| 1. |
- Bergvall, Åke, 1955-
(författare)
-
Augustinian Perspectives in the Renaissance
- 2001
-
Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- The study investigates four areas in which the Augustinian presence was felt throughout the Renaissance: psychology, epistemology, the arts, and politics (one chapter is dedicated to each area). Augustine’s intellectual and spiritual development is interpreted as consisting of an early Plotinian period (ca. 386-396), and a later Pauline period (ca. 386-430). These influences resulted in two partially contradictory perspectives: one predominantly vertical (incorporeal and a-historical), the other more horizontal (taking into account the vicissitudes of time and history). The argument of the study is that the Plotinian and Pauline paradigms influenced the Renaissance in different ways, traceable in its literature. Without pretending comprehensiveness, the study follows a rough chronological outline. After an introduction that investigates Augustine’s development, the first chapter centers on Petrarch while the last three have Edmund Spenser as their special focus. Chapters two and four have a broader perspective that in addition to Spenser take in seminal thinkers from Ficino and Luther to Greville and Hooker.
|
|
| 2. |
- Eriksson, Åke, 1969-
(författare)
-
The Tragedy of Liberty : Civic Concern and Disillusionment in James Thomson's Tragic Dramas
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Early eighteenth-century serious drama often addresses the significance of liberty. This study focuses on the theme of civic and individual liberty in the little known tragedies of James Thomson, Sophonisba, Agamemnon and Tancred and Sigismunda, all of which problematise the condition of liberty under the influence of ideology.Situating the plays in the political, ideological and philosophical debates of the day, this study, like previous research in the field, recognises Thomson’s connection with the political opposition to the Whig ministry. However, the plays are examined from a historical perspective as a response to tenets that, although similar to those embraced by the political opposition, were actually part of government Whig and Tory ideologies, as well as of contemporary thought about the individual as a social being.The plays enact, it is argued, the problems involved in establishing and maintaining civic and individual liberty. What emerges is a set of binary relationships: private liberty is opposed to public duty; one country’s national liberty is set against another’s; a class-related stress on public social virtue is pitted against a more privately oriented social virtue. The tensions generated by these conflicting concepts of liberty influence the actions of the characters and the outcome of the tragedies. The tragic effect of Thomson’s plays arises, in large part, from an implicit suggestion that ideology is an insufficient means of upholding civic and individual liberty. The very tragedy of liberty springs from the realisation that civic liberty may in fact be impossible to sustain.By revealing an inherent ambivalence towards ideology, the analyses of the plays corroborate the idea that Thomson is on the fringe of the Opposition but cannot be said to be a mouthpiece for Bolingbroke’s group of patriots. Moreover, rather than extolling ideology, Thomson’s plays question it, which moderates the commonly held view of him as a didactic playwright. Finally, Thomson’s tragedies, it is shown, challenge what appeared to be an accepted ideological stance. The relative complexity that his plays offer in terms of querying current notions of freedom and liberty’s possible realisation makes his plays some of the most thought-provoking of their time.
|
|
| 3. |
- Hildebrand, Kristina, 1963-
(författare)
-
The Female Reader at the Round Table : Religion and Women in Three Contemporary Arthurian Texts
- 2001
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Stretching back at least a thousand years, Arthurian literature constitutes a vigorous and varied genre that attracts scholarly attention. In a close reading of three modern Arthurian texts, Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, The Crystal Cave (1970), The Hollow Hills (1973), The Last Enchantment (1979), Marion Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon (1982), and Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle, Taliesin (1987), Merlin (1988), Arthur (1989), Pendragon (1994), and Grail (1997), this study focuses on the intersection between two of the genre’s motifs: religion and gender. Inspired by the medieval Arthurian tradition, which is exemplified in my discussion by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and Sir Thomas Malory’s Works, these three texts rewrite the medieval stories, not merely by changing the plots, but by expressing new political, social, and cultural views of the gendering of religion.Stewart’s, Bradley’s and Lawhead’s novels portray different religious traditions: respectively, an eclectic monotheism, Neo-Pagan Wicca, and Christianity. They also offer different gender perspectives: in Stewart, the ungendering of the narrator and the unobtrusive inclusion of women as independent actors; in Bradley, feminist and female religion; and in Lawhead, the rejection of women as independent actors in religion.Modelled on the feminist reader response theory developed by Patrocinio P. Schweickart, my reading centres on the female readers’ identification as moderated by her faith, and aims to demonstrate that the female reader’s response will inevitably be coloured by the objects of identification offered by the text, by their portrayal of women as religious actors, and by the feminisation of evil that is apparent in them. Besides privileging the female perspective, my reading also attempts to recognise and critique patriarchal portrayals of women. Ultimately, my study shows that the female reader’s identification or alienation proceed from the interaction of the her own experience with the texts’ portrayal of religion and gender.
|
|
| 4. |
- Kella, Elizabeth
(författare)
-
beloved communities : Solidarity and difference in fiction by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and Joy Kogawa
- 2000
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the civil rights era, the concept of community has become increasingly politicizedin the US and Canada. Inextricably entangled in the new social movements andmulticulturalism of the 1980s and 1990s, community tends to be either much malignedor exaggeratedly extolled in the literary, cultural, and political discourses in which itfigures so prominently. The novels examined in this study, however, probe both thelimitations and the possibilities of community as a site for psycho-political empowerment.Bringing a variety of theoretical critiques of community to bear on Michael Ondaatje'sThe English Patient, Toni Morrison's Beloved and Paradise, and Joy Kogawa's Obasan andItsuka, the study analyzes the criteria for inclusion and exclusion at work in the types ofcommunity imagined in these texts, paying particular but not exclusive attention to theprinciple of race.Though imagining community in terms of race, place, nation, or gender risksreinforcing essentialist views of identity and repressing intra-group difference, the novelscounter that risk, at least in part, by returning to historically specific moments of collectivetrauma and oppression. Each novel's focus on collective social experience, it is argued,works in various degrees of opposition to the individualism at the heart of humanistthought. At the same time, however, the depictions of systemic violence and historicaloppression, as well as those of resistant solidarity, inevitably appeal to "universal"conceptions of human value, justice, and, in the case of Kogawa and Morrison, publicnegotiation of difference. The readings of the texts scrutinize the instances andimplications of tensions between essentialist and constructivist foundations for variousforms of community. From these readings emerges a view of community as a conceptuallycomplex and unstable terrain.
|
|
| 5. |
- Larsson, Christer, 1969-
(författare)
-
"The Relative Merits of Goodness and Originality" : The Ethics of Storytelling in Peter Carey’s Novels
- 2001
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to demonstrate that recurrent formal and thematic patterns in Peter Carey’s novels suggest an interrelation between the works, and that an analysis which takes that interrelation into account can extract an argument concerning the ethics of storytelling from the texts. The issue of the status of fictional discourse receives prominent and complex consideration in Carey’s novels, and this study argues that Carey presents storytelling as an intentional mode of social interaction, defined and governed by extra-linguistic conventions. For the discourse to be meaningfully described as fictional, storytellers as well as their audiences have to observe the rules that apply to their activity.The first step of the analysis, focusing on the formal level of the texts, discusses fictionality as an activity separate from nonfictional discourse and demonstrates that Carey’s novels emphasize how closure has to be seen as a crucial part of this activity. The formal features of Carey’s novels – e.g. his frequent use of first-person narrators, the constantly questioned reliability of these narrators, the disruption of chronology – have been viewed as exposing the relativity of any narrative. Seeking to extricate Carey’s novels from the postmodern and post-colonial discussions of them, this analysis argues, by contrast, that Carey separates fictional discourse from nonfictional by refusing to resist closure.Chapter two, the second step of the analysis, concentrates on the thematic level and reinforces the assumption that a distinction between fictionality and nonfictionality is essential. Whereas paradox on the formal level produces the liberating effect of suspending truth value, indicating the fictional status of the discourse, its thematic significance is nearly the opposite. Their attraction to paradox traps characters in impossible double positions, where they find themselves completely powerless, while decisions are made for them by necessity rather than by their own volition. Finally, John R. Searle’s version of speech act theory is employed to explain how a largely formalistic analysis of literature can be said to have ethical implications, and how a formal description of the storytelling situation can be realized.
|
|
| 6. |
- Leandoer, Katarina, 1966-
(författare)
-
From Colonial Expression to Export Commodity : English-Canadian Literature in Canada and Sweden 1945–1999
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation follows the trajectory of English-Canadian literature in post-WWII Canada and Sweden. Taking the 1951 publication of the Massey Report as its starting-point, this study explores a succession of events in Canada after the Second World War, which contributed to creating a fruitful environment for the development of a national literature in English Canada. The new cultural infrastructure, consisting of governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, further encouraged literary production. In addition, and partly as a consequence of the enhanced cultural and literary self-confidence, attempts were made to export this literature to the surrounding world. Examining the composition of these endeavours, this thesis furthermore investigates the reception of English-Canadian literature in one of the countries targeted, Sweden.Concentrating on the critical reception of English-Canadian literature in Sweden, the study notes an unprecedented increase in the number of works translated and reviewed in the post-WWII period, especially beginning in the early 1980s: neither Swedish literature nor other foreign literatures in translation evince similar figures in the post-WWII period. Moreover, the dissertation examines how English-Canadian literature, previously virtually unknown to the Swedish public, has now gained considerable recognition. By favouring certain authors over others, Swedish publishers and critics have contributed to a canon formation of English-Canadian literature which deviates from the one in English Canada, and this study explores the impact of prestigious newspapers and reviewers on the emerging Swedish canon of English-Canadian literature. This thesis finally notes that the Swedish canon – initially differently formed – has recently grown similar to the English-Canadian one, and it suggests that, for example, the increasingly globalized world may have some bearing on this new development.
|
|
| 7. |
- Molander Danielsson, Karin
(författare)
-
The Dynamic Detective : Special Interest and Seriality in Contemporary Detective Series
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study argues that the relatively new conventions of detective fiction, special interest and seriality, are expanding and regenerating the genre. Special interest designates a political, ethnic, regional, professional or hobby-related agenda of a special interest group (consisting, usually, of writer, protagonist and readers) which makes up an integral part of the detective story. In recent decades detective series have become increasingly intraconnected. Seriality is the term used for dependence on intraserial references and a chronological, intradiegetic order within a series. The result of this regeneration of the detective genre includes a closer attention to characterization and a dynamic detective hero, and a shift in focus, from the case the detective investigates to the life he or she leads.The study is organized in three sections. The first, intended as a background to later developments, is devoted to the early conventions found in early classic and hardboiled detective fiction from Great Britain and the United States. The second part studies special interests in a number of American and British detective series from the latter part of the 20th century. Some of the writers represented are Tony Hillerman, Walter Mosley, BarbaraNeely, Amanda Cross, Joan Smith, Dick Francis and Jody Jaffe. This section makes use of Peter J. Rabinowitz’s concept of the authorial audience and related theory, and discusses among other things at what audience a text is aimed and whether a popular text, in building a community through special interest, risks becoming too exclusive.The third section returns to the same primary texts, this time exploring the various aspects of seriality such as serial subplots, the tensions between closure and open-endedness inherent in the series form, and the effects of seriality on established detective conventions. The detective series is compared to other serial forms, and is seen to be closely related to the roman-fleuve. The study, finally, discusses character and characterization as narrative elements which unite special interest and seriality and which have become steadily more foregrounded in contemporary detective series.
|
|
| 8. |
- Odenbring Ehlert, Anne
(författare)
-
"There's a bad time coming" : Ecological Vision in the Fiction of D. H. Lawrence
- 2001
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study aims to shed new light on the relation between humankind and nature in D. H. Lawrence's fiction. While this may seem like well-trodden ground in Lawrence criticism, my reading is ecocritical and re-examines his texts through the perspective of today's environmental awareness. With its criticism of the rapid mechanisation of society and people's alienation from their primitive and rural roots, some of Lawrence's fiction anticipates the ecological problems facing society today. This foreshadowing, though fragmentary and imprecise at times, points to facets of Lawrence's writings that have not been sufficiently examined. Central to my argument are the philosophical aspects of ecology: holism, anti-anthropocentrism, and environmental ethics. Focusing on pastoral representations, scientific and mechanical imagery, and primitivism, I show that Lawrence's fiction presents a critical awareness of social development Although such social criticism implies a negative view of early twentieth- century society, it also posits a vision which challenges the dominant position of the capitalist belief in industrial progress by advocating a social order based on sustainable life-affirming values. This vision, I argue, can be related to today's ecological philosophy since it celebrates a holistic perspective of life and rejects man-centred, anthropocentric, social structures. A second claim of this study is that this vision becomes more explicit with time, Starting from Lawrence's first novel, The White Peacock and concluding with his last, Lady Chatterley's Lover, my study demonstrates a line of development in the fictional treatment of the protagonists' ideas about their present and future existence. While the examples of ecological ideas, such as the balance of nature, cyclic patterns, and holism, are largely fragmentary in the early texts, in the later works these elements are complemented by anti-anthropocentric ideas, biocentrism, and environmental ethics, thus transforming the social concern into an ecological vision.
|
|
| 9. |
- Oldireva Gustafsson, Larisa, 1948-
(författare)
-
Preterite and Past Participle Forms in English 1680–1790 : Standardisation Processes in Public and Private Writing
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present study surveys variation and standardisation processes in the use of preterite and past participle forms in English texts included in A Corpus of Public and Private Writing (1680–1790), PPW. Quantitative and qualitative changes in the varied spelling of -ED forms of regular verbs (e.g. fixed, fix’d, fixd, fixt, and fix’t) and in the fluctuating use of preterite and past participle forms of irregular verbs (e.g. tha preterite variant forms drunk and writ and tha past participle variant forms drank and wrote) are the focus of this investigation. In this study, to show different facets of standardisation, the corpus-based evidence of usage is compared to the evidence of contemporaneous grammars, rhetoric books, and dictionaries. The data provided by the corpus reveal that the contrasts of usage in public and private registers of writing are crucial to our understanding of variation and standardisation processes. In public writing, a tendency towards standardisation is statistically manifest in the spelling of -ED forms of regular verbs but not substantiated in the use of forms of irregular verbs. By contrast, in private writing, the varied spelling of forms of regular verbs recedes moderately, whereas the recession of variation in the use of forms of irregular verbs is prominent. In sum, an intricate complex of statistical tendencies is revealed when the corpus-based evidence is related to the variables of time, register, text type, and grammatical category. These tendencies prove that standardisation is not a monolithic process but comprises diverse and statistically distinct standardisation processes.The study also shows that the corpus-based evidence of usage may be at variance with the evidence of precept as the register of writing was not a factor relevant to the grammatical codification of the time. This factor is nonetheless pivotal when we describe the diversity of standardisation processes.
|
|
| 10. |
- Olsson, Anders
(författare)
-
Managing Diversity : The Anthologization of "American Literature"
- 2000
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- analys av tvåbandsantologier för USA:s litteratur, deras bild av nationallitteraturen, deras inbördes beroende och deras beroende av det litterära protokoll som den nationella litterära traditionen skapat
|
|
