(in English): This work focuses on the novel titled Lucía Jerez which represents the only novel written by Cuban author, heroe and so-called freedom fighter José Martí. The objective of this work was to prove that this short book rightly can be seen as a modernistic novel and even can be considered as the first one in which all of the modernistic tendencies of new aesthetics are present. Using specific examples from the original novel, I tried to show the importance of this book in the context of the history of Spanish-American literature and to demonstrate several elements of the modernistic creation. Firstly I had proceeded from my personal feelings and beliefs which I later completed by opinions of literary critics. In most cases we concided, but of course there were some points in which my view differed in comparision with a general assertion. Despite these discrepancies in the understanding of some aspects of the book, I think José Martí managed to create a unique work. Lucía Jerez contains everything that is according to theories of modernistic work and Martí also achieved to impress Hispanoamerican character to the book. Even though we can find traces of Romanticism, Lucía Jerez is inherently modernistic work because of its critical approach.

The objective of this thesis is the analysis of the media reception of chosen works of Italo Calvino in Czech and Italian periodicals. The first chapter discusses the literary criticism. The following chapter introduces the writer's life and moments determining his literary production. The mainstay of this work is divided into four chapters and is dedicated to the period literary crticism of the works chosen which were released in newspapers or literary periodicals both in Italy and the Czech Republic. The most significant reception showed the books The Path of the Spider's Nest, Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler and Six Memos for the Next Millenium.

This thesis has three main sections, the first a full-length novel entitled The Gift of Death, the third the bibliography and two appendices. The second contains variously: a preface; a critical exposition/analysis of the preceding novel with subsections, considering in conceptual fashion three central themes: death considered through symbolic, ideological and other meanings; a positioning of the academy in the ‘Campus’ novel sub-genre; and a socio-cultural analysis of fiction as a field of production and associated struggles for entry determined by class, origin and periodic cultural preferences. The Gift of Death concerns a sixty-year-old’s attempt to write a novel. Procrastinating English scholar, archetypal baby-boomer Jim Dent, revisits the thwarted ambitions of youth. Inspired by novelist Sue Townsend’s death, once a friend, Jim recalls knowing other aspirant artists—writers and film-makers— living and dying in obscurity. He reflects upon a troubled past, on unsatisfactory elements of the present and the increasingly daunting task of composition. The Gift of Death reworks the tradition of the campus or varsity novel, detailing lives tied to the rhythms of the academy. The chapters explore various eccentrics whose lives Jim traces through tentative, inadequate notes. Expanding such recollections the narrative includes: schooldays; postgraduate studies and school-teaching in Leicester; a voyage to interview Basil Bunting; and friendships with oddball alcoholics writers, Cedric and Challis, never satisfied or fully recognized creatively. Finally, overwhelmed by self-doubt, Jim abandons his Sisyphean task. Reflecting upon failure, an unexpected turn of events associated with visiting Bunting emerges in the present, offering resolution of sorts. The Gift of Death’s primary themes/contexts are: self-reflexive, multi-chronic form; death, loss and mourning; the baby-boomer generation; struggling for professional entry into the field of fiction; lost provincial and local creativity; the juxtaposition of past and present; loyalty, friendship and memory; parental conflict; and finally procrastination and disappointment.

L’objet de cette recherche est de revisiter la notion d’intrigue dans le Nouveau Roman après une campagne de dénigrement théorique menée par certains nouveaux romanciers. Une reconsidération qui s’inspire essentiellement des travaux de Paul Ricoeur sur « La Mise en intrigue » et qui se fonde principalement sur les études récentes de Raphaël Baroni sur « la tension narrative ». Dans la première partie il s’agit de remettre en perspective littéraire et critique cette notion en la confrontant au roman dit « traditionnel » et en parcourant les travaux nombreux des écrivains, critiques et théoriciens qui ont abordé cette question.La deuxième partie est concrètement une mise en chantier où sont éprouvées les idées de fiction, de passion, de suspense et de tension.Enfin la dernière partie est une sorte de reprise d’un modèle précis d’intrigue qui est celui du roman policier dans la perspective de mettre en évidence son aspect passionnant et passionnel. / The object of this research is to revisit the notion of “intrigue” in the new novel after a campaign of theoretical belittlement led by certain new novelists. A reconsideration which is essentially inspired by Paul Ricoeur’s works on “ the stake in intrigue” and which is based mainly on the recent studies of Raphaël Baroni on the narrative tension.In the first part it is question of handling in literary and critical perspective this notion by confronting it with the so-called “traditional” novel and by examining the numerous works of the writers, the critics and the theorists who approached this question.The second part is concretely and deeply analysed where the ideas of fiction, passion, suspense and tension are studied. Finally the last part is a kind of resumption of precise model of “intrigue” which is the one of the detective novel in the perspective to bring to light its fascinating and passionate aspect.

Words on a page are insufficient vehicles for complex ideas. When images and words appear together on the page, as in comics, the process of meaning-making through narrative functions more efficiently. Building on this idea, we must establish a “graphic narratology” to understand the process whereby meaning is transmitted. Analysis of narratological conventions, as well as the conventions of mass-market comics, provides a framework for this new narratology.

This diploma thesis deals with contribution of chosen writings by Alois Jirásek and Zikmund Winter. It tries to clarify the term historism and its infiltration into Czech literature, particularly in novels Temno and Mistr Kampanus. The thesis also outlines the period after the Battle of the White Mountain. Its consequences dramatically influenced political, religious, social and cultural conditions in the Czech lands. It defines terms historical novel and historical short story to specify the border between this genre and the other proses of the then time. The practical part gives a concrete form of a complex interpretation of novels Temno and Mistr Kampanus. It introduces a dispute over historism between Alois Jirásek and Zikmund Winter. With the aid of content analysis of chosen readers for primary and secondary schools the thesis finds out the frequency of extracts by mentioned authors in schoolbooks. In closing the thesis focuses on evaluation of searched extracts in readers and mentions also FEP.

Orientador: Cláudio Aquati / Resumo: Este trabalho teve como objeto de pesquisa uma obra da literatura latina, o Satíricon, de Petrônio. Dela, sob o viés da amizade, foi analisada, a dupla formada pelo protagonista Encólpio e seu inseparável (ou quase) amigo Gitão. O conceito de amizade foi estudado, por um lado, com base em Ética a Nicômaco, de Aristóteles, que faz uma valoração do conceito de philia, e De amicitia, obra na qual Cícero propõe parâmetros morais e éticos que deveriam estar presentes em uma relação entre amigos e, por outro, em obras nossas contemporâneas, como Genealogias da amizade, de Ortega (2002), e A amizade no mundo clássico, de Konstan (2005). Com base nessas, foi possível identificar e analisar, no Satíricon, o traço da amizade que se desenvolve na dupla composta por Encólpio e Gitão, sobretudo no sentido de tecer uma discussão a respeito do que leva as duas personagens a se relacionarem e atuarem juntas e os efeitos desse mesmo relacionamento para a construção desse romance antigo romano. / Abstract: This study focused on a Latin literary work, the led Satyricon, by Petronius. The friendship relation between Encolpius and Giton. The friendship concept was studied recurring to on the Nichomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, which considers the value of the philia concept, and on De Amicitia, work in which Cicero purposes ethics and moral parameters that should be present in a friendship. Contemporary studies, such as Genealogias da amizade, by Ortega Guerrero (2002), and Friendship in the Classical World, by Konstan (2005), were also used. It was possible to identify and analyze the friendship trace developed between Encolpius and Giton, mainly in the sense of approaching a discussion about what leads both characters to be and act together and the effects of this same relation for the construction of this ancient Roman novel. / Mestre

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy(FSHD) is a disorder characterized by muscle weakness and wasting (atrophy). This disease is typically inherited as autosomal dominant and has a complex genetic and epigenetic etiology. Our collaborator had differentiated healthy human pluripotent stem cells(iPSC) into skeletal muscles and exploited ISO-Seq to explore cell gene expression and transcript alternative splicing usage profile during 8 differentiation stages. Later, stage specific gene differential expression, transcript alternative splicing, gene ontology and novel gene/transcript were analysed to characterize the feature of each stage during the differentiation. In terms of expressed genes with more than or equal to 5 transcripts, each stage had shown their own stage specific features. About transcripts, iPS, S1, ADM.D0, ADM.D4 have about 30% to 40% more total transcripts than the rest 4 stages. 4 kinds of alternative splicing events are generally distributed and S2 stage has the least alternative splicing events potentially due to technical reasons. As for gene differential expressions, ADM.D4 has considerable amount of differential expressed genes with 5 other stages and it has minor difference with ISM.D4 and S3 stages(they are all myotubes cells). The gene ontology analysis is performed according to the results of previous step, stage specific GO terms are revealed.

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy(FSHD) is a disorder characterized by muscle weakness and wasting (atrophy). This disease is typically inherited as autosomal dominant and has a complex genetic and epigenetic etiology. Our collaborator had differentiated healthy human pluripotent stem cells(iPSC) into skeletal muscles and exploited ISO-Seq to explore cell gene expression and transcript alternative splicing usage profile during 8 differentiation stages. Later, stage specific gene differential expression, transcript alternative splicing, gene ontology and novel gene/transcript were analysed to characterize the feature of each stage during the differentiation. In terms of expressed genes with more than or equal to 5 transcripts, each stage had shown their own stage specific features. About transcripts, iPS, S1, ADM.D0, ADM.D4 have about 30% to 40% more total transcripts than the rest 4 stages. 4 kinds of alternative splicing events are generally distributed and S2 stage has the least alternative splicing events potentially due to technical reasons. As for gene differential expressions, ADM.D4 has considerable amount of differential expressed genes with 5 other stages and it has minor difference with ISM.D4 and S3 stages(they are all myotubes cells). The gene ontology analysis is performed according to the results of previous step, stage specific GO terms are revealed.

Student Number : 0318162X - MA research report - School of Literature and Language Studies - Faculty of Humanities / This Research Report comprises the preface to an opera libretto based on the English translation by Charles Eglington (1964) of Etienne Leroux’s novel Seven Days at the Silbersteins (1962), and the libretto itself. In the preface I discuss the genre of operatic libretto and the literary and personal context in which Leroux worked, by way of explaining why Seven Days made such a compelling challenge to adapt as libretto. I consider some of the issues involved in transposing a rambling allegorical narrative produced in Afrikaans in the 1960s in the lineage of the plaasroman, into a tighter postapartheid discourse in English in the 2000s, one that creates space for live music, singing, acting, staging, setting and pre-recorded audio-visuals – some of which take over the ‘layered’ significations of Leroux’s earlier literary discourse. A work of great poetic resonance in the original language (beautifully captured by poet and critic Charles Eglington in translation), this surrealist novel, so rooted in cultural and ideological tropes unique to Leroux’s time and yet presented by him as if they belonged to a timeless world, presents opportunities for a new kind of realisation as an operatic text in our own time.