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Narrative Structures in Virginia Woolf's Shorter Fiction
Kovačeva, Elizabet ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
Thesis Abstract One of the basic principles of modernism was to evaluate existing traditions and cultural norms, to innovate them, and to get rid of them if necessary. The need and urge to innovate proved to be immensely productive in the short story genre. The short story is now perceived as independent of other prose forms precisely thanks to the modernists. Virginia Woolf was one of the most enthusiastic innovators of the form, her work in the genre is nevertheless often overlooked in comparison to her novels, or even in comparison to other short story writers, such as Katherine Mansfield or James Joyce. This thesis deals with selected narrative structures in Virginia Woolf's shorter fiction. It works with the basic assumption that when Woolf's short stories are read, her novels have to be taken into account as well due to numerous thematic and other affinities. However, it is also of importance to evaluate Woolf's short fiction without measuring them against her novels as these are two distinct genres. The thesis introduction presents an overview of the literary and cultural context of the times in which Woolf lived and wrote, with emphasis on her familiarity with the Russian writers, primarily Chekhov, and the first Post-Impressionist painters. The thesis then carries out four separate analyses of four...
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Abjection in Selected Plays by Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, and Tim Crouch
Kovačeva, Elizabet ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee)
Thesis Abstract The present thesis offers to read six plays by three contemporary British playwrights - Sarah Kane's Crave (1997) and 4.48 Psychosis (1999), Caryl Churchill's The Skriker (1994) and Far Away (2000), and Tim Crouch's ENGLAND (2007) and The Author (2009) through the lens of Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, Powers of Horror (1982). Kristeva theorizes abjection as that which retains some resemblance to the subject or object, but is neither - or no longer belongs to the subject. Being confronted with the abject is unpleasant because it is threatening for the subject. It contains all that is habitually removed from life and does not belong in the symbolic order - corpses and excrements. Likewise, the maternal body needs to become abject for the infant to realize its own borders and bodily integrity. Kristeva proposes that the abject finds its way back into the symbolic order through literature, and reads a number of writers as being concerned with the abject. In the theatre, as well as in the visual arts, abjection has been a useful theoretical starting point, despite the fact that it is seen by a number of critics as something which cannot truly be grasped, and as resisting description and verbal imposition. Each playwright and each play includes a different aspect of the abject. Central to...
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Narrative Structures in Virginia Woolf's Shorter Fiction
Kovačeva, Elizabet ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
Thesis Abstract One of the basic principles of modernism was to evaluate existing traditions and cultural norms, to innovate them, and to get rid of them if necessary. The need and urge to innovate proved to be immensely productive in the short story genre. The short story is now perceived as independent of other prose forms precisely thanks to the modernists. Virginia Woolf was one of the most enthusiastic innovators of the form, her work in the genre is nevertheless often overlooked in comparison to her novels, or even in comparison to other short story writers, such as Katherine Mansfield or James Joyce. This thesis deals with selected narrative structures in Virginia Woolf's shorter fiction. It works with the basic assumption that when Woolf's short stories are read, her novels have to be taken into account as well due to numerous thematic and other affinities. However, it is also of importance to evaluate Woolf's short fiction without measuring them against her novels as these are two distinct genres. The thesis introduction presents an overview of the literary and cultural context of the times in which Woolf lived and wrote, with emphasis on her familiarity with the Russian writers, primarily Chekhov, and the first Post-Impressionist painters. The thesis then carries out four separate analyses of four...
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