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Gillingham, Susan E. "Personal piety in the study of the psalms : a reassessment." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0267b635-59d5-4bf4-a453-6c9e054648e5.
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The thesis concludes that because the cult-centred approach has been so concerned with the cultic functions of the psalms, it has failed to appreciate the personal contributions of the psalmists, and in so doing has often misinterpreted the primary purpose of a psalm. A life-centred reading of the Psalter is therefore a vital component in correcting this imbalance in psalmic studies today.
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Bender, Ashley Brookner. "Personal Properties: Stage Props and Self-Expression in British Drama, 1600-1707." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2009. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12081/.
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This dissertation examines the role of stage properties-props, slangily-in the construction and expression of characters' identities. Through readings of both canonical and non-canonical drama written between 1600 and 1707-for example, Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), Edward Ravenscroft's adaptation of Titus Andronicus (1678), Aphra Behn's The Rover (1677), and William Wycherley's The Plain Dealer (1677)-I demonstrate how props mediate relationships between people. The control of a character's props often accords a person control of the character to whom the props belong. Props consequently make visual the relationships of power and subjugation that exist among characters. The severed body parts, bodies, miniature portraits, and containers of these plays are the mechanisms by which characters attempt to differentiate themselves from others. The characters deploy objects as proof of their identities-for example, when the women in Behn's Rover circulate miniatures of themselves-yet other characters must also interpret these objects. The props, and therefore the characters' identities, are at all times vulnerable to misinterpretation. Much as the props' meanings are often disputed, so too are characters' private identities often at odds with their public personae. The boundaries of selfhood that the characters wish to protect are made vulnerable by the objects that they use to shore up those boundaries. When read in relation to the characters who move them, props reveal the negotiated process of individuation. In doing so, they emphasize the correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic worth. They are a measure of how well characters perform gender and class rolls, thereby demonstrating the importance of external signifiers in the legitimation of England's subjects, even as they expose "legitimacy" as a social construction.
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Young, Cheryl Ann. "A study of the personal literature written in the Eastern Cape in the nineteenth century." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002274.
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The evidence of these diaries, all written in the nineteenth century, reveals the heterogeneous nature of early settler society in the Eastern Cape. Generalizations can only be of the most tenuous kind in such a small sample; but women tend to dwell on the domestic, the men on their public lives, the most reticent about their private lives are the soldiers. There is one diary which can be described as personal; the diarists did not regard their diaries as appropriate repositories of their personal triumphs and failures. The perceptions formed in Britain about the land and people of Africa are not drastically modified upon arrival unless the diarist experiences a prolongued contact with either.
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Berman, Mona. "Elie Wiesel's fictional universe : the paradox of the mute narrator." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001829.
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The approach I have chosen for my study is to analyse the narrative techniques in Wiesel's fiction, with particular emphasis on the role of the narrator and listener in the narratives. This will not only highlight aspects of his authorial strategy involving the reader's response to various dimensions of the Holocaust, but will allow an appraisal of the literary merit of Wiesel's novels. The hushed reverence that tends to accompany allusions to Auschwitz and its literature has impeded certain theoretical investigations, with the result that most critical studies undertaken on Wiesel's works have dealt predominantly with themes and content rather than with form. A narrative approach, however, while it accounts for themes, does so within the narrative process of the work. Form and content are examined as interwoven entities in the particular context of an individual work. My decision to adopt this pursuit is based on the conviction that Wiesel's fiction is a significant contribution to the literature of testimony, not only because of its subject matter, but also because of the way in which his narrators unfold their stories with words suspended by silence in the text. The paradox of the mute narrator, the title of my study, is intended to convey the paradoxical quality of Wiesel's fiction and to show how silence, which is manifested in the themes of his work, is concretized by his strategy of entrusting the transmission of the tale to narrators, who, for various reasons have been silenced. A mute by definition cannot emit an articulate sound. A narrator, on the other hand, is a storyteller who is reliant on verbal articulation for communication. This contradiction in terms is dramatized in the novels and is symptomatic of the dilemma of Wiesel's narrators who are compelled to bear testimony through their silence. In my study of Wiesel's fiction, I will follow the chronological sequence in which the novels were written, although I will not be using a developmental approach, except to point out that the trilogy which marks the beginning of his exploration into narrative strategies, and The Testament, the last book I will be dealing with, are a culmination of his previous fictional techniques. While a developmental analysis of his fiction, particularly from a thematic point of view, enables the reader to gain insight into his background, which is important in a comprehensive study of his works, I feel that this avenue of investigation has been competently dealt with by other critics. Ellen Fine's Legacy of Night, one of the first book-length studies of Wiesel, puts forward a convincing argument for examining his fiction in chronological sequence as a kind of serialized journey from being a witness in l'univers concentrationnaire to bearing - witness in a post-Holocaust world. Furthermore, it is possible to trace the direction Wiesel's fiction follows, as in each book the seeds are sown for new ideas which are expanded upon in subsequent books. My discussion, however, will deal with the narrative process of each novel as an individual work in its own particular context. Apart from the trilogy which is examined in one chapter, and The Testament which serves as a conclusion to the study, I have not used cross references to Wiesel's other fiction when analysing specific books. Moreover, I have deliberately avoided including Wiesel's comments on his works and references to them in his essays, interviews and non-fiction writing. The reason for this approach is that I consider each novel to be a separate narrative work which merits an interpretative response that is independent of the comparative criteria that has up to now influenced the assessment of his fiction. (Introduction, p. 12-14)
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Oxley, Natasha Emma Fortescue. "Talking taboos: the personal over the political? : contemporary Polish playwriting : theme and dramatic technique in selected modern Polish plays." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:036a5a0e-aa99-40f9-b610-4a267bc1e533.
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The focus of this thesis is contemporary Polish playwriting after Poland's accession to the European Union in 2004. From a broad reading of plays by many new writers, four playwrights were selected for study on the basis of prominence and artistic merit: Pawel Demirski, Dorota Maslowska, Malgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and Przemys law Wojcieszek. Their plays were studied as texts and in performance, and twelve main plays became the focus of closer analysis. The thesis identifies and examines three major concurrent themes in the works of these playwrights. Remembering versus forgetting the past is discussed through the lens of selected aspects of memory studies, including Nora's lieux de mémoire, Hirsch's postmemory and Assman's mnemohistory. The playwrights are shown to share an endorsement of the de-politicisation of collective memory and to advocate a cessation of the passing down of trauma to post-war generations. The human body is highlighted as another concurrent thematic concern and is illuminated by certain tenets of Catholic doctrine as well as Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The playwrights' rejection of the tabooisation of the body is demonstrated and the shared notion of the body as both sentient and unifying is exemplified. Social marginalisation is examined as the final concern, with an emphasis on the notion of the 'other', particularly in relation to socio-economic status, sexuality, and religious beliefs. The plays are shown to support and promote a rejection of the myth of homogeneity in favour of openness to diversity. Major dramatic techniques are then closely examined. It is demonstrated that the plays share traits with Lehmann's theory of postdramatic theatre, including a rejection of Aristotelian unities. Key commonalities are evidenced, particularly comedy, bad language, intertextualities with the outside world, and an engagement with Polish social realities. The playwrights' approach to the spectator as a socio-political being is shown to be of paramount importance.
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Miller, Marc 1969. "The persona "Moyshe-Leyb" in the poetry of M.L. Halpern." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=24096.
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While much has been written on the Yiddish poet Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, there is a paucity of critical material which deals with the issue of persona in his poetry. This is unfortunate since the use of persona takes centre stage in Halpern's oeuvre. This work will discuss the issue of persona in Halpern's poems, and will focus specifically on one of Halpern's personae: "Moyshe-Leyb." I will begin with an overview of the relevant literary criticism on Halpern, and a discussion of the major themes found in his poetry. Furthermore, I will discuss Halpern's connection to literary modernism, and this movement's paradigm of persona. Finally, I will examine Halpern's possible motivations for choosing a persona with his own name, and the themes and issues found in these poems.
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Smit, Lizelle. "Narrating (her)story : South African women’s life writing (1854-1948)." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/97034.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University. 2015ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Seeking to explore modes of self-representation in women’s life writing and the ways in which these subjects manipulate the autobiographical ‘I’ to write about gender, the body, race and ethnic related issues, this thesis interrogates the autobiographies of three renegade women whose works were birthed out of the de/colonial South African context between 1854-1948. The chosen texts are: Marina King’s Sunrise to Evening Star: My Seventy Years in South Africa (1935), Melina Rorke’s Melina Rorke: Her Amazing Experiences in the Stormy Nineties of South-African History (1938), and two memoirs by Petronella van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels (1962) and Die 16de Koppie (1965). My analysis is underpinned by relevant life writing and feminist criticism, such as the notion of female autobiographical “embodiment” (239) and the ‘I’s reliance on “relationality” (248) as discussed in the work of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (Reading Autobiography). I further draw on Judith Butler’s concept of “performativity” (Bodies that Matter 234) in my analysis in order to suggest that there is a performative aspect to the female ‘I’ in these texts. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how these self-representations of women can be read as counter-conventional, speaking out against stereotypical perceptions and conventions of their time and in literatures (fiction and criticism) which cast women as tractable, compliant pertaining to patriarchal oversight, as narrow-minded and apathetic regarding achieving notoriety and prominence beyond their ascribed position in their separate societies. I argue that these works are representative of alternative female subjectivities and are examples of South African women’s life writing which lie ‘dusty’ and forgotten in archives; voices that are worthy of further scholarly research which would draw the stories of women’s lives back into the literary consciousness.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In ‘n poging om metodes van self-uitbeelding te bespreek en die manier waarop die ‘ek’ van vroulike ego-tekste manipuleer om sodoende te skryf oor geslagsrolle, die liggaam, ras en ander etniese kwessies, ondersoek hierdie verhandeling die outbiografieë van drie onkonvensionele vrouens se werk, gebore vanuit die de/koloniale konteks in Suid-Afrika tussen 1854-1948. Die ego-tekste wat in hierdie navorsingstuk ondersoek word, sluit in: Marina King se Sunrise to Evening Star: My Seventy Years in South Africa (1935), Melina Rorke se Melina Rorke: Her Amazing Experiences in the Stormy Nineties of South-African History (1938), en twee memoirs geskryf deur Petronella van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels (1962) en Die 16de Koppie (1965). My analise word ondersteun deur relevante kritici van feministiese en outobiografiese velde. Ek bespreek onder andere die idee dat die vroulike ‘ek’ liggaamlik “vergestalt” (239) is in outobiografie, asook die ‘ek’ se afhanklikheid van “relasionaliteit” (248) soos uiteengesit in die werk van Sidonie Smith en Julia Watson (Reading Autobiography). Verder stel ek voor, met verwysing na Judith Butler, dat daar ‘n “performative” (Bodies that Matter 234) aspek na vore kom in die vroulike ‘ek’ van Suid- Afrikaanse outobiografie. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om uit te lig dat hierdie selfvoorstellings van vroue gelees kan word as kontra-konvensioneel; dat die stereotipiese uitbeelding van vroue as skroomhartig, nougeset, gedweë ten opsigte van patriargale oorsig, en willoos om meer te vermag as wat hul onderskeie gemeenskappe vir hul voorskryf, weerspreek word deur hierdie ego-tekste. Die doel is om sodanige outobiografiese vertellings en -uitbeeldings te vergelyk en sodoende uiteenlopende vroulike subjektiwiteite gedurende die periode 1854-1948 te belig. Ek verwys deurlopend na voorbeelde van ander gemarginaliseerde Suid-Afrikaanse vroulike ego-tekse om aan te dui dat daar weliswaar ‘n magdom ‘vergete’ en ‘stof-bedekte’ vrouetekste geskryf is in die afgebakende periode. Ek voor aan dat die ‘stem’ van die vroulike ‘ek’ allermins stagneer het, en dat verdere bestudering waarskynlik nodig is.
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Grove, Chantal. "Sprekers vir die digter : die personae by Horatius, Odes : boek 1." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52460.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In his Odes, Horace pays particular attention not only to the subject in hand, but also to the reader as his audience, or the addressee, who is usually mentioned at the beginning of the poem. As this kind of communication draws the poet into his own creation, it is useful to refer to him in that context, as the speaker. It is evident from the manner of communication with the addressee that Horace conveys the message of each poem not solely by means of statements, but by implying certain facts, through this interaction between speaker and addressee. The specific addressee for each ode - to whom the speaker's attitude is a reaction - is therefore chosen with great care, in order to underline a specific subject or support a point of view. Just as each ode is different, and contains a variety of differing emotions, Horace's speakers display a myriad of different attitudes. His deeper sentiments do however remain constant. This brings one to the realisation that Horace applies a number of "roles", in order to obtain the desired effect in each poem. Eventually the interaction is not between the speaker and the addressee, but between the poet and the reader. Some of the poems do not give the names of addressees, only the roles Horace plays as the speaker. These roles are termed personae, and represent the poet on a number of realistic and super-realistic planes. In this study, a selection of personae was analysed and the effects examined, in order to establish in what way the persona might influence the interpretation of the poem. Initially a collective overview of several personae was planned, for the purpose of a synthesis of those personae, possibly leading to the discovery of a central Horatian persona. It was however, found, in the complex perfection of his work, that that central person is Horace: the poet.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In Horatius se Odes, gee hy dikwels spesifieke aandag nie net aan die onderwerp nie, maar ook aan die leser as sy gehoor, of die aangesproke persoon, wat dikwels in die begin van die gedig genoem word: Omdat so 'n kommunikasie die digter in sy eie skepping intrek, is dit sinvol om na hom in daardie konteks as die spreker te verwys. In die wyse waarop daar dan met die aangesprokene gekommunikeer word, word dit duidelik dat Horatius die boodskap van sy gedig nie slegs deur middel van stellings oordra nie, maar dat hy ook deur middel van die wisselwerking tussen die aangesprokene en die spreker, sekere feite impliseer. Die aangesproke persoon, waarop die spreker se houding dan'n reaksie is, word dus vir elke ode gekies om 'n sekere onderwerp of siening te ondersteun. Soos wat elke ode dus verskil, en'n verskeidenheid emosies bevat, verskil Horatius se houdings teenoor sy aangesprokenes drasties. Sy dieper oortuigings bly egter dieselfde. Dit lei die leser tot die besef dat Horatius 'n verskeidenheid "rolle" aanwend om in elke gedig die gewensde effek te verkry. Die werklike wisselwerking is nie tussen die spreker en die aangesprokene nie, maar tussen die digter en die leser. Sommige gedigte bevat geen name van aangesprokenes nie; slegs die rolle wat Horatius as die spreker gebruik. Hierdie rolle word personae genoem en verteenwoordig die digter op 'n aantal realistiese en bo-realistiese vlakke. Die effekte van 'n seleksie personae word in hierdie studie deur middel van analise ondersoek om vas te stel hoe die toepassing van die persona die interpretasie van die gedig beïnvloed. 'n Gesamentlike beskouing van 'n aantal digterlike personae is aanvanklik beplan, met die oog op 'n sintese van die personae, wat moontlik tot die ontdekking van 'n sentrale persona by Horatius sou kon lei. Daar is egter bevind dat die sentrale persoon wat in die komplekse perfeksie van sy werk self sit, dié is van Horatius as digter.
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張曈. "論二十世紀九十年代女性 私人化 寫作 = The privatization of female 'personal' writings in the 1990s." Thesis, University of Macau, 2007. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b1636983.
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Vodoklys, Edward J. "Blame-expression in the epic tradition." New York : Garland, 1992. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/25130912.html.
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McLoughlin, Catherine Mary. "Martha Gellhorn : the war writer in the field and in the text." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f1c1a333-9ece-4a14-b95f-b2a2c623c012.
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How war is depicted matters vitally to all of us. In the vast literature on war representation, little attention is paid to the fact that where the war recorder1stands crucially affects the portrayal. Should the writer be present on the battle-field, and, if so, where exactly? Should the recording figure be present in the text, and, if so, in what guise? 'Standing' differs from person to person, conflict to conflict, and between genders. Therefore, this thesis focuses on one particular war recorder in one particular war: the American journalist and fiction-writer, Martha Gellhorn (1908-98), in the European Theatre of Operations during World War Two. The fact that Gellhorn was a woman affected how she could and did place herself in relation to battle - but gender, though important, was not the only factor. Her course in and around war was dazzling: hitching rides, stowing away, travelling on dynamite-laden ships through mined waters, flying in ancient planes and deadly fighter jets, driving from battle-field to battle-field, mucking in, standing out. Her trajectory within her prose is equally versatile: she zooms in and out like a camera lens from impassiveness to intense involvement to withdrawal. The thesis is organised along the same spectrum. The first two chapters plot the co- ordinates forming the zero point on the graph of Gellhorn's Second World War writings (earlier American war correspondence, the 1930s' New Reportage, Gellhorn's upbringing and journalistic apprenticeship). Chapter Three then shows her in the guise of self-effacing, emotionally absent recorder. Moving from absence to presence, Chapter Four considers Martha Gellhorn in the field and Chapter Five 'Martha Gellhorn' in the text. Chapter Six describes the shift from presence to participation, before reaching the end of the parabola in Gellhorn's disillusionment in the power of writing to reform and her concerns about women's presence in the war zone. Given that positioning is the central concern, it is important to note the placement of Martha Gellhorn within the thesis itself. She stands as the central, pivotal example of the war recorder, illuminated by various contexts and comparisons with other writers (notably Ernest Hemingway, to whom she was married from 1940 to 1945). As a result of this approach, there are necessarily stretches of the text from which she is absent, as the survey turns to theoretical and comparative discussion. The hope is that this methodology reveals why Gellhorn, in the field and in the text, went where she did.
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Sieben, Ingolf. "A conflict of perception : medical aspects of German First World War literature : the presentation of the medical professions and of medical conditions in contemporary and Weimar prose relating to the First World War." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2189.
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There is a divergence of views in German First World War literature concerning the presentation of medical aspects and nursing experiences. Although all accounts of the war claim implicitly to present the truth about a section of, or even the whole of, the war, be they diaries, letters or war fiction, variations arise due to the individual attitude, perspective and intention of each author. This thesis examines a range of different types of fictional and non-fictional war literature: diaries, letters, reports, narratives and novels written by or about participants during or after the war, taking due account of the precise relationship to the experience, the intent of the writers and the context of their accounts. Some of these are based on personal experience and provide an imnediate impression of the war. Some use personal experience, but not specific historical details, to look at the war in retrospect, conditioned by the (additional) medical knowledge of the late 1920s. Others blend fictional and historical characters and events. Although the standpoint of the individual ordinary soldier and sailor, or officer, predominates in writings of this kind, writings both by and about women and other non-combatants involved in the war have been included. German material is compared with American, British and French accounts wherever possible and practicable. A preliminary section (chapters 2+3) provides the reader with a detailed and necessary historical overview of the organization of the German lieeressanialtswesen. between 1914 and 1918, followed by an examination of the discrepancy between the historical experience and perception of the Lazarett in the German literary context. The second part of the work (chapters 4-6) examines descriptions and perceptions of specific medical aspects of the war from the point of view of those immediately involved in the Yermuncletenliirgarge: surgeons and medical practitioners, paramedical orderlies and stretcher-bearers as well as nurses. The largest part (chapters 7-12) examines the medical effects of the war as perceived in different literary and non-literary contexts, ranging from straightforward wounds, shell-shock and other psychological phenomena, to the effects of poison gas and chemical warfare, venereal diseases, self-inflicted wounds and the medical implications of trench warfare, followed by an analysis of the motif of 'war as disease'.
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Russell, Noel Ray. "Authorial Subversion of the First-Person Narrator in Twentieth-Century American Fiction." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1988. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501035/.
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American writers of narrative fiction frequently manipulate the words of their narrators in order to convey a significance of which the author and the reader are aware but the narrator is not. By causing the narrator to reveal information unwittingly, the author develops covert themes that are antithetical to those espoused by the narrator. Particularly subject to such subversion is the first-person narrator whose "I" is not to be interpreted as the voice of the author. This study examines how and why the first-person narrator is subverted in four works of twentieth-century American fiction: J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to , and Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus
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Muranicova, Zuzana. "Personal anthropology." The Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1399902963.
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Lee, Bethany Tyler. "The Museum of Coming Apart." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2009. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc11000/.
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This dissertation comprises two parts: Part I, which discusses use of second person pronoun in contemporary American poetry; and Part II, The Museum of Coming Apart, which is a collection of poems. As confessional verse became a dominant mode in American poetry in the late 1950s and early 60s, so too did the use of the first-person pronoun. Due in part to the excesses of later confessionalism, however, many contemporary poets hesitate to use first person for fear that their work might be read as autobiography. The poetry of the 1990s and early 2000s has thus been characterized by distance, dissociation, and fracture as poets attempt to remove themselves from the overtly emotional and intimate style of the confessionals. However, other contemporary poets have sought to straddle the line between the earnestness and linearity of confessionalism and the intellectually playful yet emotionally detached poetry of the moment. One method for striking this balance is to employ the second person pronoun. Because "you" in English is ambiguous, it allows the poet to toy with the level of distance in a poem and create evolving relationships between the speaker and reader. Through the analysis of poems by C. Dale Young, Paul Guest, Richard Hugo, Nick Flynn, Carrie St. George Comer, and Moira Egan, this essay examines five common ways second person is employed in contemporary American poetry-the use of "you" in reference to a specific individual, the epistolary form, the direct address to the reader, the imperative voice, and the use of "you" as a substitute for "I"-and the ways that the second-person pronoun allows these poems to take the best of both the confessional and dissociative modes.
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Vice, Samantha Wynne. "Personal autonomy : philosophy and literature." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002853.
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Gerald Dworkin's influential account of Personal Autonomy offers the following two conditions for autonomy: (i) Authenticity - the condition that one identify with one's beliefs, desires and values after a process of critical reflection, and (ii) Procedural Independence - the identification in (i) must not be "influenced in ways which make the process of identification in some way alien to the individual" (Dworkin 1989:61). I argue in this thesis that there are cases which fulfil both of Dworkin's conditions, yet are clearly not cases of autonomy. Specifically, I argue that we can best assess the adequacy of Dworkin's account of autonomy through literature, because it provides a unique medium for testing his account on the very terms he sets up for himself - ie. that autonomy apply to, and make sense of, persons leading lives of a certain quality. The examination of two novels - Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady - shows that Dworkin's explanation of identification and critical reflection is inadequate for capturing their role in autonomy and that he does not pay enough attention to the role of external factors in preventing or supporting autonomy. As an alternative, I offer the following two conditions for autonomy: (i) critical reflection of a certain kind - radical reflection, and (ii) the ability to translate the results of (i) into action - competence. The novels demonstrate that both conditions are dependent upon considerations of the content of one's beliefs, desires, values etc. Certain of these will prevent or hinder the achievement of autonomy because of their content, so autonomy must be understood in relation to substantial considerations, rather than in purely formal terms, as Dworkin argues.
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Powers, Theodore A. "Self-criticism : antecedents and interpersonal consequences." Thesis, McGill University, 1985. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=72761.
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Kujansivu, Heikki Markus. "Returning thirds on reading literature /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2008.
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Dominguez, Maria J. "Kinky Criticism: BDSM Principles Applied to Literature." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2016. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2211.
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This thesis proposes a new school of literary analysis: Kinky Criticism. This critical theory will examine the presence in literature of themes related to BDSM, an acronym referring to bondage/discipline, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism. My purpose in examining this power exchange and sadomasochism in literature is threefold. Firstly, I aim to reveal the presence of kinky themes in not only a range of literary works, but also leave the reader aware of kink present in everyday human interactions. Secondly, through this application to literature, Kinky Criticism sheds new light on the techniques of characterization and adds complexity to the dynamics between characters. Finally, Kinky Criticism provides a new perspective that leads to unexpected conclusions about hotly debated topics in literature, such as the infamous sodomites of Dante’s Inferno. Although a few scholars have commented on kinky themes, their analyses have not yet gained the coherence of a critical movement. This thesis aims to outline the tenets of Kinky Criticism and to establish not only its legitimacy as a critical lens, but also Kinky Criticism’s unique contributions to the interpretation of three major literary works: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love.
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Paphitis, Sharli Anne. "Control and authenticity: reflections on personal autonomy." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002847.
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Currently the most influential accounts of personal autonomy, at least in the Englishspeaking world, focus on providing conditions under which agents can be said to exercise self-control. Two distinct accounts of personal autonomy have emerged in this tradition: firstly, hierarchical models grounded in the work of Harry Frankfurt; and secondly, systems division models most famously articulated by Gary Watson. In this thesis I show the inadequacies of both of these models by exploring the problematic views of the self and self-control underlying each model. I will suggest that the problems faced by these models stem from the fact that they endorse a problematic fragmentation of the self. I suggest that a Nietzschean account of personal autonomy is able to avoid these problems. The Nietzschean account can largely, I show, be drawn from Nietzsche’s understanding of both the ‘man of ressentiment’ and his opposite, the sovereign individual. On this picture wholeness of self – rather than fragmentation of the self – is required in order for us to be most fully autonomous. Furthermore, this wholeness of self requires the kind of integrity which is opposed to the problematic fragmentation endorsed by Frankfurt and Watson.
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Garrett, Roberta. "Postmodernist cinema and feminist film criticism." Thesis, Staffordshire University, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.272823.
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Flavell, Helen. "Writing-between : Australian and Canadian ficto-criticism /." Access via Murdoch University Digital Theses Project, 2005. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20051222.114143.
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Speller, J. "Bourdieu and literature." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3194/.
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This thesis provides the first extended and in-depth study of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu?s work on literature. Chapter 1 surveys the problematic from which Bourdieu?s work on literature emerged, and its reception in the Anglophone field of literary criticism. Chapter 2 introduces Bourdieu?s original method of literature analysis, which has yet to have been used widely in literary studies, but which provides analytic purchase at all levels of literary study, from the micro-textual to the macrosocial. Chapter 3 centres on Bourdieu?s notion of autonomy, and explores its relations to his key concepts of habitus, capital, and field. Chapters 4 to 6 then examine the intersections between Bourdieu? work on literature and his other sociological and political projects. Chapter 4 shows how Bourdieu?s theory of sociological knowledge enabled him to set up a distinction between a ?scientific? and a ?literary? representation of the social world, and explores the possibilities for complementarities and exchange between sociology and literature. Chapter 5 shows how Bourdieu hoped to harness the specific skills and symbolic capital of writers in the service of progressive causes, focusing on his plans for an International Parliament of Writers and Liber, his European book review. Chapter 6 explores the cultural policy implication of Bourdieu?s work on literature, both for educational reform and State support for the Arts. Overall, this thesis will show that Bourdieu brings novel solutions to some of the most persistent ? and urgent ? problems facing literary studies today, and not only in France; but also that sociology can learn from literature and from studying literary writers.
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Wisch, Stephen H. "Teaching Literary Criticism Through Independent Reading." Ohio Dominican University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oduhonors1556705309193909.
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McLaughlin, Thomas Anthony. "Unalterable selves : personal ideas of poetic order." Thesis, University of Ulster, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.260897.
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Schmid, Erica. "Fail Better: The Aesthetics of Contemporary Criticism." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2014. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/274890.
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EnglishPh.D.
Though literature and literary study have needed defense for most of their respective histories, the current crisis in academic literary study and the humanities more generally has forced scholars into the uncomfortable position of selling their disciplines and simultaneously warning students about the risks involved in earning what the dominant public considers to be "useless" degrees. The paradox, of course, is that dissuading would-be studiers is both ethical and destructive: it is necessary to inform students of the frightful instability of careers in literary study, but doing so renders such careers even more unstable. While some argue that the decline of the discipline is a result of practices within the discipline, I suggest that the root of the problem lies in the dominant discourse, which forces scholars to defend the discipline according to dominant notions of success. Using Frank Lentricchia's "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic" as a hinge between discussions of the value of literary study and elaborations of the antisocial thesis in queer theory, I contend that the discipline is not socially valued for the same reason it is socially valuable: it facilitates the pleasure of experiencing and envisioning new possibilities in and through the circulation of discourse. Since this aim does not (easily) translate into wealth accumulation or employability, it does not read as "success" and therefore the discipline has difficulty being socially valued. Rather than explaining the various benefits of earning a degree in literature, I argue that the discipline should embrace (its) failure as both a challenge to and re-imagining of dominant notions of success.
Temple University--Theses
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Remington, Rachel. "Personal identity in the novels of Max Frisch and Luigi Pirandello." Thesis, McGill University, 1999. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=30208.
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This MA thesis is a comparative study of the novels of Luigi Pirandello (Agrigento 1867--Rome 1936) and Max Frisch (Zurich 1911--1991). Six texts are discussed: Pirandello's Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904), Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operatore (1915), and Uno, nessuno e centomila (1925--6); and Frisch's Stiller (1954), Homo faber (1957), and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964). The comparison highlights the great similarities between Pirandello's and Frisch's treatment of the theme of identity as well as some important (and mainly structural) differences in their novelistic works. The analysis of the three pairs of novels shows the developments in narrative structure and the characteristic change of attitude towards the question of identity construction that took place from early-modernism to postmodernism.
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Bailey, Raymond Frederick. "Some preoccupations of Australian literary criticism 1945-83." Thesis, University of London, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282412.
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Lu, Jian-de. "F.R. Leavis : his criticism in relation to romanticism." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.279589.
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Jonaitis, Dorothy. "Application of Brueggemann's canonical criticism to apocalypticism." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1990. http://www.tren.com.
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Sweeden, R. Renee. "Personal Archaeology: Poems." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1992. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500646/.
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A collection of poems focused primarily on rural America and the South, the creative writing thesis also includes material concerned with the history of Mexico, particularly Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The introduction combines a personal essay with critical material discussing and defining the idea of the Southern writer.
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Marcus, Laura. "How shall we live? : a metacritique of autobiographical criticism." Thesis, University of Kent, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.236710.
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Travis, Molly Abel. "Subject on Trial: The Displacement of the Reader in Modern and Post-modern Fiction." The Ohio State University, 1989. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392805130.
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Linné, Robert Andrew. "Alternative reading lists : personal literacy histories of gays and lesbians /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Townsend, Jessica A. "How to save the future anxiety and social criticism in feminist dystopia /." Laramie, Wyo. : University of Wyoming, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1594494971&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=18949&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Feng, Liping. "Modernity and tradition : Chinese theories of literature from 1900 to 1930." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28445.
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This thesis examines the development of Chinese theories of literature in the early twentieth century: what was considered as literature, the role of the writer and reader, and the function of literature in society. The central purpose of the thesis is to retrace the Western-influenced theories of literature of the 1920s back to the theoretical developments at the turn of the century. The thesis also shows that, as a whole, modern Chinese theories of literature are deeply rooted in traditional Chinese poetics. In characterizing traditional Chinese theories, it compares the latter with the mimetic model of Western literature. Throughout the thesis, the account of the theoretical developments makes constant reference to the changes taking place within two major literary genres: lyrical poetry and the narrative.
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Skelley, Steven J. "Yeats, Bloom and the dialectics of theory, criticism and poetry." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1992. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13628/.
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This thesis begins by showing how a strong and subtle challenge to poetry and theories of poetry has been recently argued by writers like Paul de Man and J. Hillis Miller—critics whose ironic linguistic "disfigurations" of lyrical voice have thrown poem and poet into an anti-mimetic free fall, an abyss of bewilderment or undecidability. To its credit, de Manian deconstruction strongly misreads various mimetic approaches to William Butler Yeats, as its corrosive irony empties out theories of imitation. Chapter two explains how New Criticism, biographical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical criticism, all treat Yeats's poetry as a reflection or imitation of some prior being, text, or doctrine; and chapter three how, most recently and energetically, various new historicisms treat his poems as ideological artifacts determined by the world or history, but as artifacts that must seek to change the world in order to have value. Harold Bloom's theory meets such challenges. It enacts deconstruction's misreading of poem and poet without reducing them to a linguistic abyss; and it re-envisions mimetic approaches by reading poems in terms of genealogical influence, without moralizing. Chapter four investigates Bloom's vision of strong poetry as a "supermimesis" or in terms of gnostic figures of "negative transcendence." Bloom's work, however, also needs Yeatsian creative correction. As the fifth and sixth chapters show, it needs, like Yeats's poetry, to hold itself more open to the chaos of history. Invoking instruction from the very poetry that has so influenced Bloom's theory of influence, yet from which Bloom has turned away, this thesis re-interprets Yeats's poems and Yeats criticism generally. Using Yeats's openness to history to revise Bloom and his pragmatic theory of misreading to re-interpret Yeats, the thesis attempts to advance dialectically both Yeats criticism and Bloomian theory.
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Baker, Holly T. "Windows and Mirrors: A Collection of Personal Essays." Ohio : Ohio University, 2010. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1275571329.
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Bell, Richard 1972. "Towards a psychoanalytic aesthetics of contemporary literature." Monash University, German Studies, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/8912.
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Brennan, Zoe. "Representations of older women in contemporary literature." Thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271040.
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This study argues that novels by contemporary women writers, such as Doris Lessing, May Sarton, Barbara Pym and Jenny Diski, through their representation of older female protagonists, create alternative discourses of ageing to those that dominate Western society. By placing these figures at the centre of their narratives, the texts counteract the silence and pejorative stereotyping that routinely surrounds the lives of the aged. The technique of studying literary representations of women is not new; in fact, it is a trusted part of feminist methodology. However, one of the assertions of this dissertation is that it is rarely used to investigate texts about the senescent, reflecting feminism's failure to include the older women in their theories. Part one of the dissertation examines such issues in depth, setting out the theoretical orientation of the study. It considers popular representations and paradigms of ageing, as well as considering the power of normalising discourse and dynamics of representation. Part two uses this material to analyse the strategies that British and North American authors have employed, since the 1960's, to challenge common stereotypes of older women. The first three chapters focus on novels that portray protagonists who display emotions, not usually associated with the old, which are revealed in relation to different aspects of ageing: anger and frustration (dependency); passion and desire (sexuality); and contentment (daily life). Chapter 7, 'The Wise and Archetypal Older Woman', shifts its attention away from more realist texts to study characters who emerge from the covers of ratiocinative fiction. It argues that conventional critiques of the genre often negate its more polemical elements, which is a result of their failure to use an age- and gender-aware approach and a problem that generally greets intelligent novels about female senescence. This thesis sees itself as part of a movement that aims to create a space in which older female characters' voices can be heard and recognised. It contends that the authors treated here produce visions of ageing that are not solely concerned with stagnation and decline. They represent a varied and compelling group of protagonists and, in doing so, illustrate that older women are worthy of literary, social and feminist interest.
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Smith, Mark Ryan. "The literature of Shetland." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3938/.
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This thesis is the first ever survey of Shetland’s literature. The large body of material the thesis covers is not well known, and, apart from Walter Scott’s 1822 novel The Pirate, and Hugh MacDiarmid’s sojourn in the archipelago, Shetland is not a presence in any account of Scottish writing. ‘The Literature of Shetland’ has been written to address this absence. Who are Shetland’s writers? And what have they written? These are the fundamental questions this thesis answers. By paying close attention to Shetland’s writers, ‘The Literature of Shetland’ extends the geographical territory of the Scottish canon. ‘The Literature of Shetland’ covers a chronological period from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Virtually no creative poetry or prose, either written or oral, survives in Shetland from before this time so, after a brief discussion of the fragmentary pre-nineteenth century sources, the thesis discusses the archipelago’s literature in eight chronologically arranged chapters. Chapter One concentrates on a group of three obscure early nineteenth-century Shetland authors – Margaret Chalmers, Dorothea Primrose Campbell, and Thomas Irvine – and also explores Scott’s involvement with the northern isles. Chapters Two and Three discuss an important period at the end of the nineteenth century, in which books and newspapers were published in Shetland for the first time, and in which a number of pioneering and influential local writers emerged. Jessie M.E. Saxby became the first professional writer from Shetland and, in the work of George Stewart, James Stout Angus, Basil Anderson, and especially J.J. Haldane Burgess, the Shetland dialect developed as a serious literary idiom. These writers laid down foundations for much of what came next. Chapter Four discusses the end of this period of growth, with James Inkster posed as the last significant figure of his generation, and the war poet John Peterson as the first local writer to depart from the literary principles which developed in the Victorian era. Chapter Five looks at the work Hugh MacDiarmid did in Shetland from 1933-1942. MacDiarmid is not really part of the narrative of the thesis, but the work he produced in the isles is vast. Because he does not need to be introduced in the way the other writers do, this chapter takes a different approach to the rest of the thesis and looks at MacDiarmid’s Shetland-era work alongside that of Charles Doughty. Doughty was a crucial presence for MacDiarmid during his time in the isles, and considering their work together opens up a better understanding of the work MacDiarmid did in Shetland. Chapters Six and Seven discuss the second major period of growth in Shetland’s literature, focussing on the writers associated with the New Shetlander magazine, an important local journal which emerged in 1947. The final chapter then looks at contemporary Shetland authors and asks how they negotiate the literary tradition the thesis has worked through. This chapter also discusses the Shetland-related work of several non-native authors, Jen Hadfield being the most well known. In moving through these authors, as well as providing necessary introductory material, several general questions are asked. Firstly, because almost all the writing studied emerges from the isles, the question of how each writer engages with those isles is consistently relevant. How do local writers find ways of writing about their native archipelago? Do writers who are not from Shetland write about the islands in different ways than local people? The thesis shows how Scott and MacDiarmid, the two most famous non-native authors dicussed here, draw on earlier literary sources – the sagas and the work of Doughty – to construct their respective creative visions of the isles. And, in discussing the work of local authors, it will be shown that, in the early period covered in Chapter One, landscape is the most prominent idea whereas, from the Victorian era to the present day, the croft provides the central imaginative space for Shetland’s writers. A second question that runs through the thesis is one of language. Almost every local author has written extensively in Shetland dialect, and this study explores how they have developed that language as a literary idiom. The thesis shows how Shetland dialect writing gets underway in the 1870s, and how writers have continued to expand and diversify that literary tradition. The two most innovative figures to emerge are J.J. Haldane Burgess and William J. Tait and, after demonstrating how the corpus of writing in Shetland dialect has grown, the thesis concludes by examining the ways in which contemporary writers engage with the vernacular legacies their predecessors have left. Extensive use of the local language gives Shetland’s writing a regional distinctiveness, and this thesis shows how some writers have been enabled and inspired by that idiom, how some have taken dialect writing in exciting new directions, but also how some have felt limited by it and how, by not using the language, some writers have been unfairly ignored by local editors and critics. The thesis also shows that, in its two main eras of development – at the end of the nineteenth century and in the middle of the twentieth – Shetland’s writers took their cues from the general movements in Scottish writing. In the Victorian period, developments in local letters paralleled the interest in regionality and upsurge in vernacular writing that are marked characteristics of Scottish writing at the time. And, in discussing the emergence of the New Shetlander and the writers associated with it, the thesis demonstrates how the second period of flourishing in Shetland’s literature is part of the wider cultural movement of the Scottish Renaissance. The picture of Shetland’s literature the thesis offers is a self-consciously heterogeneous one. Despite the marked use of the vernacular, the thesis resists moving towards an encompassing definition of the large body of work covered, preferring to celebrate the diversity of the writing that Shetland has inspired during the last two centuries. Questions of engagement with the local environment and the use of the local language are constantly asked, but the primary scholarly contribution offered by ‘The Literature of Shetland’ is a realignment of Scotland’s northern literary border.
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Eaglestone, Robert. "Emmanuel Lévinas and the ethics of criticism." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683154.
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Byrne, Aisling Nora. "The otherworlds of medieval insular literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610076.
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Christiansen, Naomi Lund. "Learning to Create: A Collection of Personal Essays." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2004. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd485.pdf.
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Smyth, Gerard Anthony Martin. "Decolonisation and criticism : a study of the relationship between political decolonisation and literary criticism in Ireland, with special emphasis on the period 1948-1958." Thesis, Staffordshire University, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.320508.
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Louk, Tyler M. "An intergroup perspective on family targeted hurtful messages used in romantic relationships." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2008. https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=5796.
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Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2008.Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 49 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-38).
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Chou, Chiou-hui Joyce. "An investigation of EFL teachers' personal practical knowledge." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3162969.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Language Education, 2003.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Dec. 2, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-02, Section: A, page: 0522. Chair: Sharon L. Pugh.
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Taffa, Deborah. "Against a divided land: a memoir in personal essays." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2013. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1771.
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Against a Divided Land is a tale of escape from the poverty of the Yuma Indian reservation, the flight of a young girl and her family into modern American in the 1970's. The stories in the collection emerge via the narrator: a forty-year-old woman exploring landscape and memory. Her recollections as a mother and international traveler, juxtaposed alongside her childhood on the reservation, reveal the unique concerns of Native Americans in the era of government relocation and displacement. The stories in this collection paint a picture of United States subculture rarely seen. The accounts link the narrator to the past in surprising ways as they push forth with a modern voice, imagining a brighter future: a future filled with both loss and beauty. From Africa to the Southwest, the characters in these essays seek relationships across typical boundaries.
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Strongman, Roberto. "Allegorical I/lands : personal and national development in Caribbean autobiographical writing /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3090454.
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葉淑蘭 and Sook-lan Yap. "A study of Zhang Tianyi's children's literature." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1992. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31211057.
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