, les célèbres Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : le Twain tardif. Si ces textes sont de plus en plus lus, l’effort d’analyse critique achoppe presque invariablement sur une problématique revenante : celle de leur marginalité ou plus spécifiquement encore, de leur illisibilité. Cette thèse interroge la notion d’illisibilité en conjonction avec la question de la « tardiveté » de ces écrits.L’illisibilité du corpus twainien tardif commence dès l’époque de la rédaction de ces écrits, par une illisibilité dans son acception la plus matérielle et littérale. Cette illisibilité s’accompagnait d’entrée de jeu d’un autre type d’illisibilité, fondé sur le jugement et l’appréciation esthétiques (des textes illisibles car mal écrits). Cette thèse cherche à lire l’illisible, sans pour autant chercher à réhabiliter le corpus, sans même entreprendre de confirmer l’existence pleine de l’objet d’étude choisi, de ce corpus tardif en tant qu’ensemble de textes unifiables à l’intérieur d'une catégorie chronologique close et évidente. Loin d’ignorer l’ennui, l’exaspération et la déception que ces textes ont pu inspirer, il s’agit de problématiser la notion d'illisible. / Although deconstructed and challenged, the idea of the literary canon seemsto have survived. This ambiguous phenomenon has affected approaches to Mark Twain’swork to a profound degree. The group of texts most aptly illustrating this odd interlacingof hypercanonicity and complete obscurity is that which follows Huckleberry Finn : thelater writings of Twain. These texts invariably call up the question of their marginalityand their unreadability. Why were they left unread for so many years, and why do theycontinue to be so marginal, when compared to the immense success of the Adventures ?Can some of the manuscripts be salvaged by means of certain literary approaches and atspecific times in the history of aesthetic moods ? This PhD on Twain’s later writingsaims to explore the idea of unreadability by combining it with theoretical and criticalaccounts of lateness. « Unreadability » as a central notion to Twain’s later work startswith the most material and literal meaning of the word – that which cannot be read – andbegan as early as the moment of composition of these texts : many manuscripts remainedunpublished, incomplete, or were rejected by the publishers Twain approached. Thisillegibility combined with the texts’ frequently decried unreadability. The aim of this PhDis to read late Twain without necessarily attempting to rehabilitate these texts, withouteven confirming the full existence of the idea of « late » Twain. Instead of ignoring theexasperation and disappointment many critics and readers have experienced, this thesiswill attempt to work with this unreadability, but not without questioning and redefiningthe notion of unreadability and its contraries.

There are two traditions in English poetry: elevated and down-to-earth. The former is characterized by formal style, use of verbal associations, and philosophical subject matter. The latter is informal, uses worldly images and makes specific points. When elevated style uses common language, i.e. words drawn from specialized contexts, those words bring with them the down-to-earth spirit. They convey an effect of honesty, indicting the abstraction of elevatedness as an evasion. John Ashbery calls up that effect to discredit it, to show that down-to-earth poetry's implied access to the world is delusive and his personalized internal view is honest. Amy Gerstler accepts the indictment, letting it bring her poems to an epiphanic connection with reality. This distinction reflects their generational difference, between Ashbery's postmodernists who see no possibility of understanding reality, and Gerstler's post-postmodernists who instinctively hope for that understanding while accepting postmodernist epistemological pessimism.