Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Heian literature'

Considerada ainda na antiguidade como a \"ancestral de todas as narrativas monogatari\", Taketori monogatari é a obra mais antiga de seu gênero. Escrita provavelmente entre os séculos IX e X, a narrativa conta a trajetória da personagem Kaguyahime, desde que foi encontrada pelo personagem que dá título à obra até a ocasião em que é levada de volta para o mundo de onde veio. Os acontecimentos que se desenrolam a partir da corte amorosa empreendida por cinco pretendentes que desejam se casar com ela ocupam considerável espaço na narrativa. Esse arco é considerado pelos estudiosos japoneses como exclusivo de Taketori monogatari, não constando em nenhum outro registro anterior da lenda. A partir desta hipótese e amparados pelo trabalho de Roland Barthes, propusemos uma reflexão sobre a construção do discurso pretensamente amoroso nessa parte em que se acredita vislumbrar o ineditismo da obra.
Regarded as \"the ancestor of all monogatari narratives\" since Classical Japan, Taketori monogatari is the most ancient piece of work in monogatari genre. Written probably between the 9th and 10th centuries, the narrative tells the story of Kaguyahime, from the moment she was found by the character whose name is in the title of the narrative until she is taken back to her homeland. The episodes starred by the five noble men who wish to marry her occupy the most of the narrative and are thought, by the Japanese scholars, to be exclusively Taketori monogatari author\'s creation. Considering the Japanese scholars\' view and supported by Roland Barthes\'s treatise on amorous discourse, we aimed to expose the way the discourse spoken by Kaguyahime and her suitors is built in those supposedly romantic episodes.

The thesis is set against the backdrop of literary Chinese as the cosmopolitan written language across East Asia and examines two contemporary literary Chinese writers in the ninth century: Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn from Silla Korea and Sugawara no Michizane from Heian Japan. Though composition in Chinese characters on the peninsula and the archipelago was ancient, a high-water mark within this community appeared in the ninth century. At that time, literary Chinese was embraced by mainstream literati as the medium for poetry and prose, and competent composition in this international written language came to have political as well as cultural significance. The importance of Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn and Sugawara no Michizane as the great masters of Chinese letters in Korea and Japan derives in part from their talents and in part from the social and political acceptance of Chinese. This comparative research primarily draws inspiration from Sheldon Pollock's comparison of the Sanskrit cosmopolis and the Latin cosmopolis. Pollock describes the Latin cosmopolis as coercive and the Sanskrit cosmopolis as voluntaristic. I argue that the history of literary Chinese in East Asia provides a third cosmo-political model for the history of interactions among language, literature, and cultural and military power. The literary Chinese cosmopolis can be characterized not as coercive or voluntaristic but as hegemonic. I compare Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn and Sugawara no Michizane for their cosmopolitan identities, transnational experiences, and diglossic worlds. Though there is debate over the appropriateness of the terms "diglossia," "Chinese cosmopolis," and "Sinographic cosmopolis" to describe the world in which Ch'oe and Michizane lived, I argue in favor of "literary Chinese cosmopolis," because I pay attention to the common grammar, syntax, and other linguistic features one must bear in mind when composing in literary Chinese (as opposed to reading). Localism produced vernaculars, but the unity of the community was based on composition in a cosmopolitan language. That cosmopolitan language was literary Chinese, a hyperglossic language, a language that allowed universal communication in East Asia. Intersecting with various disciplines and bringing several critical fields into conversation, this work contests and refreshes a series of key issues at the heart of discussions on globalization, namely the intrinsic relationship between language and power. How does cultural power emerge from language? How does writing in a "foreign" script articulate ethnic, local identities? As a meditation on language politics, ethics, and the historical situation of an earlier cosmopolitan ecumene (ninth century CE), this work will, I hope, offer insights into the specificities and mechanisms of a past cosmopolitan era in East Asia, even as it establishes a broader historical and ethical context for contemporary debates on globalization.

The dominant part of the research on the “Yûgao” (The Twilight Beauty) story of the Japanese eleventh-century classic the Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is philological and often excludes a general literary analysis. This story has also been related to Japanese and Chinese literary influences, thereby placing the text in its literary context. The present study is an attempt to relate it more to theories to which it has hitherto been unrelated and thereby formulate a descriptive stylistics in a decontextual perspective. This aim also includes a look at how the theories confronted with the “Yûgao” story may be affected. First I introduce the problematics of context versus decontext by means of a survey of metapoetical texts about the monogatari (tale, narrative) genre with special regard to the Genji Monogatari. Next I analyze the characters and the setting, primarily using a narratological method. This is followed by an analysis of the story’s themes and motives. Chapter 5 looks at compositional elements, while the starting-point for the succeeding chapter is the interpretation of the “Yûgao” story as more or less a fairytale, and thus not as advanced  a narrative as the latter part of the work. I shall, in contrast, argue that there are quite a few aspects of this story that do not fit into the model of the folktale. In Chapter 7 decontextualization as a concept turns from the story as such to address another concept, namely metaphor. Here the meaning of metaphor is expanded in order to include concepts that are not necessarily seen as such. Subsequently, I investigate the symbolic system surrounding the moonflower (yûgao) image. Lastly, the concept of decontext is taken a step further to survey how the genre of the Genji Monogatari has been transformed in the process of translation into the Tale of Genji. The main conclusion is that the “Yûgao” story combines tragic themes with comic motifs to build a symbolic narrative with characters hovering between roles.

A história da Alemanha foi profundamente marcada por fatos como a queda do Muro de Berlim (1989) e a Reunificação do país (1990). Desde então, as representações artísticas não poderiam deixar de retratar esses acontecimentos e suas consequências. Entre elas, a literatura e o cinema alemães têm se ocupado em vários momentos de tais fatos históricos e das mudanças deles decorrentes. De todas as vertentes literárias e cinematográficas que se destacaram nestas últimas duas décadas, a memorialística, ou seja, a preocupação em resgatar e preservar a memória nacional e pessoal as lembranças coletivas e individuais, e também familiares tem se mostrado presente e significativa em suas produções. Relembrar o passado pode ser uma forma não apenas de analisá-lo e compreendê-lo melhor como também de manter vivas certas figuras (entes queridos) através das lembranças. A narrativa assume, portanto, um importante papel ao combater a morte e tudo o que ela representa: superando a perda, procurando evitar o esquecimento e ensinando a aceitar as transformações, a fim de realizar o trabalho do luto. As obras analisadas nesta tese se encaixam de algum modo na categoria acima e oferecem elementos históricos e narrativos que estabelecem um diálogo entre elas, tornando possível um estudo comparativo. Embora se trate de duas obras independentes: um livro de Jakob Hein Vielleicht ist es sogar schön (2004) e de um filme de Wolfgang Becker Good bye, Lenin! (2003) os quais não originaram um ao outro, é possível encontrar pontes (elementos comuns) que as aproximam. Deste modo, o objetivo desta tese é analisar a estrutura narrativa das obras, verificando o papel do narrador, as questões históricas e o tema da morte no livro e no filme. Para tanto, foram usados como fundamento teórico essencialmente os textos de Todorov, Genette, Bordwell, Bandeira, Freud.
The history of Germany was deeply marked by facts like the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the Reunification of the country (1990). Since then, the depicting of these events and their consequences has not been left out by artistic representations. Among those, German literature and cinema, at various moments, have been concerned with such historical facts and the changes originated with them. Of all the literary and cinematographic trends which have stood out in the last two decades, the memorialistic one, i.e. the concern with retrieving and preserving both national and personal memory the collective and individual recollections, and family ones as well has been present and significant in its productions. Remembering the past may be a way to analyze and better understand it as well as keeping certain figures (beloved ones) alive through memories. Therefore, narrative takes a very important part in fighting death and everything it represents: overcoming loss, trying to avoid oblivion, and teaching how to accept changes, in order to fulfill the elaboration of mourning. The works analyzed in this thesis somehow fit the category above and provide historical and narrative elements which establish a dialogue between them, making a comparative study possible. Although these are two independent works: a book by Jakob Hein Vielleicht ist es sogar schön (2004) and a film by Wolfgang Becker Good bye, Lenin! (2003) which have not originated each other, it is possible to find bridges (common elements) which bring them close together. Thus, the objective of this thesis is to analyze the narrative structure of the works, studying the role of the narrator, the historical questions, and the theme of death in both the book and the film. To achieve that, texts by Todorov, Genette, Bordwell, Bandeira, Freud were used as theoretical basis.

Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Herman Melville (1819-1891) remains a recalcitrant and enigmatic presence in the Western canon. This dissertation explores the radical narrative strategies engaged by Melville in the composition of his prose fictions. It is my contention that Melville's writings to an important degree constitute a subversive response to the privileged apocalyptic and teleological narratives of the day-national, ontological, metaphysical, and literary, or aesthetic-and that he primarily engages these narratives in terms of the archetypal symbolism of the romantic quest. Against this linear and goal-oriented, or plotted, progress, Melville's own narratives assert the nonredemptive forces of time, change, and natural flux, which the quest is symbolically meant to conquer and subject to a redemptive pattern. Melville's critique of the quest takes the shape of a radical fragmentation of its agonistic, evolutionary force-its progress-which is always directed towards a resolvent end. In this sense, most of his protagonists may be defined as questers, characters who seek, by some (individuating) action, to achieve a monumental point of closure. But the Melvillean narrative (even when narrated by the protagonist) always resists this intention. His rhetoric is digressive and improvisational, his style heterogeneous and parodic, and his endings always indeterminate and equivocal. Significantly, this same quality renders his prose fictions highly resistant to an apocalyptic hermeneutics that strives to redeem the monumental "meaning" of the work from the narrative itself. The destabilising questions raised in Melville's work with regard to redemptive plot and progress ultimately centre on the idea of Providence, in other words, the authorising telos that informs, governs and justifies the quest. By fragmenting this quest, Melville undermines the effective presence of Providence, clearing away what he perceives to be an illusion of control harboured in a dual but related image of the providential God and the providential author as external, "metaphysical" authorities directing their worlds in terms of a master plan toward final and meaningful closure. Melville's fiction, then, imaginatively (and philosophically) engages a world in which such stable authorising centres are absent. It is in terms of this absence that I intend to examine the nature of Melville's prose fictions. The focus in this dissertation is specifically on Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, White-Jacket, Pierre, Israel Potter and The Confidence-Man. Throughout, however, the canonical Moby-Dick and the unfinished and posthumous Billy Budd, are also drawn into the discussion in order to clarify and extend the points raised.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Herman Melville (1819-1891) bly 'n weerspannige en enigmatiese aanwesigheid in die Westerse kanon. Hierdie verhandeling ondersoek die radikale narratiewe strategiëe wat deur Melville ingespan is tydens die komposisie van sy fiksie in prosa. Ek gaan van die standpunt uit dat Melville se werk tot 'n groot mate gedefinieer word deur 'n ondermynende reaksie teen die bevoorregte apokaliptiese en teleologiese narratiewe diskoerse van sy tyd-nasionaal, ontologies, metafisies, en literêr, of esteties-en dat hy hoofsaaklik hierdie diskoerse ondersoek in terme van die argetipiese simboliek van die romantiese soektog of "quest." Teenoor hierdie lineêre en doelgerigte, of beraamde ("plotted"), vooruitgang, beklemtoon Melville se eie verhale die nie-verlossende kragte van tyd, verandering, en natuurlike stroming, dit wat die "quest" simbolies beoog om te oorwin en onderwerp aan 'n verlossings-patroon. Melville se kritiese beoordeling van die "quest" neem die vorm aan van 'n radikale fragmentering van die opposisionele, evolusionêre krag---die progressie-wat altyd op 'n beslissende slot gerig is. In hierdie sin kan ons die meerderheid van sy protagoniste as soekers ("questers") definieer, karakters wat poog, deur middel van die een of ander (individuerende) handeling, om 'n monumentale slot te behaal. Maar die Melvilliese verhaal (selfs wanneer deur die protagonis vertel) werk altyd dié voorneme teë. Sy retorika is uitwydend en improvisatories, sy styl heterogeen en parodies, en sy slotte altyd onbeslis en dubbelsinnig. Dit is aanmerklik dat hierdie einste eienskap sy fiksie hoogs weerstandig maak teen 'n apokaliptiese hermeneutiek wat poog om die monumentale "betekenis" van die werk uit die narratief self te herwin of "verlos." Die ondergrawende vrae wat in Melville se werk ten opsigte van die beslissende verloop ("plot") en progressie geopper word word uiteindelik grotendeels gekoppel aan die idee van die Voorsienigheid, met ander woorde, die outoriserende telos wat die "quest" beïnvloed, regeer en regverdig. Deur die "quest" te fragmenteer, ondermyn Melville die effektiewe teenwoordigheid van die Voorsienigheid, en verwyder daarmee dit wat hy ervaar as 'n illusie van beheer wat behoue bly in die dubbele beeld van die bestierende God en die bestierende outeur as eksterne, "metafisiese" outoriteite wat hulle wêrelde in terme van 'n uitgewerkte plan na 'n finale en betekenisvolle einde lei. Melville se fiksie, dus, op verbeeldingsryke (en filosofiese) wyse, stel 'n wêreld daar waarin sulke outoriserende sentra afwesig is. Dit is in terme van hierdie afwesigheid wat ek beoog om die aard van Melville se fiksies te ondersoek. Hierdie verhandeling fokus op Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, White-Jacket, Pierre, Israel Potter en The Confidence-Man. Die kanonieke Moby-Dick en die onvoltooide en postume Billy Budd word egter deurgaans in die bespreking opgeneem ter wille van die duidelikheid en uitbreiding van die argument.

In 1901, Alice Hegan Rice, a wealthy socialite reformer, published the novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch which dealt her experiences working with the poor. By the end of 1902 her novel had become a national phenomenon and finished the decade as one of its five bestselling books. Though the novel was fictional in nature, the book’s heroine, Mrs. Wiggs, was based on the life of a real woman, who inhabited the one of the poorest neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky at the turn of the twentieth-century, a slum known as the Cabbage Patch. Shortly after the book’s publication it became well-advertised that Mary Bass, a widowed mother of five children living in poverty in the Cabbage Patch, was the prototype for the beloved character of Mrs. Wiggs and subsequently and quite undesirably became fetishized by an overenthusiastic public. Mary Bass would end up suing Alice Hegan Rice for libel. The Bass/Rice story supplies an uncommon historical opportunity to analyze the portrayal of poverty in popular fiction in the Progressive Era United States and the classist values behind those representations.

abstract: Japanese literature of the Heian Era (794-1185) abounds with references to musical instruments and episodes of performance. This thesis provides some insight into that music by translating sections of the "Wakana II" (Spring Shoots II) chapter of the early 11th-century novel Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). It explains the musical references and shows how, in the context of the novel, musical performance, musical teaching, and interpersonal relationships were inextricably intertwined. Detailed appendices provide background on traditional Japanese musical instruments, musical theory, and related subjects.
Dissertation/Thesis
M.A. Asian Languages and Civilizations 2013

This thesis presents a study of the political aesthetics arising from the ideological systems that motivated Yoshishige no Yasutane and Kamo no Chmei to write the “Chiteiki” (“Record of a Pond Pavilion,” 982) and “Hjki” (“Account of My Hut,” 1212) respectively. In order t arrive at a point where I can investigate political aesthetics, I begin by examining the recluse tradition: first in China: focusing on Confucian and Buddhist thought systems, and Taoist regard for nature; and then in Japan, where the Chinese recluse tradition was syncretized and changed within Japan’s own indigenous ideologies. I then examine the T’ang dynasty’s Po ChU-i (772—846) as a Chinese model of reclusion for Japanese writers such as Yasutane and Chmei. The second and third steps of my research investigate the dominant political and religious ideologies of the Late Heian (897—1185) and Early Kamakura (1185—1249) periods. Such an examination entails a comparative look at the various intertextual sources that fed the “Chiteiki” and “Hjciki”: Po Chti-i’s “Ts’ao-t’ang Chi” (“Record of the Thatched Abode,” 817) and “Ch’ih-shang p’ien” (“Around My Pond,” 829), and Minamoto no Kaneakira’s “Chiteiki” (960). The last section of this thesis takes a somewhat experimental approach, by setting up the problem of genre. Each of the authors I investigate wrote about his garden or surroundings, and I set out to explore the landscape traditions that contributed to these authors’ undertakings. In so doing, I examine the idea of the landscape as microcosm, and the literary devices that Yasutane and Chmei utilize in order to move us through their literary spaces. In conclusion, I reach an impasse, with a conflict of historicization versus de historicization, and new questions about the consciousness of the recluse and his free will in choice. These findings require future research.

碩士
淡江大學
日本語文學系碩士在職專班
106
This paper is based on information on the ancient literatures of China, Japan, and Korea, and it includes analytical results of archaeological materials from China and Japan. In addition to comparing Chinese literary works from relevant historical periods and discourse concerning the formation of the image of the “mandarin orange” in ancient Japanese literature as having a mythological characteristic of “immortality,” this paper also discusses the process by which this image was transformed into one related to human life that was then passed on through the Nara Period to the Heian Period, from the Man''yōshū to the Shin Kokin Wakashū. This study also addresses the poetic imagery associated with the mandarin orange in waka (Japanese poems) and its relationship with story development within The Tale of Genji and The Izumi Shikibu Diary, two representative works of mainstream female literature in the Heian Period. In the myths of Kiki(the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki),, the mandarin orange is an exotic fruit brought back from Tokoyo no Kuni (the Land of Immortality); however, the association of Tokoyo no Kuni with the origin of the mandarin orange has long been overlooked. For this reason, the author has chosen to address this topic; regardless of the variety of edible mandarin orange involved, the imagery given to “mandarin orange that truly exist in literature” serves as the basis for discussion in this paper. In the first section, this paper discusses the establishment of the literary image of the mandarin orange. In this section, the author consult sources and infers that the birthplace of the concept of the immortal characteristics of the mandarin orange was the ancient Chinese state of Shu. In the second section, this paper studies the transformation of the imagery associated with the mandarin orange from mythological imagery to imagery related to humans, whereby mandarin orange symbolize eternal prosperity. Research shows that the poets of the Man''yōshū represent an extension of the consciousness of previous generations in appreciating the beauty of the pure white flower; the mandarin orange blossom represents the noble identity of women. Furthermore, marriage in ancient Japan was polygynous, and as such, the mandarin orange blossom and cuckoo are intertwined to denote the moods of the one who waits (mandarin blossom) and the one who is waited upon (cuckoo). Finally, this section reexamines the reasons that the association of the mandarin orange with the cuckoo does not occur in Chinese poetry. In the third section, this paper discusses the appearance of mandarin orange in poems of farewell in Quan Tangshi (Complete Tang Poetry) and the imagery of reminiscence related to the scent of mandarin orange in Japanese waka. While the imperial examination system of the Tang dynasty influenced the Chinese poems of farewell in relation to mandarin orange, the reminiscence associated with mandarin orange in Japanese waka stemmed from the impermanence of life associated with mandarin orange. After the Kokin Wakashū, Japanese poets used their literary works to impart a new life to the past; the unchanged aromas of mandarin blossom resist the impermanence of life and alter unalterable realities. In the fourth section, the view of impermanence and the idea of rebirth in female literature of the Heian Period is explored in the The Tale of Genji and The Izumi Shikibu Diary. In The Tale of Genji, male characters always attached to thoughts women with whom they have previously been in relationships, and so the author Murasaki Shikibu allows “stand-ins” for the departed female characters to reunite with male characters. The process by which the image of reminiscence derived from the mandarin orange yields a concept of rebirth follows the sequence: mandarin orange (blossom) scent – reminiscence – emotions towards impermanence – generation of the idea of rebirth. However, the marriage system in this work is the same as that in reality, meaning that the image of rebirth collapses as the story develops, leaving the image of reminiscence and impermanence. In The Izumi Shikibu Diary, with regard to Izumi Shikibu, who was tricked by fate, the mandarin orange blossom season might be a good season to find new romance. As such, divorcing literary spaces from reality can be considered a form of resistance to the impermanence of romance. In summary, this paper examines the imagery associated with the mandarin orange, the symbol of eternally unchanged leaves, whose flowers represent the beauty of young women, the scent of whose flowers causes people to reminisce on the past, and the falling of whose blossoms causes people to ponder impermanence. Falling flowers represent a strong prelude; if the fruit represents an offering for the prosperity of future generations, then the falling flowers are a necessary part of raising new generations. The image of rebirth indicated by the “stand-ins” in the stories examined here are only temporary, dramatic images. As the story ends, this image of rebirth collapses and disappears.

This dissertation seeks to explore possible relationships between literature—poetry, in particular—and royal patronage. More specifically, I am here interested in examining the remarkable efflorescence of Sinitic poetry (kanshi) during the reign of Emperor Saga (786-842, r. 809-823), as well as some of its later developments in the private poetry collections of Shimada Tadaomi (828-891) and his pupil Sugawara no Michizane (845-903). The history of Sinitic poetry composed in Japan has been meticulously studied; there is certainly no dearth of research, either in Japanese or in English. Even so, the early ninth century remains somewhat of a mystery. A total of three imperially commissioned anthologies (chokusenshū) of Sinitic poetry and prose were compiled during this time, along with an imperial history—all of which were the direct product of Saga’s personal patronage. Much of his own poetry has been preserved in these anthologies. Despite the existence of hundreds of Sinitic poems, and a contemporary history (also in Sinitic), scholars tend to shy away from this period. This dissertation is an attempt to remedy that situation. As a means of facilitating a broader appreciation of Saga, I have included some material on King Alfred the Great (849-899, r. 871-899), the most well-known Anglo-Saxon king, and oft-celebrated father of the English nation, who was a near contemporary of Saga. Naturally, I have also interwoven some material on Emperor Taizong (598-649, r. 626-649) of the Tang dynasty, whose influence on ninth-century Sinitic poetry (in Japan) has been the focus of some past research. Scholars of East Asian literature, whether they specialize in Chinese or Japanese literature, are familiar with the grand literary and political legacy of this continental sovereign. Both Saga’s poetry as well as his ideal of sovereignty were influenced by the work of Taizong and his lettered vassals. A central assumption informs this work: ninth-century poetry was inevitably political, insofar as it served as a tool whereby authors could enforce or manipulate prevalent power relations within the court. Poetry, therefore, was both dominated by and exercised significant influence over hierarchical networks of patronage. Poetry was also occasional performative, that is, it was recited aloud on public occasions—royal banquets or excursions—before an audience of vassals and courtiers. Saga, as supreme ruler and patron, composed poetry that sought, through its presentation at these banquets, to repeatedly legitimate his own position, while simultaneously appealing to a number of different audiences. Different audiences harbored different expectations, and Saga, adroit politician that he was, strove to please each in turn by adopting a number of poetic voices or personae. This is especially evident after his retirement, when he found it necessary to adopt a different poetic persona more appropriate to his less prominent station. Tadaomi and Michizane, as recognized scholars, loyal vassals, and influential statesmen, received patronage from both sovereigns and high-ranking noblemen. These complex networks of patronage and varied audiences demanded the creation of ever more subtle poetic personae. This dissertation, among other things, is an exploration of how poets of the ninth century adopted different poetic personae in accordance with their intended audiences. The deliberate mixing of various Sinitic genres to achieve this end receives a great deal of attention.

This Master Thesis is an interdisciplinary case study that examines physical sexual violence in the form of female displacement in Murasaki Shikibu’s eleventh-century Japanese masterpiece, The Tale of Genji. By investigating several cases ranging from spatial relocation to abduction and kidnapping involving four major Genji heroines, Utsusemi, Yūgao, Murasaki and Ukifune, I define violent displacement as an autonomous act of sexual violence by which a male character removes a female character from her initial location to a place of his choice. The man’s motivations are predominantly related to gaining sexual access to the woman’s body or ensuring control over her. Often such cases of displacement occur in the same context as other cases of physical sexual violence, such as forced sexual intercourse, which they may precede and facilitate, but rarely do they constitute mere preludes to more severe acts of sexual violence. I have posited several hypotheses about displacement, such as differences in rank and status between the protagonists, the man’s violation of standard courtship procedures, and the reactions by the woman and her female entourage. With these criteria, I have interpreted episodes of displacement in the female author’s tale, with particular emphasis on her choice of words and narrative techniques. I have supplemented textual analysis by examining the history of motifs in Genji illustrations by artists who interpreted these displacement episodes very differently or not at all. I conclude that the discourse on sexual violence in The Tale of Genji cannot be limited to the incidents involving forced sexual intercourse. The presence of female displacement indicates that sexual violence in the tale is not an accidental occurrence, but a topos carefully constructed by Murasaki Shikibu and strategically placed within the context of the tale.

This dissertation examines literary texts published in the 1980s which confront the loss of individuality and self-identity in GDR society: Der fremde Freund (1982) and Der Tangospieler (1989) by Christoph Hein, and Flugasche (1981) and Die Uberlauferin (1986) by Monika Maron. The dissertation shows that whereas Hein's texts don't construct a fundamental antagonism between individual and society, Maron's novels increasingly reveal the attack on individuality in socialist society. Chapters one and two consider the background of the texts of the eighties: the socialist ideology of the "self" and the GDR 'counter tradition' of non-conformist characters. Chapter three, an analysis of Der fremde Freund, reads Christoph Hein's main character as an "ohnmachtiges Ich," unable to cure her almost silenced self. Both the damaged self and the society's "unaufgearbeitete" fascist past become destructive if they are neglected and denied, and it is necessary to acknowledge the social and psychosocial past in order to cure the individual and his/her society. Chapter four is an analysis of Der Tangospieler. The tango player is a historian unable to think historically, a lack the text considers (self)destructive. Hein's historian functions as metaphor for a socialist society that has forgotten its own historical mission. Chapter five, an analysis of Flugasche, shows a "rebellisches Ich" who succeeds in resisting her own tendency to become fully conformist. The origin of a "crisis of the self" can be located in the actions of the individual who is simultaneously victim and his/her own enemy. Chapter six, an analysis of Die Uberlauferin, shows that Maron's depiction of a destroyed self in her second novel becomes the starting point for her vision of a healed self. But here Maron disengages from the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the "socialist individual." The dissertation concludes that Maron's rejection of socialist realist narrative techniques and conventions can be read as an indication of the author's conviction that socialist ideology and/or its practice destroys individuality. Hein, in contrast, continues (in 1989) to believe in the capability of GDR society to be reformed.