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Mogoboya, Mphoto Johannes. "African indentity in Es'kia Mphahlele's autobiographical and fictional novels : a literary investigation." Thesis, University of Limpopo, Turfloop Campus, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/972.
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Thesis (Ph.D. (English studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2011<br>This thesis explores the theme of identity in Es’kia Mpha-hele’s fictional and autobiographical novels, with special attention given to the quest for the lost identity of Afri-can cultural and philosophical integrity. In other words, the revival of the core African experience and the efforts to preserve and promote things African. Mphahlele wrote most of his novels during the time when Africa was under colonial influence. His native land was under the abhorred apartheid system which sought to relegate the African expe-rience to the background. In this sense, he was the voice of the people, reminding them of their past and giving them direction for the future.
Chapter One of the thesis outlines the background to the study, defines concepts and gives a survey of African lit-erary identity. It also probes salient aspects which have influenced Mphahlele’s perspective on African identity dur-ing his early years as a writer and socio-cultural activ-ist. Approaches and methodology employed to examine Mphahlele’s writings are also outlined.
Chapter Two synthesises the theoretical underpinnings of the study. The thesis adopts Afrocentricity as the basis of analysis, looking at aspects such as the African worldview, humanism (ubuntu) and collectivism. Views by different Af-rican literary critics on what African literature should entail in its distinctive definition are also discussed. Two main literary traditions, orality and the contemporary tradition, which give African literature its unique charac-ter as well as its phases are identified and brought to the fore.Identity in African literature is discussed in detail in Chapters three and four where Mphahlele’s literary works are closely examined. Chapter Five concludes the study and recommends that in order for Africa to forge ahead in her attempt to reclaim and promote her cultural identity, a new perspective must be cultivated and Mphahlele proposes hy-bridity, which is a harmonious co-existence of two or more cultural beliefs without one oppressing the other.<br>The University of Limpopo
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Trainin, Sarah Jean. "The rise of mass culture theory and its effect on golden age detective fiction." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2002. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2255.
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Mackinnon, Jeremy E. "Speaking the unspeakable : war trauma in six contemporary novels." Title page, contents and abstract only, 2001. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phm15821.pdf.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-258) Presents readings of six novels which depict something of the nature of war trauma. Collectively, the novels suggest that the attempt to narrativise war trauma is inherently problematic. Traces the disjunctions between narrative and war trauma which ensure that war trauma remains an elusive and private phenomonen; the gulf between private experience and public discourse haunts each of the novels.
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Payne, Christopher Neil. "Terminus intractable and the literary subject : deconstructing the endgame in Chinese avant-garde fiction." Thesis, McGill University, 2002. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=29518.
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The following paper will deal with the actantial place of memory and history in the works of Ge Fei, a so-called avant-garde writer in China. Analyzing his three major novels published in the nineteen-nineties, as well as an earlier short story, the paper will discuss how Ge Fei renegotiates the status and place of the literary subject as configured through the act of writing, and its close relationship with the medium of memory and history. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, the avant-garde experiment in Ge Fei's works does not intimate the dissipation of the subject, but rather assists in reconfiguring it in an entirely new and dynamic conceptualization. Instead of a figural e/End and vulgarization of literature in the nineties, Ge Fei's experimentation with the acts of writing and reading, as well as his play with language, open up new possibilities for the writing of new literatures in contemporary China.
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Rose, Caroline. "Closure and the short story: with readings oftexts by Elizabeth Gaskell and Angela Carter." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1996. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31213571.
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Sojka, Eugenia. "Search procedures, carnivalization in language- and theory-focused texts of four Canadian women writers." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1996. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25775.pdf.
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Weiss, Katherine. "The Plays of Samuel Beckett." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2013. http://amzn.com/140814557X.
Full textAbstract:
Beckett remains one of the most important writers of the twentieth century whose radical experimentations in form and content won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. This Critical Companion encompasses his plays for the stage, radio and television, and will be indispensable to students of his work.
Challenging and at times perplexing, Beckett's work is represented on almost every literature, theatre and Irish studies curriculum in universities in North America, Europe and Australia. Katherine Weiss' admirably clear study of his work provides the perfect companion, illuminating each play and Beckett's vision, and investigating his experiments with the body, voice and technology. It includes in-depth studies of the major works Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Krapp's Last Tape, and as with other volumes in Methuen Drama's Critical Companions series it features too a series of essays by other scholars and practitioners offering different critical perspectives on Beckett in performance that will inform students' own critical thinking. Together with a series of resources including a chronology and a list of further reading, this is ideal for all students and readers of Beckett's work.<br>https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1072/thumbnail.jpg
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Bennett, Sarah. "The American contexts of Irish poetry, 1950-present." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669957.
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Dedman, Stephen. "Techronomicon (novel) ; and The weapon shop : the relationship between American science fiction and the US military (dissertation)." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0093.
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Techronomicon Techronomicon is a science fiction novel that examines far-future military actions from several different perspectives. Human beings have colonized several planets with help from the enigmatic and more technologically advanced Zhir, who gave spaceships and habitable worlds to those they deemed suitable and their descendants. The Joint Expeditionary Force is the military arm of the Universal Faith, called in when conflicts arise that the Faith decides are beyond the local government and militia and require their intervention. Leneveldt and Roader are JEF officers assigned to Operation Techronomicon, investigating what seems to be a Zhir-built defence shield around the planet Lassana. Another JEF company sent to Kalaabhavan after the murder of the planets Confessor-General loses its CO to a land-mine, and Lieutenant Hellerman reluctantly accepts command. Chevalier, a civilian pilot, takes refugees fleeing military-run detention camps on Ararat to a biological research station on otherwise uninhabited Lila. The biologists on Lila discover a symbiote that enables humans to photosynthesize, which comes to the attention of Operation Techronomicon and the JEF's Weapons Research Division. Leneveldt and Roeder, frustrated by the lack of progress on Lassana, are sent to Lila to detain the biologists, who flee into the swamps. Hellerman's efforts to restore peace on Kalaabhavan are frustrated by the Confessors, and his company finds itself besieged by insurgents. The novel explores individuals' motives for choosing or rejecting violence and/or military service; the lessons they learn about themselves and their enemies; and the possible results of attempts to forcibly suppress ideas.
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TAYLOR, SHAWN. "SPEED AND RESOLUTION IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY." VCU Scholars Compass, 2015. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3888.
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The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, a YouTube clip from Jurassic park, and the super bowl halftime show. A search engines assistance with biographic memory helps our bodies survive new atmospheres and weigh the gravities that exist around the versions of an objects materiality. Communication has moved from our vocal chords, to swipes and taps of our thumbs on a screen that predicts the weather, accesses the hidden, invisible, and withdrawn information from the objects around us, and still ducks up what we are trying to say. This txt was written on a tablet returned to stock settings and embedded with content to mine the experience in which mediated technology creates, communicates and obscures new forms of language. Life in a new event horizon — a dimensional dualism that finds us competing for genetic and mimetic survival — we are now functioning as different types of humans.
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Rogers, Robin Taylor. "Harold Frederic's The Damnation of Theron Ware [electronic resource] : a study guide with annotated bibliography / by Robin Taylor Rogers." [Tampa, Fla. : s.n.], 2003. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/SFE0000101.
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Mackinnon, Jeremy E. "Speaking the unspeakable : war trauma in six contemporary novels / Jeremy E. Mackinnon." Thesis, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/19791.
Full textAbstract:
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-258)<br>258 leaves ; 30 cm.<br>Presents readings of six novels which depict something of the nature of war trauma. Collectively, the novels suggest that the attempt to narrativise war trauma is inherently problematic. Traces the disjunctions between narrative and war trauma which ensure that war trauma remains an elusive and private phenomonen; the gulf between private experience and public discourse haunts each of the novels.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 2001
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Cheadle, Brian Douglas. "The idea of the golden world : a study of the nature of imaginative enlargement, with particular reference to Sir Philip Sidney." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/16500.
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Kgoshiadira, Pitsi Rebeccah. "Female subversion in Zakes Mda's novel, The Madonna of Excelsior." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/1659.
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Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015<br>This dissertation examines different modes of female subversion in the novel, The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) by Zakes Mda. Using feminist theory, the study explores how women in the novel transgress apartheid laws and how they use existing discriminatory laws to their own advantage. In addition, it illustrates how these women rise above those existing laws to establish their own subjectivity and independence.
The Madonna of Excelsior is a novel set in apartheid South Africa where laws prohibiting sexual relationships between whites and blacks were in effect. Niki, the main character in the novel, transgresses these laws by having sexual intercourse with white men, one of whom eventually fathers her baby. Niki gives birth to Popi who is ostracised by the Mahlatswetsa community because of her mixed racial identity. In spite of growing up in a prejudiced community, Popi works hard and becomes an important member of the town council later on when apartheid gives way to black rule. Popi subverts apartheid and the prejudice of her community by accepting herself as a coloured person, by being active in the political affairs of the Mahlatswetsa community, by engaging with the community through her service at the library and during funerals, and by reconciling with Tjaart Cronje, her half-brother.
Popi’s mother, Niki, also subverts apartheid’s discriminatory laws by having sexual relationships with Afrikaner men such as Johannes Smit and Stephanus Cronje. Through these affairs, she exposes the hypocrisy of the Afrikaners and the unfairness of their laws. However, Niki’s subversion goes beyond the use of sex and the body. In her marriage with Pule, she suffers wife battering and marital infidelity. In this instance, Niki subverts traditional expectations of women by leaving Pule and establishing an independent life for herself and her children. In giving birth to Popi and raising her as a coloured child, Niki exposes the double standards of Afrikaner morality. She subverts
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the judgmental attitude of the Mahlatswetsa community by withdrawing from the community and resorting to bee-keeping. In this isolated space, she finds healing.
Other female characters in the novel, such as Maria, Mampe and The Seller of Songs, also subvert the apartheid system and their communities through their sexual escapades with white men and their service to the community. On her part, Cecilia Mapeta subverts apartheid by her direct rejection of illicit sex with white men and her pursuit of education. In contrast to her, Maria and Mampe use mainly sex and the body to ensure their survival in a racist South Africa. The Seller of Songs, like Popi, uses her service to the community to subvert its prejudice.
In their different circumstances, the women characters in this novel employ different subversive strategies, all of which work ultimately to their advantage. On the whole, this study argues that female subversion in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior is effected through various media, including sex and the body, racial differentiation, education, silence, community engagement, political activity, and family reconciliation.
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Anthony, Loren Estelle. "Buried narratives : representations of pregnancy and burial in South African farm novels." Diss., 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/17825.
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This dissertation examines the way in which South African colonial texts may be
read for the historical signs they inadvertently reveal. The history of land
acquisition in South Africa may be read through the representation of burial and
illegitimate pregnancy in South African farm novels. Both burial and illegitimate
pregnancy are read as signifiers of illegitimacy in the texts, surfacing, by indirection,
the question of the illegitimacy of land acquisition in South Africa. The South
African farm novel offers a representational form which seeks (or fails) to mediate
the question of land ownership and the relationship between colon and indigene. In
the four texts under discussion, Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm,
Florence Ethel Mills Young's The Bywonner[sic], Pauline Smith's The Beadle and
Daphne Rooke's Mittee, the representation of burial and illegitimate pregnancy is
problematic and marked by narrative displacements and discursive breakdowns.
KEY TERMS burial, colonial discourse, farm novel, illegitimacy, illegitimate
pregnancy, land, postcolonial theory, representation<br>English<br>M.A. (English)
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Glisson, Silas Nease. "Cultural nationalism and colonialism in nineteenth-century Irish horror fiction." Thesis, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/16852.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis will explore how writers of nineteenth-century Irish horror fiction,
namely short stories and novels, used their works to express the social, cultural, and political
events of the period. My thesis will employ a New Historicist approach to discuss the effects
of colonialism on the writings, as well as archetypal criticism to analyse the mythic origins of
the relevant metaphors. The structuralism of Tzvetan Todorov will be used to discuss the
notion of the works' appeal as supernatural or possibly realistic works. The theory of
Mikhail Bakhtin is used to discuss the writers' linguistic choices because such theory focuses
on how language can lead to conflicts amongst social groups.
The introduction is followed by Chapter One, "Ireland as England's Fantasy." This
chapter discusses Ireland's literary stereotype as a fantasyland. The chapter also gives an
overview of Ireland's history of occupation and then contrasts the bucolic, magical Ireland of
fiction and the bleak social conditions of much of nineteenth-century Ireland.
Chapter Two, "Mythic Origins", analyses the use of myth in nineteenth-century horror
stories. The chapter discusses the merging of Christianity and Celtic myth; I then discuss the
early Irish belief in evil spirits in myths that eventually inspired horror literature.
Chapter Three, "Church versus Big House, Unionist versus Nationalist," analyses
how the conflicts of Church/Irish Catholicism vs. Big House/Anglo-Irish landlordism, proBritish
Unionist vs. pro-Irish Nationalist are manifested in the tales. In this chapter, I argue
that many Anglo-Irish writers present stern anti-Catholic attitudes, while both Anglo-Irish
and Catholic writers use the genre as political propaganda. Yet the authors tend to display
Home Rule or anti-Home Rule attitudes rather than religious loyalties in their stories.
The final chapter of the thesis, "A Heteroglossia of British and Irish Linguistic and
Literary Forms," deals with the use of language and national literary styles in Irish literature
of this period. I discuss Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia and its applications to the Irish
novel; such a discussion because nineteenth-century Ireland was linguistically Balkanised,
with Irish Gaelic, Hibemo-English, and British English all in use. This chapter is followed by
a conclusion.<br>English<br>M. Lit. et Phil. (English)
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Cruddas, Leora Anne. "Labyrinths, legends, legions: an allergory of reading." Thesis, 1996. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24311.
Full textAbstract:
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Arts in Engiish.<br>This dissertation grapples With the activity of critical production. It answers
not to an interpretation which would constitute the writer within the
institutionalised category of effect and object of knowledge, but rather to an
explosion, a proliferation of critical paths at the limit of the doxa: a veritable
labyrinth.
The terms of my title open up a methodological field within which I enact the
play of associations, contiguities, relations among four texts: The Name of
the Rose, lost. in the Funhouse, The Naked Lunch and 'The library of
Babel'. The terms themselves disseminate across the text argument
in citations, references, echoes. The labyrinth is used throughout as a trope
which deconstructs its own performance within the text. Legends are
myths, inscriptions on maps, legenda or "things for reading" (through an
etymological supplement), "lesser libraries." Barthes cites the biblical words
of the man possessed by demons: "My name is Legion for we are many"
and demonstrates how the demonlacal plural brings with it fundamental
changes in reading strategies.
The notion of the demoniacal plural is used to problernatlse the debates
around subjectivity. The belief in unitary, rational selfhood is debunked and
the subject is Seen to be plural, irreducible, heterogenous. Subjectivity is
further problernatlsed by demonstrating the slippage among the labyrinthine
multiplicity of discursive positions occupied by readers: the monoloqlcal
models of meaning developed from each reading position constantly shift.
The discursive position recuperated and sanctioned by the Law or the
institution is impossible to maintain as Subjects are seduced by language
into confrontation with other positions through their continuous renarnings of
each other. Subjectivity and discursive positioning form .their own
labyrinthine intentionality.
The argument then moves towards an exploration of the current calculation
of the subject for the writer. (Distinctions between author and critic begin to
collapse here since meaning is shown to be governed by neither). The
reading\writing subject strolls in a vast labyrinth of text - a postmodern
flaneur who frustrates the work of exegesis by enacting the play of the
signifier. The line traced by this hypothetical traveller does not engender a
definitive theoretical or discursive map of the domain but rather a contingent
and highly provisional, backward turning path.
The demoniacal plural is also used to problematise notions of an original
and innovative critical voice which "speaks" the dissertation. The logic
regulating the argument is the already-written, The dissertation plavs with
each text (both critical texts and fictions) looking for a practice which
reproduces them but in another place.
My imagined (ideal?) reader wmtreat the argument as that Which. lt was not
simply meant to be,will. follow.the argument and be seduced by it: an
echoing. structure with dead ends, wrong turns, false entrances fictitious
exits; misleading threads and deceptive lines,<br>AC 2018
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Hurley, Martin. "And the Word was made Flesh : Anthropomorphism in the poetry of W.H. Auden." Diss., 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/22171.
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And the Word Was Made Flesh: Anthropomorphism in the poetry of WH Auden examines the reasons for the neglect of Auden’s prolific deployment of anthropomorphism by examining the poetry’s critical reception with a view to understanding what larger purpose, what ‘strategy of discourse’ (Ricoeur 2003, The Rule of Metaphor: 5-9), Auden may have had in mind when he revived a trope traditionally regarded as retrograde.
Anxious not to be mistaken for a Modern, yet unable to find a social rhetoric to suit his purposes, Auden elected upon a new style of poetry which questioned the very foundations of language by placing anthropomorphism, the ascription of agency and sentience to voiceless entities, at its centre. The study explores anthropomorphism from historical and theoretical perspectives in an attempt to explain the reasons for its demise, at least, within the academy.
This study emphasises the importance Auden placed on the everyday activity of reading, the principal focus for the poet’s ‘cultural theory’ (Boly 1991 and 2004: 138). Auden, 'eager to create a tradition of its own' (Emig 2000: 1), abjuring propaganda, hoped to educate the reader to resist the different ideologies which were vying for ascendency during the 1930s. This study will demonstrate that anthropomorphism, with its capacity to suggest alternative words to ‘re-describe reality’ (Ricoeur 2003: 5), played a pivotal role in Auden’s project for cultural renewal.
This study demonstrates that the lasting benefit of Auden’s use of anthropomorphism is to have recognised with prescience what critics now recognise as a 'revolutionary and potently counter-cultural tactic of cultural appropriation' (Paxson 1994: 173), a trope that 'engenders within its semiotic structure a hidden critique of Western culture' (Paxson: 50). Evidence from recent linguistic theory is marshalled in support of the trope’s rehabilitation.
This study examines a selection of Auden’s four hundred published poems, and it also offers a provisional taxonomy to initiate the complex process of classifying instances of personification and its co-ordinate tropes in poetry.<br>English Studies<br>M.A. (English)
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Martini, Allesandro. "Norms for the evaluation of literature focusing primarily on the Frankfurt School." Diss., 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18637.
Full textAbstract:
Critical Theory, as posited by members of The Frankfurt School, was evaluated with the
objective of attaching an implied ethical dimension. This was discovered in their
privileging of a particular type of aesthetic, as evinced in their analysis of certain works
of autonomous High Modernism. This implied ethic, which is one based around the
concept of enlightenment as potential for emancipation, was then applied as a norm for
the evaluation of art. This ethic, however, does not seek to impose a particular reading on
(specifically) literary production: Rather, it seeks to impart the importance of a
commitment by the literary critic in the use of an ethically based norm, an ethic, what is
more, that is based and supported by a discussion of the concepts 'freedom' and
Enlightenment. Finally, with this ethic firmly established, the discussion then attempted
to distinguish between modernism and post-modernism, using this implied ethic as a
guide to separation.<br>Afrikaans & Theory of Literature<br>M.A. (Theory of Literature)
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Slabbert, Mathilda. "Inventions and transformations : an exploration of mythification and remythification in four contemporary novels." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2267.
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The reading of four contemporary novels, namely: Credo by Melvyn Bragg, The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett, Everything You Need by A.L. Kennedy and American Gods by Neil Gaiman explores the prominent position of mythification and remythification in contemporary literature. The discussion of Bragg's novel examines the significance of Celtic mythology and folklore and to what extent it influenced Christian mythology on the British Isles and vice versa. The presentation of the transition from a cyclical, pagan to a linear, Christian belief system is analysed. My analysis of Bennett's novel supports the observation that political myth as myth transformed contains elements and qualities embodied by sacred myths and investigates the relevance of Johan Degenaar's observation that "[p]ostmodernism emphasises the fact that myth is an ambiguous phenomenon" and practices an attitude of "eternal vigilance" (1995: 47), as is evident in the main protagonist's dispassionate stance. My reading of Kennedy's novel explores the bond that myth creates between the artist and the audience and argues that the writer as myth creator fulfils a restorative function through the mythical and symbolic qualities embedded in literature. Gaiman's novel American Gods focuses on the function of meta/multi-mythology in contemporary literature (especially the fantasy genre) and on what these qualities reveal about a society and its concerns and values. The thesis contemplates how in each case the original myths were substituted, modulated or transfigured to be presented as metamyth or myth transformed.
The analysis shows that myth can be used in various ways in literature: as the data or information that is recreated and transformed in the creative process to establish a common matrix of stories, symbols, images and motifs which represents a bond between the author and the reader in terms of the meaning-making process; to facilitate a spiritual enrichment in a demythologized world and for its restorative abilities. The study is confirmed by detailed mythical reference.<br>English Studies<br>(D. Litt. et Phil. (English))
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Mitras, Joao Luis. "Postmodern or post-Catholic? : a study of British Catholic writers and their fictions in a postmodern and postconciliar world." Diss., 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18636.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the 'postmodern' narrative strategies and fictional
methods in the work of two British Catholic writers. The work of David Lodge and Muriel Spark is
here taken as an example ofthe 'Catholic novel'. In order to determine ifthe overlap ofpostmodern.
and Christian-influenced narrative strategies constitutes more than a convergence or coincidence of
formal concerns, narrative form in these novels is analyzed in the light of neo-Tho mist and Tho mist
aesthetics, a traditional Catholic Christian theory of the arts. The 'postmodern' in these 'Christian'
texts becomes largely a coincidence of terminology. Narrative forms which can be classified as
'postmodern' can also be categorized using the terminology of Thomas Aquinas. The apparent
similarities betray radically divergent metaphysical presuppositions, however. The nature of the
Catholic 'difference' lies in the way postmodern forms are used to challenge the metaphysical
bases of those forms.<br>English Studies<br>M.A. (English)