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- Genre: Masters Thesis
Description
The most horrific, darkest, and powerful forms of the sublime take place inside the enclosure of the human psyche; the interior of the mind is the playground for the sublime--not the crag and canyon filled natural world. For Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, the driving force of the power of the sublime stems from the feelings of pain and fear: where is that more manifested than in the mind? Unlike the common, traditional, and overwhelmed discussion of Percy Shelley and his contemporaries and the power of the sublime in nature, I will argue that in The Cenci, Shelley, through well-chosen diction and precise composition of terrifying images, fashions characters and scenes in an emotion-driven play that elevates the mind of the reader to a transcendent sublime experience. Through a discussion of the theories of the aesthetic of the sublime laid out by Longinus, Burke, and Kant, I will provide a foundation for the later discussion of the rhetorical sublime evoked by Shelley in the ardent and horrifying play that is The Cenci. Looking at the conventional application of the theories of the sublime to romantic writing will make evident the holes in the discussion of the sublime and romantic writings that have almost forgotten the powerful and psychological rhetorical aspect of the sublime that is emphasized in the theoretical writings of both Burke and Kant. To clarify what is traditionally associated with Shelley and the sublime, a brief analysis of the Shelleyean sublime and Shelley's 1816 poem "Mont Blanc" will prepare the reader for an unconventional, but every bit important and powerful, function of the sublime in the 1819 play The Cenci based on the horrific happenings of a historical 16th century Italian noble family.
ContributorsGowan, Kaitlin (Author) / Lussier, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Corse, Douglas Taylor (Committee member) / Broglio, Ronald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Reduced space is an important theme in the works of the Marquis de Sade including his epic novel The New Justine and his pornographic performance piece Philosophy in the Bedroom including the political/social treatise "Frenchmen, yet another effort is needed if you want to be a Republic". Through out his life Sade attempted to overcome reduction of space with writing. Tragically, his writing often prolonged the reduction of his space by sending him to or keeping him in prison. It is my theory that his violent, pornographic writing style is "une écriture de surjouissance" or "a writing of over-coming". Surjouissance is my theory for Sade's method, based on textual analysis of Sade's main works, that he combines through his syntactic structure, narrative voice, and semantic themes the orgasm of the mind represented by philosophical discourse with the orgasm of the body represented textually by orgiastic scenes and the language of orgasm to reach an ultimate state of complete freedom. In the political pamphlet "Frenchmen yet another effort..."Sade attempts to set this theory of sur-jouissance, or this transcendent state reached through the combination of physical and philosophical orgasm, as the political foundation for a new republic. Does he succeed in creating a viable political formula for a sustainable republic? My argument states absolutely not. His aristocratic elitism narrows his voice. But he does propose the combination of sexual, literary, and intellectual freedoms as a possible polemic against any form of reduced space.
ContributorsSwankie, Ryan James (Author) / Mullet, Isabelle (Thesis advisor) / Canovas, Frédéric (Committee member) / Bahtchevanova, Mariana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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
Self-awareness and liberation often start with an analysis of the relationship between individual and society, a relationship based on the delicate balance of personal desire and responsibility to others. While societal structures, such as family, tradition, religion, and community, may be repressive to individuals, they also provide direction, identity and meaning to an individual's life. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening and André Gide's L'Immoraliste the protagonists are faced with such a dilemma. Often informed by gender roles and socio-economic class, the container or filter that society offers to shape and mediate human experience is portrayed in both novels as a fictitious self donned for society's benefit --can seem repressive or inadequate. Yet far from being one-dimensional stories of individuals who eschew the bonds of a restrictive society, both novels show that liberation can lead to entrapment. Once society's limits are transgressed, the characters face the infinitude and insatiety of their liberated desires and the danger of self-absorption. Chopin and Gide explore these issues of desire, body, and social authority in order to portray Edna's and Michel's search for an authentic self. The characters' search for authenticity allows for the loosening of restriction and embrace of desire and the body, phenomena that appear to liberate them from the dominant bourgeois society. Yet, for both Edna and Michel, an embrace of the body and individual desire threatens to unsettle the balance between individual and society. As Edna and Michel break away from society's prescribed path, both struggle to find themselves. Edna and Michel become aware of themselves in a variety of different ways: speaking and interacting with others, observing the social mores of those around them and engaging in creative activity, such as, for Edna, painting and planning a dinner party, or for Michel, teaching and writing. Chopin's 1899 novel The Awakening and André Gide's 1902 novel L'Immoraliste explore the consequences of individual liberation from the constricting bonds of religion, society, and the family. In depicting these conflicts, the authors examine the relationship between individual and society, freedom and restraint, and what an individual's relationship to his or her community should be.
ContributorsMcCulla, Jessica (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Losse, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT As a writer and a journalist, I have always been interested in narrative. When I moved to the small town of Wickenburg, Arizona in 2003, and began to get acquainted, a friend said to me, "The only way you leave Wickenburg is in a box." The town of Wickenburg places much importance on its history, a focus that led me to explore its related literature of the U.S. West, moving from there to think about evocative objects, collections, and to Material Culture Theory. This thesis considers three objects as springboards for exploring identity, sense of place, memory, and the narrative threads that bring these together. Two of these objects are specific to local history. The first is one of the leather badges worn by the women of Las Damas, a Wickenburg horse riding association. The second is a bronze sculpture, "Fatal Dismount," created by local rancher Mary Cooper Hamill, in which the artist depicts a moment, highly significant to her family, that also speaks to and from local history. The third object is a gold bead heirloom necklace that was handed down to me, the fifth-generation recipient. I conclude with a discussion of how evocative objects, handed down across generations, shape two memoirs by Isabel Allende, Paula, and My Invented Country. In the case of each object, the study of material culture provides a framework for understanding how women have created spaces for themselves, both now and in the past by interacting with objects, articulating identities, making meaning and re-creating history through memories and storytelling.
ContributorsNeu, Lora (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth R (Thesis advisor) / Tobin, Mary E (Committee member) / Morris, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This work aims to deepen the construction of identity of the Korean-argentinian through the "koreanity" and "koreanism". Therefore, we will analyze the short story collection La peonia y su sombra (2002) in search of evidence that discover the difficult definition of the "koreanism", or the practice of Korean culture, in which the language is included. The "koreanity" is a feature based on physical traits, while the "koreanism" is defined by the use of the language and the culture. While the "koreanity" is an exogenous factor, and it is well defined, the "koreanism" is defined through cultural impressions that are more difficult to distinguish. To do this we will use the Argentine native vision to find the "koreanism" and, if necessary, will exhibit different forms of subsistence of the "koreanism" in Argentina.
ContributorsLee, Jaekeun (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / De Jesús Hernández-G., Manuel (Committee member) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis examines poems and anecdotes about xiaohuan 小鬟 (little chignon) written by literati of the Song宋 (960－1279). The first chapter of this paper provides a brief history of household courtesans and the popularity of xiaohuan. The second chapter includes eleven poems and one anecdote on xiaohuan. All works are translated and followed by a critical analysis. Through a close reading of these works, I will examine the imagery of xiaohuan in the Song literary context, bring to light the major motif of the works, and reveal the reasons that contribute to literati's penchant for xiaohuan. The imagery of xiaohuan is based on their tender age. Poets use flowers to metaphorize xiaohuan's lithe, slim, short, and delicate figures. A major characteristic of the xiaohuan's youth is their inability to understand qing情 (affection) and this relative innocence and absence of desire becomes a major part of their representation. Consequently, their youth and virginity rather than their beauty are strongly stressed in the poems. This may be explained by poets' desire for longevity, pursued through the "Techniques of the Bedchamber," or fangzhong shu房中術, which suggests intercourse with pre-pubescent girls would bring men longevity or even transmutation.
ContributorsGe, Lihong (Author) / West, Stephen H. (Thesis advisor) / Cutter, Robert (Committee member) / Oh, Young Kyun (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Set in the former Yugoslavia, contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Midwest America, the collection of short stories follows the complicated trajectory of war-survivor to refugee and, then, immigrant. These stories---about religious prisoners who are not at all religious, about young, philosophizing boys tempting the bullets of snipers, about men retracing their fathers' steps over bridges that no longer exist---grapple with memory, imagination, and the nature of art, and explore the notion of writer as witness.
ContributorsHusić, Vedran (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In contemporary Indian literature, the question over which sets of Indian identities are granted access to power is highly contested. Critics such as Kathleen Waller and Sara Schotland align power with the identity of the autonomous individual, whose rights and freedoms are supposedly protected by the state, while others like David Ludden and Sandria Freitag place power with those who become a part of group identities, either on the national or communal level. The work of contemporary Indian author Aravind Adiga attempts to address this question. While Adiga's first novel The White Tiger applies the themes and ideology of the worth of the individual from African American novelists Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin, Adiga's latest novel, Last Man in Tower, shifts towards a study of the consequences of colonialism, national identity, and the place of the individual within India in order to reveal a changing landscape of power and identity. Through a discussion of Adiga's collective writings, postcolonial theory, American literature, South Asian crime novels, contemporary Indian popular fiction, and some of the challenges facing Mumbai, I track Adiga's shifts and moments of growth between his two novels and evaluate Adiga's ultimate message about who holds power in Indian society: the individual or the community.
ContributorsGlady, Sarah (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Mallot, Jack (Thesis advisor) / Clarke, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Chris Miller's Souvenirs of Sleep is as serious as it is whimsical, if this is a possibility. The "Museum of the Zoo-real" may be an equally appropriate title as animals are often in performance. In this visual and spiritual investigation, childhood, dream, and the loss of a mother to suicide are the currents. Miller's work is informed by the cinema of Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson and beyond. Miller believes in the power of implication. The poems begin with intense focus, but are often in the business of expansion. Souvenirs of Sleep is a journey toward sense-making, a search for language that might allow it.
ContributorsMiller, Christopher (Author) / Dubie, Norman (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013