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- Language: French
- Language: Japanese
- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
In 1999, Geneviève Hasenohr announced the discovery of a fragment of Marguerite Porete's Mirouer des Simples Ames, a work condemned by the Church at the University of Paris in 1310, hidden in a manuscript at the Bibliothèque municipale in Valenciennes. The fragment corresponds with roughly two chapters in the only extant French version of the manuscript (Chantilly, Musée Condé MS F XIV 26), and when compared with other editions of the Mirouer, it appears to be composed in what might have been Marguerite Porete's native dialect. The discovery changed scholars' perceptions of the weight of the various versions and translations - the Chantilly manuscript had been used previously to settle any questions of discrepancy, but now it appears that the Continental Latin and Middle English translations should be the arbiters. This discovery has elevated the Middle English editions, and has made the question of the translator's identity - he is known only by his initials M.N. - and background more imperative to an understanding of why a work with such a dubious history would be translated and harbored by English Carthusians in the century that followed its condemnation. The only candidate suggested for translator of the Mirouer has been Michael Northburgh (d. 1361), the Bishop of London and co-founder of the London Charterhouse, where two of the three remaining copies of the translation were once owned, but the language of the text and Northburgh's own position and interests do not fit this suggestion. My argument is that the content of the book, the method of its translation, its selection as a work for a Latin-illiterate audience, all fit within the interests of a circle of writers based in Yorkshire at the end of the fourteenth century. By beginning among the Yorkshire circle, and widening the search to include writers with a non-traditional contemplative audience, one that exists outside of the cloister - writers like Walter Hilton, the anonymous authors of the Cloud of Unknowing and the Chastising of God's Children, and Nicholas Love - we may have a better chance of locating and understanding the motives of the Middle English translator of the Mirouer.
ContributorsStauffer, Robert F (Author) / Voaden, Rosalynn (Thesis advisor) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT Emile Zola is considered one of the fathers of 19th century French Naturalist literature. He is famous for his eloquence, sarcasm and is well known for being a provocateur. He wants to follow the principles of science: observation of his characters in their living environment (or milieu). He holds that individuals inherit physical and personality traits from their ancestors, such as atavism, which can be passed from grandfather to father and father to son. This assumption leads to Social Darwinism and impacted Zola like many other European intellectuals who believed in the new social sciences. Religion was going extinct on the old continent and the trend was to apply these theories to literature and humanities. The author also captures the political and social unrest of a struggling working class in his novel Germinal, where starving miners rebel against the bourgeois class that exploits them. Baldomero Lillo is a Chilean naturalist follower of Emile Zola who found inspiration in Germinal to write Sub Terra-short stories depicting the grim life of the coal miners. The author knows them well since he shared his existence with the miners in Lota, in the southern region of Santiago. Unlike Zola, Lillo, who was less educated and less inclined to trust science, opts for a compassionate Naturalism which relates more to his culture and personal inclinations. Le milieu or el medio ambiente in the Sub Terra stories is dreadful and the author seeks to expose the master/slave relationship in a society that still resembles the European Middle Ages. Le milieu, that is to say the external forces that surround the miners (their geographical, social and political environment), eventually engulfs and condemns them to a life of servitude and misery. Determinism on both continents decides the fate of each member of the society.
ContributorsValente, Marie-Anne (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Thesis advisor) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Foster, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) is one of the greatest playwrights of the Romantic era. The most attractive fact of his work is the diversity of topics, genres, tones, opinions and styles. Musset's theater was created in the romantic drama period, which was influenced by abroad. He sought freedom of creation and sometimes showed independence from writers taking his own initiatives to change and mix different writing styles. Throughout the different parts of this thesis, I analyzed in detail the dramatic work of Musset, especially through his two plays, Les Caprices de Marianne (1833) and On ne Badine pas avec l'Amour (1834), to study the artistic originality of such an exceptionally talented artist. He lived in the Romantic period but never forgot his predecessors to whom he paid tribute. He was influenced by them while preserving his work's originality. This thesis consists of two chapters, the first is devoted to the Romanticism and its influence on Musset's dramatic work, and the second is about the different literary doctrines that have left their mark on Musset's theater. By studying them, I show how Musset used his talent to mix and match these several types of doctrines to create a unique artwork that is still alive and interesting today.
ContributorsAlavi, Azadeh (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Thesis advisor) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Gallais, Sylvain (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
My study centers on the novel Katakiuchi Kidan Jiraiya Monogatari (1806-1807) by Kanwatei Onitake (1760-1818). Jiraiya Monogatari was the first literary reading book to be adapted for the kabuki stage. It was also the prototype on which Mizugaki Egao, Kawatake Mokuami, Makino Shouzou; and others based their bound picture books, kabuki, and films. The tale is composed of two revenge incidents, both of which have the same structural framework and are didactic in tone. In my study, I analyze the two revenge incidents by examining their narrative structures. Each incident has the same three-act structure: setup, confrontation, and resolution. The setup of each revenge incident introduces the main characters and their relationships and establishes the dramatic vehicle, which is an unexpected incident that sets the revenge in motion. The confrontation contains myriad non-linear inserts, plot twists, and reversals of fortune, all of which have the effect of a narrative delay. This prolongation of the outcome of a simple revenge plot allows readers the necessary space in which they can form their own judgments regarding good and evil and consider karmic cause and effect. The resolution, including the climax as well as the ending of the revenge, demonstrates the didactic notion of punishing evil and karmic effect. The two revenge incidents embody two rules, kanzen chouaku and inga, which together highlight the didacticism of Jiraiya monogatari.
ContributorsZhang, Jin (Author) / Creamer, John (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Chambers, Anthony (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Explaining Fukushima to children: a cross-cultural study of bodily functions as metaphor in Japanese
Description
This research proposes that a cross-cultural disconnect exists between Japanese and American English in the realm of bodily functions used as metaphor. Perhaps nowhere is this notion illustrated more clearly than by a cartoon that was inspired by recent tragic events in Japan. In the afternoon of Friday, March 11, 2011, the northeast coast of Japan was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami that caused immeasurable loss of life and property and catastrophic damage to the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. In the immediate wake of these events, Japanese artist Hachiya Kazuhiko, determined to make the situation comprehensible to children, created a cartoon in which he anthropomorphized the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor and likened the dangers associated with it to illness and bodily functions. This cartoon garnered considerable notoriety, both in Japan and abroad. The reactions of English speakers appeared to differ from those of Japanese speakers, suggesting the existence of a possible cross-cultural disconnect. This research into the reactions to the cartoon and other relevant literature (both in English and Japanese), viewed against federal regulations regarding the broadcast of "obscenity" in the United States, commentary on American society, and how the use of similar language in American cartoons is seen, clearly indicates that negative attitudes toward the use of bodily functions as metaphor exist in the United States, while the same usage is seen differently in Japan.
ContributorsHacker, Michael (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012