Dissertations / Theses: 'Heroic virtue in literature'

1

Hutcheson, Louise. "Rhetorics of martial virtue : mapping Scottish heroic literature c.1600-1660." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5097/.

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This thesis investigates textual cultures of heroism in Scottish literature c. 1600-1660 as evidenced in a corpus of texts engaged with evolving concepts of martial virtue, honour and masculinity. It provides the first sustained analyses of four seventeenth-century romances – Penardo and Laissa (1615) and Prince Robert (1615), both by Patrick Gordon, Sheretine and Mariana (1622) by Patrick Hannay and Calanthrop and Lucilla (1626) by John Kennedy – and their trajectory within a Scottish tradition of writing that was engaged in a fundamental search for its ideal national hero. Over the course of this research, a series of intriguing connections and networks began to emerge which illuminated an active and diverse community of ‘martial writers’ from whom this corpus of texts were conceived. From these pockets of creativity, there emerged a small but significant body of writers who shared not just a military career but often patronage, experience of service in Europe and a literary interest in what I will define in this thesis as the search for post-Union (1603) Scottish male identity. What began as a study of romance texts was prompted to seek new lines of enquiry across a wide and varied body of texts as it sought to engage with a changeable but distinctive thematic discourse of martial heroism, conduct literature for young men disguised as romance. Its findings are by no means always finite; a partly speculative attempt is made to illuminate the path of one particularly pervasive thread of literary discourse – martial virtue – rather than to lay false claims to homogeneity. The nature of this enquiry means that the thesis examines a vast array of texts, including the fictional romances mentioned above and others such as Sir George Mackenzie’s Aretina; Or, the Serious Romance (1660) and John Barclay’s Argenis (1621), non-fictional texts such as Robert Munro’s The Expedition (1638), George Lauder’s The Scottish Soldier (1629) and James Hume’s Pantaleonis Vaticinia Satyra (1633), and their engagement with issues of martial service. It is, in essence, a study of the seventeenth-century Scottish literary hero, sought naturally at first among the epic and fantastical landscapes of fictional romance, but pursued further into the martial world inhabited by its authors, patrons, and, as will be argued, its readers. In mapping this hitherto neglected topic and its related corpus of texts, the thesis identifies a number of potentially characteristic emphases which evince the development of a specifically martial conversation in seventeenth-century Scotland. It foregrounds the re-emergence of feudal narratives of male identity in the wake of the 1603 Union of the Crowns and after the outbreak of Civil and European war, in which the martial warrior of Brucian romance emerges once again as an ideal model of heroism – the natural antithesis to the more (self-evidently) courtly romance narratives produced at the Stuart court in London. Coupled with the inheritance of a late-fifteenth and sixteenth-century poetics which foregrounds reading as an act of moral investment (from which later writers appear to select the specifically reader-focused aspects of Christian Humanism), the erudite soldier and his corresponding literary protagonist begin to emerge as the foremost Scottish hero in a selection of both fictive and non-fictive texts, from vernacular romance to memoirs and chronicles, and in prose fiction. Across this diverse corpus of texts, collective emphases upon the moral investment of reading, exemplar-based use of historical materials and Scotland’s martial past emerge as a shared advisory paradigm, a conduct book of behaviours for the young Scottish male.

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2

Hay, Lucy Arianwen. "Measure as a heroic virtue in early medieval English literature to c. 1200." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.272638.

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3

Marino, Andrew. "Heroic image in three American writers." Thesis, University of Essex, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.304661.

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4

Klevay, Robert. "Puckish ambivalence Thoreau's mock-heroic use of classical literature /." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file, 204 p, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1891601511&sid=5&Fmt=2&clientId=8331&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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5

Qiu, Kui. "Heroic nihilism: Buddhism in the work of Nikos Kazantzakis." The Ohio State University, 1992. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392113274.

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6

McArthur, Kathleen Maureen. "The heroic spirit in the literature of the Great War." Thesis, University of Cape Town, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/23680.

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7

Wright, Rebecca. "Heroic transgressions : female heroism, Suffragette autobiography and the public/private divide." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.480963.

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8

Eccleston, Rachel. "“Princely Feminine Graces”: Virtue and Power in Early Modern English and Spanish Literature." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/23134.

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This project analyzes the intersections between representations of female sovereignty used to promote and rethink feminine virtue in both early modern English and Spanish advice literature and literary texts published in the decade after Queen Elizabeth I’s death. I suggest that the question of women’s sovereignty prompted by the rise of ruling queens in Spain and England influences the prominence of regal women as models of feminine virtue in advice literature and reconceptualizes feminine virtue as a political discourse, forming a new category I term “princely feminine virtue.” Scholarship analyzing the relationship between advice literature and literary works has not recognized England and Spain’s shared indebtedness to princely models to advise and represent feminine virtue. By examining the interplay between feminine virtue, tropes of sovereignty, and the advisory mode in both types of texts, this project emphasizes the widespread potential for women’s exemplary virtue across the social spectrum. In addition to recasting feminine virtue through a princely lens, these texts reveal a shared vision of how performances of feminine virtue are invested with agency and power.

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9

Sussman, Matthew Benjamin. "Stylistic Virtue in Nineteenth-Century Fiction." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11097.

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To many readers, the Victorian novel is synonymous with moral insight and Victorian criticism with moral philistinism. While the novel remains celebrated for its complex treatment of decision-making and sympathy, the evaluative judgments of Victorian critics have been dismissed as thematically reductive and imprecise. However, this study argues that the virtue terms that pervade Victorian discourse--words like "natural," "manly," "lucid," and "sincere"--invest sentence-level stylistic properties with ethical value because they embody aesthetic character. Rather than focus on the novel's action, characters, or themes, these "stylistic virtues" ascribe moral significance to "literariness" itself.

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10

Armstrong, John Melvin 1967. "The politics of virtue in Plato's "Laws"." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288866.

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This dissertation identifies and explains four major contributions of the Laws and related late dialogues to Plato's moral and political philosophy. Chapter 1. I argue that Plato thinks the purpose of laws and other social institutions is the happiness of the city (polis). A happy city is one in which the city's parts, i.e. the citizens, are unified under the rule of intelligence (nous). Unlike the citizens of the Republic, the citizens of the Laws can all share the same true judgments of value, and this unanimity explains the city's unity. Plato thinks that aiming at the city's happiness is justified, moreover, because a unified city contributes to the universe's order. Chapter 2. In the Laws Plato holds that the sick, poor, ugly, weak, but virtuous are happy, and that health, wealth, beauty, and strength benefit the virtuous but harm the vicious. Only in the Laws does Plato commit himself to all these claims simultaneously, and I explain how the ethical psychology of the Laws permits Plato to maintain them coherently. Chapter 3. I argue that, in the Laws, becoming virtuous is the same as becoming like God. Becoming like God does not require escape from the world of change as it does in the Theaetetus, however. Rather, becoming like God requires bringing "measure" or appropriate order to the world of change, especially to those entities over which we have the most control--our own souls. In the Laws, citizens achieve this order as they learn to be just and to understand the nature of reality. Chapter 4. Unlike the Republic and Statesman, the Laws holds that obedience of the citizens to their laws should be effected, if possible, with rational persuasion. I argue that Plato wishes such persuasion to educate the citizens of the reasons for the laws. Understanding the laws' justification is the principal way in which citizens acquire the good judgment necessary for virtue. The city becomes more happy as the citizens progress in virtue, so rational persuasion is a necessary means to the lawgiver's overall aim.

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Elliott, Sean Victor. "The last survivor : heroes and heroic action in the poetry of Robert Lowell." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.294917.

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12

Clark, David. "Vengeance and the heroic ideal in Old English and Old Norse literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.401257.

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13

Wallace, Brian. "Warriors and warfare : ideal and reality in early insular texts." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6434.

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This thesis investigates several key aspects of warfare and its participants in the Viking Age insular world via a comparison of the image which warriors occupy in heroic literature to their concomitant depiction in sources which are primarily nonliterary in character, such as histories, annalistic records, and law codes. Through this method, the thesis seeks to add to the scholarship regarding organized violence in this era in two principle manners. First, this study will depart from nearly all previous studies of warriors by moving beyond a single cultural milieu and treating them in a ‘pan-insular’ context. Second and perhaps more importantly, in choosing to address the heroic literature as a genre distinct from other contemporary texts, this thesis will allow progress beyond the bulk of pre-existing ‘warfare scholarship’ for this era, which tends to utilize any and all manner of sources as a reflection of historical reality. In considering the context of heroic poetry and sagas, the thesis will allow one to make conclusion regarding its likely authorship and intended audience, as well as the goals of the former and expectations of the latter. Studies of warfare are always of particular relevance, due to their intersection with many areas of history long studied, such as constitutional and legal history, as well as those which have only recently received their due attention, such as questions of group cohesion, violence, and community. This thesis was largely inspired by the attempt by Stephen S. Evans to study the institution of the war-band in a crosscultural reference in his 1997 book Lords of Battle. Evans provided a good analysis of this body in its fifth- through eighth-century Anglo-Saxon and British manifestation but failed to achieve his primary stated goal – a comparison of the image and reality of the war-band. His decision to limit his research to the Anglo- Saxon and Welsh cultural spheres in the era predating the first Viking invasions led him to omit much relevant Irish and Insular Norse material, as well as a great deal of later heroic literature. It was with these two shortcomings in mind that I set out to write a more thorough treatment of the war-band. Yet, what began initially as an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of Lords of Battle soon grew into a slightly more wide-ranging study that has moved beyond focussing solely upon the war-band to look at attitudes about warfare and its participants amongst contemporary audiences and authors during the Viking age insular world.

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14

Felce, Ian. "William Morris and the development of a heroic ideal : Old Norse works 1868-1876." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.709075.

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Hale, Terence John. "Virtue and frenzy : the ideological background of French horror writing, 1820-1836." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385455.

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Hodge, Anita Obermeier. "Handmaidens of God : the female figures Judith, Juliana, and Elene in Old English heroic poetry /." View online, 1985. http://repository.eiu.edu/theses/docs/32211130497875.pdf.

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17

Goussias, Giannoula. "Heroes and heroic life in the Iliad and Akritic folk-song /." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1992. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09armg717.pdf.

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18

Nichols, Alicia. "From The Defense of Poesy to Astrophil and Stella: Sidney's Philosophical Ascent to Virtue." University of Toledo Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1418935594.

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19

Young, Mandy Elizabeth. "The writing of revolution and its relation to the heroic with particular reference to Wordsworth and Hegel." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.292318.

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20

Hendrix, Jaime Pedigo. "Passage through the ocean : the female heroic journey in the novels of Anita Desai /." View online, 2008. http://repository.eiu.edu/theses/docs/32211131464723.pdf.

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21

Vinsonhaler, Nettie Christine. "The prophetic Beowulf: heroic-hagiographic hybridity in Andreas, Juliana, and Beowulf." Diss., University of Iowa, 2013. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1787.

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Beowulf's contest with Grendel has universally been read as an assertion of heroic agency. Yet as I demonstrate, this purportedly neutral convention derives from the misreading of a riddle design that invites and then disrupts expectation in the accidental denouement of Grendel's self-destruction. As an alternative to heroic misprision, I locate Beowulf's salient analogues in the poetic hagiographies, Andreas and Juliana. Within these poems I demonstrate a distinctive Christian critique, which defines heroic order through its assertion of loyalty to insiders and enmity to outsiders, and aligns with René Girard's anthropology in marking enmity both as a source of social cohesion and instability. I also demonstrate a distinctive "crossover poetics" that switches godly and demonic attributes between the opposed communities. As this crossover design gives rise to tropes of heroic-hagiographic hybridity, it exposes a biblical prophetic distinction between the physical realm of objects, actions, and words, and the metaphysical realm of emotional, ethical, and relational principles--a distinction by which the poem locates the origin of enmity in the idolatrous gestalt of egoistic materialism and the origin of loyalty in the covenant ethos of transcendent affiliation. This crossover design, moreover, functions in rapprochement with heroic culture, to affirm the godliness of loyalty and reject demonic enmity, while also interrogating the idolatrous potentiality of Christian discourse. As an alternative to the instabilities marked within heroic social order, the hagiographies offer a new social order based in a two-fold conception: a Christological model that entails compassion for enemies and self-sacrificing obedience to the covenant ethos, and a prophetic model that resists violent contagion through egoistic effacement, entailed in acts of divine praise and benevolent prayer. Lacking these redemptive disciplines, Beowulf's pagan fictive world nevertheless incorporates the same hagiographic critique, but through dystopian patterns of demonic inversion. Thus, Beowulf synthesizes the cardinal hagiographic elements--the same narrative arcs, lexical patterns, and crossover poetics--in a drama that schools its audience in prophetic discernment: to see the essential, defining reality beneath the surface of human events and to recognize patterns of divine retribution as paradoxical enactments of demonic self- destruction.

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22

Stepanek, Ellyn. "POP-CULTURE ARTIFACTS: VICE, VIRTUE AND VALUES IN AMERICAN GODS." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1209741511.

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23

Simmons, Eva. "'Virtue intire' : Aphra Behn's contribution in her comedies to the marriage debates of the seventeenth century." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.309280.

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24

Lampert, Jo Ann. "The whole world shook: Shifts in ethnic, national and heroic identities in children's fiction about 9/11." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2007. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16550/1/Jo_Lambert_Thesis.pdf.

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Like many other cataclysmic events September 11, a day now popularly believed to have 'changed the world', has become a topic taken up by children's writers. This thesis, titled The Whole World Shook: Ethnic, National and Heroic Identities in Children's Fiction About 9/11, examines how cultural identities are constructed within fictional texts for young people written about the attacks on the Twin Towers. It identifies three significant identity categories encoded in 9/11 books for children: ethnic identities, national identities, and heroic identities. The thesis argues that the identities formed within the selected children's texts are in flux, privileging performances of identities that are contingent on post-9/11 politics. This study is located within the field of children's literature criticism, which supports the understanding that children's books, like all texts, play a role in the production of identities. Children's literature is highly significant both in its pedagogical intent (to instruct and induct children into cultural practices and beliefs) and in its obscurity (in making the complex simple enough for children, and from sometimes intentionally shying away from difficult things). This literary criticism informed the study that the texts, if they were to be written at all, would be complex, varied and most likely as ambiguous and contradictory as the responses to the attacks on New York themselves. The theoretical framework for this thesis draws on a range of critical theories including literary theory, cultural studies, studies of performativity and postmodernism. This critical framework informs the approach by providing ways for: (i) understanding how political and ideological work is performed in children's literature; (ii) interrogating the constructed nature of cultural identities; (iii) developing a nuanced methodology for carrying out a close textual analysis. The textual analysis examines a representative sample of children's texts about 9/11, including picture books, young adult fiction, and a selection of DC Comics. Each chapter focuses on a different though related identity category. Chapter Four examines the performance of ethnic identities and race politics within a sample of picture books and young adult fiction; Chapter Five analyses the construction of collective, national identities in another set of texts; and Chapter Six does analytic work on a third set of texts, demonstrating the strategic performance of particular kinds of heroic identities. I argue that performances of cultural identities constructed in these texts draw on familiar versions of identities as well as contribute to new ones. These textual constructions can be seen as offering some certainties in increasingly uncertain times. The study finds, in its sample of books a co-mingling of xenophobia and tolerance; a binaried competition between good and evil and global harmony and national insularity; and a lauding of both the commonplace hero and the super-human. Being a recent corpus of texts about 9/11, these texts provide information on the kinds of 'selves' that appear to be privileged in the West since 2001. The thesis concludes that the shifting identities evident in texts that are being produced for children about 9/11 offer implicit and explicit accounts of what constitute good citizenship, loyalty to nation and community, and desirable attributes in a Western post-9/11 context. This thesis makes an original contribution to the field of children's literature by providing a focussed and sustained analysis of how texts for children about 9/11 contribute to formations of identity in these complex times of cultural unease and global unrest.

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Hogshead, Erin. "The Fountainhead: The Evolving Roles of the Heroic Code into the Antiheroic Mode." [Johnson City, Tenn. : East Tennessee State University], 2004. http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0328104-135243/unrestricted/HogsheadE041304F.pdf.

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Thesis (M.A.)--East Tennessee State University, 2004.
Title from electronic submission form. ETSU ETD database URN: etd-0328104-135243. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via Internet at the UMI web site.

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26

Ruthven, Andrea. "Representing Heroic Figures and/of Resistance: Reading Women’s Bodies of Violence in Contemporary Dystopic Literatures." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/298592.

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This thesis analyses heroic women in contemporary popular culture, specifically within dystopic texts. Relying on the use of feminist theory to interrogate the texts of the corpus, a clear distinction will be drawn in the introduction between postfeminist discourse and rhetoric and Third Wave feminist intervention. The heroines of the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009), Jane Slayre (2010), The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (1990-2007), and The Hunger Games trilogy (2008, 2009, 2010), will serve as the focus for an itnerrogation of female heroism, violence, and posthumanity. Each of the three chapters dedicated to textual analysis considers how the various heroines’ violence is mobilised, and how its representation works to reinscribe or resist patriarchal discourse. My argument is that the discourse which constructs violent women works as a form of violence in and of itself, to which the heroic female body is subjected. The focus on dystopic texts written between 1990 and 2010 serves as the basis for an analysis that seeks to consider how the heroine is a construction of the contemporary moment, and how popular culture and media are driving forces in the way in which postfeminism occupies a central role in the narrative surrounding strong, violent heroines. The range of sub-genres, contemporary Gothic, comic books, and young adult fiction, offer a broad field for interrogating this ubiquitous figure. Chapter one, ‘Spectres of Feminism: Postfeminism and the Zombie Apocalypse’ considers how the integration of posthuman monsters (zombies primarily but also vampires, sea monsters, and the she-wolf) manipulates the potential for agentic heroines such that their violence is reinscribed within heteronormative and Humanist frameworks. The matrimony plot so prevalent in the texts highlights how the active heroine’s violence is only permissible within the bounds of heteronormativity. Chapter two, ‘Violent Heroines, Comic Books and Systemic Violence’ considers the construction of the super heroine of the comic book genre and considers the way in which a racialised female body disrupts the norm and yet is still subjected to patriarchal strategies for containing representations of heroic women’s bodies and violence. The introduction of the cyborg as the posthuman enemy further emphasises how violence is mobilised in the postfeminist heroine as a means of sustaining patriarchal culture and anthropocentric normativity. The analysis in Chapter three, ‘Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games: Dystopia and Resistance to Neoliberal Demands,’ brings to light the potential for a heroine that disrupts the postfeminist model seen in the previous two chapters. Through an interrogation of the way in which the novels are critical of spectator culture and the romance plot, a space for resistance is opened up. The representation of a heroine who eschews the individualist notions of postfeminist heroism by privileging the formation of affective bonds, as well as embracing the posthuman condition rather than fighting against it, offers the potential for a Third Wave feminist protagonist. Considering, in the conclusion, the way in which heroines and viragos are represented in contemporary texts, whether they be fighting zombies, enemies of the state or the state itself, it is clear that the way in which women’s violence is often offered as a postfeminist depiction of women’s equality and power serves to reinscribe women within a patriarchal framework. For the late-capitalist, globalised culture, it is imperative to represent a postfeminist vision of women as powerful, independent and equal without actually challenging the socio-political structure. This dissertation identifies the ways in which postfeminist versions of heroic women are constructed and offer a possible alternative, one which coincides with a Third Wave feminist understanding of the heroine’s role in contemporary society.
Esta tesis toma como punto de partida el análisis de las mujeres heroicas en la cultura popular contemporánea, específicamente en los textos distópicos. Aplicando las teorías feministas al análisis de los textos, se hará una distinción clara entre el discurso postfeminista y la intervención del feminismo de Tercera Ola. Me centraré en las heroínas de las novelas Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009), Jane Slayre (2010), The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (1990-2007), y la trilogía de The Hunger Games (2008, 2009, 2010) para analizar la violencia y el heroísmo femeninos, así como el posthumanismo. Cada uno de los tres capítulos dedicados al análisis textual reflexiona sobre el modo en que se concibe la violencia de las distintas heroínas, y cómo su representación intenta reinscribir o resistir el discurso patriarcal. Mi argumento es que el discurso que construye a las mujeres violentas funciona como una forma de violencia en y por sí misma, a la que se somete el cuerpo heroico femenino. El estudio de textos distópicos escritos entre 1990 y 2010 sirve de base para un análisis que busca interrogar no sólo a la heroína como construcción del momento actual, sino también el modo en que la cultura popular y los medios constituyen agentes clave en el predominio que el postfeminismo ha conseguido dentro de la narrativa de heroínas fuertes y violentas. La variedad de sub-géneros (Gótico contemporáneo, cómics, y ficción juvenil) ofrece un campo amplio para el análisis de esta figura ubicua. Al considerar el modo en que las heroínas y viragos se representan en los textos contemporáneos queda claro que el modo en que la violencia de las mujeres se ofrece como instancia postfeminista de igualdad y empoderamiento de las mujeres funciona en realidad como re-inscripción de las mujeres dentro de un marco patriarcal. Esta tesis identifica las maneras en que se construyen las versiones postfeministas de las mujeres y ofrecer una posible alternativa, una que coincide con la visión del feminismo de Tercera Ola, acerca del papel de la heroína en la sociedad contemporánea.

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Harris, Cassondra Fay. "Vice or Virtue? American Interpretations of Elizabeth Whitman and Mary Wollstonecraft in the Late Eighteenth Century." Ohio Dominican University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=odu1556907844923407.

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28

Stamoulis, Derek Clarence. "In pursuit of virtue : the moral education of readers in eighteenth-century fiction /." Title page, contents and preface only, 1991. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09arms783.pdf.

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29

Clarke, Tayce Langley. "An Education in Virtue: Didacticism and Audience in Elizabeth Gaskell's "Ruth" and Charlotte Yonge's "The Heir of Redclyffe"." W&M ScholarWorks, 1996. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626062.

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30

Lampert, Jo Ann. "The whole world shook: shifts in ethnic, national and heroic identities in children's fiction about 9/11." Queensland University of Technology, 2007. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16550/.

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Abstract:

Like many other cataclysmic events September 11, a day now popularly believed to have 'changed the world', has become a topic taken up by children's writers. This thesis, titled The Whole World Shook: Ethnic, National and Heroic Identities in Children's Fiction About 9/11, examines how cultural identities are constructed within fictional texts for young people written about the attacks on the Twin Towers. It identifies three significant identity categories encoded in 9/11 books for children: ethnic identities, national identities, and heroic identities. The thesis argues that the identities formed within the selected children's texts are in flux, privileging performances of identities that are contingent on post-9/11 politics. This study is located within the field of children's literature criticism, which supports the understanding that children's books, like all texts, play a role in the production of identities. Children's literature is highly significant both in its pedagogical intent (to instruct and induct children into cultural practices and beliefs) and in its obscurity (in making the complex simple enough for children, and from sometimes intentionally shying away from difficult things). This literary criticism informed the study that the texts, if they were to be written at all, would be complex, varied and most likely as ambiguous and contradictory as the responses to the attacks on New York themselves. The theoretical framework for this thesis draws on a range of critical theories including literary theory, cultural studies, studies of performativity and postmodernism. This critical framework informs the approach by providing ways for: (i) understanding how political and ideological work is performed in children's literature; (ii) interrogating the constructed nature of cultural identities; (iii) developing a nuanced methodology for carrying out a close textual analysis. The textual analysis examines a representative sample of children's texts about 9/11, including picture books, young adult fiction, and a selection of DC Comics. Each chapter focuses on a different though related identity category. Chapter Four examines the performance of ethnic identities and race politics within a sample of picture books and young adult fiction; Chapter Five analyses the construction of collective, national identities in another set of texts; and Chapter Six does analytic work on a third set of texts, demonstrating the strategic performance of particular kinds of heroic identities. I argue that performances of cultural identities constructed in these texts draw on familiar versions of identities as well as contribute to new ones. These textual constructions can be seen as offering some certainties in increasingly uncertain times. The study finds, in its sample of books a co-mingling of xenophobia and tolerance; a binaried competition between good and evil and global harmony and national insularity; and a lauding of both the commonplace hero and the super-human. Being a recent corpus of texts about 9/11, these texts provide information on the kinds of 'selves' that appear to be privileged in the West since 2001. The thesis concludes that the shifting identities evident in texts that are being produced for children about 9/11 offer implicit and explicit accounts of what constitute good citizenship, loyalty to nation and community, and desirable attributes in a Western post-9/11 context. This thesis makes an original contribution to the field of children's literature by providing a focussed and sustained analysis of how texts for children about 9/11 contribute to formations of identity in these complex times of cultural unease and global unrest.

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31

Sawyer, Octavia Cathryn. "Reinventing Virtue: Sensibility and Sentiment in the Works of Maria Edgeworth." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2009. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2845.pdf.

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Barbosa, Lima Eduardo. "Chronotope in western role-playing video games : an investigation of the generation of narrative meaning through its dialogical relationship with the heroic epic and fantasy." Thesis, Brunel University, 2016. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/16375.

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The development of the video game industry and the increasing popularity of the medium as a form of entertainment have led to significant developments in the discipline of game studies and a growing awareness of the cultural significance of video games as cultural artefacts. While much work has been done to understand the narrative aspect of games, there are still theoretical gaps on the understanding of how video games generate their narrative experience and how this experience is shaped by the player and the game as artefact. This interdisciplinary study investigates how meaning is created in Western Role Playing Games (WRPGs) video games by analysing the narrative strategies they employ in relation to those commonly used in Heroic Epic and Fantasy narratives. It adopts the Bakhtinian concepts of chronotope and dialogue as the main theoretical tools to examine the creation and integration of narratives in WRPGs with a special focus on the time-space perspective. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dragon Age Origins were chosen as representatives of the WRPG video game genre while Beowulf and the tale of Sigurd, as it appears in the Poetic Edda and the Volsung Saga, were chosen as representatives of the Heroic Epic poetic tradition. References are also made to Fantasy novels, especially the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Textual analysis along with some techniques employed by researchers working with visual methodologies and compositional interpretation were used to analyse relevant aspects of the texts and games. The findings suggest that intertextual and genre materials considerably shape the narrative of WRPGs and exercise a profound dialogical effect on the ludonarrative harmony of the games investigated through their interaction with the game world and gameplay systems. This relationship is most visible in the chronotopic (time-space) aspect of the chosen games. The findings also suggest that Epic material dialogically orients the WRPG players' experience and adjusts their expectations and understanding of the fictional world. This study as well as the refining of chronotopic analytical tools to encompass chronotopic awareness, transportation, and flow may be of use in further chronotopic investigations of different games, literary genres, and/or other media artefacts.

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Hubbard, Gillian Chell. ""Acquire and beget a temperance" : the virtue of temperance in The faerie queene book II and Hamlet : a thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature /." ResearchArchive@Victoria e-thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10063/1261.

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Webster, Paul. "A critical analytic literature review of virtue ethics for social work : beyond codified conduct towards virtuous social work." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2011. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/7085/.

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This submission is based on a critical analytical literature review of the moral paradigm of virtue ethics and a specific application of this to social work value discourse in search of lost identity. It echoes the philosophical academy's paradigmatic wars between 'act' and 'agent' appraisals in moral theory. Act appraisal theories focus on a person's act as the primary source of moral value whereas agent appraisal theories - whether 'agentprior' or stricter 'agent-based' versions - focus on a person's disposition to act morally. This generates a philosophical debate about which type of appraisal should take precedence in making an overall evaluation of a person's moral performance. My starting point is that at core social work is an altruistic activity entailing a deep commitment, a 'moral impulse', towards the distressed 'other'. This should privilege dispositional models of value that stress character and good motivation correctly applied - in effect making for an ethical career built upon the requisite moral virtues. However, the neo-liberal and neo-conservative state hegemony has all but vanquished the moral impulse and its correct application. In virtue ethical language, we live in 'vicious' times. I claim that social work's adherence to act appraisal Kantian and Utilitarian models is implicated in this loss. Kantian 'deontic' theory stresses inviolable moral principle to be obeyed irrespective of outcome: Utilitarian 'consequentualist' theory calculates the best moral outcome measured against principle. The withering of social work as a morally active profession has culminated in the state regulator's Code of Practice. This makes for a conformity of behaviour which I call 'proto-ethical' to distinguish it from 'ethics proper'. The Code demands that de-moralised practitioners dutifully follow policy, rules, procedures and targets - ersatz, piecemeal and simplistic forms of deontic and consequentualist act appraisals. Numerous inquiries into social work failures indict practitioners for such behaviour. I draw upon mainstream virtue ethical theory and the emergent social work counter discourse to get beyond both code and the simplified under-theoretisation of social work value. I defend a thesis regarding an identity-defining cluster of social work specific virtues. I propose two modules: 'righteous indignation' to capture the heartfelt moral impulse, and 'just generosity' to mindfully delineate the scope and legitimacy of the former. Their operation generates an exchange relationship with the client whereby the social worker builds 'surplus value' to give back more than must be taken in the transaction. I construct a social work specific minimal-maximal 'stability standard' to anchor the morally correct expression of these two modules and the estimation of surplus value. In satisficing terms, the standard describes what is good enough but is also potentially expansive. A derivative social work practice of moral value is embedded in an historic 'care and control' dialectic. The uncomfortable landscape is one of moral ambiguity and paradoxicality, to be navigated well in virtue terms. I argue that it is incongruous to speak of charactereological social worker virtues and vices and then not to employ the same paradigm to the client's moral world. This invites a functional analysis of virtue. The telos of social work - our moral impulse at work - directs us to scrutiny of the unsafe household. Our mandate is the well-being of the putative client within, discoursed in terms of functional life-stage virtues and vicious circumstance. I employ the allegorical device of a personal ethical journey from interested lay person to committed social worker, tracking the character-building moral peregrinations. I focus on two criticisms of virtue ethics - a philosophical fork. It is said that virtue ethical theory cannot of itself generate any reliable, independently validated action guidance. In so far as it does, the theory will endorse an as-given, even reactionary, criterion of right action, making 'virtue and vice' talk the bastion of the establishment power holders who control knowledge. I seek to repudiate these claims. Given that this demands a new approach to moral pedagogy, the practical implications for the suitability and training of social workers are discussed.

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Balmaceda, Catalina. "Identifying Romanness : virtus in Latin historiography during the late Republic and early Empire." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2005. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6a8919af-7367-4d3b-b6e1-e6318ae098a2.

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This thesis deals with the role of the concept of virtus in Roman historiography of the late Republic and early Empire. I shall argue throughout the study that analysing and tracing this concept in the works of the historians of this period take us to the very heart of the question of their appraisal both of political change and Roman identity. Understanding this moral appraisal does not mean just a better comprehension of their concept of virtus, but a new approach to their concept of history as magistra vitae. In the first chapter, I shall introduce some characteristics of the nature of historical writing and the approaches of ancient and modern historians. I shall be challenging some currents views on the complexity of evaluating ancient history by rhetorical and moral standards. In chapter II, I shall consider the concept of virtus in terms of its etymology and usage; I will then attempt to show the particular connection between virtus and Romanness. I will also develop and explain the concepts of virilis-virtus and humana-virtus and place them in their philosophical context. Chapters III, IV, V and VI will form part of what I have called 'Virtus in History', and in these chapters I shall deal with four historians. The first section is dedicated to Sallust and his analysis of political decline in relation to virtus. I shall attempt to assess Sallust's influential creation of moral language in the writing of history. Then, I will consider the connection of virtus as a means to preserve libertas in Livy's work, especially considering the author's time. Chapter V is concerned with Velleius' history and his view that the principate has re-established virtus in Rome. I shall concentrate on Tiberius for my analysis of virtus and challenge some traditional approaches to this author and his prince. Finally, in chapter VI, I will examine Tacitus' perception of the nature of the political change that Rome has undergone. I will show how the transformations in politics have a deep influence on the very idea of Romanness and how the disturbance of this concept leads to a more profound and internal interpretation of it.

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Floud, Gabriel P. "Las dos casadas de Fortunata y Jacinta y sus virtudes peculiares." Laramie, Wyo. : University of Wyoming, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1798480791&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=18949&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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Norris, Laura Sharon. "Love of God and Love of Neighbor: Thomistic Virtue of Charity in Catherine of Siena's Dialogue." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1413228274.

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Matus, Geraldine P. C. "World?s geography of love| An alchemical hermeneutic inquiry into the heroic masculine?s rebirth as influenced by love as the glutinum mundi and the feminine incorporatio." Thesis, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3701754.

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This research generates an alchemical hermeneutic analysis of four archetypes as found in certain ancient Egyptian texts and the contemporary dream text Heart of the Inner Chamber, the landscape of which is the “world’s geography of love.” As symbols of transformation, these four archetypal energies are essential reagents in the dramatic process of individuation, as understood in the depth psychological tradition. These archetypes are (a) the triptych of disintegration-death-resurrection, (b) the dying heroic masculine, (c) the feminine incorporatio (who incorporates the corrupt and dying heroic masculine into her body), and (d) love as the glutinum mundi (glue of the world). Certain ancient Egyptian ritual and mythic texts describe the sungod Re undergoing a recursive renewal of his life-giving force, which is facilitated by the love and ministrations of particular feminine figures. One such figure is the ancient Egyptian sky goddess Nut, a personification of both realms of heaven and netherworld, who swallows the failing Re at sunset, and in whose body the mysterious processes of his regeneration take place so he may be reborn at dawn. A Nut like figure appears in Heart of the Inner Chamber linking the psyche of the dreamer to symbols of transformation from ancient Egypt.

As symbols of transformation, love as the glutinum mundi and the feminine incorporatio are not well articulated in the field of depth psychology, and particularly so regarding individuation. This research deepens the articulation of the archetypes of love as the glutinum mundi and the feminine incorporatio. As well the research invites a deeper valuation of a conscious engagement with these symbols of transformation, especially as they may serve us when we find ourselves in those ineffable and inevitable, chaotic, shadowy, and emotionally confounding places of being where we feel that we are dying or dead and hope for the miracle of our transformation and rebirth.

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Frey, Joshua Caleb. "Courage, Patriotism, Liberty, and Greatness: The political teachings of Shakespeare's Rome." Ashland University Ashbrook Undergraduate Theses / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=auashbrook1493826530278054.

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Colpitts, George. "Vice, virtue and profit in the Indian trade, trade narrative and the commercialization of Indians in America, 1700-1840." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ59571.pdf.

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Maxson, Brian Jeffrey. "Book Review of Pagan Virtue in a Christian World: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Italian Renaissance." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2017. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2663.

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Review of Anthony F. D’Elia. Pagan Virtue in a Christian World: Sigismondo Malatesta and the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016. x + 355 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-08851-1.

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Hale, Frederick. "Literary challenges to the heroic myth of the Voortrekkers : H.P. Lamont's War, wine and women and Stuart Cloete's Turning wheels." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52325.

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Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of various historical novels which dealt to a greater or lesser degree with the Great Trek and were written between the 1840s and the 1930s in Dutch, Afrikaans and English but with particular emphasis on H.P. Lamont's War, Wine and Women and Stuart Cloete's Turning Wheels (1937). The analysis of all these fictional reconstructions focuses on the portrayal of the Voortrekkers found in them. Much attention is also paid to the historical contexts in which the two principal works in question were written and the great controversies which they occasioned because both of their authors had had the temerity to challenge the long-established myth of the heroic Voortrekkers, one of the holiest of the iconic cows in the barns of their Afrikaner descendants. Chapter I, "Introduction", is a statement of the purpose of the study, its place in the context of analyses of the history of Afrikaner nationalism, its structure and the sources on which it is based. Chapter II, "The Unfolding of the Myth of the Heroic Voortrekkers", traces its evolution from the 1830s to the 1930s and explores how both English-speaking South Africans and Afrikaners, especially Gustav PrelIer, purposefully contributed to it. Also highlighted in this chapter is the significance of the Great Trek Centenary and the events leading up to it in the middle and late 1930s in intensifying Afrikaner nationalism. Chapter III, "The Heroic Myth in Early Dutch and Afrikaans Novels about the Great Trek", considers especially how these works were used as vehicles for placing before Afrikaners the historic virtues of their ancestors both to provide models for emulation and to stimulate their ethnic pride. Chapter IV, "Sympathetic English Reconstructions of the Great Trek", deals with two novels, Eugenie de Kalb's Far Enough and Francis Brett Young's They Seek a Country, both of which reproduced the heroic myth to some extent. Chapter V, "Rendezvous with Disaster? The South Africa in Which Lamont Wrote War, Wine and Women" establishes the context of intensifying Afrikaner nationalism which this immigrant from the United Kingdom encountered in the late 1920s when he accepted a lectureship at the University of Pretoria and why this context was hostile to a novel which was critical of Afrikanerdom. Chapter VI, "Wa1~ Wine and Women: Its General Context and Commentary on South Africa" explores how this work, conceived as a "war book" dealing with the 1914-1918 conflict in Europe, depicted both Englishmen and Afrikaners negatively. Chapter VII, "Academic Freedom vs. Afrikaner Nationalism: The Consequential Strife over War, Wine and Women" deals with the hostile reception of Lamont's pseudonymously published novel, the physical assault on him and his dismissal from his lectureship at the University of Pretoria. Chapter VIII, "The Rhetoric of Revenge in Lamont's Halcyon Days in Africa", explores how the author, after relurning lo England, used his pen as a weapon for striking back al his Afrikaans foes in South Africa. Chapter IX, "Stuart Cloete's Portrayal of the Voortrekkers in Turning U'heels", focuses on the portrayal of various ethnic types in his gallery of characters. Chapter X, "The Con troversy over Turning U'heels", handles the hostile and apparently orchestrated reaction to Cloete's book and how it was eventually banned. Chapter XI, "Conclusion: Quod Eral Demonstrandum", summarises several thematic findings which a detailed examination of the novels in their historical context yields.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verhandeling is 'n interdissiplinêre studie van verskeie historiese romans waarin daar in 'n mindere ofmeerdere mate op die Groot Trek gefokus word en wat geskryfis tussen die 1840's en die 1930's in Nederlands, Afrikaans en Engels, maar met die klem op H. P. Lamont se War, Wine and Wamen en Stuart Cloete se Turning Wheels (1937) in die besonder. Die analise van al hierdie fiktiewe rekonstruksies fokus op die uitbeelding van die Voortrekkers daarin. Daar word ook in die besonder aandag gegee aan die historiese kontekste waarbinne hierdie twee hoofwerke geskryfis en die groot polemiek daarrondom, omdat beide outeurs die vermetelheid gehad het om die lank reeds gevestigde mite van die heldhaftige Voortrekkers, een van die heiligste ikoniese koeie in die skure van die Afrikanernageslagte, uit te daag. Hoofstuk I, "Introduction", stel die doel van die studie, waar dit staan in die konteks van analises van die geskiedenis van Afrikanernasionalisme, die skruktuur en die bronne waarop dit gebaseer is. Hoofstuk II, "The Unfolding of the Myth of the Herioc Voortrekkers", volg die evolusie van Afrikanernasionalisme van die 1830's tot die 1930's en ondersoek op beide Engelssprekende Suid-Afrikaners en Afrikaners, veral Gustav Preller, doelgerig hiertoe bygedra het. In hierdie hoofstuk word daar ook beklemtoon hoe betekenisvol die honderdjarige herdenking van die Groot Trek en die gebeure wat daartoe aanleiding gegee het gedurende die middel- en laat 1930's, bygedra het tot die versterking van Afrikanernasionalisme. Hoofstuk III, "The Heroic Myth in Early Dutch and Afrikaans Novels about the Great Trek", bespreek veral hoe hierdie werke gebruik is om aan Afrikaners die historiese deugsaamheid van hulle voorvaders voor te hou en wat as voorbeelde moet dien wat nagestreef moet word en om hulle etniese trots te stimuleer. Hoofstuk IV, "Sympathetic English Reconstructions of the Great Trek", bespreek twee romans, Far Enough van Eugenie de Kalb en TheySeek a Country van Francis Brett Young, wat altwee die heroïse mite in 'n sekere mate herproduseer. Hoofstuk V, "Rendezvous with Disaster? The South Africa in Which Lamont Wrote War, Wine and Women" vestig die konteks van groeiende Afrikanernasionalisme wat hierdie immigrant van die Verenigde Koninkryk in die laat 1920's teëgekom het toe hy 'n lektoraat aan die Universiteit van Pretoria aanvaar het, en hoekom hierdie konteks vyandiggesind was teenoor 'n roman wat krities was teenoor die Afrikanerdom. Hoofstuk VI, "Wa1~ Wine and Women: Its General Context and Commentary on South Africa" ondersoek hoe hierdie werk, beskou as 'n "oorlogsboek" wat handeloor die 1914-1918 konflik in Europa, beide die Engelse en die Afrikaners in 'n negatiewe lig gestel het. Hoofstuk VII, "Academic Freedom vs. Afrikaner Nationalism: The Consequential Strife over War, Wine and Women" skenk aandag aan die vyandige ontvangs van Lamont se roman (gepubliseer onder 'n skuilnaam), die fisieke aanval op hom en sy ontslag as lektor van die Universiteit van Pretoria. Hoofstuk VIII, "The Rhetoric of Revenge in Lamont's Halcyon Days inAfrica", ondersoekhoe die outeur, na hy na Engeland teruggekeer het, sy pen as wapen gebruik het in 'n teenaanval op sy Afrikaanse vyande in Suid-Afrika. Hoofstuk IX, "Stuart Cloete's Portrayal of the Voortrekkers in Turning Wheels", fokus op die uitbeelding van verskeie etniese tipes in sy gallery karakters. Hoofstuk X, "The Controversy over Tumng Wheels", bespreek die vyandige en klaarblyklike georkestreerde reaksie op Cloete se boek, en hoe dit uiteindelik verban is. Hoofstuk XI, "Conclusion: Quod Era! Demonstrandum", bied 'n opsomming van verskei tematiese bevindinge aan, wat deur 'n gedetaileerde ondersoek van die romans opgelewer is.

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Rush, Randy Fernandese. "A survey of African-American fantasy literature with case study analyses of the responses of four African-American adolescents to young adult heroic fantasy literature that features protagonists of African origin /." The Ohio State University, 1996. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu148794247640608.

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Wise, Elizabeth D. S. "SETTLING MUD, RUNNING STREAMS, AND “THE WHOLE THING ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN”: SUBVERTING CLASSICAL DISCOURSE AND THE ROLE OF CHARACTER IN GERTRUDE STEIN’S “MELANCTHA”." UKnowledge, 2014. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/english_etds/10.

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The thesis begins by exploring Stein’s autobiographical connections to the Jamesian concepts of bottom nature and habit, in an attempt to demonstrate that both, in the pen of Gertrude Stein, are as connected to classical virtue theory and the development of character as a moral state and characters as created persons within her creative oeuvre, as they are connected to psychological experiments in William James’ laboratory. In wading through what may seem to be muddy waters of Stein’s slippery definitions and circular sentences, the thesis shows that Stein uses the discourse of classical virtue theory to achieve her goal—breaking down clear barriers to the virtuous life as classically understood and subverting the very building blocks of Western thought generally. Lastly, “Melanctha: Each One As She May” will become a case study through which the thesis wrestles in detail with Stein’s complicated virtue and character project as she pulls virtuous action into a separate sphere from the virtuous person in order to explore what human nature is, or, as she says, “the whole thing about men and women that is interesting.”

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CONNERY, BRIAN ARTHUR. "AN AMBITION TO BE HEARD IN A CROWD: MAD HEROES AND THE SATIRIST IN THE WORKS OF JONATHAN SWIFT (ALIENATION, DOUBLE-BIND)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/183857.

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In Swift's works, both heroes and madmen are characterized by supra-normal aspiration, imagination, individuality, and pride, and the mad hero becomes an effective emblem for the chaos arising when individual vision challenges traditional authority in religion, politics, and literature. Swift's view of madness as the willful perversion of reason tends to be traditional, though his sense of its pervasiveness creates a subversive skepticism. Consistently throughout his works, Swift posits conscience as the only safeguard against the madness of pride. Swift views the traditional hero as subversive, typically portraying him as mad while presenting the sane man as unheroic. As the Tale-teller argues, the traditonal hero is a successful madman. Swift's later works demonstrate that madness and heroism often coincide because of the mutually reinforcing relationship between power and ego, and he asserts that the will to power, manifested in the heroic imposition of one's will upon others, is a form of madness. As an alternative to the asocial and amoral traditional hero, Swift promotes a moderate hero in the figures of the Church of England Man, the Examiner, and the Drapier: the one just man, motivated by Roman and Christian virtue, in a mad society. But even the vir bonus remains susceptible to challenges of authority, for in a mad and corrupt society his singular vision cannot appeal to common sense. Moreover, if he becomes powerful, he risks madness, and if he retreats from madness, he becomes impotent. As a consequence of this double bind, the satirist himself suffers a profound alienation. Swift recognizes that by engaging in the controversies of his age, he himself becomes liable to charges of the madness of pride. Even as he harangues the world, his recognition of the heroic conceit in establishing himself as satirist is evident in the self-satire of A Modest Proposal and the verses on his death. Similarly, the self-portraits in his poetry and Gulliver's Travels demonstrate his conscience at work as he satirizes his own indignation and reforming urges, striving thereby to maintain a modicum of humility and thus sanity, and, in laughing with the reader, striving to maintain common sense as well.

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George, Stephen K. "Of vice and men : a virtue ethics study of Steinbeck's The pearl, East of Eden, and The winter of our discontent." Virtual Press, 1995. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/952814.

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As a writer and thinker, John Steinbeck has often been ridiculed by the academic community as trite and sentimental--someone who appeals to the masses but has little to say on life's "important" issues. This study applies an interdisciplinary approach to three of his later novels--The Pearl, East of Eden, and The Winter of Our Discontent--in order to more accurately assess the quality of Steinbeck's later fiction and to discover what this writer has to say concerning ethics and human nature, particularly the irrational emotions and vices.In concurrence with some of the latest research available, this study reveals that the emotions play a far greater role within the moral realm than previously believed by some philosophers and psychologists. Irrational emotions, such as extreme fear, anger, hatred, and guilt, are often sequential, cyclical, and cumulative in nature and frequently form dynamic combinations which feed on and intensify each other and which may lead to acts of violence or cruelty. Moreover, far from being uncontrollable, these emotions have been shown to have a cognitive dimension which is greatly influenced by upbringing and environment. As indicated in East of Eden, parental neglect and abuse play prominent roles in making certain characters susceptible to their own states of irrationality.The emotions are also primary to the development of more permanent character dispositions, both good and bad. As illustrated in East of Eden's Cathy Ames, a vice such as cruelty is often motivated and enabled by the fear and hatred that frequently form its core. Moreover, the vices themselves seem to be interactive and cumulatively debilitating; just as dishonesty plays a key role in enabling cruelty and loss of integrity, so does a lack of integrity make sense in a morally weak world.Thus, contrary to popular critical opinion, there was no dramatic falling off of quality in Steinbeck's writing, but rather a deliberate change in emphasis from social criticism to morality and from the group to the individual. This study confirms both the importance of what Steinbeck had to say as well as the eloquent and gifted manner in which he said it.
Department of English

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Lindqvist, Janne. "Dygdens förvandlingar : Begreppet dygd i tillfällestryck till handelsmän före 1780." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-2013.

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This dissertation deals with how the concept of virtue (dygd) is used in Swedish occasional poetry addressed to merchants before 1780. Occasional poetry was the major kind of literature in Sweden in the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, and usually addressed to the nobility and other dominant groups. As a part of the elites’ conspicuous consumption, and mainly aimed to demonstrate the addressees’ virtue, it played an important role in legitimising the social and political dominance of the elite. Merchandise, however, was regarded with moral suspicion. The main purpose of the thesis is to study the argumentative strategies the poets use to honour merchants, and to determine in what ethical traditions they have found the arguments to back up their reasoning. It is thereby possible to detect subtle changes in how they use the concept of virtue. These strategies and arguments are seen from a rhetorical point of view; the poets’ main purpose was to praise the tradesmen persuasively. The dissertation consists of three parts, dealing with, respectively, the period before 1650, the years 1670–1680 and the period 1770–1780. Each part is divided into three chapters: a brief presentation of the main ethical discussion of the period, a concise examination of the occasional poetry written for groups other than merchants, and an analysis of the argumentative strategies used in honouring tradesmen. The earliest merchant prints are constructed as defences rather than actual complimentary poems. Whereas the poems written for other addressees mainly make use of an Aristotelian concept of virtue, focusing on the services done for society and on the honour that follows from this, the merchant poems take a Lutheran law conception of ethics as their starting point. The key point is to claim that the merchant in question has not broken the Ten Commandments, or any other law belonging to man. Neither has he ever done any harm to his neighbours. In the 1670’s, this argumentative strategy is still abundant, but the poets also claim that the merchants have contributed to society, either through Christian charity or, with an allusion to mercantilism, by always trading with the aim of enriching their fatherland. In some cases, economic success in itself is regarded as a ground for honouring the merchant, the claim being that this was necessary for his charity, or by reference to the Lutheran ethics of calling or vocation. A main point is that the poets sometimes use the word virtue to describe these qualities, thereby in effect widening the concept itself. In the 1770’s, all earlier argumentative strategies are still used by the poets. In some cases, however, the texts consist in an attack on the Aristotelian concept of virtue. The poets argue that virtue is an inner, almost invisible quality having nothing to do with performing an occupation or belonging to a special social stratum. Instead they focus on sincerity as a quality essential to real virtue and as an important virtue in itself, thereby also claiming that virtue and glory could and should be separated.

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Nelson, Nancy Susan. "Heroism and Failure in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: the Ideal and the Real within the Comitatus." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1989. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc332044/.

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This dissertation discusses the complicated relationship (known as the comitatus) of kings and followers as presented in the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. The anonymous poets of the age celebrated the ideals of their culture but consistently portrayed the real behavior of the characters within their works. Other studies have examined the ideals of the comitatus in general terms while referring to the poetry as a body of work, or they have discussed them in particular terms while referring to one or two poems in detail. This study is both broader and deeper in scope than are the earlier works. In a number of poems I have identified the heroic ideals and examined the poetic treatment of those ideals. In order to establish the necessary background, Chapter I reviews the historical sources, such as Tacitus, Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the work of modern historians. Chapter II discusses such attributes of the king as wisdom, courage, and generosity. Chapter III examines the role of aristocratic women within the society. Chapter IV describes the proper behavior of followers, primarily their loyalty in return for treasures earlier bestowed. Chapter V discusses perversions and failures of the ideal. The dissertation concludes that, contrary to the view that Anglo-Saxon literature idealized the culture, the poets presented a reasonably realistic picture of their age. Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry celebrates ideals of behavior which, even when they can be attained, are not successful in the real world of political life.

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Gerig, Maya Hess Jonathan M. "Jenseits von Tugend und Empfindsamkeit Frauenliteratur um 1800 als forum für sozialpolitische Erörterungen = Beyond virtue and sensibility, women's literature as a forum for social-political discourse around 1800 /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,377.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006.
Title from electronic title page (viewed Oct. 10, 2007). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures." Discipline: Germanic Languages; Department/School: Germanic Languages.

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Wagler, Madeleine S. "“`Mine honor is my life’: An Examination of William Shakespeare’s Portrayal of the Connection Between Life and Honor”." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1619094691716642.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Heroic virtue in literature'

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