Spanish influence on English literature,

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Questions in Narratives from Oral Tradition to Literature

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Social paranoia and absurdist fiction in Cold War America and Soviet Russia: a comparative study

This thesis explores the theme of social paranoia as depicted in the Absurdist fiction of Cold War America and Soviet Russia. The central hypothesis informing this research maintains that, despite the ideology of moral and cultural “Otherness” constructed and reinforced by both nations throughout much of twentieth century, the US and the Soviet Union more often than not functioned as mirror images of paranoia and suspicion. Much of the fiction produced in Russia from the Revolution onwards and in the US during the Cold War period highlights how these two ostensibly irreconcilable nations were consumed by similar fears and gripped by an equally pervasive paranoia. These parallel conditions of anxiety and mistrust led to a surprising congruity of literary responses, which transcended the ideological divide between capitalism and communism and, as such, underscored the homogeny of fear which lay beneath the façade of constructed difference. I contend that, because Soviet Russia and the America of the Cold War period were nations consumed by fear and suspicion, authors living in both countries became preoccupied by the mechanics of such deeply paranoid societies. Consequently, much of the fiction of the US and the Soviet Union during this period was preoccupied with the themes of paranoia, conspiracy, intensive bureaucracy and the politicisation of science, which resulted in the terror of the Nuclear Age. This thesis explores how these central themes unite apparently diverse literary texts and illustrate the uniformity of terror which transcended both the physical and ideological boundaries separating the United States and the Soviet Union. In doing so, this research focuses primarily on the multi-faceted manifestations of paranoia in selected works by Soviet authors Mikhail Bulgakov, Daniil Kharms and Yuli Daniel, and American authors Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut. Focusing on key works by each author, this research considers these texts as products of two culturally diverse, yet equally paranoid societies and explores their preoccupation with issues of spying, infiltration and conspiracy. This thesis thus emphasises how these authors counter simplistic notions of Cold War Otherness by revealing two nations possessed by a similar sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Furthermore, this thesis examines how this social anxiety is reinforced by the way in which these authors position issues such as the mechanics of the bureaucratic system and clandestine scientific experimentation as the focal point of the paranoid imagination. Ultimately, by examining the concordance of paranoiac representation in America and the Soviet Union during this period, I demonstrate that these ostensibly divergent nations harboured similar fears and insecurities.

Embouchure

Poem

Critical analysis of spam prevention techniques

E-mail spam has remained a scourge and menacing nuisance for users, internet and network service operators and providers, in spite of the anti-spam techniques available; and spammers are relentlessly circumventing these anti-spam techniques embedded or installed in form of software products on both client and server sides of both fixed and mobile devices to their advantage. This continuous evasion degrades the capabilities of these anti-spam techniques as none of them provides a comprehensive reliable solution to the problem posed by spam and spammers. Major problem for instance arises when these anti-spam techniques misjudge or misclassify legitimate emails as spam (false positive); or fail to deliver or block spam on the SMTP server (false negative); and the spam passes-on to the receiver, and yet this server from where it originates does not notice or even have an auto alert service to indicate that the spam it was designed to prevent has slipped and moved on to the receiver’s SMTP server; and the receiver’s SMTP server still fail to stop the spam from reaching user’s device and with no auto alert mechanism to inform itself of this inability; thus causing a staggering cost in loss of time, effort and finance. This paper takes a comparative literature overview of some of these anti-spam techniques, especially the filtering technological endorsements designed to prevent spam, their merits and demerits to entrench their capability enhancements, as well as evaluative analytical recommendations that will be subject to further research.

Huellas de Eros y Thánatos en la narrativa de Diamela Eltit : La palabra en movimiento en el juego entre tropos, metáforas y deconstrucciones lingüísticas

Väitöskirja analysoi espanjan kielen dekonstruktioita ruumiin metaforista ja troopeista koostuvassa aineistossa chileläisen kirjailijan Diamela Eltitin (1949 -) neljässä romaanissa: Lumpérica (1983), Vaca sagrada (1991), El infarto del alma (1994) ja Los trabajadores de la muerte (1998). Näkökulma on kielen muutoksessa Eltitin proosassa 1980- ja 1990-luvuilla alkaen kokeellisesta huippuvaiheesta 1983, jolloin hän julkaisi esikoisromaaninsa Lumpérica. Tutkimus korostaa Eltitin romaanien historiallista arvoa, kirjallisuuden tapaa murtaa kielen rakenteita ja sitä miten tämä murros kytkeytyy taideteoreettiseen muutokseen kulttuuridiskursseissa. Tutkimus tarkastelee Eltitin kehityskaarta kenraali Augusto Pinochetin sotilasvallankaappauksesta 1973 halki sotilashallituksen kauden (1973-1990) aina kansalaisyhteiskunnan vahvistumiseen ja vuoteen 1998. Tutkimus analysoi ruumiin troopeista ja metaforista koostuvaa tutkimusaineistoa lingvistiikan, kirjallisuustieteen, historian ja sukupuolen tutkimuksen monitieteisessä viitekehyksessä. Sen vuoksi väitöskirja liittyy espanjalaisen filologian, yleisen kirjallisuustieteen, Latinalaisen Amerikan tutkimuksen ja naistutkimuksen oppiaineisiin. Kolme tärkeintä oppiteoreettista runkoa ovat lingvistinen strukturalismi, dekonstruktio ja feministiset kirjallisuusteoriat. Dekonstruktiivinen lähestymistapa tekstiin korostaa kielen merkityksen muodostumisen filosofista perustaa. Se pyrkii selvittämään, miten merkitys muodostuu kirjoittajan, tekstin ja lukijan välillä. Tekstikritiikki koostuu semanttisesta ja dekonstruktiivisesta tekstianalyysistä, jonka metodologisen mallin perusta on tanskalaisen kielitieteilijän Louis Hjelmslevin (1899-1965) kielitieteellinen malli. Väitös ei käytä mallia suoraan, vaan soveltaa sitä kaunokirjallisuuden tutkimukseen. Oppiteoreettisen viitekehyksen osalta tutkimus sijoittuu strukturalismin ja poststrukturalismin murrokseen. Tutkimus korostaa Eltitin radikaalia muotokieltä ja teatraalisuutta, hänen kielensä visuaalisuutta ja ruumiin metaforien eroottista jännitettä, mikä ilmenee mm. falloksen metaforaksi tulkitun hehkuvan valon kuvissa romaanissa Lumpérica. Vanhat kreikkalaiset myytit Éros ja Thánatos kasvavat esille länsimaisen taidehistorian perinteestä ja kontekstualisoituvat uusiksi kielikuviksi Chilen kirjallisessa maaperässä. Ne muodostavat Eltitin taiteellisen tuotannon pysyvän aihepiirin ja luovat teoksiin synkkää ja karua virettä sekä tummia ja eroottisia sävyjä. Tutkimus osoittaa, että Eltit dekonstruoi kieltä, mutta dekonstruktiot eivät ole jatkuvia eivätkä samanlaisia kaikissa romaaneissa. Kielellisten dekonstruktioiden variaatio on laaja eikä Eltit murra kielen syntaktisia ja morfologisia rakenteita kaikissa teksteissään. Tutkimuksen perusteella väitän, että Eltitin kirjoituksesta puhuttaessa useat tutkijat käyttävät epämääräisesti dekonstruktio-termiä. Useiden tutkijoiden toteamus dekonstruktiosta Diamela Eltitin kirjallisessa tuotannossa pysyvänä piirteenä on epätäsmällinen. Sen sijaan dekonstruktiivinen kirjoitus tarkoittaa Eltitillä laajasti vaihtelevaa lähestymistapaa kieleen, mikä ilmenee kehityslinjana hänen tuotannossaan ja eri tavoin jokaisessa teoksessa.

Fictionalising Trauma : The Aesthetics of Marguerite Duras's India Cycle

Marguerite Duras (1914−1996) was one of the most original French writers and film directors, whose cycles are renowned for a transgeneric repetition variation of human suffering in the modern condition. Her fictionalisation of Asian colonialism, the India Cycle (1964−1976), consists of three novels, Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein (1964), Le Vice-consul (1966) and L'amour (1971), a theatre play, India Song (1973), and three films, La Femme du Gange (1973), India Song (1974) and Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta desért (1976). Duras’s cultural position as a colon in inter-war ‘Indochina’ was the backdrop for this “théâtre-text-film”, while its creation was provoked by the atrocities of World War II and post-war decolonisation. Fictionalising Trauma analyses the aesthetics of the India Cycle as Duras’s critical working-through of historical trauma. From an emotion-focused cognitive viewpoint, the study sheds light on trauma’s narrativisation using the renewed concept of traumatic memory developed by current social neuroscience. Duras is shown to integrate embodied memory and narrative memory into an emotionally progressing fiction. Thus the rhetoric of the India Cycle epitomises a creative symbolisation of the unsayable, which revises the concept of trauma from a semiotic failure into an imaginative metaphorical process. The India Cycle portrays the stagnated situation of a white society in Europe and British India during the thirties. The narratives of three European protagonists and one fictional Cambodian mendicant are organised as analogues mirroring the effects of rejection and loss on both sides of the colonial system. Using trauma as a conceptual prism, the study rearticulates this composition as three roles: those of witnessing writers, rejected survivors and colonial perpetrators. Three problems are analysed in turn by reading the non-verbal markers of the text: the white man as a witness, the subversive trope of the madwoman and the deadlock of the colonists’ destructive passion. The study reveals emotion and fantasy to be crucial elements in critical trauma fiction. Two devices intertwine throughout the cycle: affective images of trauma expressing the horror of life and death, and self-reflexive metafiction distancing the face-value of the melodramatic stories. This strategy dismantles racist and sexist discourses underpinning European life, thus demanding a renewal of cultural memory by an empathic listening to the ‘other’. And as solipsism and madness lead the lives of the white protagonists to tragic ends, the ‘real’ beggar in Calcutta lives in ecological harmony with Nature. This emphasises the failure of colonialism, as the Durasian phantasm ambiguously strives for a deconstruction of the exotic mythical fiction of French ‘Indochina’.

War and Revolution in St. Petersburg : Modernist Links in the Poetry of Edith Södergran and Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

Important modernists in their own countries, Anna Akhmatova and Edith Södergran are compared in this dissertation as poets whose poetry reflects the climactic events of the early twentieth century in Finland and Russia. A comparatist, biographical and historical approach is used to uncover the circumstances surrounding these events. First the poets’ early works are reviewed and their contemporaries are mentioned to provide a poetic context. Then a brief review of Finnish and Russian history situates them historically. Next, the rich literary diversity of St. Petersburg’s Silver Age is presented and the work of the poets is viewed in context before their poetry is compared, as the First World War, October Revolution and subsequent Finnish Civil War impact their writing. While biography is not the primary focus, it becomes important as inevitably the writers’ lives are changed by cataclysmic events and the textual analysis of the poems in Swedish, Russian and English shows the impact of war on their poetry. These two poets have not been compared before in a critical review in English and this work contributes to needed work in English. They share certain common modernist traits: attention to the word, an intimate, unconventional voice, and a concern with audience. In addition, they both reject formal traditions while they adopt new forms and use modern, outside influences such as art, architecture and philosophy as subject matter and a lens through which to focus their poetry. While it may seem that Anna Akhmatova was the most socially aware poet, because of the censorship she endured under Stalin, my research has revealed that actually Edith Södergran showed the most social consciousness. Thus, a contrast of the poets’ themes reveals these differences in their approaches. Both poets articulated a vibrant response to war and revolution becoming modernists in the process. In their final works created in the years before their deaths, they reveal the solace they found in nature as well as final mentions of the violent events of their youth. Keywords: St. Petersburg, Modernism, Symbolism, Acmeism, Silver Age, Finland-Swedish literature

Tanssi Möbiuksen renkaalla : Alain Robbe-Grillet'n romaani Djinn ja kirjallisuuden välitila

Ranskalaisen uuden romaanin isän, Alain Robbe-Grillet'n romaani Djinn (1981) on alun perinilmestynyt ranskan kielen oppikirjana nimellä Le Rendez-vous (1981). Oppikirjaelementti tulee selkeimmin esiin siinä, että tarinan edetessä verbit esitellään helpoimmasta konjugaatiosta vaikeimpaan, eri aikamuodot ja modukset esitellään järjestelmällisesti indikatiivin preesensistä alkaen,jne. Tästä kieliopillisen kehityksen periaatteesta generoituu myös itse tarina. Ts. kieliopillinen aineisto ja didaktisuus tunkeutuvat vastustamattomasti myös tarinan tasolle. Viime kädessä Djinn on siis kertomus kielestä. Toisaalta, vaikka Djinn väistää kaikki genre-luokitukset, voisi sitä luonnehtia eräänlaiseksi salapoliisiromaaniksi tai mysteeriksi, sillä siinä päähenkilö Simon Lecœur saa vallankumoukselliselta organisaatiolta omituisen toimeksiannon. Tehtävän luonnetta ei kuitenkaan paljasteta, mutta vähitellen selviää, että kysymys on kielen arvoituksesta. Matkansa varrella romaanin päähenkilö ja lukija ikään kuin vihitään kieltä ja kirjallisuutta koskevaan pyhään tietoon. Mukaansavetävän kerronnan ja kertomuksen "takaa" paljastuu siis myös metakirjallinen ja (kirjallisuuden)filosofinen teos. Djinn-romaanissa toimiva vallankumouksellinen organisaatio taistelee ihmiskunnan koneistumista ja mekanisaatiota vastaan, sillä ne ovat vieraannuttaneet ihmisen todellisesta elämästä. Samalla tavalla koko romaani taistelee kielen jähmettyneisyyttä, atomisoitumista ja mekanisoitumista vastaan. Aivan kuten lingvistis-didaktinen elementti sekoittuu romaanissa fantastiseen fiktioon, sekoittuvat siinä vastaansanomattomasti toisiinsa myös länsimaisen populaarikulttuurin stereotypiat ja mytologinen aineisto, aika ja kielen aikamuodot, fiktio ja todellisuus, jne. Romaanissa purkautuvat myös monet dikotomiset oppositioparit - mm. mies vs. nainen, puhe vs. kirjoitus, järjestys vs. epäjärjestys ja jopa lukija vs. kirjailija. Teoksen vallankumouksellisuus on välitilassa, joka on kohtaamisen (rendez-vous) tila. Ts. romaani pyrkii kaikilta osin siihen kielen ja merkityksen syntymän tilaan, jossa mieli ja merkitys (sens) ei vielä ole erottautunut "mielettömyydestä" ja "merkityksettömyydestä" (non-sens). Välitilanvapaus on siinä, että ihmisen jähmettyneet käsitykset ja konstruktiot maailmasta rikkoutuvat ja korvautuvat sisäisellä liikkeellä, jossa ihminen ja maailma kohtaavat toisensa välittömällä tavalla. Pyrkimys välitilaan yhdistää Djinnin myös Gilles Deleuzen filosofiaan. Tässä välitilassa kieli ei ole enää todellisuudesta vieraantunutta. "Simulaatio" tai "kommunikaation ekstaasi" ei ole mahdollista kielellä, joka kieltäytyy kommunikoimasta, kieltäytyy olemasta pelkkä väline. Sen sijaan tämä kieli vaatii lähikosketusta, tuntoaistia, osallistumista. Tätä tapahtumaa välitilassa voi kutsua tanssiksi Möbiuksen renkaalla. Avainsanat: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Gilles Deleuze, Djinn, nouveau roman (uusi romaani)

Modos de ser poeta brasileiro nos anos 1920: uma leitura do diálogo epistolar de Carlos & Mário

Esta tese tem como proposta uma leitura de aspiração ensaística da correspondência entre os escritores Carlos Drummond de Andrade e Mário de Andrade durante o Modernismo, entre 1924 e 1929, com destaque para a afirmação da identidade do poeta brasileiro em sua relação com o nacionalismo. A correspondência, abordada como diálogo epistolar, é analisada cronologicamente, relacionando os temas propostos à produção artística dos escritores. A troca de opinião sobre originais dos próprios autores é um dos focos da análise do texto, em especial as cartas que envolvem a gênese do livro Alguma poesia, publicado por Carlos Drummond de Andrade em 1930. As cartas têm como antecedente o cuidado de si, oriundo da cultura greco-romana, exercido pelos antigos filósofos como um exercício espiritual e de reflexão sobre o cotidiano. Desse modo, a partir do convite epistolar de devotar-se ao Brasil feito por Mário, Carlos elabora poemas como respostas, em um diálogo que ganha permanência poética

Formas inter-comunicacionais em Pedro Nava: o signo verbal e o pictórico

Esta pesquisa, contribuindo para os estudos em Literatura Comparada, evidencia a correlação entre Literatura e Artes Plásticas, que tem sido vista desde a Antigüidade quando ícones da analogia entre o verbal e o pictórico deixaram suas marcas na correspondência entre as artes. Tal correlação atravessou vários períodos da História e continua presente em inúmeras pesquisas, na época contemporânea. Este trabalho examina a especificação teórica de vários escritores relacionados ao tema e enfoca principalmente as formas como Pedro Nava (1903-1984) utilizou os artifícios verbal e pictórico ao lidar com duas artes distintas

Escrevivências na Diáspora:escritoras negras, produção editorial e suas escolhas afetivas, uma leitura de Carolina Maria de Jesus, Conceição Evaristo, Maya Angelou e Zora Neale Hurston

A pesquisa apresenta um inventário das obras literárias produzidas por romancistas negras afro-americanas e afro-brasileiras, publicadas no mercado editorial brasileiro. Investiga como autoras afro-americanas Maya Angelou e Zora Neale Hurston e as afro-brasileiras Carolina Maria de Jesus e Conceição Evaristo, representam em suas obras as suas escolhas afetivas. Examina as experiências individuais das autoras, analisa como o tema da afetividade é tratado em suas produções usando como eixo central o trabalho comparativo entre as autoras escolhidas e investiga sobre a relação de gênero, raça x autoria na construção de intelectuais negras, tendo como fio condutor a perspectiva comparatista na narrativa literária

Ser quem se é: a experiência de uma existência autêntica em Heidegger, Hesse e Clarice

Buscando compreender o que seria e a própria possibilidade de uma experiência de existência de modo autêntico, o presente trabalho busca apresentar diferentes construções de tal experiência, escolhidas principalmente pela proximidade temática e do contexto de produção. No campo da filosofia, será apresentada a construção realizada pelo filósofo Martin Heidegger em Ser e Tempo, enquanto que no campo da literatura serão analisados traços das construções presentes em duas obras de Hermann Hesse O Lobo da Estepe e Sidarta e em duas obras de Clarice Lispector Uma Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres e A Paixão Segundo G.H. Ele está dividido em três partes. A primeira refere-se à construção da experiência de existência autêntica em Ser e Tempo. Em seguida, serão analisados os quatro romances eleitos utilizando como referência, mas não se limitando a, conceitos heideggarianos. Por fim, será realizada uma análise comparativa, quando serão contrapostas as ferramentas utilizadas em cada romance para apresentar tal experiência, e então alguns desdobramentos possíveis serão apresentados. Como principal questão que liga as obras estudadas, pode-se perceber que em todas elas está presente o ser quem se é, modo no qual ocorre uma abertura própria do ser que nós mesmos somos

Komparatystyka na rozdrożu?

The author of the article attempts to present the situation of comparative studies as a field of research and a way of thinking about the contemporary world on the basis of the analyses presented in Comparative Literature at a Crossroads? in the monographic issue of “Comparative Studies” 2006. Much attention is paid to the phenomenon of the crisis of comparative studies connected with a noticeable reluctance towards great theoretical models shared by many researchers, the extensiveness of the topic area and resulting methodological problems but also the fact that comparatists abandon the studies of other languages. This results in a need of searching for a satisfactory definition of this field of study, its scope of research and applicable research methods. Among the specific issues raised in the article there is, e.g. the case of world literature seen in the context of the classical contradiction between cultural hegemony and cultural pluralism. Moreover, an interesting review of the picture of the Polish culture from the perspective of postcolonial theories and intracultural differences is presented.