The memoir is a genre that still remains somewhat in the shadows in terms of its allocation within the subjects of academia, literature, English instruction, among others. This thesis is an attempt ...at appeasing the genre via three seemingly different, yet similar routes. First, by creating a new definition for memoir. Second, by putting into practice the theory behind memory writing through the creation of the memoir titled Lejos de la casa y el árbol . Lastly, by deciphering its role in English instruction. This thesis thus serves as a means to bridge the great divide between memoir's unstable reputation and its true colors in the fields of literature, academia and language instruction.
This dissertation challenges the well-worn claim that literary modernism eschewed ethics in favor of aesthetics, devoting itself single-mindedly to art for art's sake. Far from ignoring ethical ...concerns, many modernist authors evacuate them from their traditional spheres of character and event and relocate them into different aspects of the novel, particularly speech and conversational dynamics. The nineteenth-century novel expressed moral judgments of characters' actions, and so conveyed a kind of moral code, through the vicissitudes of plot as it bears on character: rewarding virtue and punishing vice. Modernists famously entertained a "suspicion toward plot" (Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot), crafting narratives to represent the arbitrariness of a fragmented world in which all guarantees of ultimate justice are void. This suspicion toward plot, however, is hardly tantamount to an abandonment of the ethical work that plot used to perform. Rather, modernist authors relocated ethics into new and perhaps subtler realms, particularly that of speech and conversational dynamics. Scholarship has paid insufficient attention to this relocation of ethics because of an instrumental bias in our view of speech; that is, the assumption that speech functions chiefly as a relay system between internal thought and the external world rather than as a realm of action unto itself and thus a fitting stage for moral action. The dissertation offers readings of works by disparate modern authors who have challenged this assumption and accorded speech a special role in the ethical work their fictions perform. I take especial interest in contexts where speech and thought are unusually separate (i.e. immigrant speech, demonic possession), for these cases most readily demonstrate the power of speech as an independent realm of moral action. The Yiddish fables of Eliezer Shteynbarg, offer an ideal study in the subversive modernism possible in a traditional folk genre. Isaac Bashevis Singer presents speech as a potent and usually destructive force independent of thought or human will. This chapter considers both fantastic and naturalistic works, arguing that for Bashevis Singer, the underworld of demons and dybbuks that inhabit and speak through innocent maidens is perilously close to the fashionable moral bankruptcy to which the salon culture of conversation inexorably leads. A chapter on Vladimir Nabokov argues that this consummate aesthete grounds a system of moral relations in speech. Finally, we turn to Saul Bellow to illustrate an alternate relocation of ethics into the human body, where bypass verbal communication in their ethical interactions.
The topic of identity is a highly debated topic among Jewish scholars as well as a recurrent theme in works of literature written by Jewish authors throughout the world. In the twentieth century ...several historical events have shaped and transformed the way Jewish people regard themselves, notably the Holocaust and the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. Latin America experienced waves of Jewish immigration from colonial times to the present. Most of these immigrants integrated into their societies and, as occurred elsewhere, this specific population produced writers who are, to varying degrees, both members of the dominant culture in which they live and members of the Jewish culture. Moreover, the experience of cultural hybridization opened new spaces where the works of these writers gained visibility outside traditional Jewish circles. Their themes address issues of Jewish identity and the experience of minority identity in a Latin American society. Whereas their work reflects the multicultural and multiethnic culture of Latin America, it also examines issues such as memory, assimilation, trauma, holocaust, and other questions of concern to those of Jewish heritage in the context of their adopted countries. In this dissertation entitled “Issues of Identity in the Narratives of Jewish Authors from the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,” I examine three novels by Jewish authors at the beginning of the twenty-first century: Marcelo Birmajer from Argentina and his novel No tan distinto; Francisco Dzialovsky from Brazil and his novel O Terceiro Testamento and Teresa Porzecanski from Uruguay and her novel Perfumes de Cartago . I explore the presence of Judaism and Kabbalah in the lives of non-religious people of Jewish heritage, examine the ways in which Birmajer, Dzialovsky, and Porzecanski depict Jewish characters in their search for identity and self-knowledge, and consider the theme of the Jews vis a vis other topics such as immigration, assimilation, integration and the loss of culture. Studying these characters through religious, sociological, and linguistic lenses allows for a more complete understanding of the experiences of Latin American Jews.
This dissertation consists of nine chapters in which I explore the literary and philosophical background of the emotional profile of Aeneas as it is presented in select scenes of Vergil's Aeneid. ...After an introduction I discuss in detail the sea storm of Aeneid 1, Aeneas' subsequent encounter with his mother, Aeneas' arrival in Carthage, and Aeneas' emotions while he contemplates the pictures at the temple of Juno in Carthage. The next two chapters are devoted to the Helen episode and the final scene of the Aeneid. A conclusion rounds out this dissertation. Regarding Vergil's literary sources, more emphasis is given to the role Apollonius' works played in shaping Vergil's work than has been done before. Apollonius' work is one of the two focal lenses through which Homeric traditions are handed down to Vergil. The tradition of reading Homer's works and similar stories morally is the other lens. Here, as has been observed before, Vergil pays attention to opinions of all major philosophical schools. In a dialogue particularly with Aristotle, Vergil even develops his own poetics as far as Vergil's advice on how to read epic poetry is concerned. Looked at from the ancients' perspective of emotions, Aeneas reacts as can be reasonably expected from somebody in a similar situation. Changes in the way Vergil treats the material stemming from his literary predecessors reflect the philosophical thinking of his time in considerable detail. Vergil emerges as a Hellenistic poeta doctus both in regard to literary works as well as in regard to philosophical education who puts his knowledge into practice.
This thesis attempts to substantiate Saul Bellow's premise that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. Bellow achieves chaos by depicting a world where ...anxiety, confusion and suffering are inevitable. When despair seems all-consuming, Bellow's art permits his heroes transcendence and stillness where a mystic healing takes place. Three of Bellow's novels are examined using three specific fields of knowledge that seem especially conducive to that particular novel: The Victim, Sociological; Herzog, Psychological; and Mr. Sammler's Planet, Philosophical. This study reveals Bellow's uncanny talent for achieving chaos, and then stillness, by relinquishing conventional conclusions, and by relying on the reader's ability to stretch his/her imagination.
Critics use the words “vanished culture” to describe Isaac Bashevis Singer's work for Polish Jewry had been destroyed. However, Singer's characters survive the travails of anti-Semitism and resettle ...in America. This study explores Singer's Polish Jews to determine whether they assimilate into their new culture; or maintain their strong Jewish traditions and adapt to the freedoms of America. Singer's life is analyzed, including the people and places that have influenced his work. Two of Singer's works are examined in this thesis. Chapters Three and Four explicate an allegorical short story, “The Little Shoemakers.” Singer writes a fairytale view of a magnificent rejuvenation in the new world. Chapters Five and Six explore the realistic portrait of Jewish transplants in the novel, Enemies, A Love Story. Chapter Seven concludes that belief in the Jewish faith, along with the love of freedom, allow Singer's characters to adapt, not assimilate, to foreign soil.
The following thesis focuses on the medieval kabbalistic legend of R. Joseph della Reina who, using traditions of esoteric magic, conjured Satan in order to slaughter him in an unsuccessful bid to ...force the Redemption of Israel. A translation of a version from eighteenth century Amsterdam is presented. Influenced by the heretical ideas of Sabbatianism, this version carries two opposing significations: that of a cautionary tale on one hand, that of a tragic tale of mystical heroism on the other. Based on evidence from the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer, the case is made that the modern author, in line with his philosophy of political passivism and historical pessimism, makes full use of the Faustian fascination of R. Joseph della Reina's fearsome story while repeatedly presenting the legend in such a way as to purge it of traditional ambiguity, undermine its tragic character, and leave behind only the aspect of caution or warning.
The subject of this study is an exploration of Jewish mystical motifs in the works of Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger (Isaac Bashevis Singer). The study is based on a close reading of the Yiddish original ...of all of Bashevis's works investigated here. Changes or omissions in the English translations are mentioned and commented upon, wherever it is appropriate. This study consists of three major parts, apart from an introduction (Chapter 1) and a conclusion (Chapter 9). The first major part (Chapter 2) investigates the kabbalistic and hasidic influences on Bashevis's life and the sources which inform the mystical aspects of his works. This part explores Bashevis's family background, the conflicting influences of mysticism and rationalism on the author during his childhood in Warsaw, and the significance of Bilgoraj for Bashevis's writings. Furthermore it investigates the sources, informing Bashevis's treatment of Jewish mysticism and mystical messianism. The second part (Chapter 3) provides a thematic overview of Jewish mystical concepts and motifs employed in Bashevis's works and explains the theoretical background of these mystical ideas. The themes investigated after a brief introduction (Chapter 3.1) are: Jewish mysticism and magic (Chapter 3.2); creation and language, the central idea of Hebrew characters (Sefer Yezirah) and its implications for Bashevis's writings (Chapter 3.3); the doctrine of creation in Lurianic Kabbalah and its interpretations in Bashevis's works (Chapter 3.4); and the interpretation of Lurianic concepts in Shabbateanism, as it is depicted by Bashevis (Chapter 3.5). The third part is an investigation of Jewish mystical motifs in selected works by Bashevis. Four of his major novels are discussed in detail. These are: Satan in Goray - (Chapter 4); The Family Moskat - (Chapter 5); The Magician of Lublin - (Chapter 6); and The Slave - (Chapter 7). A further chapter indicates the use of mystical references and motifs in Bashevis's short fiction (Chapter 8). Bashevis's works vacillate between two extreme experiences of the Divine by his various characters, the experience of concealment and mystery on one hand, closely connected to the Lurianic idea of Zimzum, and the experience of revelation in creation on the other hand. On a different level these two extreme experiences of concealment and revelation also apply to the artist or writer in relation to his or her literary creation. In Bashevis's literary creation there are countless references to Jewish mystical ideas, some of them obvious and overt, others more concealed. This study endeavours to elucidate these mystical references, images and allusions, their origins in kabbalistic doctrines and the role they play in Bashevis's works.
