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1
McRae, Calista Anne. "Lyric as Comedy." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493550.
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Although the twentieth-century lyric poem might seem to intensify a genre of sentiment into a genre of meditative or tumultuous solipsism, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, A. R. Ammons, Lucie Brock-Broido, and Terrance Hayes write lyrics that are funny, on several planes. Each of these poets enacts a self-revealing comedy of the mind and its often labored, blinkered, or illogical cognitive processes; each also creates a comedy of style, where language and form exceed and confound paraphrase. This thesis brings out such comedies, arguing that lyric is a livelier, more paradoxical, and certainly less solipsistic genre than is yet recognized. While most theories of the comic emphasize superiority, incongruity, or subversion, lyric poetry suggests that comedy originates in something miraculously apt and failed, at once: the comedy of lyric springs from deflected, or misdirected, perfection, and from the miraculous achievement of a less-than-sublime end. Berryman, who sets formal wildness in a fixed stanza, provides an opening instance of how comedy balances between the decidedly flawed and the marvelous. Lowell’s incongruities, which undermine every quality that threatens to dominate a poem, surprise by the unlooked-for harmonies they produce. Ammons turns his concerns about inarticulate failing into a comedy of ineptness, enacting the workings of an inconsistent mind with precision. Brock-Broido’s humor appears as utter doubleness, requiring that we see the beautiful and the ludicrous together; her comedy does not extinguish her Romantic postures, but suffuses them. Hayes enacts the luck of the erratic, associative mind, as it takes in, is altered by and transforms its surroundings: disparate styles, tones, devices, and allusions come together to convey something beyond their semantic point.English
2
Al-Muhammad, Hasan. "Domestics in the English comedy : 1660-1737." Thesis, Bangor University, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.267347.
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Brunning, Alizon. "Signs of change in Jacobean city comedy." Thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 1997. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/19035/.
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This thesis is concerned with a study of a particular genre, Jacobean city comedy, in relation to its socio-economic and religious context. It aims to show that the structural forms of city comedy share similarities with structures in Jacobean social consciousness. By arguing that the plays are productions of a material age this study suggests that these structures are manifestations of ideological changes brought about by two related systems of thought: capitalism and Protestantism.
4
Amoroso, Angelica Anna. "W.M. Thackeray and the tradition of English comedy." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/30279.
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This thesis is about Thackeray and the comic tradition in the plays and novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It aims at showing that a study of Thackeray's fiction and its connection with the comedy of the past contributes to an understanding of the sophistication and subtlety of his comic vision. In his fiction Thackeray takes some of the comedic conventions of the tradition, though in some respects he also departs from them, expanding, developing and applying them to his time to make ironic comments on the inconsistencies and follies of English society from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. In the early and central stage of his career as a novelist he adheres to the comic tradition, yet he also introduces unconventional elements, while in the later phase occasionally he detaches himself from it temporarily, but never completely. This study examines the Thackeray's major works of fiction in chronological order, because it allows us to trace a development of his comic perspective, his narrative technique and his concerns through time. Each chapter deals with a single work of fiction, except Chapter 1 and Chapter 8. A selection of his illustrations, which offer visual comments on the story, will also be analysed; they have various purposes and integrate with the text, adding subtlety and sophistication to the author's vision. Thackeray's comic perspective is a complex combination of satire and sentimentality where the two aspects often overlap and generate ambiguity and challenge for the reader. But, ultimately, this thesis reveals that towards the end of his life the writer enriches his vision considerably by adding tragic elements in alignment with comic ones, and that he was turning to a new direction: he was embracing the tragicomic.
5
Booth, Roy Jeffrey. "Married and marred : the misogamist in English Renaissance comedy." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407770.
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6
Hornback, Robert Borrone. "After carnival : normative comedy and the everyday in Shakespeare's England /." Digital version accessible at:, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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7
Doyle, Anne-Marie. "Shakespeare and the genre of comedy." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/177.
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Traditionally in the field of aesthetics the genres of tragedy and comedy have been depicted in antithetical opposition to one another. Setting out from the hypothesis that antitheses are aspects of a deeper unity where one informs the construction of the other’s image this thesis questions the hierarchy of genre through a form of ludic postmodernism that interrogates aesthetics in the same way as comedy interrogates ethics and the law of genre. Tracing the chain of signification as laid out by Derrida between theatre as pharmakon and the thaumaturgical influence of the pharmakeus or dramatist, early modern comedy can be identified as re-enacting Renaissance versions of the rite of the pharmakos, where a scapegoat for the ills attendant upon society is chosen and exorcised. Recognisable pharmakoi are scapegoat figures such as Shakespeare’s Shylock, Malvolio, Falstaff and Parolles but the city comedies of this period also depict prostitutes and the unmarried as necessary comic sacrifices for the reordering of society. Throughout this thesis an attempt has been made to position Shakespeare’s comic drama in the specific historical location of early modern London by not only placing his plays in the company of his contemporaries but by forging a strong theoretical engagement with questions of law in relation to issues of genre. The connection Shakespearean comedy makes with the laws of early modern England is highly visible in The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew and the laws which they scrutinise are peculiar to the regulation of gendered interaction, namely marital union and the power and authority imposed upon both men and women in patriarchal society. Thus, a pivotal section on marriage is required to pinion the argument that the libidinized economy of the early modern stage perpetuates the principle of an excluded middle, comic u-topia, or Derridean ‘non-place’, where implicit contradictions are made explicit. The conclusion that comic denouements are disappointing in their resolution of seemingly insurmountable dilemmas can therefore be reappraised as the outcome of a dialectical movement, where the possibility of alternatives is presented and assessed. Advancing Hegel’s theory that the whole of history is dialectic comedy can therefore be identified as the way in which a society sees itself, dramatically representing the hopes and fears of an entire community.
8
Stockton, William H. "Sex, sense, and nonsense the anal erotics of early modern comedy /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3274908.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2960. Adviser: Linda Charnes. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 10, 2008).
9
González-Medina, José Luis. "The London setting of Jacobean city comedy : a chorographical study." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670278.
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Matthews, Julia. "Characterization and structure in the development of Tudor comedy." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1991. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/57031/.
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The role of characterization in dramatic structure is assessed by theoretical criteria. Characters who perform actions necessary for the completion of the narrative sequence are said to be "bound" to the narrative; those without such obligations are "free". Characters who maintain a single, constant meaning during the course of a play are said to be "static"; characters who change or develop into new roles are "dynamic". Horatian decorum demanded that comic characters be static, and the characters of Plautine and Terentian tradition were almost always bound to narrative intrigue. However, evaluations of six Tudor comedies show an increasing use of non-classical characterization within the comic form. In the early comedies lohan lohan and Roister Doister all characters are bound and static, yet the impetus to enlarge the role of characterization is evident. The characters of lohan lohan are expanded from their French source, and Roister Doister includes extraneous episodes in which Udall displays his braggart hero. Free characters abound in Misogonus; as well the play brings dynamic characterization into the scope of comedy with the conversion of its prodigal son. Free characters offer new possibilities of non-narrative plotting. In comedies of the 1580s favourite traditional characters appear as diversions outside the action, and thematic arrangements of characters inform the increasingly complex plots. Lyly stresses the symbolic potential of characters in Endimion, whereas Greene uses dynamic characterization to heighten the illusion of independent figures in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Love's Labour's Lost exposes the limitations of comic artifice by pulling the characters between convention and individualization. By the end of the sixteenth century free and dynamic characters had become common, and characterization had established a sizable claim on the design of English comedy. These developments set the English form apart from its neoclassical counterparts.
11
Kwong, Jessica Mun-Ling. "Playing the whore : representations of whoredom in early modern English comedy." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.707984.
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12
Marszalek, Agnes. "Beyond amusement : language and emotion in narrative comedy." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2016. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7273/.
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This thesis builds on cognitive stylistics, humour studies and psychological approaches to literature, film and television to explore how the stylistic features of comic novels and short stories may shape readers’ experience of comedy. I suggest that our responses to written humorous narratives are triggered by two types of stylistic cue: those which lead to amusement and stabilise our experience of comedy, and those which destabilise it by evoking non-humorous emotions associated with experiencing narrative worlds generally. When presented simultaneously, those cues can trigger complex humorous responses in which amusement is experienced alongside other, often negative, emotions. In order to investigate how textual elements can influence our emotional experience of humorous narratives, this thesis examines the ways in which stylistic cues affect some of the main experiential features of the narrative worlds of comedy: the moods evoked by the world, our relationships with characters, and our reactions to plot events. Following on from the Introduction and the Literature Review (Chapters 1 and 2), Chapter 3 explores the ways in which stylistic cues may evoke various moods by establishing, reinforcing and disrupting our expectations. Chapter 4 focuses on the role of characterisation in humorous narratives, concentrating on those cues which encourage us to laugh at narrative characters, and those which evoke other, non-humorous responses to them. In Chapter 5, I consider how the presentation of story events affects our experience of humorous plots. I discuss the cues which add humour to the presentation of otherwise problematic events, as well as those which combine humour with more uncomfortable emotions that stem from our reactions to story structures. Chapter 6, finally, provides a summary of the argument and of the contribution to knowledge made by this thesis. My exploration of the non-humorous side of experiencing narrative comedy offers a key contribution to the study of humorous narratives. By investigating humour as part of a wider narrative world, this thesis moves beyond the analysis of amusing language and towards addressing the complexity of the creation and experience of humour in a narrative world. The interdisciplinary, stylistic-psychological approach adopted here allows for hypotheses to be made not only about the emotional experience of humour in comic novels and short stories, but also about the affective side of narrative comprehension more generally.
13
Okada, Moeko. "Linguistic approaches to the analysis of humour in modern English dramatic comedy." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.391983.
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Tanner, Jane Hinkle. "Sharing the Light: Feminine Power in Tudor and Stuart Comedy." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1994. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278551/.
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Studies of the English Renaissance reveal a patriarchal structure that informed its politics and its literature; and the drama especially demonstrates a patriarchal response to what society perceived to be the problem of women's efforts to grow beyond the traditional medieval view of "good" women as chaste, silent, and obedient. Thirteen comedies, whose creation spans roughly the same time frame as the pamphlet wars of the so-called "woman controversy," from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, feature women who have no public power, but who find opportunities for varying degrees of power in the private or domestic setting.
15
Gibbons, Zoe Hope. "A dedicated follower of fashion : the ahistoric rake in Restoration literature /." Connect to online version, 2009. http://ada.mtholyoke.edu/setr/websrc/pdfs/www/2009/373.pdf.
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Curry, Matthew. "A Trip Through the Divine Comedy: An Allegory for Depression and its Role in Bibliotherapy." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2021. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/574.
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Dante the Pilgrim, the main character of Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia, has his journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven recorded by Dante the Poet in poetic form. In the literal sense of things, readers follow Dante the Pilgrim’s journey downward into the infernal hellscape, upward onto a mountain of purgation and atonement, and into the metaphysical world of the divine. Allegorically, however, readers can also choose to view Dante the Pilgrim’s journey through The Divine Comedy as that of a person experiencing the hopelessness of depression, the challenging climb upward and outward of healing after spiraling deeply inward and, then, upon the journey’s conclusion, rejoicing in streams of light as the heavy weight of the darkness—of depression—is lifted. Throughout this thesis, I isolate instances scattered throughout Dante’s poetry that can allegorically represent the journey one undertakes as the fog of depression settles in and the valid possibility of including the medieval work into the practice of bibliotherapy.
17
Reinhart, Taylor W. "Explorations into Stand-Up Comedy Through the Multimedia Essay: "Stand Up Comedy and the Essay, AKA Louis C.K. Meet Michel De Montaigne" and "You're In The Sun"." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1400456829.
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Mason, Mary Katherine. "Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Comedy: Finding the Humor in Rasselas through Ecclesiastes." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/113.
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For years, scholars have focused on the serious narrative of Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas and have been unable to reconcile the episodes of ironic humor within the larger serious narrative. By reading Rasselas as an imitation of Ecclesiastes rather than an Oriental tale, critics can begin to identify the humor in Rasselas through the embellishment of the story of Ecclesiastes. The failures of the character Koheleth in Ecclesiastes become the genesis for the failures of Rasselas and his companions; however, the failures of Rasselas and more elaborate and comedic. How Johnson embellishes these failures to create humorous irony in Rasselas becomes clearer for the reader through this new categorization of genre, which can hopefully unite the two opposing views of criticism surrounding this book.
19
Chapman, Patricia Ann. "Two Laureates and a Whore Debate Decorum and Delight: Dryden, Shadwell, and Behn in a Decade of Comedy A-la-Mode." unrestricted, 2006. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11202006-050335/.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006.Title from title screen. Malinda Snow, committee chair; Tanya Caldwell, Paul Schmidt, committee members. Electronic text (81 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed May 8, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-81).
20
Turner, Irene. "Farce on the borderline with special reference to plays by Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1987. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B12367898.
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Macphee, Wendy Jean. "Arcana in Shakespeare's comedies with specific reference to 'The Comedy of Errors' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1996. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3126/.
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This thesis aims to demonstrate that Shakespeare encoded his comedies with spiritual arcana including: theurgy; Celtic mysticism; alchemy; Renaissance Platonism; and the Bible. An analysis of The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream shows that the plays are polysemous, providing simultaneous readings of a number of spiritual allegories. The arcana are examined in the light of material to which Shakespeare could have had access. They are separately documented in chapters designed to provide a resource of information on their contemporary nature mediated for modern understanding. The research is based on an exploration of plays in production, represented in programme notes in the appendices. The work was undertaken to clarify the director's notes to cast and audiences of the international professional Theatre Set-Up company and the results of this study informed their productions from 1983 to 1996. It was found that explanations of the scripts' iconography which the research revealed, clarified and lightened their performance. Early chapters review a range of opinions from literary criticism on the issues discussed in the thesis, revealing considerable sympathy with its tenets.
22
Holland, Nicholas David. "Comedy and the supernatural on the English stage between 1589 and 1621 : a study of the relevance for early modern audiences of comic representations of magic, fairies and witchcraft." Thesis, University of Hull, 2002. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5537.
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What kinds of relevance to wider beliefs and practices did the comic representation of magic, fairies and witchcraft have for an early modem audience? This study will approach this main question through the consideration of two subsidiary questions. What is the cultural context for a series of comic, or partly comic, representations of the supernatural first performed between circa 1588 and 1621? What theatrical (and broader) strategies of performance informed the staging of the texts considered and what bearing would those strategies have had on the relevance of the subjectmatter for their original audience? The premise that form and context are interconnected and historically specific will be central to the approach taken in this study. As one influential modern account of the early modem English stage has proposed: ‘history cannot simply be set against literary texts as either stable antithesis or stable background, and the protective isolation of those texts gives way to a sense of their interaction with other texts and hence of the permeability of their boundaries.’ (Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Shakespeare and the Exorcists’, 1988) An appreciation of the `permeability' of the boundaries between early modern texts informs this study. This principle is particularly important in the study of comic representation, where a modem reader faces particular challenges when interpreting the function of comedy for early modem audiences. An improved understanding of comic representation is gained through a close consideration of the relationship between form and context in a range of texts concerned with the supernatural, followed by a consideration of the ways in which those texts might be related. For example, the function of the supernatural as a vehicle for the expression of hidden desires in a wide range of early modern texts provides a significant context for the understanding of the comic representation of the supernatural on the early modern stage. Moreover, recognition of the `permeability' of the boundaries between texts necessitates the reassessment of a simple notion of fictional and non-fictional texts about the supernatural in this period. Through the consideration of such issues, particular kinds of insight will be provided into the wider relevance that comic representation of the supernatural on the early modem stage might have held for its audience. In embracing this approach, this study must avoid a narrow understanding of the `text'. The primary status of theatre as a medium for representation through performance needs to be appreciated. Although this study is specifically concerned with comic representation, the comic must be understood in the context of early modem theatre, more generally, as a performance medium. Chapter One will survey a series of approaches before arriving at a working model for the English theatre of the period which will be broad in its consideration of the functions of the comic and sympathetic regarding its status as performance. This study will also be inclusive throughout in its choice of texts. Comic material in plays generically signified as tragedy or tragicomedy will be considered where it helps to elucidate the argument of the thesis. The intention is to pursue relevant connections wherever possible, and to shadow the flexible, organic approach to genre demonstrated by much English drama of the period. Through such an approach, the meaning for audiences of comic representations will be shown to be ultimately underpinned by early modem notions regarding the nature of theatricality itself. The diversity and stratification of views regarding the supernatural in early modem England, alongside the theatre the other significant cultural context for this study, will be considered in Chapter Two. The earliest impetus for this study came, in part, from a recognition that the particular historical interests of an older school of historians, in particular Frances Yates, continued to exercise a significant influence over published literary criticism of plays concerned with magic into the 1980s. This study aims in part to further the work of those who have sought to relate the drama to a range of more recent modem studies of early modem thought regarding the supernatural. The organisation of the remainder of the study will be thematic. A detailed study in Chapter Three of two influential works from early in the period of study, Doctor Faustus and Friar Bacon, will be followed in Chapter Four by a study of patterns of representation in a series of plays concerned with magic that span the period of this study. Chapter Five will offer a reading of The Tempest in the context of the emerging themes of this study. Chapters Six and Seven will expand further the scope of the study by developing the provisional conclusions of the early chapters in a consideration of the comic representation of fairies and tragicomic representation of witchcraft on the early modern English stage. Chapter Eight will explore the relationship between Ben Jonson's comic portrayal of the supernatural and other texts considered by this study. Some questions related to the subject of this study cannot be fully developed within a work of this length. These include the relationship between comic stage representation and the representation of the supernatural in other genres in the theatre and literature of period, the comic representation of devils beyond their stage association with magicians and witchcraft, and the comic stage representation of magic and witchcraft after 1621. Where possible, attention is given to these issues, in particular where it helps to elucidate the central concerns of the study.
23
Baker, J. "Thomas D'Urfey : the life and work of a restoration playwright." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.368786.
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This thesis is a study of the life and works of Thomas D'Urfey (1653- 1721), a prolific writer of -plays, poetry and operas during the Restoration period. It places him in the context of the theatre of his time and the difficult conditions in which he worked, showing how obscurity of birth and lack of education affected him in his burning desire for success and financial reward. His relationships with great men illustrate the role of the patron in Augustan society, and his long career in the theatre illuminates the principal developments in English drama between 1676 and 1710. The Introduction provides a brief critical survey of the current state of Restoration comedy criticism and of D'Urfey's place in that criticism. Chapters One and Three are primarily biographical; Chapters Two, Four and Five study his plays; Chapter Six takes a broader view of his non-dramatic writing, and Chapter Seven examines his last three comedies and discusses them as precursors of the novel. The final section of Chapter Seven makes some comparisons between Thomas D'Urfey and other dramatists of the period, especially John Dryden, and argues that there is a special interest in the struggle for recognition of an author generally regarded as a failure. The Conclusion summarises the arguments in the thesis for this re-assessment of D'Urfey's interest and importance. Throughout the thesis D'Urfey's work is shown to have many rewards for the modern reader.
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Polianovskaia, Jana. "The English Operetta and the Musical Comedy as a Reflection of the Russian Anglomania at the End of the 19th Century." Bärenreiter Verlag, 2012. https://slub.qucosa.de/id/qucosa%3A71972.
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Weiss, Katherine. "The Comedy of Scholarship: Review of Hugh Kenner’s Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2007. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2288.
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Turner, Irene. "Farce on the borderline with special reference to plays by OscarWilde, Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1987. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31949204.
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Naseri, Sis Farzaneh. "Iris Murdoch." Phd thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12610506/index.pdf.
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Murdoch&rsquos fiction has been influenced by dramatic elements, particularly comic elements. This influence has been revealed as parody. Murdoch parodies the comic character types of the eiron, alazon, buffoon and agroikos by exaggerating and mixing their functions and themes of love, separated lovers and metamorphosis in her novels, The Nice and the Good, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea. In addition, she makes parodic uses of Shakespearean plays, As You Like It and Love'
s Labour'
s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest, in her novels in question. Her use of parody as a weapon against the genre of romantic comedy, its character types and main themes is the result of her philosophical view of drama and the dramatic. She argues that comedy and tragedy deal with appearance whereas drama and the dramatic ought to involve reality. In her novels in question, she shows that the dramatic is the conflict of selfish self with itself to reach self-knowledge. Murdochian self- knowledge is the knowledge of what lies beyond self. This kind of knowledge is achieved by unselfing, a process through which a solipsistic self recognizes its solipsism and challenges it by means of love and art.
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Segarra, Elena. "Dark Journeys: Robert Frost's Dantean Inspiration." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1021.
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This paper examines the way in which Robert Frost incorporates Dantean ideas and imagery into his poetry, particularly in relation to the pursuit of reason and truth. Similarly to Dante, Frost portrays human reason as limited. Both authors nevertheless present truth as a desire that often drives people’s journey through life. Frost differs from Dante by dwelling in apparent contradictions rather than appealing to a clarifying divine light. The paper considers themes of loss, human labor, suffering, and justice, and it also analyzes Scriptural and Platonic inspirations. It focuses on the image of the journey used by both Frost and Dante to describe the experience of living and exploring ideas.
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Shea, Jo Anne. "Productive waste : rhetorical economies in Thomas Middleton's city comedies /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Swanson, Michael David. ""The Vehicle of Delight and Morality": Humor and Sentiment in the Plays of John O'Keeffe as a Reflection of Late Eighteenth-Century English Theatrical Comedy." The Ohio State University, 1991. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1382014382.
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Van, der Colff Margaretha Aletta Adams Douglas. "Douglas Adams : analysing the absurd." Pretoria : [s.n.], 2004. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08212008-183816.
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Kelley, Alita. "Entropic comedy and the postmodern vision: An analysis of "Un mundo para Julius" by Alfredo Bryce Echenique, a poststructural approach, with a translation of the novel into English." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186047.
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This first full length reading of the Peruvian Alfredo Bryce Echenique's 1970 novel Un mundo para Julius approached from a deconstructionist viewpoint shows how prior misreadings have led to its being interpreted primarily as a realist work with innovative passages. Through extended close reading, it is shown to be an early Latin American example of postmodern entropic comedy. Parody and the ludic aspects of the novelist's art in the work present a view of reality in which all metanarratives are negated. An analysis is included of deconstructionist theory/strategies showing deconstruction's contribution through non-belief in the primary text to recognition of the viability of translation studies as an academic discipline. The first translation into English of Bryce's novel accompanies the dissertation and is drawn upon extensively for interpretation of passages that have previously caused interpretative problems. The prominence of the comic in postmodern literature is discussed, along with the nature and provoking of laughter. Explanations are suggested for Bryce's highly comic novel not being read as such; rather, in prior criticism the tragic has been foregrounded at the expense of the comic elements. It is suggested that Bryce's and other Latin American novels of the 1960s and early 1970s be viewed as marking a transition from modernism to postmodernism, putting Latin American literature in line with the novelistic mainstream worldwide. The boom, far from being a new move in Latin American literature of the 1960s, is seen as belated critical recognition of a modernism which dates back at least to the 1920s, with sporadic manifestations of the postmodern spirit existing there from the same time. Since the nature of deconstruction is to affirm that no definite conclusions or final readings may be drawn, this dissertation is put forth in the spirit that it be conducive to refutation and to foster further readings of the work of Bryce and neglected modernist and postmodernist Latin American writers whose work should by now be seen as part of world literature and not as a local or exotic variant.
33
Oh, Seiwoong. "The Scholarly Trickster in Jacobean Drama: Characterology and Culture." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278216/.
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Whereas scholarly malcontents and naifs in late Renaissance drama represent the actual notion of university graduates during the time period, scholarly tricksters have an obscure social origin. Moreover, their lack of motive in participating in the plays' events, their ambivalent value structures, and their conflicting dramatic roles as tricksters, reformers, justices, and heroes pose a serious diffculty to literary critics who attempt to define them. By examining the Western dramatic tradition, this study first proposes that the scholarly tricksters have their origins in both the Vice in early Tudor plays and the witty slave in classical comedy. By incorporating historical, cultural, anthropological, and psychological studies, this essay also demonstrates that the scholarly tricksters are each a Jacobean version of the archetypal trickster, who is usually associated with solitary habits, motiveless intrusion, and a double function as selfish buffoon and cultural hero. Finally, this study shows that their ambivalent value structures reflect the nature of rhetorical training in Renaissance schools.
34
Hann, Yvonne D. "Money talks : economics, discourse and identity in three Renaissance comedies /." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0004/MQ36130.pdf.
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Goode, Rich W. IV. ""Little Things": Chekhov's Children and Discourse in the Comic Short Story." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2013. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1630.
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While most critics agree that Anton Chekhov is a funny writer and much critical commentary about his comedic techniques identifies how Chekhov is humorous, none examines why readers find him so. Using the tools of cognitive science, this paper explores the cognitive processes behind humor and narrative, as well as Chekhov’s exploitation of them for comical effect in his early short stories – namely the very concise and blatantly humorous “Kids,” “Grisha,” “Vanka,” and “At Home” – and uncovers, in these early writings, the origins of his celebrated and oft-imitated authorial legacy.
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Olthof, Derk A. "Gesamtkunstwerk and Other Trifles: Poems." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2011. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3009.
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In all their various categories, the arts serve as the dominant subject matter of Gesamtkunstwerk and Other Trifles. The title itself begins with a German word-meld—gesamt (total) + kunstwerk (work of art). Thus a primary aim of these poems is to bring as many elements of art together as possible and to use their various forms (self-portraits, nocturnes, odes, etc.) as metaphorical frameworks that inform abstractions such as regret ("How to Draw Regret"), psychological disorders ("Insomnia Nocturnes") and confusion in how one should feel about living realities as opposed to inanimate objects ("Dead Starling"). Most of the poems that are not related in some way to the arts (other than their inseparable relation to the art of poetry itself) deal with death or some other form of loss. Some of them humorous ("Commencement Speech"), others poignant ("In Places Where We Store Our Deaths"), these poems ironically find their place as the "other trifles" of the work. The purpose of this somewhat irreverent categorization of death and tragedy is to create ironic commentaries on the triviality of humankind's grand designs and accomplishments and to show the many similarities shared by comedy and tragedy alike, a project Tony Hoagland took up in his first book of poems, Sweet Ruin. My aim in writing these poems is to better understand how various art forms relate to each other and how aligning those arts in poetry allows the various genres to be "in conversation" one with another. I hope that readers will come away with a better understanding of how art forms are interconnected, but at the same time, I always aim to construct my poems in such a way that multiple readings can occur.
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Pasquet, Laetitia. "Le rire de l’horreur sur la scène anglaise contemporaine : vers une nouvelle poétique de la comédie ?" Thesis, Paris 4, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013PA040087.
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Paradoxal, le rire de l’horreur constitue cependant une donnée majeure de l’expérience théâtrale contemporaine. Il procède d’une mutation du comique qui en vient à exprimer la violence au lieu de l’édulcorer. Sur la scène anglaise d’après l’abolition de la censure (1968), le comique se fait miroir des angoisses de la société et l’horreur, mise en scène de façon de plus en plus naturaliste, fait rire le public tout en suscitant un profond malaise qui interroge la position du spectateur. Mais, dans un mouvement inverse et encore plus dérangeant parce qu’insidieux, l’humour se fait aussi vecteur d’effroi quand l’horreur est tue ou euphémisée, renvoyant alors au public une interrogation profondément éthique sur l’humanité de son rire. Ces mutations esthétiques s’insèrent dans une profonde déstabilisation de la nature même de la comédie et de son idéologie optimiste et humaniste : si certains sous-genres (la farce, la comedy of manners, la city comedy, la parodie) représentent volontiers des situations horribles, la comédie est structurellement défigurée quand elle incorpore une ontologie horrible, quand sa forme n’implique plus le progrès mais l’arbitraire et quand son dénouement se fait explicitement dissonant. L’horreur, défigurant de manière ludique la forme de la comédie, devient un principe poétique qui renouvelle le genre, et en particulier les archétypes comiques inoffensifs pour les rendre terribles. Car c’est à l’aune de la tragédie défaillante que se refonde la comédie et le rire s’y étouffe, lesté d’une conscience du tragique soulignée par la culpabilité inhérente à de nombreux éclats de rire, mais surtout par la dérision des valeurs tragiques et la relativisation de l’absolu dans l’humour. Dans ces conditions, le rire devient un moyen d’accéder à la puissance des émotions tragiques, et la catharsis se redéfinit, s’éloignant de la traditionnelle purification des passions pour devenir une réintensification de leur pouvoir humanisantParadoxical as it may be, laughing at horror is a major feature of the contemporary theatrical experience. It emerges from a shift in the comic mode which now expresses violence instead of muffling it. In the aftermath of the abolition of censorship in the United Kingdom (1968), this comic mode has held a mirror up to society’s fears and horror has been staged in a more and more naturalistic way, so as to make the audience laugh while unsettling them, questioning the very position of the spectators. However, in a converse and even more disturbing way, humour has become a way to appal them, subduing horror instead of underlining it and thereby deeply questioning them on the humanity of laughter. Those aesthetic shifts take part in a general process of undermining comedy’s humanistic optimistic ideology; even though some subgenres (namely farce, city comedy, comedy of manners or parody) easily stage horrible scenes, comedy is structurally defaced when it includes an ontology of horror, when its shape does not express progress but arbitrariness and when its ending is explicitly unhappy. Playing on the structure of comedy to the point of defacing it, horror becomes a poetic principle that renews the genre and especially the comic archetypes, making them dreadful instead of harmless. It is indeed tragedy’s failure that becomes the measure of this renewal of comedy, as laughter gets stifled by the tragic consciousness that tinges many laughs with guilt, caused by the way tragic values are ridiculed and tragic absoluteness belittled by humour. In those conditions, laughing turns into a means for the spectator to surreptitiously feel the power of tragic emotions; the experience redefines catharsis, no longer a purification of emotions but a new way to reach their humanising power
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Schwarz, Jeannine. "Linguistic aspects of verbal humor in stand-up comedy." Göttingen Sierke, 2010. http://d-nb.info/1002094909/04.
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Kelly, Joseph L. "William Shakespeare's Parable of "Is" and "Seems": Ironies of God's Providence in Hamlet and Measure for Measure." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/89.
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This thesis examines Hamlet and Measure for Measure as related “problem plays.” In these plays, Shakespeare uniquely combines the genre of parable and the literary device of irony as a means to involve his audience in the experience of ordeal and deliverance that both reorients the protagonists’ personal, political, and ultimately theological assumptions and prompts spiritual insight in the spectator. As in a parable, a spiritual dimension opens subtly alongside each story to inform the play’s action and engage the spectator in the underlying theological discourse. Irony invites the audience to see the disparity between pretended or mistaken reality and the spiritual truth—between what “seems” and what “is.” As these complex dramatized parables unfold, potent tapestries of multilayered thematic irony coalesce into providential irony that exalts, rather than defeats, the protagonists and ultimately determines the outcome.
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Benard, Clementine. "John Donne : de la satire à l'humour." Thesis, Normandie, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018NORMR076/document.
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Cette étude s'attache à démontrer comment les écrits satiriques du poète élisabéthain John Donne (1572-1631) lui permettent de développer une esthétique propre, qui ne se cantonne pas qu'au corpus satirique strict mais trouve également une résonance dans le reste de son œuvre. Traditionnellement considérée comme une tendance marginale dans sa poésie, la satire chez Donne s'exprime à travers d'autres textes, laissant ainsi transparaître un « esprit satirique ». Le jeu et la prise de distance du poète vis-à-vis des conventions littéraires, sociales et religieuses de son époque nous permettent de mettre au jour une poétique dominée par le doute et la mélancolie. Cette humeur noire, selon la théorie médicale des humeurs, nous conduit vers l'humour et le comique : fort peu examinés chez Donne, ces concepts transparaissent pourtant à la lecture des textes les moins explorés par la critique, dévoilant ainsi une esthétique qui donne sa cohérence au corpus. John Donne n'est pas que le chef de file de la poésie métaphysique : son statut de satiriste lui confère également celui d'humoristeThis study aims to show how the satiric writings of Elizabethan poet John Donne (1572-1631) display a specific aesthetics, which is also to be found in all his work and not only in his satiric texts. Although it has traditionally been considered as a fringe element in Donne's poetry, satire appears in other writings, thus disclosing a ''satiric spirit''. By playing and distancing himself from the literay, social and religious standards of his time, the poet's work reveals an aesthetics ruled by doubt and melancholy. According to the system of medicine called ''humorism'', melancholy is a black fluid that brings us to humour and comedy : even though they have been rarely examined in Donne studies, these concepts do stand out after a close reading of the least sought-after poems. It thus unites and makes the whole of Donne's poetry coherent. Not only is he the best representative of the metaphysical poets, he is also a satirist as well as a humorist
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Lewis, Anna Christina Kohler. "WWJD /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2008. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2433.pdf.
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Bundy, Christopher. "Big in Japan the novel /." Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University, 2009. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/41/.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2009.Title from title page (Digital Archive@GSU, viewed July 22, 2010) Sheri Joseph, committee chair; John Holman, Josh Russell, committee members. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38).
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Soules, Terrill S. "The Same-Spelling Hapax of the Commedia of Dante." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/96.
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In the Commedia of Dante, a poem 14,233 lines in length, some 7,500 words occur only once. These are the hapax. Fewer than 2% of these constitute a minute but distinct subset—the hapax for which there are one or more words in the poem whose spelling is identical but whose meaning is different. These are what I call same-spelling hapax. I identify four categories: partof- speech, homograph, locus, and name. Examination of the same-spelling hapax illuminates a poetic strategy continuously in use throughout the poem. This is to use the one-word coinciding of Rhyme’s rhyme number and terzina’s line number. Not only is it highly probable that a samespelling hapax will be a rhyme-word, but it is also probable that it will occupy a rhyme-word’s most significant position—the one place—the single word—where the two intertwined formal entities that shape each canto coincide. Every three lines, their tension-resolving this-word-only union intensifies the reader’s attention and understanding alike.
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Manco, Clara. "« In Earnest or Jest » : rire, pouvoir et politique dans les Comédies de la Restauration (1660-1688)." Thesis, Sorbonne université, 2020. http://accesdistant.sorbonne-universite.fr/login?url=http://theses.paris-sorbonne.fr/2020SORUL048.pdf.
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Quel rôle joue le rire dans l'économie symbolique du pouvoir ? Comment reflète-t-il, et dans quelle mesure contribue-t-il en retour à structurer les imaginaires politiques contemporains ? Le moment historique situé entre la Restauration et le changement dynastique de la Glorieuse Révolution constitue un épisode privilégié de l'histoire du théâtre anglais pour aborder ces questions. Après les tourments de la guerre civile et le hiatus des années Cromwell, la scène entretient des liens institutionnels plus étroits que jamais avec le pouvoir de la Couronne. Parallèlement, une opposition émerge et se structure sous la forme du parti Whig. Celle-ci investit aussi très tôt l'institution théâtrale en tirant profit, entre autres, de la dépendance économique de nombreux dramaturges et du personnel théâtral. La comédie s'adapte ainsi à cette triple contrainte (économique, sociale, institutionnelle) en politisant pour l'occasion les stéréotypes qu'elle hérite de traditions antérieures, comme celui du cocu, du dévot ou du débauché. Ces types établis, qui sont le matériau propre de la comédie, deviennent à la fois des images des différents acteurs de l'échiquier politique et des armes au service de ces luttes d'influence. De ces exigences contradictoires émerge alors un mode de production et de réception comique unique, influencé par les pratiques satiriques, et fondé sur l'ambiguïté. Cette étude comparative s'appuie sur un corpus de quarante pièces de vingt et un auteurs différents, allant de figures canoniques comme Dryden, Shadwell et Behn à d'autres moins connues comme D'Urfey, Crowne et RavenscroftWhat is the role of laughter in the symbolic economy of power? How does it reflect and shape the minds and political imagination of contemporary society? The historical period between the Restoration and the dynastic shift of the Glorious Revolution constitutes a pivotal point in the history of English theatre in which to explore these questions. Following the violence of the Civil War and the hiatus of the Cromwellian years, the institutional links between the theatres and the Crown become tighter than ever. Meanwhile, the political opposition consolidates itself, becoming the Whig party, and invests in theatrical institutions by taking advantage inter alia of the financial dependence of playwrights and stage personnel. Comedy adapts to these economic, social and institutional constraints by politicising the stereotypes inherited from previous traditions, such as the « cuckold », the « zealot » or the « rake ». These comedic vehicles are used both as mirror images of the actors of political life and as tools serving specific agendas in contemporary power struggles. From these contradictory demands emerges a distinctive mode of comic production and reception, heavily influenced by satiric practices and structured with deliberate ambiguity. This comparative study is based on forty plays by twenty-one different authors, from canonical figures such as Dryden, Shadwell and Behn, to lesser-known authors like D'Urfey, Crowne and Ravenscroft
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Holmberg, Megan Elizabeth. "Anomalous Apparitions of Light in Colonial America: Visions of Comets, New Stars, the Aurora Borealis, and Rainbows." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2019. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/590919.
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EnglishPh.D.
This dissertation examines the body of literature that formed around anomalous light apparitions (comets, new stars, the aurora borealis, and rainbows) as it explores questions about the representation and response to celestial and meteorological phenomena during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in colonial America. I further consider the ways that these texts’ meanings are informed by rational scientific thought and by other non-scientific or non-rational, emotive, or aesthetic modes of thinking. I consider how these phenomena elicit a set of empirical yet emotionally-charged observational practices that complicate how we understand the roles of the rational and the non-rational in the scientific literature of this period. I argue that non-rational passionate investments are evident within or as part of the period’s rational scientific literature; they act as the impetus for scientific inquiry therefore forming an integral part of the scientific endeavor. This dissertation further explores how the practice of writing about these phenomena generates and facilitates the formation of communities of amateur scientific observers in colonial America. I further investigate how practices of data collection contribute to knowledge about the regular and irregular behaviors of celestial bodies, and how this knowledge impacts everyday practices essential for survival such as farming and travelling. What science writing from this period demonstrates is the ability for multiple ways of thinking to be in play simultaneously; these texts show how several worldviews (i.e. science, Puritanism, popular religion) are intrinsic to each other. Because of their liminality, these texts function outside of traditional categories such science, religion, and natural philosophy. Furthermore, they destabilize traditional conceptions of genre with their blend of rational and non-rational modes of thought and their incorporation of fact and fiction. While I treat these literary texts within their historical contexts, I am also interested in the ways in which these texts reach modern audiences, particularly in academia at a time when the humanities and sciences are positioned against one another.
Temple University--Theses
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Langdell, Sebastian James. "Religious reform, transnational poetics, and literary tradition in the work of Thomas Hoccleve." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a2e8eb46-5d08-405d-baa9-24e0400a47d8.
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This study considers Thomas Hoccleve’s role, throughout his works, as a “religious” writer: as an individual who engages seriously with the dynamics of heresy and ecclesiastical reform, who contributes to traditions of vernacular devotional writing, and who raises the question of how Christianity manifests on personal as well as political levels – and in environments that are at once London-based, national, and international. The chapters focus, respectively, on the role of reading and moralization in the Series; the language of “vice and virtue” in the Epistle of Cupid; the moral version of Chaucer introduced in the Regiment of Princes; the construction of the Hoccleve persona in the Regiment; and the representation of the Eucharist throughout Hoccleve’s works. One main focus of the study is Hoccleve’s mediating influence in presenting a moral version of Chaucer in his Regiment. This study argues that Hoccleve’s Chaucer is not a pre-established artifact, but rather a Hocclevian invention, and it indicates the transnational literary, political, and religious contexts that align in Hoccleve’s presentation of his poetic predecessor. Rather than posit the Hoccleve-Chaucer relationship as one of Oedipal anxiety, as other critics have done, this study indicates the way in which Hoccleve’s Chaucer evolves in response to poetic anxiety not towards Chaucer himself, but rather towards an increasingly restrictive intellectual and ecclesiastical climate. This thesis contributes to the recently revitalized critical dialogue surrounding the role and function of fifteenth-century English literature, and the effect on poetry of heresy, the church’s response to heresy, and ecclesiastical reform both in England and in Europe. It also advances critical narratives regarding Hoccleve’s response to contemporary French poetry; the role of confession, sacramental discourse, and devotional images in Hoccleve’s work; and Hoccleve’s impact on literary tradition.
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Smit, Willem Jacobus. "Becoming the third generation: negotiating modern selves in Nigerian Bildungsromane of the 21st century." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2335.
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Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.ENGLISH ABTRACT: In recent years, original and exciting developments have been taking place in Nigerian literature. This new body of literature, collectively referred to as the ―third generation‖, has lately received international acclaim. In this emergent literature, the negotiation of a new, contemporary identity has become a central focus. At the same time, recent Nigerian literary texts are articulating responses to various developments in the Nigerian nation: Nigeria‘s current political and socio-economic situation, diverse forms of cultural hybridisation, as well as an increasing trans-national consciousness, to mention only a few. Three 21st-century novels – Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie‘s Purple Hibiscus (2004), Sefi Atta‘s Everything Good Will Come (2004) and Chris Abani‘s GraceLand (2005) – reveal how new avenues of identity-negotiation and formation are being explored in various contemporary Nigerian situations. This study tracks the ways in which the Bildungsroman, the novel of self-development, serves as a vehicle through which this new identity is articulated. Concurrently, this study also grapples with the ways in which the articulation and negotiation of this new identity reshapes the conventions of the classical Bildungsroman genre, thereby establishing a unique and contemporary Nigerian Bildungsroman for the 21st century. The identity that is being negotiated by the third generation is multi-layered and inclusive, as opposed to the exclusive and unitary identities which are observable in Nigerian novels of the previous two generations. Such inclusivity, as well as the hybrid environments in which this identity is being negotiated, results in a form of ―identity layering‖. Thus, the individual comes into being at the point of intersection, overlap and collision of various modes of self-making. Such ―layering‖ allows the individual, albeit not without challenge, to perform a self-styled identity, which does not necessarily conform to the dictates of society. At the same time, the identity is negotiated by means of an engagement, in the form of intertextual dialoguing, with Nigeria‘s preceding literary generations. The most prominent arenas in which this new identity is negotiated include silenced domestic spaces, religo-cultural traditions, constructs of gender and nation, as well as in multicultural and hybrid communities. The investigation conducted in this thesis will, consequently, also focus on such areas of Nigerian life, as they are portrayed in the focal texts. Various theories of literary analysis (some of which specifically focus on Nigeria), Bildungsroman theory, theories of allegory, (imaginative) nation formation, feminism, gender and performativity, as well as theories of cultural identity and cultural exchanges, will form the critical and theoretical framework within which this investigation will be executed. Chapter One explores how Purple Hibiscus‘s protagonist, Kambili Achike, negotiates her gender identity and voice in order to constitute herself as an independent, self-authoring individual. Chapter Two, which focuses on Everything Good Will Come, investigates the dialectic relationship between Enitan Taiwo‘s national and personal identity, which inevitably leads to her quest to reconceive her gender identity, since national identity, as she finds out, is always an engendered construct. In its analysis of GraceLand, Chapter Three turns to the difficulties that Elvis Oke faces when he attempts to negotiate an alternative masculine identity within a rigid patriarchal system and between the cracks of a fraudulent African modernity.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die afgelope paar jaar was daar opwindende, oorspronklike ontwikkelinge in Nigeriese literatuur. Hierdie nuwe literatuurkorpus, wat gesamentlik bekend staan as die ―derde generasie, het onlangs internasionale erkenning ontvang. In hierdie opkomende literatuur, kry die soeke na 'n nuwe, kontemporêre identiteit ‘n sentrale fokus. Terselfdertyd reageer onlangse Nigeriese literêre werke met verskeie ontwikkelinge in die Negeriese nasie: Nigerië se huidige politieke en sosio-ekonomiese situasie, diverse vorme van kultuurverbastering asook 'n toenemende trans-nasionale bewustheid, om maar ‘n paar te noem. Drie 21ste eeuse romans – Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie se Purple Hibiscus (2004), Sefi Atta se Everything Good Will Come (2004) en Chris Abani se GraceLand (2005) – onthul hoe nuwe kanale van identiteidsonderhandeling en –vorming in verskeie kontemporêre Nigeriese situasies ondersoek word. Hierdie studie ondersoek die maniere waarop die Bildungsroman, die roman van selfontwikkeling, as ‗n medium dien waardeur hierdie nuwe identiteit geartikuleer word. Terselfdertyd sal hierdie studie ook worstel met die maniere waarin die artikulasie en soeke na hierdie nuwe identiteit die konvensies van die klassieke Bildungsroman genre hervorm, en daardeur 'n unieke en kontemporêre Nigeriese Bildungsroman vir die 21ste eeu vestig. Die identiteit wat ontwikkel deur die derde generasie is veelvlakkig en inklusief en staan teenoor die eksklusiewe, eenvormige identiteite wat in Nigeriese romans van die vorige twee generasies opgemerk word. Hierdie inklusiwiteit, sowel as die hibriede omgewings waarin hierdie identeite ontwikkel word, lei tot die vorming van identiteitslae. Die individu kom dus tot stand by die kruising, oorvleueling en botsing van verskillende metodes van selfvorming. Hierdie vorming van lae laat die individu toe, alhoewel nie sonder uitdagings nie, om 'n selfgevormde identiteit te hê wat nie noodwndig aan die eise van die gemeenskap voldoen nie. Terselfdertyd word hierdie identiteit onderhandel deur ‗n skakeling met Nigerië se voorafgaande literêre generasies in die vorm van intertekstuele dialoog. Die mees prominente omgewings waar hierdie nuwe identiteit onderhandel word, sluit stilgemaakte huishoudelike spasies, religieus-kulturele tradisies, konstrukte van gender en nasie, sowel as multi-kulturele en hibriede gemeenskappe in. Die ondersoek wat in hierdie tesis uitgevoer sal word, sal daarom ook fokus op hierdie areas van Nigeriese lewe, soos deur die fokale tekste voorgestel. Verskeie teorieë van literêre analise (sommige wat spesifiek op Nigerië fokus), Bildungsromanteorie, teorieë van allegorie, (denkbeeldige) nasievorming, feminisme, gender en performatiwiteit, sowel as teorieë van kultuuridentiteit en -uitruiling, vorm die kritiese en teoretiese raamwerk waarbinne hierdie ondersoek uitgevoer sal word. Hoofstuk een ondersoek hoe Purple Hibiscus se protagonist, Kambili Achike, haar genderidentiteit onderhandel en uitdrukking gee om haarself as onafhanklike, self-skeppende individu te vorm. Hoofstuk twee, wat fokus op Everything Good Will Come, ondersoek die dialektiese verhouding tussen Enitan Taiwo se nasionale en persoonlike identiteit, wat onvermydelik lei tot die herbedenking van haar genderidentiteit, aangesien nasionale identiteit, soos sy uitvind, altyd 'n gekweekte konstruk is. In sy analise van GraceLand, draai Hoofstuk drie om die moeilikhede wat Elvis Oke in die gesig staar wanneer hy probeer om ‘n alternatiewe manlike identiteit te onderhandel in 'n rigiede patriargale sisteem tussen krake van 'n bedrieglike Afrika-moderniteit.
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Marti, Laurent. "Le théâtre de Gonzalo Torrente Ballester : des avant-gardes à Aristore." Thesis, Dijon, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010DIJOL012.
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Gonzalo Torrente Ballester (1910-1999), une des figures de proue de la littérature espagnole du XXème siècle, est surtout connu pour ses narrations. Le théâtre constitue pourtant sa grande passion –la première aussi– car il y consacre les vingt premières années de sa carrière littéraire. L’activité théâtrale de l’auteur galicien au cours des décennies 1930 et 1940, intense et soutenue, nous livre un témoignage de choix sur la situation de la scène espagnole pendant la Seconde République : la coexistence d’un théâtre bourgeois et commercial qui jouit de la faveur du public depuis la fin du XXème siècle et d’un théâtre d’avant-garde, minoritaire, qui ambitionne de rénover la scène théâtrale à grand renfort d’innovations formelles. Les deux premières pièces de Torrente Ballester s’inscrivent dans cette dernière démarche mais un événement historique, la Guerre d’Espagne, entraîne un changement esthétique et thématique majeur. Torrente rejoint un groupe d’intellectuels Phalangistes, le Grupo de Escorial, où se mêlent littérature et politique, un amalgame qui conditionne les pièces –mais aussi les essais et les articles– de notre auteur au tout début des années 1940. Le rêve d’une société idéale éduquée par le théâtre tourne court en 1943 et don Gonzalo se détourne vite du dogmatisme qui caractérise la période 1937-1942. L’auteur galicien retrouve alors une liberté créatrice qui lui permet de composer ses meilleures pièces juste au moment où, faute de mise en scène, il décide d’abandonner l’écriture dramatique pour se consacrer exclusivement à la narration. L’aventure théâtrale de Torrente s’arrête à la fin des années 1940 mais l’expérience –littéraire, politique et humaine– accumulée au cours de cette étape se révèle essentielle pour la brillante carrière de romancier qu’il connaît ensuiteGonzalo Torrente Ballester (1910-1999), one of the main figures of the Spanish literature of the 20th century, is best known for his narrative. However, theatre is his greatest passion – and also the very first one – since he devoted the first twenty years of his literary career to theatre. The theatrical activity of the Galician author during the 1930s and the 1940s, hectic and steady, gives us an outstanding account of the Spanish stage during the Second Republic: the coexistence of a commercial and bourgeois theatre appreciated by the public since the end of the 19th century, and a minor avant-garde theatre aspiring to reform the theatrical stage with extensive innovations in the form. The two first plays of Torrente Ballester are in the line of this latest approach but a historical event, the war of Spain, leads to a major thematic and aesthetic change. The playwright meets up with a group of intellectuals of the Spanish Phalanx, the Grupo de Escorial, where literature mingles with politics, a mixture which determines the plays – but also the essays and articles – of our author at the very beginning of the 1940s. The dream of an ideal society educated by theatre ends up in 1943 and Torrente turns away from the dogmatism characteristic of the 1937-1942 period. The Galician author recovers then a creative freedom which allows him to compose his best plays just when, in the absence of staging, he decides to give up dramatic writing to dedicate himself exclusively to narrative. The theatrical adventure of Torrente stops at the end of the 1940s but the literary, political and human experience collected during this stage turns out to be essential to his later brilliant career as a novelist
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Weiss, Katherine. "Traces Re-Lived in Krapp’s Last Tape, Come and Go and Quad." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2012. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2264.
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Kirkland, Graham. "From Rivers to Gardens: The Ambivalent Role of Nature in My Ántonia, O Pioneers!, and Death Comes to the Archbishop." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/78.
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Though her early writing owes much to nineteenth-century American Realism, Willa Cather experiments with male and female literary traditions while finding her own modern literary voice. In the process Cather gives nature an ambivalent role in My Ántonia, O Pioneers!, and Death Comes to the Archbishop. She produces a tension between rivers and gardens, places where nature and culture converge. Like Mary Austin and Sarah Orne Jewett, Willa Cather confronts the boundaries between humans and nature.