Digital Commons Network^™

Contemporary Spanish American Drama Of Denunciation And Social Protest: The Case Of Argentina And Chile, Juan Ramón Layera

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

This study deals with the Latin American theater of social protest and denunciation, one of the most recurrent and representative variants of contemporary Latin American drama. The introductory analysis attempts to show the significance of this style of dramatic composition in the general context of Latin American literature. The introductory survey is followed by a comparative analysis of the dramatic production by Agustín Cuzzani and Sergio Vodanovic, representative authors of contemporary Argentine and Chilean drama, respectively.

Both the introductory overview and the comparative analysis of Cuzzani’s and Vodanovic’s works serve the two-fold function of demonstrating the value of the new …

The Paris Commune On The Stage: Vallès, Grieg, Brecht, Adamov, A Comparative Study About The Representation Of Historical Reality In Modern Theatre, Gerhard Fischer

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The present study is a comparative analysis of four dramas, all dealing with the same topic, namely the historical events known as the Paris Commune of 1871. Two of the plays were written in French, one in German and one in Norwegian. The first, Jules Vallès’ La Commune de Paris, is dated 1872; the other three are relatively recent works: Nordahl Grieg’s Nederlaget (1937), Bertolt Brecht’s Die Tage der Commune (1948-49) and Arthur Adamov’s Le Printemps 71 (1960). The latter three dramas are closely connected by reason of their respective mode and history of origin: Brecht used Grieg’s drama …

The Unities Of Time And Place In Sixteenth-Century Theater And Criticism, Dana Stone Clarke

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The world stage or, to borrow the title from one of Calderón’s plays, "el gran teatro del mundo," was a favorite metaphor of Renaissance writers. It appears in a great number of works of many different kinds, sometimes being extensively developed as a central structural device in the work itself, as in Laurentius Beyerlinck’s encyclopedic Theatrum vitae humanae (frontispiece Figure I). Another notable example is the “Fabula de homine” (c. 1518) written by the humanist scholar Luis Vives. The fable is an eloquent panegyric on the sublimity of Man, his “divine mind,” bliss-giving “powers of perception,” “handsomely shaped” body, and …

The Sterne Voyage Of The Pequod: The Tale Of A Tub In American Literature, Michael J. Pinker

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Story telling long bore a stigma which, while not necessarily evil, still induced a great many artists to strive, amidst the uncertainty of time and opinion, to depict their fondness for the jaunty tale or absurd anecdote in an inoffensive yet richly expressive style. The above quotations all pivot upon nonsense and exaggeration, a favorite mode of many of the greatest writers in the language. The method these authors followed in creating their comic masterpieces is often clearly reflected by their treatment of such a phrase as "a tale of a tub.” Though now practically obsolete, this epithet, first traced …

A "New Literary History" Of Modern Poetry: History And Deconstruction In The Works Of Whitman, Stevens, And Olson, Paul A. Bové

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The literary history of Modern and Postmodern poetry needs to be rewritten because much of this poetry throws into doubt the very language which critics normally use to write such histories. Furthermore, Modern poetry provides a more adequate, because less rigid, sense of poetic “tradition” upon which authentic literary history must "rest." The "history" of Modern and Postmodern poetry is largely the work of New Critics and New Critically trained academicians. Although there have been recently some attempts to deal with Modern poetry from non-New Critical standpoints, they have not succeeded. Indeed, a deconstruction of the rhetoric of the New …

Scandinavian And Other Influences On The Tristan Story, With Special Consideration Of The Morholt Episode, Raymond A. Phillips

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The story of Tristan and Isolde was long a favorite of medieval poets. This is attested by the numerous versions which have survived and the many manuscripts in which these various versions are preserved. It is also apparent that portions of the story must have possessed a long oral tradition before finding their way into the narratives as we know them. Efforts to isolate and reconstruct some of these elements by analysis of surviving texts and comparative examination of literary parallels to the Tristan legend have included speculations on origins in several national literatures.

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Of particular interest is the …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Deor, The Ruin And The Wanderer, Gary I. Rubin

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

With Bartlett and Huppé on which to rely, I will deal with three Old English poems: Deor, The Ruin, and The Wanderer. It is my belief that if we subject these poems to the kinds of analysis suggested by Bartlett and Huppé, we will be able to see that rhetoric is a determining factor in theme and structure. The elusive nature of the poems, their seeming illogic at times, may well be explained by the fact that the audience did indeed know the theme, the message, of the poem and that the delight of the poem was …

The Figure Of The Child In Selected German Novellen Of The Nineteenth Century, Frank Peter Strozyk

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The primary focus in this study will at all times be on the significance of the child for an understanding of a particular Novelle. However, this study will also attempt to draw certain parallels between the authors of this time span and to show what themes—in relation to the child—predominate in the Novelle.

The child in a Novelle can function in many ways: 1) the child can be merely a biological product of a certain sex and age having certain physical characteristics; 2) he can be exposed to physical dangers such as cold, hunger, and beatings; 3) he can be …

The Imagery Of Time And Season In The German Baroque And Romantic Poetry, Jane Muenzer Mehl

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Historians of German literature generally agree that the decisive turning point in the reappraisal of German Baroque literature was largely due to Heinrich Wölfflin’s seminal study Renaissance und Barock: Eine Untersuchung über Wesen und Entstehung des Barockstils in ltalien (1888). This monograph on the development of architecture in Rome represents the first significant attempt to distinguish Renaissance and Baroque art using purely structural terms. In it Wölfflin rejects an Aristotelian view of art as the imitation of nature and redefines art history as the study of artistic styles of different epochs, nations, and individuals, expressing distinct philosophies of life, aspirations, …

The Final Man; The Poetry Of Theodore Roethke, Floyd Charles Stuart

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The intent of this dissertation is to delineate how Roethke'e use of the Eden motif informs his poetry and shapes his particular world outlook. I will illustrate how Roethke's growing conviction that time points to eternity leads him to insist on the value of intuitive modes of knowing. He slowly adopts an Edenic imagery that operates both explicitly and implicitly. Although the conflicts in his poetry are never without their contradictions, although one finds few "solutions," one can see developing in various concrete speakers a dichotomy between man as he is --“fallen man” -- and man as he should be …

The Diaphoric Structure And Unity Of William Faulkner's Go Down Moses, Carol C. Harter

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

I have always been fascinated with Faulkner. But I was forever intimidated by his complex artistry and sweeping vision, and my first reading of “The Bear” was a frustrating experience. This oddly disjunct work simply did not make sense to the young undergraduate who then preferred the lucidity of Ernest Hemingway and the grey gloom of Graham Greene. Continued exposure to Faulkner, however, began to transform frustration into cryptic delight until it finally occurred to me that his greatest works were indeed among the greatest works America has ever produced. Nothing would suffice but a major study.

But intensive studies …