Dissertations / Theses on the topic '- Criticism and interpretation'
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1
Hoyer, Steven. "Intention and interpretation." Thesis, McGill University, 1993. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=68104.
Abstract:
This thesis is in two chapters. Chapter one is about intentions. Literary theorists have, by and large, dismissed their relevance to interpretation, so it will be useful to consider what exactly is being ignored. Therefore, I devote chapter one to a clarification of the nature and role(s) of intention within the interlocking network of basic propositional attitudes. I argue that intentions incorporate both a functional and a representational dimension, triggering actional mechanisms and structuring the process of practical reasoning.Chapter two is about interpretation. I open the chapter with an examination of extreme conventionalist theses, arguing that their success depends on an unjustifiably strict demarcation between intentionality and textuality. Appropriating aspects of Donald Davidson's work in the philosophy of language, I argue for the recognition of linguistic communication as a form of intentional action. I then defend this thesis against more moderate conventionalist theories to offer a viable approach to the interpretation of literary works.
2
Anger, Suzy. "Victorian hermeneutics and literary interpretation /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9374.
3
King, Noel. "Anxieties of commentary : interpretation in recent literary, film and cultural criticism /." Title page, table of contents and abstact only, 1994. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phk532.pdf.
4
HSIAO, CHING-SONG GENE. "SEMIOTIC INTERPRETATION OF CHINESE POETRY: TU MU'S POETRY AS EXAMPLE (CRITICISM)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/188120.
Abstract:
To interpret a poem is to comprehend a complete act of written communication. And to comprehend such an act, the reader must break the codes in which the communication is framed. Thus, poetic interpretation becomes the study of codes--or semiotics. Poetic codes exist at pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, and phonic levels. The decoding requires the reader's linguistic skills, literary competence, and personal experience. It involves an initial reading and a retroactive reading. At the first step, the reader attempts to supply elements missing in the text. Yet trying to interpret the text literally, he encounters problems in pragmatics, semantics, syntactics, or phonics, and is unable to grasp a coherent sense of the poem. Those problems give rise to a retroactive reading. At this step, the reader looks for a higher level of understanding where a unity of meaning can be identified. And by explaining the clues in the text according to his linguistic and literary competence, and revising his understanding on the basis of his new findings, he finally discovers a kernel concept, on which the whole text can be seen as a single unit, and every element, which first appeared to be puzzling, has a significative purpose. This semiotic model of interpretation has proven to be very fruitful in the explication of Tu Mu's poetry. It also enables the reader to appreciate the poetic discourse more thoroughly. Some of the ideas advocated by the model may also serve as principles for the translation of poetry. For example, in reading a poem, the model requires a search for unified pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, and phonic patterns, which convey the kernel concept. Thus, in translating a poem, the translator should also try to re-produce in the target language such unified patterns so that the reader may grasp the same kernel concept as contained in the original discourse. The model stresses implicities of poetry. Hence the rendition of a poem should preserve the implicities of the original text in order to invoke from the reader a response similar to what would be induced by the original poem.
5
Bennett, Richard. "Variations : influence intertextuality, and Milan Kundera, Jean Rhys, and Tom Stoppard." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26254.
Abstract:
This thesis is in three chapters. Chapter one is about Harold Bloom's theory of the Anxiety of Influence. Bloom's argument is that literary history is shaped by the anxiety of "strong" poets at their belatedness. I show that he depends upon a subjective interpretation of literary production in order to defend a rigidly traditional canon.Chapter two deals with theories of intertextuality, principally those of Julia Kristeva and Michael Riffaterre. As alternatives to theories of influence, neither proves satisfactory. Both founder on the contradictory goal to explain all literature, at the expense of recognizing literary diversity.
Chapter three concerns literary variations. These are texts which are deliberately premised on pre-existing texts. I focus on three examples from this class of literary texts which is not satisfactorily dealt with by any of the theories I consider. I pursue a less wide-ranging approach in order to unearth important features of literary variations.
6
Meir, Amira. "Medieval Jewish interpretation of pentateuchal poetry." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28842.
Abstract:
This dissertation studies parts of six medieval Jewish Torah commentaries in order to examine how they related to what we call Pentateuchal poetry. It examines their general approaches to Bible interpretation and their treatments of all Pentateuchal poems. It focusses on qualities we associate with poetry--parallelism, structure, metaphor, and syntax--and explores the extent to which they treated poems differently from prose.The effort begins by defining Pentateuchal poetry and discussing a range of its presentations by various ancient writers. Subsequent chapters examine its treatment by Rabbi Saadia Gaon of Baghdad (882-942), Abraham Ibn Ezra of Spain (1089-1164), Samuel Ben Meir (1080-1160) and Joseph Bekhor Shor (12th century) of Northern France, David Kimhi of Provence (1160-1235), and Obadiah Sforno of Italy (1470-1550).
While all of these commentators wrote on the poetic passages, none differentiated systematically between Pentateuchal prose and poetry or treated them in substantially different ways. Samuel Ben Meir, Ibn Ezra, Bekhor Shor, and Kimhi did discuss some poetic features of these texts. The other two men were far less inclined to do so, but occasionally recognized some differences between prose and poetry and some phenomena unique to the latter.
7
Walton, Jennifer Lee. "POLITICAL REELISM: A RHETORICAL CRITICISM OF REFLECTION AND INTERPRETATION IN POLITICAL FILMS." Connect to this title online, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1143492027.
8
Turner, Seth. "Revelation 11:1-13 : history of interpretation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2005. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:57efe3b3-7c61-412f-9001-5269860a896d.
Abstract:
The thesis provides a descriptive survey of the history of interpretation of Revelation 11:1-13. Prior to 1000 AD it aims to be comprehensive, but after this date concentrates on Western interpretation. Ch. 1 - Prior to 1000 AD. Rev 11:1-13 is examined in relation to the wider complex of traditions concerning Antichrist and the return of Enoch and Elijah. The commentary tradition on Revelation is examined, including an extensive reconstruction of Tyconius. The passage is applied in two ways: 1. to two eschatological figures, usually Enoch and Elijah. 2. to the Church from the time of Christ's first advent until his return. Ch. 2 -1000-1516 Exegesis similar to that of chapter 1 is found. There is new exegesis from Joachim of Fiore, who believes that the two witnesses will be two religious orders, and Alexander Minorita, who reads the entirety of the Apocalypse as a sequential narrative of Church history, arriving at the sixth century for 11:1-13. Ch. 3 -1516-1700 Protestants interpret the beast as the papacy/Roman Church, and the two witnesses as proto-Protestants prior to the Reformation, often interpreting their 1260 day ministry as 1260 years. Catholics respond by applying the passage either to the eschatological future or the distant past. Ch. 4 -1701-2004 Protestants continue to see the 1260 days as 1260 years, although this interpretation declines markedly in the nineteenth century. Both Catholics and Protestants apply the passage to the distant past of the early Church. Historical critical exegesis introduces a new exegesis, where John is regarded as having incorrectly predicted the return of two individuals shortly after his time of writing. Applications to the entirety of the time of the time of the Church increase in popularity in the twentieth century.
9
Nicol, George Grey. "Studies in the interpretation of Genesis 26.1-33." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8fff7ce7-9a50-4011-9f54-5776c84aa36a.
Abstract:
These Studies in the interpretation of Genesis 26.1-33 are concerned with a relatively brief and well defined section of biblical Hebrew narrative, and following an Introduction are divided into two parts reflecting literary and historical interests respectively. The Introduction takes note of the current interest among Old Testament scholars in the literary interpretation of the biblical materials and, after opting for an approach which will take account of both literary and historical-critical enquiry, outlines the procedure which will be followed. No logical priority is claimed for literary analysis, although it is considered appropriate that it should be pursued prior to any historical enquiry. In this way, it has been possible to avoid any suspicion that literary analysis of the type pursued here is a further development of the historical-critical method. Part One (Chapters One - Four) is concerned to construct a literary interpretation of the text of Gen 26.1-33. The interpretation consists of three main studies of the Isaac narrative which are followed by a brief discussion of certain aspects of the method involved. This interpretation has developed in the main from a reflection upon the relationship which appears to exist between the promise made to the patriarch by the deity and the surrounding narrative material. Beginning from a literary-structural analysis of the Isaac narrative, it has been possible to observe that a number of relationships of a literary and structural nature exist between the promise and the surrounding narrative materials. The exploration of these relationships discloses a series of tensions between the promise and the narrated events which in one way or another seem designed to bring the fulfilment of different aspects of the promise under threat, and each of these tensions are resolved in turn in the narrative. Thus, even even if the events narrated appear to run counter to the direction of the promise, it is in the exploration of this dialectic which is set up between promise and those narrative events which tend to threaten the fulfilment of the promise that the beginnings of a satisfactory literary interpretation of Gen 26.1-33 is to be found. The literary interpretation of the Isaac narrative is carried out in three stages. In the first stage (Chapter One), the extent of the material under consideration is narrowed down to Gen 26.1-33, and other material (notably Gen 25.19-26) is excluded. Once the narrative structure has been analyzed in terms of divine promise, threat, and (partial) resolution, a further brief examination of the narrative context of the other divine promise sections in Genesis 12-36 shows that the literary technique of juxtaposing these same three elements has in fact been applied more widely, even if it is most clearly evident in Gen 26.1-33. An analysis of the role Rebekah plays in the wife-sister episode shows that she is clearly a subsidiary character, and that in the narrative Abimelech the Philistine king of Gerar and Isaac's antagonist throughout is the character closest in importance to Isaac. Indeed, in many respects the narrative appears to explore the relationship which exists between Isaac and the Philistine king. A number of literary features which enhance the impression of unity which has already been gained from the structural analysis are examined. In particular, a number of narrative transformations are seen to take place between the beginning and the end of the narrative. These are largely concerned with the situation of Isaac in relation to Abimelech. At the beginning of the narrative Isaac comes to Abimelech at Gerar and is dependent on the latter's good will for his wellbeing. But at the end of the narrative, Abimelech comes to Isaac at Beersheba, in order to participate in the blessing enjoyed by the Patriarch. In the second stage (Chapter Two), the structure of each of the episodes which combine to form the Isaac narrative is examined, using a form of structural analysis used by Bremond in relation to the fairy tale, but which is also appropriate to the analysis of other simple forms of narrative. This examination, which I have used to determine whether the individual episodes maintain a comic or tragic function within the Isaac narrative, is carried out without prejudice to the assumption that the narrative is a unity at some level. One of the impressive features of the Isaac narrative is that the Patriarch does not achieve his good fortune at the expense of Abimelech and his people, but the Philistines also prosper, and it is seen that this effect has been achieved by means of paradox. The discussion of the individual episodes leads to the conclusion that the ability of the narrative as a whole to generate meaning is greater than the sum of its parts. In the third stage (Chapter Three), I have attempted to construct an appropriate 'narrative background' against which the text may be understood. This exercise involves the careful observation of such signals as are raised in the text and appear to direct one's attention to materials elsewhere in the tradition, and particularly among the narratives of Genesis 12-25, which may combine to serve as a background against which the Isaac narrative may be understood, and which might properly enrich one's understanding of the text. This undertaking begins from the point that no text may be properly understood from within a vacuum, and that while it is proper to begin such a literary-structural investigation as has been undertaken in this Thesis from a detailed study of the text itself, it has been considered necessary to go on from there and to provide a richer understanding of the text. The formation of a 'narrative background' is to be distinguished from the method of 'narrative analogy' (Miscall, Alter) so far as it takes the canonical ordering of the narratives more seriously. Part One is concluded with the discussion of a number of methodological issues in Chapter Four which forms an attempt to say something about the aims and validity of the analyses set out in Chapters One-Three. There is no concern, however, to resume systematically issues which have already been raised in the earlier chapters. In Part Two, I have addressed some of the more usual historical concerns of biblical studies. The first main part of Chapter Five is concerned with the form-critical discussion of the Isaac narrative. An examination of the form-critical studies of Lutz. and Coats is followed by an analysis of the structure and content of Gen 26.1-33. The analysis is then filled out by a broad discussion which is informed to some extent by the earlier discussion of Chapter One, particularly by the degree to which the various episodes were there seen to be related to each other. The fact that, apart from vv 1-6, the episodes all required assumption of information provided by one or another of the preceding episodes in order to appear coherent suggests that the unity of Gen 26.1-33 is perhaps more than the result of a collector stringing them together in terms of the common theme "Isaac and the people of Gerar". This observation sets an obvious limit against the usual formcritical criterion which holds that the most original units were concered to narrate only single episodes. Throughout this discussion the results of current studies in folklore which have led to much uncertainty concerning the stability of oral transmission so that it is no longer possible to be so confident in the antiquity of the pentateuchal tradition were taken for granted. The traditio-historical question of priority is examined, and it is concluded that Abraham is in fact prior to Isaac.
10
Kilian, Monica. "The exile's experience : an examination of the poetry of Hilde Domin and Waclaw Iwaniuk." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26855.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the effect of the experience of exile on the German poet Hilde Domin and the Polish poet Waclaw Iwaniuk. Their involuntary exile, their departure from their respective native cultures and languages has affected them profoundly, both as individuals and as poets. The exiled poet lives in the conflicting world of the exile: on the one hand, he attempts to maintain his close ties to his native language and culture, while on the other hand, he is constantly assailed by the demands of his new and alien environment. He is thus plunged into a crisis of identity. This thesis examines this crisis by concentrating on the aspect of language as a reference point of the poet's identity.
Through a close examination of a selection of the poetry of Domin and Iwaniuk, I have attempted to discover how they express their personal experiences of exile, which problems they are most concerned with, and, finally, how they attempt to solve these problems. Their poetry expresses similar concerns, such as feelings of insecurity, instability and loss, as well as a wish to recover a sense of security. Both Domin and Iwaniuk are aware of the danger of becoming poetic nonentities in their exile, because their link with their native language is threatened. Recognizing the poet's power to find security in his language (which in turn enables him to reassert his identity through his poetry), they both attempt, in different ways, to preserve their identities as poets by writing. Domin is on the whole more successful than Iwaniuk in defining herself through her language. She believes that language is an inseparable part of her, which naturally finds its expression through her writings. Iwaniuk, on the other hand, is more self-conscious about his language; the preservation of his native language as his poetic tool takes the form of struggle. This fact is not only reflected in the content of the two poets' poetry, but also in its form and style: Domin's language and poetry seem generally more spontaneous and harmonious, whereas Iwaniuk's language and poetry appear to be chiselled intellectually, as if it resisted the author's efforts.Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
11
Graham, Catherine (Catherine Elizabeth). "Standpoints : the dramaturgy of Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=60621.
Abstract:
The political popular theatre which has developed in the West since the 1960s challenges the current hegemony in Western cultures by attacking its basic models of knowledge, yet little critical attention has been paid to the dramaturgies particular to this form. An application of the Possible Worlds theory, the concept of ludic framing, and feminist "standpoint" theory to the Irish stage plays written by Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden after they left the "legitimate" stage, shows how the dramaturgy of this theater is a critical part of its strategic challenge to the status quo. This analysis shows how D'Arcy and Arden foreground the encompassing Theatre Possible World, within which the performance takes place, in order to cast doubt on the natural character of generally accepted meanings, and to induce the audience to consciously choose the frames within which it makes sense of action.
12
Petersen, Jeffrey J. 1981. "Playful Conversations: A Study of Shared Dynamics Between the Plays of Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10155.
Abstract:
vii, 130 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, playwright and educator, has blazed a trail in American theatre, opening new avenues for female playwrights. In 2005 Vogel's student Sarah Ruhl burst onto the scene with her play The Clean House. As one of the most produced playwrights of 2005, Ruhl has been celebrated as the new voice of American theatre. There are similarities, as might be expected between teacher and former student, but some of the similarities suggest something more: a dynamic shared between Vogel's and Ruhl's plays which suggests an ongoing theatrical conversation and may suggest directions for future American drama.
Committee in Charge: Dr. John Schmor, Chair; Dr. Jennifer Schlueter
13
Murray, Jessica. ""Notes for the Manual Assembly"." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1157616/.
Abstract:
A collection of poems that seeks the balance between imagination and reality that Wallace Stevens calls for in art, with a preface exploring Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just through the work of two contemporary poets.
14
Bailey, Catherine Diana Alison. "Mending the web : a thematic study of Xu Dishan’s fiction." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25343.
Abstract:
This thesis is a thematic study of the work of the early Twentieth Century Chinese writer Xu Dishan (Luo Huasheng) (1894-1941). The title, "Mending the Web," is at once a reference to a specific story by Xu and an indication of the importance he placed on spiritual values in a changing world. His work represents a modest search for a solution to the dislocation of his society - his own attempt to mend the broken web of modern China. In his work Xu promoted personal solutions and individual salvation rather than the whole scale transformation of society. He stressed the importance of working for change within a given framework - he was a reformer, not a revolutionary, a moderator searching for a synthesis based on universal values rooted in both the Chinese and Western traditions. The values upheld in his fiction are uncompromising - one must follow one' s conscience, accept duty and responsibility calmly, show charity and forgiveness
and, above all be true to oneself.
Xu1s stress on personal and spiritual solutions marks him out from the majority of his iconoclastic contemporaries who advocated wholesale social change. In Chapter One, I try to provide an historical and ideological context for Xu, a comparative background from which to examine him in relation to his contemporary writers and the times in which he lived.
The value Xu placed on a unifying framework, or a sense of order to replace chaos, is made apparent in Chapter Two, where I discuss his quest for values and the romance and mythopoeic modes which inform much of his work. In particular I look at the quest themes which influence the structure and message of his stories, concentrating primarily on an analysis of "Yuguan" and "A Daughter's Heart" based on an extrapolation of the "monomyths" of Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye. I examine the influence of Christianity on Xu's work, his emphasis on a strongly moral vision and his search for an affirmation of life and the individual's potentiality for goodness.
In Chapter Three I analyse Xu's attitude to life and fate in relation to his use of the coincidence motif which acts in his stories as a catalyst and test for action. The coincidence makes the world small, and thus provides a testing ground for characters' actions. A vital element in this is the concept of baoying or requital, whereby an individual is responsible for his or her actions and is judged accordingly. Xu believed an individual has a responsibility to make the best of an unknown fate, but still to work within given limits to have an influence for the good. A strong moral grammar informs Xu's work, providing a framework for judging the acts of his characters.
In Chapter Four I look at Xu's use of female protagonists to embody his philosophy of life. Women like Yuguan and Chuntao represent Xu's ideals in their most specific form, embodying that sense of affirmation and hope so central to Xu' s work and offering models of human potentiality, an optomistic vision of life as it could be.
In the conclusion I touch on the role of morality in Xu's fiction. His work is deeply moral in orientation and offers an interesting contrast to that of his contemporaries equally engaged in writing fiction for a purpose. Xu's concern for spiritual values was almost unique among writers of that period. His fiction is primarily a fiction of ideas and his themes and messages dominate. He was searching for a solution to the dislocation of his society, as were his contemporaries,
but he did not suggest a radical social transformation
but rather to work within the existing framework. He looked for personal solutions, believing in the innate capacity of the human being to change for the better. He advocated change, but stressed that it must first come individually,
through the development of self-knowledge, on a modest scale, before the world can be transformed. His solution was modest yet profound, and filled with hope.Arts, Faculty of
Asian Studies, Department of
Graduate
15
Loevlie, Elisabeth M. "Literary silences : saying the unsayable: an exploration of literary silence in the works of Pascal, Rousseau and Beckett." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365530.
16
Marais, Susan Jacqueline. "(Re-)inventing our selves/ourselves : identity and community in contemporary South African short fiction cycles." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016357.
Abstract:
In this study I focus on a number of collections of short fiction by the South African writers Joël Matlou, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb and Ivan Vladislavić, all of which evince certain of the characteristics of short story cycles or sequences. In other words, they display what Forrest L. Ingram describes as “a double tendency of asserting the individuality of [their] components on the one hand and of highlighting, on the other, the bonds of unity which make the many into a single whole”. The cycle form, thus defined, is characterised by a paradoxical yet productive and frequently unresolved tension between “the individuality of each of the stories and the necessities of the larger unit”, between “the one and the many”, and between cohesion and fragmentation. It is this “dynamic structure of connection and disconnection” which singularly equips the genre to represent the interrelationship of singular and collective identities, or the “coherent multiplicity of community”. Ingram, for example, asserts that “Numerous and varied connective strands draw the co-protagonists of any story cycle into a single community. … However this community may be achieved, it usually can be said to constitute the central character of a cycle”. Not unsurprisingly, then, in its dominant manifestations over much of the twentieth century the short story cycle demonstrated a marked inclination towards regionalism and the depiction of localised enclaves, and this tendency towards “place-based short story cycles” in which topographical unity is a conspicuous feature was as pronounced in South Africa as elsewhere. However, the specific collections which are my concern here increasingly employ innovative and self-reflexive narrative strategies that unsettle generic expectations and interrogate the notions of regionalism and community conventionally associated with the short story cycle. My investigation seeks to explain this shift in emphasis, and its particular significance within the South African context.
17
Ktorides, Subha. "Canonical criticism : the canonical interpretation of Creation and Fall in milton's Paradise Lost." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.426264.
18
Boyle, Amy L. "Marcel Broodthaers and Fred Wilson : contemporary strategies for institutional criticism." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=98914.
Abstract:
This thesis compares two contemporary artists who practice institutional criticism, Marcel Broodthaers and Fred Wilson. Looking specifically at Broodthaers's fictional museum project the Musee d Art Moderne, Departement des Aigles from 1968-1972 and Wilson's 1992 installation Mining the Museum at the Maryland Historical Society, this thesis will critically analyze each artist's similar application of deconstruction as a method. Both artists employ allegory and history as aesthetic strategies of deconstruction; using allegorical structure, the artists mobilize objects that have been arrested in history, disrupting a historical continuum that would otherwise remain foreclosed. The focus of this study will be to explore the critical approaches of Broodthaers and Wilson individually as well as the similar theoretical tendencies of the artists jointly; this investigation will assess the effect of institutional criticism on the museum's present condition, unfolding both what has changed and what is still at play within this practice.
19
Ezroura, Mohammed. "Criticism between scientificity and ideology : theoretical impasses in F.R. Leavis and P. Macherey." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30697.
Abstract:
While focussing on the metaphor of scientificity in Leavis's and Macherey's writings, this dissertation addresses other questions central to criticism, cultural theory, and the philosophy of science. Whereas Leavis opposes scientificity, Macherey proposes "scientific criticism" as imperative to theoretical practice. Between the two critics, scientificity reveals its major metamorphoses.
This study is divided into four major parts. Part One situates the concept of scientificity in the modern debate between critics and philosophers of science. I compare their problematization of scientificity to the way this notion has been represented in literary criticism. The debate blurs the boundary between scientific and literary knowledge, and brings the question of ideology in scientific discourse to the fore. Scientificity is thus bound with ideology as an epistemological practice.
Part two focusses on Leavis's rejection of scientificity. In three chapters here I investigate the significance of Leavis's definition of "organic culture," "civilization," "science," and "criticism." These are all
rooted in Arnold's cultural paradigm, which privileges a traditional order. Leavis's opposition to "theory," "science," and "philosophy" problematizes his principles of "precision," "analysis," and "standards." His controversies with CP. Snow's scientism and with Marxism reveal his concern with theory and scientific epistemology. His defence of "ambiguity," and "impossibility of definition" also makes his framework confront a theoretical impasse that is revealed by a desire to theorize criticism—Leavis's duty towards society— and a fear of theory and science, perceived as destructive.
Part Three, comprising three chapter, considers Macherey's scientific criticism. His notions of the "structure of absence" and "symptomatic reading" are central to his theorization of criticism, science, and ideology. These are formulated through Freud's categories of dream analysis, Saussure's notion of difference, and Althusser's conception of ideology. For Macherey, scientific criticism negates ideology. But his emphasis on "absence" as constitutive of scientificity brings his epistemology to a theoretical impasse that resembles Leavis's. Macherey's anchoring of meaning in economic structures, in ideology, and in Marxism as "science," problematizes his scientific project because it abandons "absence."
Part Four concludes the dissertation by investigating ways in which Leavis and Macherey illustrate the importance of an epistemological phenomenon in literary studies: criticism's struggle with scientificity. Whether opposed or defended, scientificity has helped criticism to emulate the hegemonic discourse of science and to combat rival critical strategies. However, to dispel "scientific" delusions, criticism must scrutinize its affiliation with ideology both in scientific method and in theory.Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
20
Greenlee, Christine Lund Koch. "The Constantian orations : a contextual analysis of self-presentation in Libanius' 'Orr.' 59, 11, 61 and 31." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15923.
Abstract:
A total of sixty-four orations survive from the hand of Libanius. Four of these speeches were delivered under the reign of Constantius II (AD 337-361) and thus form a distinct chronological cluster in the Libanian corpus. The Constantian orations include Or. 59 To Constantius II and Constans (AD 346-9), Or. 11 The Antiochikos (AD 356), Or. 61 Monody on Nicomedia (AD 358), and Or. 61 For the teachers (AD 360-1). This study adopts a diachronic approach and analyses the historical and literary context of each Constantian oration with a particular focus on Libanius' self- presentation. The study suggests that Libanius' self-presentation was characterised by adaptability and versatility; it shows Libanius exploring a range of different genres and communicating with attentiveness to context and audience. The thesis also argues that Libanius' attitude to and engagement with Constantius' court fluctuated significantly from the delivery of Libanius' panegyric in the mid- to late 340s where Libanius supported Constantius after his defeat in the battle of Singara, over Libanius' encomium to Antioch in 356 where Libanius emphasised the strong connection between the Emperor and the city following the devastating reign of Gallus Caesar, to the delivery of For the teachers in 360-361, where Libanius publically voiced his criticism of the Emperor's cultural and religious policies after Libanius himself had lost imperial funding. Furthermore, the study displays the continued importance of oratory in Late Antiquity and emphasises the central role of sophists both as commentators and mediators in society.
21
Phillips, Malcolm. "Experiment and representation : the domestic surreal in contemporary British and American poetry." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14707.
Abstract:
In order to counter what I regard as premature and reductive formulations of a 'native' British postmodernism, I identify a specific tendency in contemporary writing which I name the domestic surreal, and which I trace through the poetry of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Roy Fisher, Christopher Middleton, John Ash, Peter Didsbury and Ian McMillan. Through close reading and a comparative approach, I uncover key preoccupations with idiosyncratic perception, shared experience, urban space and poetic play. I also describe a network of allegiances and influence among these writers which reveals the domestic surreal to be one of the contemporary manifestations of an imaginative tradition which stretches back through the Surrealist and Cubist movements to Baudelaire and Rimbaud. For the poets of the domestic surreal, engagement with an aesthetic tradition is inextricably linked with their response to contemporary conditions. Drawing on dialectical and poststructuralist perspectives, I propose that the domestic surreal attempts to resist the constraints of social and aesthetic consensus in Britain and America in the period following the Second World War.
22
Pryor, Caitlin. "Vanishing Act." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc801936/.
Abstract:
This dissertation is comprised of a collection of poems preceded by a critical preface. The preface reconsiders the value of discontinuous poetic forms and advocates a return to lyric as an antidote to the toxic aspects of what Tony Hoagland terms “the skittery poem of our moment.” I consider poems by Wendy Xu, Kevin Prufer, Sharon Olds, and Stephen Dunn in depth to facilitate a discussion about the value of a more centrist position between the poles of supreme discontinuity and totalizing continuity. Though poets working in discontinuous forms are rightly skeptical of the hierarchies that govern narrative and linear forms, as Czesław Miłosz notes in The Witness of Poetry, “a poet discovers a secret, namely that he can be faithful to real things only by arranging them hierarchically.” In my own poems, I make use of the hierarchies of ordered perception in lyric and narrative forms to faithfully illuminate the collapsed structures of my own family history in the shadow of Detroit. I practice the principles I advocate in the preface, using a continuous form to address fractured realities in a busy, disordered age when poets often seek forms as fragmented as their perceptions. These poems are distinctly American, but because there is no true royalty in America, our great cultural and economic institutions—television, music, film, magazines, and big business—take the place of the castle (the book’s emblem) while Michael Jackson ultimately rises as the commanding dead king whose passing prompts contemplation of the viability of popular culture, family, history, and geography. The fallen structures that litter the work are many: the twin towers, chess rooks, bounce castles, nuclear families, the auto industry. However, the sole structure cohering the whole is that of a lyric voice whose authority is derived through lived experience and presented in rich, continuous poetic forms.
23
Wetzel, Rebecca L. "ADAPTATION AND INTERPRETATION: A STUDY OF THEATRICAL BANDE DESSINEE." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1563987098560659.
24
Ingham, David Keith. "Mediation and the indirect metafiction of Randolph Stow, M. K. Joseph, and Timothy Findley." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25819.
Abstract:
In order to explore the range of indirect metafiction as presented in three exemplary novels, this dissertation begins by examining how the assumptions of "realism" on the one hand and "postmodernism" on the other relate to the paradigmatic triad of story-teller, story, and audience. From this context emerges the view that the range of metafiction is determined by how it reveals the processes and nature of fiction according to a spectrum of mediation: that of the writer between his "raw materials" and the text, that of the text between writer and reader, and that of the reader between the text and his interpretation.
Indirect metafiction (or "pretend realism") mediates between realism and postmodernism, revealing without breaking the illusions of realism.
Each of the next three chapters, after initially placing the key novel within the context of the author's work as a whole, discusses in detail a novel whose metafictional focus is on one of the three mediations. Accordingly, Chapter II focusses on Randolph Stow's The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and on the way it reveals the mediation of the author by presenting a writer's fiction as a synthesis of his personal and literary experiences. Chapter III notes how M. K. Joseph's A Soldier's Tale (1976) reflects the mediation of the reader by depicting a writer's interpretation and literary redaction of an oral tale. And Chapter IV shows how Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words (1981) demonstrates the mediation of the text by presenting a writer whose text "crystallizes" the illusions of fiction, then undercuts and exposes them. The analyses of the key texts employ both postmodern and traditional critical approaches, demonstrating them to be complementary; by noting the interpenetration of metafictional and traditional import and significance, the analyses also highlight the mediary nature of indirect metafiction.
The fifth chapter draws theoretical conclusions from ideas in the practical chapters: from metafictional revelations through the paradigm of mediation comes an "anatomy" of fiction, delineating its elements; from a sense of how the mind "structures" experience through "fictional" representations of both "reality" and fictional texts comes a "physiology," a sense of how fiction works through language. This discussion leads to definitions of realistic, unrealistic, and self-conscious fiction, and of metafiction, both direct and indirect; the dissertation concludes by remarking on the inter-relations of language, "fiction," and "reality."Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
25
Scowcroft, Ann. "Escaping the hegemony of the written word : Canadian women writers and the dislocation of narrative." Thesis, McGill University, 1989. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61803.
26
Léger, Ariane. "Le maître à écrire selon Valéry, Pessoa et Jaccottet /." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=115622.
Abstract:
The main objective of this study is to understand how Valery, Pessoa and Jaccottet created or recreated the figure of the master. This figure has truly made its entry into the literary scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it contributed to impose a profane and more egalitarian vision of writing. In the writing of the three authors studied, the master is still seen as a strategy to develop a concept of creation, since it allows the writers to define their poetic. It is therefore a matter of maitres a penser (literally "thinking masters") or, better yet, maitres a ecrire ("writing masters").For Valery, the desire to make Mallarme his master is best explained by his search for mastery. Even if he is eager to understand what makes Mallarme an exceptional creator, Valery's quest is hindered by Mallarme's refusal to explain his poetic. This resistance seems to encourage Valery to make the creative act a major concern of his work.
By coming up with a "non-existent coterie" made up of imaginary writers, and by recognizing one of them as his own master, Pessoa hopes to fill the gaps in his literary filiation. In the concert of voices that compose his work, it is yet the master himself which undermines the very legitimacy of the master, and that is why Pessoa finally gets rid of his invention.
Finally, Jaccottet creates his masters for the learning they could provide to him: in Jaccottet's unique story, the character of the master fails, allowing the poet to take his distance from assumptions related with the romantic vision of creation; then, a "good master" whose agony is described by poems becomes a model whose wisdom is inseparable from a kind of ignorance.
The presence of the master generates a story elaborated from the writings of these writers: the development of their poetic requires not only the creation of a master figure, but also its removal. Ultimately, the maitre a ecrire is not only one who induces writing in a unique way, but also the one which should be written in order to succeed.
27
Dicks, Henry. "Being and earth : an ecological criticism of late twentieth-century French thought." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669967.
28
Davies-Browne, Bankole P. "The significance of parallels between the 'Testament of Solomon' and Jewish literature of late antiquity (between the closing centuries BCE and the Talmudic era) and the New Testament." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2685.
Abstract:
The TSol is a Christian composition of late antiquity which narrates the story about how King Solomon built the Temple of God with the aid of demons he subjugated. Comparative analysis between the TSol and Jewish literature of late antiquity (between the closing centuries BCE and the Talmudic era), and the New Testament is primarily to establish any literary dependence and explore the nature of contact between the TSol and these materials; and also to isolate Jewish elements in the TSol. The Jewish materials discussed are the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Pseudo-Philo, certain Qumran documents (11 PsApa and the Copper scroll), Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Songs, rabbinic literature, and certain Aramaic incantation texts. My research has shown that parallels do exist between the TSol, the Jewish literature discussed and the New Testament. The parallels between the TSol and the aforementioned literature are twofold: verbal and conceptual. Verbal parallels occur in the form of technical terminology; quotations, allusions and echoes. The second type of parallels appears in the form of motifs, themes, structural elements and ideas. These parallels seem to dominate in my analysis. There is no need to explain the parallels between the TSol and the literature discussed in terms of literary dependence. I have attempted to demonstrate that these parallels in most of the literature are indicative of indirect influence through shared use of the biblical tradition: motifs, stories and themes regarding King Solomon; a common fund of oral tradition(s) regarding Solomon's magical power over demonic world; shared literary language, milieu, and cultural conventions. Moreover, the author of the TSol seems to have recycled Jewish materials pertaining to Solomon and related motifs in his work. Apart from the New Testament, the best case for a direct influence of a Jewish work on the TSol is Tobit.
29
Hoedekie, Nelson G. U. (Nelson Gustaaf Urbain). "Naar analogie van schaduwen aan de wand : een wijsgerige interpretatie van 'de schaduw als kunstwerk' aan de hand van Plato's grotvergelijking." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/53511.
Abstract:
Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, 'shadow' is investigated as an object of thought and (analogically connected to this) of perception. This dialectical process is structured through means of a series of experiments and Plato's allegory of the cave, which is interpreted as a process directed towards selfconciousness. This process is further explained through thinkers such as, Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. The purpose of this study is to break with the self-evident way in which 'shadow' is 'normally' treated and to bring back about a sense of astonishment for it.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word die 'skaduwee' as waarnemingsobjek en (analogies verwant daaraan) as denkobjek ondersoek. Hierdie dialektiese proses word gestruktureerd met behulp van 'n aantal eksperimente en Plato se grotgelykenis, wat geinterpreteer word as programmaties van die proses van selfbewuswording. Hierdie proses word verder toegelig aan die hand van denkers soos Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. Die doel van die ondersoek is om die vanselfsprekendheid waarmee daar met die fenomeen van die skaduwee omgegaan word te deurbreek en weer verwondering daarvoor op te roep.
NEDERLANDSTALIGE SAMENVATTING: In deze thesis wordt de 'schaduw' als waarnemingsobject en (analogisch verwant daaraan) als denkobject onderzocht. Dit dialectische proces wordt gestructureerd met behulp van een aantal experimenten en Plato's grotvergelijking, die geïnterpreteerd worden als een proces gericht op zeltbewustwording. Dit proces wordt verder toegelicht aan de hand van denkers zoals, Blumenberg, Heidegger, Levinas en Voegelin. Het doel van het onderzoek is om de vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee met het fenomeen van de 'schaduw' omgegaan wordt, te doorbreken en er opnieuw verwondering voor op te roepen.
30
Fisher, Susan Rosa. "A genre for our times: the Menippean satires of Russell Hoban and Murakami Haruki." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25047.pdf.
31
Vishwanathan, Kedar Shrinivas. "Re-thinking Indian Modernism: the endogenous aspects of Indian modernism c. 1890-1947." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2012. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/28759.
Abstract:
Indian modernism is an endogenous structural causality that has used and continues to use
exogenous discourses for its development. Linked to the Independence movement, it became
a part of the project for national self-determination, and the artists and art historians asserted
the endogenous cultural system over the Raj’s imposed cultural system on philosophical,
historiographical, aesthetic, religious, and social grounds. The artists reached into India’s
society, traditions, past, and folk and tribal practices to find their endogenous subject matter
and to define their way of seeing. The tools and arguments contained in the exogenous
discourses supplied by the Raj’s cultural systems and European modernism provided the
discourses that combined with endogenous discourses and created Indian modem art. The
study considers in detail the ways in which endogenous and exogenous discourses have been
combined and translated (relativised) over half a century.
The study’s focus is c.1890 to c.1947, though to provide a framing context it
considers the breakdown of the arts under the autonomous Mughal courts after Aurangzeb
(c.1700 onwards), and also considers Indian modem art of the 1960s. The study demonstrates
that the course of Indian modernism was such that a period of domination by an art school
was followed by a rupture, the rupture leading to a period of domination by another, which in
turn was ruptured and re-ordered, the process repeating and bifurcating in time, and across
the geographical regions of India. A ruptured school did not mean its elimination, often it
continued. It is important to see the periods of domination, the nodes of rupture, and
subsequent bifurcations and domination as occurring in parallel in space and time. The
rupture and subsequent domination was due to a combination of endogenous and exogenous
discourses. This discourse relativisation was an invariant aspect of the process. The manner
in which the discourses relativised each other along the multiple dimensions (philosophical,
social, political, cultural, aesthetic, historiographical) was different at different times and
locations leading to differences, but the process of relativisation was a constant.
32
Dunzweiler, Krista J. "Saving America's gays and lesbians from hell : a fantasy theme criticism of the anti-gay rhetoric of the far-right." Scholarly Commons, 2000. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/536.
Abstract:
This thesis investigates the worldview of six rhetors of the far-right using the rhetorical method of fantasy theme analysis. The specific rhetors examined in this study are Peter J. Peters, Dan Gayman, Edward Fields, Fred Phelps, Jeny Falwell, and James Dobson. In order to understand the discourse of the six rhetors, five research questions were developed to guide the study: (1) What are the images portrayed of homosexuals and gay rights advocates in the fantasy themes of the rhetors examined in this study? (2) What are the images portrayed of Christians in the fantasy themes of the rhetors examined in this study? (3) How do the fantasy themes differ in extremity among the rhetors of the far-tight with regard to homosexuality and supporters of gay lights? (4) How do the fantasy themes of the rhetors work together to create a rhetolical vision for the far-light regarding homosexuality? (5) How do the collective fantasy themes of the far-right rhetors potentially influence actions against and aggression towards homosexuals? In order to answer these questions, a fantasy theme analysis was conducted on various artifacts of the six rhetors chosen for examination in this thesis. The analysis indicated that the fantasy themes of the rhetors work together to create a rhetorical vision in which a drama is played out. In this drama, homosexuals and supporters of gay rights are depicted as villains and fundamentalist Christians are characterized as heroes. Through the depictions of these characters and their actions the ultimate ideal of America as a country is provided. This ultimate ideal focuses on a setting where homosexuals do not exist and gay rights is not an issue. Through these fantasy themes the rhetors encourage America's patriots and fundamentalist Christians to remove homosexuals from society. In addition, the collective rhetorical vision of the six rhetors provides motives for aggressive actions against homosexuals, including acts of violence.
33
Vrba, Marya. "The literary dream in German Central Europe, 1900-1925 : a selective study of the writings of Kafka, Kubin, Meyrink, Musil and Schnitzler." Thesis, Swansea University, 2011. https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42396.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the literary dream in selected works by Kafka, Kubin, Meyrink, Musil and Schnitzler, with a particular focus on the redefinition of subjectivity through dreamlife. The introductory chapter contextualises these case studies in the broader field of oneirocriticism, emphasising the dream's ancient role as fixtional template and its specific significance in the destabilised environment of German Central Europe during the early twentieth century. Alfred Kubin's Die andere Seite (1909), which uses the 'other side' as metaphor for both oneiric and artistic experience, reveals the inherent dualism of the literary dream and its close relationship with creativity. In Robert Musil's Die Verwirrungen des Zdglings Tdrlefi (1906), the protagonist serves as the model for a new type of self-determining subject who draws on the knowledge of dreams and irrationality. Franz Kafka's texts reveal techniques for integrating the dream into fictional worlds that are already dreamlike through the prevalence of (literalised) metaphor and free association. Gustav Meyrink, in Der Golem (1915), shares Kafka's interest in concretised metaphor, but also explores the dream's associations with occult practices, used as a defence against the threatening claims of science. Finally, Arthur Schnitzler's literary dreams offer a direct confrontation with psychoanalysis and a dismantling of nineteenth-century ideals of gender and bourgeois love. Overall, it is argued that the literary dreams by these authors hold varied responses to fragmentation of the Ich in the face of psychological 'vivisection', theories of relativity, and the collapse of old social orders. The dream, as a nightly 'psychosis', crystallised the pervasive fears of self-loss during this period; however, in its perennial role as micro-narrative, it also provided a site for re-construction of the subject. The incorporation of dreams in fictional lives served as a metonymical guide for the integration of un- and subconscious experience overall.
34
Selby, Don. "Bridging the gap? : a critical reading of Bhabha, Said and Spivak's postcolonial positions." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0001/MQ43947.pdf.
35
Ocaña, Karen Isabel. "Synthetic authenticity : the work of Angela Carter, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26748.
Abstract:
This thesis constitutes an investigation into contemporary writing--both fictional and philosophical. More specifically, it is a comparative analysis of the work of British novelist Angela Carter, and French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in the light of the concept of synthetic authenticity. It is divided into three chapters, "Becomings", "Events", and "Machines", and each chapter presents the work of both Carter and Deleuze and Guattari, respectively, in light of one of these topics. Chapter Two, however, focuses closely on Angela Carter's first novel, Shadow Dance, as it relates to the concept 'event'. And Chapter Three focuses on Carter's novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, as it relates to and differs from the schizoanalytic notion of desiring machines.
36
Bourgon, Julie. "Création, éthique et vérité : Broch et Blanchot ; suivi de, En trompe-l'oeil." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ37193.pdf.
37
Lanthier, Lalita Bharvani. "Two outsiders in Indo-English literature : Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Salman Rushdie." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=56664.
Abstract:
This thesis shows the condition of outsidedness in the fiction of two Indo-English authors: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Salman Rushdie. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala focuses on the intercultural encounter from the European perspective. Salman Rushdie writes from the expatriate's point of view. Astride the cultural frameworks of India and the West at once they examine the ironic similarities of prejudice and intolerance in both societies. These authors' novels are examined through concepts elaborated by the Russian literary theoretician, Mikhail Bakhtin, such as exotopy or outsidedness, heteroglossia, dialogism, etc. They confirm Bakhtin's contention that cultural confrontation is a potentially enriching source of literary and artistic creation. Jhabvala treats the intercultural encounter within the colonial and post-colonial frameworks and shows the fragile dialogue that does occur between her European characters and India. Rushdie on the other hand centres mainly on contemporary India although he does satirize certain aspects of colonial India. He uses a plethora of historical, literary, cultural and linguistic referents from both eastern and western traditions to subvert the hegemonic discourse of either and to celebrate cultural hybridity.
38
Miller, Dane Eric. "Micah and its literary environment: Rhetorical critical case studies." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185441.
Abstract:
I began this investigation with the presupposition that the MT of Micah offered us a valid object upon which to apply the methodology of rhetorical criticism. The examination of the text proceeded along the lines of two emphases: (1) a structural analysis which studied the various blocks of material in order to describe a unity or cohesiveness in Micah, and (2) a thematic approach which identified underlying images which tend to enhance the coherence of the work. I used these two methodologies to address both pericopes and also larger units and even to discuss the book itself. Two other methodological strategies have also guided my analysis of Micah. In Chapter 1, I described two foci of the ellipse that is rhetorical criticism: first, those who emphasize the task of "listening" to the text, which I understand as more of an empathic approach, and second, those who utilize a quantifying style of investigation. Both these focal points are reflected in my structural and thematic analyses. Although no readily recognizable patterns such as A:B:A appears in describing the three parts of the book, there does seem to be a thematic development in Micah 1-7. Thus Part I (Micah 1-3) resounds with the words of witness followed by judgment and concludes with the destruction of Jerusalem. That scene of destruction gives way, however, to the restoration and encouragement of Part II (4:1-5:8), although the threats in 4:9-5:8 remind us that the restoration is not an accomplished fact. Part III (Mic 5:9-7:20) begins with what seems to be an assertion that the judgment will take place, especially with the appearance again of the witness/judgment model in 6:9-7:6. However, the final picture of restoration and covenant fidelity on the part of YHWH affirms that the judgment will be overturned. I have further suggested that echoes from the literary tradition of Israel enhance the movement from judgment to renewal in Micah. The conclusion to the judgment in Part I (Mic 3:1-12) has particular impact, because it is presented in the language of the judgment scene from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3). In fact, we see here again that theme and structure intermix in Micah. I suggest that the book begins with material which mimics and recalls older traditions (the theophany, David, and even Anat) and ends with similarly old recollections (David and Moses). Thus I posit that Micah comes to us wrapped in an envelope of ancient echoes.
39
Pellis, Vivien C., and mikewood@deakin edu au. "Inspiration and Mimesis in Plato's criticism of poetry." Deakin University. School of Social Inquiry, 2001. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20050902.124541.
Abstract:
Plato criticizes poetry in several of his dialogues, beginning with Apology, his first work, and ending with Laws, his last. In these dialogues, his criticism of poetry can be divided into two streams: poetry is criticized for either being divinely inspired, or because it is mimetic or imitative of reality. However, of the dialogues which criticize poetry in these ways, it is not until Laws that Plato mentions both inspiration and mimesis together, and then it is only in a few sentences. Furthermore, nowhere in the dialogues does Plato discuss their relationship. This situation has a parallel in the secondary literature. While much work has been done on inspiration or mimesis in Platos criticism of poetry, very little work exists which discusses the connection between them. This study examines Platos treatment - in the six relevant dialogues - of these two poetic elements, inspiration and mimesis, and shows that a relationship exists between them. Both can be seen to relate to two important Socratic-Platonic concerns: the care of the soul and the welfare of the state. These concerns represent a synthesis of Socratic moral philosophy with Platonic political beliefs. In the inspiration dialogues, Ion, Apology, Meno, Phaedrus and Laws, poetic inspiration can affect the Socratic exhortation which considers the care of the individual soul. Further, as we are told in Apology, Crito and Gorgias, it is the good man, the virtuous man - the one who cares for his soul - who also cares for the welfare of the state. Therefore, in its effect on the individual soul, poetic inspiration can also indirectly affect the state. In the mimesis dialogues, Republic and Laws, this same exhortation, on the care of the soul, is posed, but it is has now been rendered into a more Platonic form - as either the principle of specialization - the one man, one job creed of Republic, which advances the harmony between the three elements of the soul, or as the concord between reason and emotion in Laws. While in Republic, mimesis can damage the tripartite soul's delicate balance, in Laws, mimesis in poetry is used to promote the concord. Further, in both these dialogues, poetic mimesis can affect the welfare of the state. In Republic, Socrates notes that states arc but a product of the individuals of which they are composed Therefore, by affecting the harmony of the individual soul, mimesis can then undermine the harmony of the state, and an imperfect political system, such as a timarchy, an oligarchy, a democracy, or a tyranny, can result. However, in Laws, when it is harnessed by the philosophical lawgivers, mimesis can assist in the concord between the rulers and the ruled, thus serving the welfare of the state. Inspiration and mimesis can thus be seen to be related in their effect on the education of both the individual, in the care of the soul, and the state, in its welfare. Plato's criticism of poetry, therefore, which is centred on these two features, addresses common Platonic concerns: in education, politics, ethics, epistemology and psychology.
40
Suzuki-Martinez, Sharon S. 1963. "Tribal Selves: Subversive Identity in Asian American and Native American Literature." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565575.
41
Levitan, Linda. "The sense of place in Sophocles : a study in the landscape of experience." Thesis, McGill University, 1987. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=63835.
42
Cohen, Andrew Benjamin. "Milton and superfluity." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2005. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f5af5679-609a-4d12-b8cb-498e6735252f.
Abstract:
This thesis proceeds from the observation that Milton is concerned by the presence of surplus material in the physical world. The blind Pharisee in Samson Agonistes dismisses his 'redundant locks, / Robustious to no purpose clustering down.' In the Ludlow masque, Comus complains that the Lady's 'moral babble' would leave nature 'strangled with her waste fertility.' Creation, in Paradise Lost, requires the expulsion of 'black tartareous cold infernal dregs' and leaves behind an abyss full of matter. Adam and Eve live in a garden where the sun shines with more warmth than they need, where the nighttime sky is bright with a perplexing canopy of lights. Vines and overgrown branches threaten to make their walks unpassable, while fruit, uncollected and uneaten, falls to the ground. An interest in superfluity is a characteristic feature of Milton's imagination. He insists on limits, then turns to what is left out as excess or waste. This habit of mind influences Milton's description of acts of choosing and gives shape to his account of the relationship between creation and God. It complicates his answer to the sort of question Augustine asks of God in the Confessions: 'Do heaven and earth contain you because you have filled them? Or do you fill them and overflow them because they do not contain you?' Milton is troubled by the idea of purposeless divine work. He is bothered by the thought of a creation that is useless or unnecessary. In Paradise Lost, I argue, the reason for the existence for the world is tied to the reason for sin.
43
Lee-Perriard, Marta. "Border subjects : a textual dialogue between Assia Djebar and Helene Cixous." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2003. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f7c122f0-aade-453f-af1b-d4b7a10d0a93.
Abstract:
The absence of a public dialogue, either about or between Assia Djebar and Hélène Cixous is mystifying, because they move in academic/literary/intellectual/biographical circles that overlap. Reading for the textual dialogue between Cixous's and Djebar's writing reveals the development of a narrative and writing position, referred to here as the 'border- subject', the roots of which stem from the authors' biographies. Reading Djebar's and Cixous's oeuvre, against the background of Franchise Lionnet's and Gloria Anzaldua's theoretical landscape, simultaneously enlarges the critical optic as well as the scope of each individual writer's oeuvre. What characterises the fictional border subject in Les Impatients and Dedans is a willingness to transgress boundaries. The fictional border subject negotiates with three different spatial dynamics: the separation from the other, spatial metaphors, and history's invasion of domestic space. In the subsequent 'Le Rire de la méduse' and Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement, Djebar and Cixous write as border subjects in order to craft liberating strategies intended to redress the mis-representation or absence of women's body. As a consequence of the preceding texts, L'Amour, la fantasia and Les Rêveries de la femme sauvage contain the authors' semi-autobiographical questioning of the border subject in relation to origin, language, belonging and home: this enables a re-animation of the Algerian past, both individual and collective. Lastly, in Le Blanc de I'Algérie and Le Jour où je n'étais pas là the border subject is put aside: although absent, the narrating 'je' remains connected with events and bears witness. This dimension of testimony represents an exciting development in the authors' oeuvre and their political commitment. What emerges from a comparative reading is the authors' transformation of the border subject into an engagement with the Algerian present. Solidarity amongst Algerian born writers can transform literature into an indestructible repository for the dream of a multi- lingual, multi-cultural Algeria.
44
McKenna, Brian Martin. "Gender representation, sexuality and politics in the writings of Patrick Hamilton." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5d6338e3-f253-42d1-8cf6-4fd21d0514b5.
Abstract:
This thesis analyzes the drama and prose fiction of the upper-middleclass Communist writer Patrick Hamilton (1904-62), drawing on a considerable amount of primary material. Part of the purpose of the thesis is to restore Hamilton's reputation as a writer of significance by effecting a judicious critical assessment of his unjustly neglected oeuvre. It is argued that throughout his work are discernible traces of a crisis of hegemony which afflicted the British ruling order in the interwar period and of which one aspect is of special relevance here -- viz., a certain problematization of Victorian and Edwardian codes of English bourgeois masculinity engendered by the Great War and its shell-shocked aftermath and peculiarly operative among those ex-Public School writers who, like Hamilton, were born around the mid-1900s, and became prominent in the 1930s. One, well-known, consequence of this crisis was a sexualized transfer of allegiance by some bourgeois literary intellectuals to the Soviet Union and the working-class; another was a gravitation towards (crypto-) Fascism. From the time of his 1926 novel, Craven House. Hamilton sought to anatomize the potential for fascistic 'evil' latent in the southern English petty bourgeoisie. It is demonstrated that his fictional analyses were rendered more profound by his intellectual assimilation of Marxism from 1933 onwards. It is also shown that the specific appeal of Soviet Marxism for this writer resided in its quasi-religious capacity to satisfy a craving for authenticity in a social world characterized by deceitful quotidian role-playing and, in the drama especially, to facilitate the unmasking of villainy and subserve an obsession with revenge. Congenial to this brand of Marxism, it is contended, is the monologic tradition of the realist novel, to which Hamilton's fiction almost invariably conforms. The Protestant discourse of confession which nurtures that tradition is often discernible in the impulse to confess which tends to characterize the rendition of the sexual in Hamilton's texts and, in general, his problematic representation of gender and sexuality is closely scrutinized. It is concluded that, despite its demonstrable limitations and inherent problems, much of Hamilton's work can be rendered valuable to a contemporary radical audience.
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Trott, Nicola. "Wordsworth's revisionary reading." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1990. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4244f68a-8026-4918-bb0b-cf2db3eb4940.
Abstract:
The subject of this thesis is revision in Wordsworth, and the ways in which he translates material into psychic and renewable experience. The first three chapters offer different contexts for a theory of vision theological, philosophical and aesthetic. Chapter One discusses Wordsworth's relation to Coleridge's Unitarianism, as it evolves in the philosophical poetry and in the concept of The Recluse. I examine how Coleridge's 'love of "the Great", and "the Whole"' determines his critique of Wordsworth and the self-analysis of The Prelude. Chapter Two is divided between the Wordsworthian practice of revision, which transfigures visual memory for mental use, and the Coleridgean, that reads in landscape the symbolic text of a 'God in nature'. In Chapter Three, I address the definitions of vision Wordsworth makes independently of Coleridge, and in relation to Milton and Burke, to the applied aesthetics of the picturesque, and to their extension in the scenes of The Prelude. The second half of the thesis considers the psychological content of Wordsworthian landscape. Chapters Four and Six follow the mental drama of the Tour, with its topographical notation of expectation, disappointment and recovery. These motifs are also related to the determining structures of the French Revolution, and to The Prelude's reading of the language and aspirations of the 1798 Recluse. Chapter Six examines strategies of compensation, and their function in the ideology of reconciling mind and Nature. Chapter Five is concerned with revision proper, and the figures by which it is represented. As well as revision of a textual kind, I discuss Wordsworth's development of the more literal-minded 'second sight' of eighteenth-century aesthetics.
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Goodacre, Mark S. "Goulder and the Gospels : an examination of a new paradigm." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c6d77093-7bac-4475-b0f4-105e75a79511.
Abstract:
The value of Michael Goulder's contribution to Gospel studies is underlined by uncovering both strengths and weaknesses in his work. Goulder's theories are divisible into three major areas and are analysed in the three parts of this thesis, Part One on Luke's knowledge of Matthew, Part Two on the creativity of the evangelists and Part Three on the lectionary theory. A screening of 'QC' Words discovers Matthean and Lucan vocabulary in roughly equal proportions, a conclusion detrimental to Goulder's theory that Matthew composed the Q material and that Luke copied it from him. Goulder argues strongly on the Minor Agreements that Matthean, un-Lucan language could indicate Luke's knowledge of Matthew. At least six Minor Agreements satisfy these criteria but one or two satisfy the reverse criteria. Goulder's arguments over the Minor Agreements require revision but still provide problems for a 'hardline' Two-Source Theory. Goulder's case that the L material is the substantial handiwork of the evangelist is plausible given the distinctiveness of many of the features he lists, but the data also suggests that Luke interacted with oral traditions. There is much to commend in Goulder's lectionary theory, particularly the strengths of the correspondences adduced, but there are difficulties which may be insurmountable.
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Whicker, Jules. "Fiction, deceit and morality in the plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, 1580-1639." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:50276c64-555f-4584-9956-74a0ef3407b0.
Abstract:
Alarcón was writing at a time when Spaniards increasingly came to perceive Spain as a nation in decline, and to seek the remedy for their country's malaise in a whole series of economic, political, social, and, in particular, moral reforms. One consequence of this was to intensify the debate concerning effect of the theatre on the moral values of the young, another was to stimulate a renewed interest in the art of war and the martial virtues which were held to have been the source of earlier glories, and yet another was to impel political philosophers and theologians alike to consider anew how the necessities of government in this uncertain political and economic climate might be reconciled with the ethical principles promoted by the Catholic Church. This study contends that both the style and the content of his plays show Alarcón to have been both well-informed and keenly interested in such matters, and indicate that, whilst he concurs with many contemporary moralists in identifying the source of the national malaise as a self-indulgent obsession with sensual pleasure and social posturing, and in suggesting that the cure lies in an adoption of a moral code based upon stoic self-discipline and other such virtues, he makes it clear that the implementation of these virtues in the complex situations encountered in everyday life depends to a large extent upon the prudent use of deception. Thus, in his work, Alarcón presents two principal forms of deception: the lies, slanders, illusions, and acts of imposture of those who seek the illicit gratification of their worldly desires; and the cautious equivocation, concealments, disguises, and stratagems of those who know that appearances deceive and who seek to ensure the reputation, integrity and safety of their compatriots and co-religionists. I also maintain that this is a distinction which applies to the comedia as much as to the world which it portrays, and that Alarcón is critical of the indecorous actions and the ornate language, music and spectacle of the comedia as popularised by Lope, and develops a dramatic technique which requires the spectator to submit his initial emotional and imaginative response to the drama to the scrutiny of reason if he is to understand the play. In this way, Alarcón's own creative technique proves to be yet another example of the prudent use of deception illustrated in his plays.
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Harvey, David I. H. "The later music of Elliott Carter : a study in music theory and analysis." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1986. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c47d92da-277e-4850-9e3b-e5e0cd93308f.
Abstract:
Any composer's writings form an important source for the critical study of his music: they must nevertheless be used with care, Carter's writings are considered as part of a tradition in American music. His musical development up to 1959 is briefly sketched, with particular reference to those elements which with hindsight can be seen to have been most significant in the evolution of a mature musical language - various experimental and non-western musical traditions, influences from other domains of art, and the philosophy of A. N. Vhitehead. In order to avoid the spectre of 'merely technical analysis' of atonal music, we need an analytical approach which can describe the way in which the characteristic properties of a musical surface (principally pitch register and duration; secondarily dynamic and timbre) act to create larger structures in time. Pitch-class Set Theory is rejected as embodying an unacceptable level of abstraction, and failing to account for the dynamic, developmental aspects of musical structure, Instead, a more flexible and sensitive method is developed, drawing on an alternative analytical tradition for twentieth-century music. Precedents and justifications for this method are sought in contemporary accounts of structure in general, and parallels and distinctions are drawn between the hierarchic structures of tonal music, atonal music, and language, This context-sensitive analytical approach is then applied to three of Carter's most characteristic works: the String Quartet no.2 (1959); the Double Concerto for Harpsichord, Piano, and Two Chamber Orchestras (1961); and the Concerto for Orchestra (1969).
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Waters, Julia. "Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet : a 'reading in pairs'." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0279583e-3d7b-43ad-b6ad-c5c38cb8b0f2.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the effects of Duras's and Robbe-Grillet's intertextual relationship upon the development of their literary careers. Previous critics have predominantly studied the two writers within the mutually exclusive discourses of feminism and structuralism, with the result that the extensive areas of common ground between them have been overlooked. In order to compare their works and to read between the lines of existing criticism, a comparative and double-gendered approach, termed 'reading in pairs', is adopted. Chapter 1 provides the contextual framework for the paired readings of the subsequent four chapters: it explores the main parallel shifts between Duras's and Robbe-Grillet's corpuses, and examines how these betray the workings of a sustained, permutating psychodynamic rivalry. Chapter 2 studies how similarities of practice in works of the 1950s and early 1960s reflect a brief period of emulative alliance. Chapter 3 focuses on the combative dynamics which characterize their intertextual relationship during the 1970s and 1980s, following Duras's adoption by feminist theorists. Comparison of Duras's and Robbe-Grillet's treatment of explicit sado-erotic thematics brings into question some of the gender-related assumptions of previous approaches. Chapters 4 and 5 then study the final stages of the two writers' rivalry within the appropriately narcissistic genre of autobiography. They examine how Duras's and Robbe-Grillet's respective portrayals of the self and of literary history are influenced by the reversal in fortunes brought about by the phenomenal success of Duras's L'Amant. By comparing Duras's and Robbe-Grillet's treatment of similar thematic and generic elements, this study sheds new light on both writers' oeuvres and reassesses many of the assumptions and findings of existing criticism. The Concluding Remarks suggest that the 'reading in pairs' method might fruitfully be applied to the study of other writers of the opposite sex, and thus contribute to a more rounded picture of literary history.
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Laing, Kathryn. "'The Sentinel' and the evolution of Rebecca West's early writing, 1910-1922." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c622e025-601f-4138-86f6-d44bd2a8d62a.
Abstract:
This thesis aims to re-examine the first decade of Rebecca West's literary and journalistic career, based on an analysis of a newly discovered novel West began writing in 1909/1910. "The Sentinel", although incomplete and unrevised, is a key text to an understanding of West's early literary and feminist apprenticeship, helping to enrich reconsiderations of West's oeuvre in recent criticism. The recovery of West's writing into a female modernist canon provides a useful starting point, although the intertextual analysis of West's fiction and non-fiction during this period will show that this kind of categorisation is an inadequate representation of the complexity of her work. The limited time-frame of this study, 1910 to 1922, magnifies West's writing processes to reveal her self-conscious negotiations as a woman writer with the ferment of ideas and changes arising during the pre-war and war period, particularly in relation to contemporary feminism and an emergent male modernist aesthetic. The first chapter is concerned with identifying, dating and examining the significance of "The Sentinel" as source material for West's later published fiction and non-fiction. Many of West's pervading interests are already evident in the novel, illustrating in retrospect how her writing was shaped by differing literary contacts, feminist affiliations, the war and personal experience. Chapters Two and Three consider the impact on West's journalism and fiction of her associations with the radical feminist journal, The Freewoman, and her introduction to avant-garde writers. West's unsuccessful attempt to rewrite "The Sentinel" as the novel, Adela, is discussed in relation to selected feminist articles and the short story, "Indissoluble Matrimony", illustrating her attempts to adapt her feminist interests to aesthetic ones. Chapter Four shows how the war provided a cutting edge and a point of definition in West's writing at this time, both in her consideration of the role of art and of the gendered structures of society. The influence of writers such as H.G. Wells, Ford Madox Ford and Henry James is discussed in relation to West's preoccupation with the role of women during the Great War. This material provides an important context for the analysis of The Return of the Soldier in Chapter Five. Chapter Six is a transitional one, describing the effect of the war and its aftermath on contemporary feminist ideology, and evaluating Rebecca West's attempt to position herself as a writer and a feminist in relation to these changes. Chapter Seven argues that The Judge (1922) offers a cumulative history of West's literary and feminist apprenticeship, at once completing the cycle begun with "The Sentinel" and initiating a different stage of writing for West during the twenties.