Academic literature on the topic 'Individuality in literature'

The nineteenth-century piano was not just a means of making music, but a cultural myth. In literature it is a complex conduit for ideas about femininity, social expectations, and status. Nevertheless, the literary significance of the “piano girl” – the woman who played the piano as an accomplishment – has been largely ignored by the critics, particularly in the field of American literature, where piano-playing characters superficially conform to conventional expectations about domestic music in greater numbers than their European counterparts. Not all texts, however, are so happy to accept a prescribed model of feminine musicianship, and in this thesis I analyse several key texts by James Fenimore Cooper, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Stoddard, Henry James, and Kate Chopin, and show how their representations of the piano girl challenge the often contradictory rhetoric of their day. Through the socio-cultural and historic understanding of the piano and musicianship in the United States, the piano girls in these texts reveal a complex pattern of ambivalence towards the role of domestic music in the performance of womanhood, and its relationship to the contingent realities of nineteenth century American society. In Chapter One, I introduce the narrative significance and literary antecedents of music in four of Cooper’s novels, and in Chapter Two, I discuss Fuller’s concerns about the piano as a feminine object in <i>Summer on the Lakes</i>, <i>in 1843, </i>with reference to her music criticism and other contemporary fiction. Chapter Three analyses Stoddard’s representation of the piano girl in <i>The Morgesons</i>; the chapter combines Romanticism and musical subjectivity with domesticity and consumer theory. In Chapter Four, I locate the exceptional musicianship of Madame Merle within the wider context of feminine music in James’ <i>The Portrait of a Lady.</i> Through a consideration of the discursive meaning of repertoire in Chopin’s <i>The Awakening</i>, Chapter Five explores the complex relationship between musical performance, selfhood and gender expectation.

By looking at a representative sample of Old English poetry, this thesis questions the long-held notion that the individual, or personal-self, was not a reality in the western world until the Renaissance. This research makes use of a variety of recent and past methodological approaches to the self, so that we may apply these theories to a study of the individual in Old English literature, and by extension Anglo-Saxon culture more generally. The four-chapter layout showcases how we may approach and answer the question of self in a variety of Old English verse—from elegies and didactic religious, to the heroic. Each study is unique yet complements that which preceeds and follows it, so as to highlight how the study of self is really an inquiry of only seemingly disparate concepts. The outcome of this analysis demonstrates that the individual, or personal self-concept in Anglo-Saxon England was a reality, and consequently challenges past beliefs that the individual is a relatively modern notion. Thus opening the dialogue once more, my research ultimately asks how we may proceed with the question of self in different contexts, historical eras, and eclectic methodological avenues of inquiry, that we may further develop our understanding of one of the most important and ancient questions in humankind’s story.

‘Rewriting History’ is a reappraisal of Shakespeare’s history cycle, exploring its origins, its popularity and its effects before challenging its dominance on critical and theatrical perceptions of the history plays. A critical history of the cycle shows how external factors such as patriotism, bardolatory, character-focused criticism and the editorial decision of the First Folio are responsible for the cycle, more so than any inherent aspects of the plays. The performance history of the cycle charts the initial innovations made in the twentieth century which have affected our perception of characters and key scenes in the texts. I then argue how the cycle has become increasingly restrictive, lacking innovation and consequently undervaluing the potential of the histories. Having accounted for the history of the cycle to date, the second part of my thesis looks at the consequent effects upon each history play, and details how each play can be performed and analysed individually. I close my thesis with the suggestion that a compromise between individual and serial perceptions is warranted, where both ideas are acknowledged equally for their effects and defects. By broadening our ideas about these plays we can appreciate the dramatic potential locked within them.

This study examines a sample of websites created by librarians on the World Wide Web. The websites were analyzed to see how librarians are discussing and presenting themselves on the World Wide Web in the attempt to escape the traditional stereotype. An analysis of these websites revealed that librarians are not trying to completely escape the stereotype but rather to prove that all librarians are individuals outside of their profession.

Submitted by Valquíria Barbieri (kikibarbi@hotmail.com) on 2017-06-08T22:00:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Mariana Miranda Maximo dos Santos.pdf: 3745474 bytes, checksum: d59a1c064f36e1b0238a112bef2b6d9a (MD5)<br>Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-06-09T14:49:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Mariana Miranda Maximo dos Santos.pdf: 3745474 bytes, checksum: d59a1c064f36e1b0238a112bef2b6d9a (MD5)<br>Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-09T14:49:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2014_Mariana Miranda Maximo dos Santos.pdf: 3745474 bytes, checksum: d59a1c064f36e1b0238a112bef2b6d9a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-28<br>CAPES<br>Neste trabalho objetivamos analisar recursos retóricos e visuais da obra deliteratura infantojuvenil brasileira contemporânea, Vizinho, Vizinha(2002), observando que os autores, ao fazerem a representação das personagens, partem de seu isolamento socioindividual,gostos pessoais, tendências, masacabam compondo, com sutileza, relações de unicidade, culminando na valorização da pessoa humana e de sua interação. Para compreendereste percurso dos personagens, do individualismo à socialização, desenvolvemos a análise considerandoa natureza de interface artísticada obra, literatura e ilustração, principalmente o efeito de qualidade e complementação geradopelo diálogo entre estas linguagens, além de abarcar o contexto sociocultural em que foi produzida. Considerando algumas dúvidas geradas no decorrer da pesquisa, fizemos um estudo inicialsobre aprodução direcionada ao público em formaçãocomo gênero e suas terminologias,bem como o público a que se destina, verificando que o mercado é decisivo nesse campo.<br>In this study we aimed to assess rhetorical and visual resources of the work of contemporary children and youth Brazilian literature1, Vizinho, Vizinha (2002), noting that the authors, to make the representation of characters, start from their socioindividual isolation, personal tastes, trends, but end up composing, subtly, uniqueness relations, culminating in the value of the human person and of their interaction. To understand this route of the characters, from the individualism to the socialization, we developeded the analysis considering the nature of artistic interface of the work, the literature and the illustration, particularly the effect of quality and completion generated by the dialogue among these languages, besides embracing the sociocultural context in which it was produced. Considering some questions generated during the research, we made an initial study on the production directed to the public in formation as gender and their terminology and the public it is intended, finding that the market is crucial in this field.

Salientando asserções principais da Fenomenologia do Espírito sobre a categoria da individualidade, este estudo pretende avaliar o papel da literatura na compreensão da assim chamada efetivação da consciência-de-si racional através de si mesma. Na primeira parte, a grande obra de Hegel é apresentada como uma tentativa de destituir o estatuto transcendental da subjetividade na filosofia moderna. Na segunda, mostra-se como Hegel concebe, contra outras disciplinas em voga, a auto-criação humana da individualidade, baseado na experiência de três famosas personagens literárias: Fausto, Karl von Moor e Dom Quixote.<br>By highlighting major statements from the Phenomenology of Spirit on the individuality category, this inquiry intends to appreciate the role of literature in understanding the so-called realization of racional self-consciousness through itself. In the first part, Hegels great work is presented as an attempt to depose the transcendental status of subjectivity in modern philosophy. In the second one, its shown how, against other current disciplines, Hegel conceives the human self-creation of individuality, based on the experience of three famous literary characters: Faust, Karl von Moor and Don Quixote.