En prenant comme point de départ l'interprétation de l'épopée homérique par Erich Auerbach, ce mémoire se consacre à la notion d'immersion fictionnelle, non sous son versant psychologique de phénomène contingent de la conscience imageante, mais sous son versant imaginaire, en tant que mythe sociétal d'immédiateté déterminant des stratégies esthétiques et médiatiques concrètes, que j'articule autour des poétiques contemporaines de construction de mondes (world building). L'enjeu est de saisir les répercussions esthétiques de ce fantasme d'une représentation qui occulterait à la fois sa médiateté et le réel-sensible, à une époque où la transfictionnalité et la transmédiaticité s'élèvent tranquillement comme modes narratifs dominants de notre culture occidentale contemporaine. Avec cette conviction que le terme d'immersion doit être replacé dans le cadre de ses effets, le premier chapitre s'affairera à démêler quelques difficultés théoriques que pose la notion en la problématisant sous l'égide des questions ontologiques de vérité et de la position phénoménologique de Sartre sur l'imaginaire. Tout en posant les outils théoriques nécessaires aux analyses subséquentes, le deuxième chapitre approfondit cette problématisation en empruntant aux théories modales des mondes possibles un cadre conceptuel opératoire, qui amènera, notamment grâce au concept formalisé de «~monde~», à concevoir la fiction comme un mouvement de distanciation. Appuyé par la lecture du roman tolkienien, le troisième chapitre tourne le fantasme d'immersion du côté d'une pulsion encyclopédique de complétude, concrétisée par des stratégies textuelles d'accumulation informationnelle et de virtualisation de données diégétiques laissées en suspens -- effets d'actualité que je qualifie d'extra-narratifs en les présentant en contraste des principes prescriptifs du \emph{muthos} aristotélicien formant une chaîne causale téléologique fondée sur une loi d'économie narrative. Le quatrième et dernier chapitre, articulé autour de la notion encore trop peu étudiée de canonicité, observe les poétiques de construction de mondes telles qu'elles se désamorcent elles-mêmes, dans le contexte des univers partagés, en engendrant des incohérences logiques donnant lieu à la tenue d'un discours auctorial-éditorial régissant les vérités fictionnelles comme moyen de maintenir l'immersivité de la représentation. L'analyse générique des comic-books de superhéros et une enquête sur la gestion éditoriale de l'univers de Star Wars permettront d'identifier les multiples modalités de délimitation de la frontière entre canon et apocryphe. En conclusion, je reviens brièvement sur la notion d'immersion, ainsi exemplifiée, en la resémiotisant comme une médiation compétitive de mise en présence de l'être. / Starting from Erich Auerbach's interpretation of the Homeric epic, this master's dissertation studies the notion of fictional immersion, not in its psychological aspect of a contingent phenomena of human consciousness, but rather in its collective imaginary sense, as a societal myth of immediacy generating concrete aesthetic and media strategies that I investigate from the standpoint of contemporary poetics of world building. The objective is to apprehend the aesthetic repercussions of this desire for a mediation that would conceal both the real and its own mediacy, in a time where transfictionality and transmedia storytelling are becoming more and more the dominant narrative modes of our contemporary western culture. Under the conviction that immersion must be looked at as a set of cultural strategies, the first chapter unravels some theorical difficulties bounded to the term by problematizing it towards ontological questions of truth and Sartre's phenomenological stance on the imaginary. While laying a necessary theorical toolset for subsequent analyses, the second chapter examines these problems by borrowing to possible worlds modal theories a set of working concepts, which will lead to the assumption that fiction is a movement of distanciation, notably with the aide of the formal concept of ``world''. Through a reading of the tolkienian novel, the third chapter directs the desire for immersion towards an encyclopedic impulsion for completeness, embodied by textual strategies such as informational proliferation and allusion to virtual diegetic data -- strategies leaving an impression of the actual that I describe as extra-narrative in contrast to Aristote's \emph{muthos} forming a teological causal chain based on a principle of an unitary narrative. The fourth and final chapter, articulated around the still too little studied notion of canonicity, observes poetics of world building as they neutralize themselves, particularly with shared universes, by generating logical inconsistencies giving birth to authorial and editorial discourses stating fictional truths as a way of maintaining the mediation's immersivity. The analysis of the superhero comics genre and an inquiry of the editorial management of the Star Wars universe will exemplify the multiple modalities of this delimitation between the canon and the apocryphal. As a conclusion, I briefly come back to the notion of immersion itself by redescribing it as a competitive mediation of presence.

This thesis is a development of the theories presented by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Bruno Bettelheim concerning archetypes, the anima/animus concept, the Hero Cycle, and identity development through fairy tales. I argue that there are vital rites of passage missing in Anglo-Saxon culture, and while bibliotherapy cannot replace them, it can help adolescents synthesize their experiences. The theories of Jung, Campbell, and Bettelheim demonstrate this concept by defining segments of the story and how they apply to the reader. Because of the applicability, readers, despite their age, can use the examples in the book to help reconcile their own experiences and understand life as it relates to them. The works I examine include J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, and David Eddings' Belgariad. Though it is impossible to test the effects of reading such works on readers, the possibility of those effects exists. Bettelheim's work, The Uses of Enchantment, discusses similar themes and he provides scientific support through his use of anecdotal evidence. Following his example, I have tried to include evidence from my own life that exemplifies the effect reading epic fantasy has had on me. The aspects of epic fantasy in relation to going through adolescence I examine include the concept of responsibility and its relation to progress and maturity; gaining a social identity; and reconciling oneself to the dark side within and without, in society. These aspects are found within the superstructure of the Hero Cycle and the actions and motivations of the characters—archetypes—within the cycle. They are also present in real life and necessary concepts to understand to be accepted into society as a mature contributor.

This project explores the narrative arcs of strong female characters in Young Adult (YA) fantasy literature. Taking up Rosemary Jackson’s assertion that fantasy literature can ‘subvert patriarchal society,’ this thesis examines the fantasy ‘legacy code’ of strong and subversive female characters who settle into a stereotypical performance of gender after finding fulfillment in the heteronormative roles of lover, wife, and mother. This pattern is exemplified by Lady Éowyn of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and The Return of the King (1955), and reproduced by Hermione Granger of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series – consisting of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). In contrast Keladry of Mindelan in Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series – consisting of First Test (1999), Page (2000), Squire (2001), and Lady Knight (2002) – demonstrates the impact ‘refactoring’ fantasy ‘legacy code’ has on the narrative conclusions of female characters. Using Judith Butler’s theory on the performative nature of gender and building on Farah Mendlesohn’s computer programming analogy of ‘legacy code,’ this thesis illustrates the ways in which fantasy literature often fails to be the literature of subversion Jackson envisions, and demonstrates how refactoring aspects of a female character’s narrative exemplifies subversive narrative conclusions for young adult readers of fantasy literature. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This thesis examines the ways in which a heteronormative ‘legacy code’ – exemplified by Lady Éowyn in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – has been perpetuated in literature marketed towards young adult readers by Hermione Granger in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and ‘refactored’ by Keladry of Mindelan in Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series. Starting with Rosemary Jackson’s analysis of fantasy literature as a genre with subversive potential and with Judith Butler’s assertion that gender is performative, this thesis analyses the narrative arcs of Éowyn, Hermione, and Kel and demonstrates how the continual representation of strong female characters finding fulfillment in the roles of lover, wife, and mother is limiting, and highlights the subversive potential in ‘refactoring’ heteronormative ‘legacy code.’

Concluding on this note, the thesis argues that reading The Lord of the Rings in this way renders postcolonial concepts accessible to a whole generation of readers already familiar with the series, and points to the possibility of examining other contemporary texts, or even further analysis of Tolkien's to reveal more postcolonial sensitivities engendered in the texts.; This thesis examines J.R.R. Tolkien's texts The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King from a postcolonial literary perspective. By examining how these texts, written at the decline of the British Empire, engage with the theoretical polemics of imperialism, this thesis takes a new look at these popular and widely regarded books from a stance of serious academic interest. The first chapter examines how certain characters, who are Othered temporally in the realm of Middle-earth, manage to find a place of narrative centrality from the defamiliarized view of Merry, Pippin, Samwise, and Frodo, uncannily reoccurring throughout the narrative in increasingly disturbing manifestations. From there, the thesis moves on to uncanny places, examining in detail Mirkwood, Moria, Dunharrow, and the Shire at the end of The Return of the King. Each of these locations in Middle-earth helps Tolkien to explore the relationship between colonizer, colonized, and fetishism; the colonizer(s) disavow their own fears of these places by fetishizing the pathways they colonize for their safe passage. Since their paths are unsustainable colonially, these fetishes cannot fulfill their function, as the places are marked with unavoidable reminders of wildness and uncontrollability which cannot successfully be repressed for long. Ending this chapter with a discussion of the hobbit's return to the Shire, the argument moves into the next chapter that discusses the small-scale colonization that takes place in the heart of Frodo himself, making the Shire he used to know firmly unavailable to him. The Ring, in this case, is the colonizer, doubling, fracturing, and displacing Frodo's selfhood so that he becomes unfamiliar to himself. The uncanniness that this produces and Frodo's inability to heal from his experience with the Ring, this thesis argues, echoes the postcolonial themes of irreconcilability and the fantasy of origin.

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In my earlier work, ‘First steps towards a rhetorical hermeneutics of literary interpretation’ (2006), I argued that academic reading takes the form of an argument between readers. Four serious weaknesses in that account are its elision of the distinction between reading and discourse on reading, its inattention to non-academic reading, its exclusive focus on ‘interpretation’ as if this constituted the whole of reading or of discourse on reading, and its failure to theorise the object of literary reading, ie. the work of literature. The current work aims to address all of these problems, together with those created by certain other approaches to literary reading, with the overall objective of clearing the ground for more empirical studies. It exemplifies its points with examples drawn primarily from non-academic public discourse on literature (newspapers, magazines, and the internet), though also from other sources (such as reading groups and undergraduate literature seminars). It takes a particular (though not an exclusive) interest in two specific instances of non-academic reception: the widespread reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as an attack on Islam, and the minority reception of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings as a narrative of homosexual desire. The first chapter of this dissertation critically surveys the fields of reception study and discourse analysis, and in particular the crossover between them. It finds more productive engagement with the textuality of response in media reception study than in literary reception study. It argues that the application of discourse analysis to reception data serves to problematise, rather than to facilitate, reception study, but it also emphasises the problematic nature of discourse analysis itself. Each of the three subsequent chapters considers a different complex of problems. The first is the literary work, and its relation to its producers and its consumers: Chapter 2 takes the form of a discourse upon the notions of ‘speech act’ and ‘authorial intention’ in relation to literature, carries out an analysis of early public responses to The Satanic Verses, and puts in a word for non-readers by way of a conclusion. The second is the private experience of reading, and its paradoxical status as an object of public representation: Chapter 3 analyses representations of private responses to The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, and concludes with the argument that, though these representations cannot be identical with private responses, they are cannot be extricated from them, either. The third is the impossibility of distinguishing rhetoric from cognition in the telling of stories about reading: Chapter 4 argues that, though anecdotal or autobiographical accounts of reading cannot be taken at face value, they can be taken both as attempts to persuade and as attempts to understand; it concludes with an analysis of a magazine article that tells a number of stories about reading The Satanic Verses – amongst other things. Each of these chapters focuses on non-academic reading as represented in written text, but broadens this focus through consideration of examples drawn from spoken discourse on reading (including in the liminal academic space of the undergraduate classroom). The last chapter mulls over the relationship between reading and discourse of reading, and hesitates over whether to wrap or tear this dissertation’s arguments up.

This work describes a special kind of story about the journey there and back again or journey to gain experience. The nature of this narrative is given by the presence of several key points: the existence of primary and secondary world, wandering throughout secondary world, the transformation of a hero and a reader, homecoming. Presented definition of the story is the starting point from which are being searched connections with the professional disciplines of social work and ethics. In social work the diagram of these trips back and forth presents acquiring an expertise in various scientific fields. For plane of ethics it is particularly significant credibility of the moment from this journey back and forth when the story of the hero and the reader becomes a good (or bad) story positive or negative.

The core thesis is an attempt to contextual interpretation of fairy tales K. J. Erben from the perspective of theological anthropology. And in the context of the overall issue of fairy tales then they found values that can be picked up and interpreted in this way. Own interpretation precedes five theoretical chapters where first discuss the issue of fairy tales, their typology, origin and development. And about the specifics of time and formation by K. J. Erben. Homer and J. R. R. Tolkien become the inspiration for subsequent interpretation. Both works have been interpreted by Christian. Integrative and reconstructive theory and is shown in the interpretation of two great works of world literature. Odyssey, a work whose creation is not much known, is a model for integrative theory. The Lord of the Rings introduces reconstructive theory, because here it is the opposite. From the peculiar structure of the classic fairy tale, then based on its own interpretation. Its core is the study of the morphology of fairy V. J. Propp. Fairytale Firebird and Foxy Fox is an introduction to the interpretation of other fairy tales. First, its symbols are analyzed and presented in the context of the fairy happening. Later, finding the core at a time when there was not a fairy tale. And that its structure is given in connection with the initiation ritual. Consequently, there are elaborated some aspects of man: man as "soulful dust", sinner and image of God. Continuously to and in relation to other fairy tales, this topic is distributed to more general plane fatality, life, death, good and evil. Question the value is processed in the chapter on aesthetics and symbolism, with an emphasis on symbolism symbol, myth and ritual.

Trees, as threshold beings, effectively blur the line between the real world and fantastical alternate worlds, and destabilise traditional binary classification systems that distinguish humanity, and Culture, from Nature. Though the presence of trees is often peripheral to the main narrative action, their representation is necessary within the fantasy trope. Their consistent inclusion within fantasy texts of the twentieth century demonstrates an enduring arboreal legacy that cannot be disregarded in its contemporary relevance, whether they are represented individually or in collective forests. The purpose of my dissertation is to conduct a study of various prominent fantasy texts of the twentieth century, including the fantasy works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert Holdstock, Diana Wynne Jones, Natalie Babbitt, and J.K. Rowling. In scrutinising these texts, and drawing on insights offered by liminal, ecocritical, ecofeminist, mythological and psychological theorists, I identify the primary function of trees within fantasy narratives as liminal: what Victor Turner identifies as a ‘betwixt and between’ state (1991:95) where binaries are suspended in favour of embracing potentiality. This liminality is constituted by three central dimensions: the ecological, the mythological, and the psychological. Each dimension informs the relationship between the arboreal as grounded in reality, and represented in fantasy. Trees, as literary and cinematic arboreal totems are positioned within fantasy narratives in such a way as to emphasise an underlying call to bio-conservatorship, to enable a connection to a larger scope of cultural expectation, and to act as a means through which human self-awareness is developed. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Scholars and storytellers alike have deemed George MacDonald a great mythopoeic writer, an exemplar of the art. Examination of this accolade by those who first applied it to him proves it profoundly theological: for them a mythopoeic tale was a relational medium through which transformation might occur, transcending boundaries of time and space. The implications challenge much contemporary critical study of MacDonald, for they demand that his literary life and his theological life cannot be divorced if either is to be adequately assessed. Yet they prove consistent with the critical methodology MacDonald himself models and promotes. Utilizing MacDonald’s relational methodology evinces his intentional facilitating of Mythopoesis. It also reveals how oversights have impeded critical readings both of MacDonald’s writing and of his character. It evokes a redressing of MacDonald’s relationship with his Scottish cultural, theological, and familial environment – of how his writing is a response that rises out of these, rather than, as has so often been asserted, a mere reaction against them. Consequently it becomes evident that key relationships, both literary and personal, have been neglected in MacDonald scholarship – relationships that confirm MacDonald’s convictions and inform his writing, and the examination of which restores his identity as a literature scholar. Of particular relational import in this reassessment is A.J. Scott, a Scottish visionary intentionally chosen by MacDonald to mentor him in a holistic Weltanschauung. Little has been written on Scott, yet not only was he MacDonald’s prime influence in adulthood, but he forged the literary vocation that became MacDonald’s own. Previously unexamined personal and textual engagement with John Ruskin enables entirely new readings of standard MacDonald texts, as does the textual engagement with Matthew Arnold and F.D. Maurice. These close readings, informed by the established context, demonstrate MacDonald’s emergence, practice, and intent as a mythopoeic writer.