|
|
Vertiginous relations in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms and Mourning Becomes Electra
Landerová, Petra ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
The recurrent theme of inter-human family relationships in a state of loss and decay in plays authored by Eugene O'Neill arises in part from the author's own traumatic relationship with his parents and with his brother James. Trying to deal with his torturous memories, O'Neill seeks answers through his cursed characters, who partly derive from the writer himself, yet also offer a universal portrayal of humankind as a victim of his own mental being and system. Given O'Neill's profound interest in psychoanalysis, the plays mostly take place in the life process of the individual minds of the protagonists and of the animating effect they have on others who populate the play-texts; therefore it is essential for the understanding of the play-works under critical consideration to look at the inner lives and worlds of these enigmatic characters, and to evaluate to what extent they act on their own will and where, conversely, unconscious forms of desire from other characters, memories, wishes, objects and so forth are instead determinant. The canonical plays Desire Under the Elms and Mourning Becomes Electra offer an intriguing blend of the forms and of the contents of the classical-traditional and of the modern stage play, as they extend the heritage and the lineage of ancient Greek tragedy, although situated in...
|
|
|
Poetika imanence: performance divadlo Forced Entertainment
Suk, Jan ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee) ; Voigts, Eckart (referee)
Jan Suk The Poetics of Immanence: Performance Theatre of Forced Entertainment Abstract The present dissertation thesis examines the multi-faceted nature of the devised as well as durational works of the British experimental theatre Forced Entertainment via the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The aim of the thesis is to explore the transformation- potentiality of the territory between the actors and the spectators. The transformativity of this interspace, or the territory in-between, is decodable namely via Forced Entertainment's performances' structural patterns, sympathy fostering aesthetics, virtual audience integration and accentuated emphasis of the now. The application of Deleuze's philosophy, chiefly the phenomenon of immanence, results in the definition of the poetics of immanence, whose operation enables the transformativity of theatrical space to be terminologically embraced. After delineating crucial terms, such as performance and theatre, live art, or postdramatic theatre, the initial chapter contextualizes Forced Entertainment as the pivotal experimental theatre group; the chapter further conducts an analysis of relevant critical literature in performance and theatre theory discourse. Chapter two provides a deeper contextualising study of the most significant Deleuzoguattarian...
|
|
| |
|
|
Fictional political mirroring in Two novels by Vladimír Nabokov
Šindelářová, Martina ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
The focus of this thesis is to closely analyze two novels by Vladimir Nabokov, namely Invitation to a Beheading and Bend Sinister, and on the basis of close reading as well as detailed examination of critical literature enlighten the circumstances of their creation in the course of author's life and the influences and experiences that might have imprinted in the novels. Although validity of biographical approach may be subjected to question, it proves to be a rather insightful approach concerning the central topic of the thesis and it also provides wider perspective for more accurate understanding of the novels, as it directs the reader from politics towards more philosophical and aesthetical concerns. The thesis should also summarise the main points of Nabokov's artistic theory and clarify what was the main concern of Nabokov's literary works. Invitation to a Beheading, one of the last works Nabokov wrote in his mother tongue, a "dystopian fable" which appeared for the first time in a Russian émigré magazine Sovremenniya Zapiski in 1938, follows the last days of Cincinnatus C., a prisoner sentenced to death for his deviation from the common transparency of his fellow citizens in a world which is a grotesque parody of an absurd political regime, but at the same time this exaggerating portrayal depicts the...
|
|
|
Toni Morrison; Magical Realism Serving to Outline Cultural Experience
Hůlková, Kateřina ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Thesis Abstract In my thesis I focus on the application and role of magical realism in Toni Morrison's two novels, Song of Solomon and Beloved. Because the supernatural elements in these two stories serve mainly as catalytic forces that reveal hidden and submerged realities of the characters' lives, my goal was to discuss and determine Morrison's motivations for the use of magical realism, its purpose, and possible final results of the writer's literary effort. I began by analyzing Morrison's own critical work in which she focuses on her position as a writer being confronted with the dehumanized picture of blackness the way it was created by white Americans in order to preserve their own humanity in the wilderness of the New World. As for the literary language, the writer argues that the said point of view and the literary tradition that stems from it offer only two possible approaches: incursive glorification of the minority, or defensive conformity. These nevertheless appear to be metaphorical blind alleys to her attempts, as none has a potential to create an authentic picture of African Americans. A relevant hindering obstacle to mention is that a lot was lost through the process of dehumanization. My attempt was to demonstrate that by the application of magical realism, Morrison tries to re-humanize (to...
|
|
|
Copy, imitation, forgery as an artistic principle in the novel Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd
Labanczová, Johana ; Armand, Louis (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
In the first chapter a question was posed: whether the original and the derivative represent a classic binary opposition in Chatterton. The wide usage of repetition in the novel was revealed to highlight the textuality (in the sense of Waugh's 'condition of artifice'1), intertextuality and self-intertextuality of Chatterton - in particular through references to other texts, the novel's self-referentiality, but also the applying of the means of visual representation (as it was shown in the third chapter). By showing its dependence on particular artistic and textual representations, repetition calls attention to the fact that for example also history could be considered a textual construct. Going back to the initial discussion of the opposition between the original and the derivative, it should be mentioned, as John Frow states, that it is exactly the metaphor of textuality what has a power to overcome 'the dichotomisation of the real to the symbolic, or the base to the superstructure, or the social to the cultural,'2 or the original to the derivative. The subversiveness of embracing the metaphor of textuality goes beyond the one of a forger, counterfeiter or plagiarist. Their works, as Ruthven puts it, 'exhibit a carnivalesque irreverence towards the sanctity of various conventions designed to limit what is...
|
|
|
Literary semiotics in the early works of Harry Mathews
Stankovianska, Veronika ; Armand, Louis (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This thesis is concerned with the early works of American novelist Harry Mathews { in particular the literary semiotics of Mathews' The Sink- ing of the Odradek Stadium. The work also sets out to deal with Mathews' relationship to the avant-garde collective Oulipo (Ouvroir de Litt¶erature Po- tentielle/Workshop for Potential Literature) and the collective's project of formal experimentation. \Potential literature," treated as a function of sign systems, is approached through a comparative analysis of structures and re- lations found in seemingly disconnected branches of mathematics.
|
|
|
King Lear on screen
Boguszak, Jakub ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
As we have seen, the range of the visual (and the non-verbal) signs that could be brought into a dialogue with the verse is vast. In general, we can distinguish between those that have a local influence, an impact on our understanding of a line or a speech - these are the facial expressions, gestures, movements, close-ups, compositions and perspectives - and those that shape our perception of the larger semantic structures such as a scene, a character, sometimes even the whole play - these are the locations, costumes, masks, music, rhythm. It is tempting to conclude that it is this second group what makes the greatest contribution to the process of re-imagining of Shakespeare's play through adaptation. It is certainly easier to produce a coherent interpretation with the tools that help to create a sense of a period, a general atmosphere, the tone and pace of the narrative: one can think of all the Shakespearian films that transpose the story into a specific setting, often modern or near-modern, in order to prove that though the Elizabethan verse is old and difficult, the themes are still relevant today, the characterisations true to life and the plot, with all its improbabilities, strangely engaging. Yet what one realises when contemplating these adaptations is the fact that it is not enough to dress the...
|
|
|
Self, Speech and Agency: Emerson, Melville and Bartleby - Beyond Pragmatism and Performativity
Maderová, Blanka ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee) ; Stock, Richard Thomas (referee)
Blanka Maderova: Self, Speech and Agency: Emerson, Melville and Bartleby beyond Pragmatism and Performativity Abstract The dissertation focuses on Melville's characters - such as Bartleby the Scrivener - who challenge American Emersonian vitalism, rhetoricism and performativity. Melville's silence, deactivation, ruptures in discourse, and subjectivities have stood, even in his time, in contrast to American myths of success, force of will, and self-reliance. The potentialities of Melvillean "anti-heroes" contest the rhetorical force, performance, and unity of the isolated self represented in these myths. While Emerson's early work manifests his reliance on the powers of the "beyond" (Platonism) and the "below" (Gnosis), which, however, often cannot be clearly distinguished, the language of Emerson's late work resonates with that of the late Melville on many levels. The dynamic relationship between Emerson and Melville has been, in my view, shaping American culture since the "Melville Revival" in 1920s and continues to do so in contemporary debates regarding both the formation of subjectivity and issues of performativity and agency. Although Emerson is often portrayed as "the beautiful enemy" of Melville, it can be shown that they address the same topics - especially the issues of power, speech, will,...
|
|
|
White city, 1893, technological, commercial, cultural wonder; Against the Day, 2007, Thomas Pynchon
Létalová, Michaela ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
Thomas Pynchon's novel Against the Day presents an extreme challenge to the reader's knowledge of sciences and arts as well as to his reading skills. The age of information overload the contemporary society lives in requires fast adaptation to the continual tide of data, products, stress, and to all what civilization calls conveniences and labor saving devices of the modern age. Pynchon's books play the role of the "simulation of the disorienting overload of modern culture".1 All of Pynchon's texts tend to be "long, rambling, multilayered, underplotted, quasi-unfinished monsters. But with this one [Against the Day] there is the feeling that the magician has fallen in love with his own stunts, as though Pynchon were composing a pastiche of a Pynchon novel, says Louis Menand."2 Further according to Menand, Against the Day is imperfect in the sense of "What was he thinking?"3 In order to successfully approach any of Thomas Pynchon's texts the reader needs to be either extremely well educated in all fields of human knowledge, and able to discern between the science part and the fiction part of the text, or capable of a swift use of the computerized body of knowledge - the data stored on the internet, besides the still fairly high required level of education. Knowing as little as we do about the author himself,...
|
guest ::
