262 research outputs found
The good parodist: beyond images of escape in the fiction of Doris lessing
No full textIn her earlier fiction, Doris Leasing presents images of escape from what Cohen and Taylor term "everyday life”. These images of escape, such as the vision of the "noble city, set four-square" in Martha Quest and Martha's plunge into the muddy veld pothole in A Proper Marriage, are framed by realism. In positing an escape from 'realism'(understood as both literary form and "everyday reality") they suggest the inadequacy of realism. However, the success of these images is limited as they attempt to posit an "outside", a project which postmodernism has taught us, is bound to fail. Lessing increasingly replaces these images of escape with parody. Parody more fundamentally interrogates realism and allows Lessing to negotiate an escape whilst recognizing her implication in contemporary society. My model of parody takes its lead from Linda Hutcheon's consideration of "serious parody", as marking "the intersection of creation and re-creation, of invention and critique" (A Theory of Parody, 1985). This, I argue, is the intersection of Lessing's political and aesthetic projects. Lessing's use of parody also provides her with a useful strategy for negotiating subjectivity. I argue that whilst she questions the liberal humanist self, she does not completely reject it. She is "post-humanist" rather than "anti-humanist". Lessing's "space fiction" seems to signal a return to the project of positing an "outside" implied by her images of escape. However, I illustrate how her space fiction is equally subject to the problematic politics of parody. Just as parody "installs" a pre-existing text to "subvert" it, so space fiction "installs" the Earth in order to critique it. The "dual-codedness" of parody is, I conclude, perfect for Lessing's multiple projects
The Controversy between Lessing and Goeze : The First Phase of Their Face-to-Face Confrontation
No full textFrom 1774 onward G. E. Lessing, as librarian of the famous Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel, published a series of manuscripts and other holdings which he had discovered in the Library. Among them were the Fragmente eines Ungenannten. The publication of these fragments aroused a heated controversy because of the unusually critical ideas contained in them. Many theologians and clergymen hysterically responded with severe attacks on the unnamed author. But J. M. Goeze, who was reviled as “the Papst Hammoniens” or “der Inquisitor”, reproached not so much the unnamed author as the editor of the fragments for the circulation of blasphemous ideas. Lessing bravely counterattacked the inquisitor. Hence the face-to-face confrontation between Lessing and Goeze. The purpose of this study is to examine the first phase of the controversy with the aim of shedding light on the real motive of Lessing and Goeze.departmental bulletin pape
Author Doris Lessing
No full textDoris Lessing was the keynote speaker on Opening day of the National Word Festival 198
Food and eating in fiction since 1950 with particular reference to the writing of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Michele Roberts and Alice Thomas Ellis.
No full textPhDEating is a fundamental activity. What people eat, how and with whom, what
they feel about food, what they do or do not want to eat and why - even who
they eat - are of crucial significance in any reading of human behaviour.
In this thesis, I consider the diverse and complex uses of food and eating
in fiction since 1950, especially that written by women. I argue both that food
and eating carry much of the meaning of a novel or story and that the acts of
cooking, feeding and eating depicted are inseparable from issues of power and
control: individually, interpersonally, culturally, politically.
My discussion centres on the writing of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing,
Michele Roberts and Alice Thomas Ellis. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory,
sociology, anthropology, Foucault, Bakhtin and others, the thesis aims to
construct an interdisciplinary perspective which both resists reductive
interpretations and emphasises the centrality, complexity and diversity of food
and eating in literature in our culture.
I begin with an examination of the ambiguities of maternal feeding and
nurturing, moving on to explore the links between appetite, eating and sexuality.
I explore cannibalism and vampirism as manifestations of oppression, but also as
indicating insatiable emptiness and transgressive appetite. The body itself is
crucial, and my argument considers the paradox of not eating as
control/enslavement, also tracing self-starvation as a positive route towards
wholeness and connection. The last part of my argument focuses on social
eating, examining conventions, rituals and food itself in connection with power
relations, and finally considers how we might truly speak of food and eating in
the context of society as a whole
Letter from W.W. Lessing, Relocation Officer, War Relocation Authority, to Mrs. George H. Nakamura, November 25, 1945
No full textCorrespondence from W.W. Lessing to Dorothy Nakamura regarding grants for former incarcerees returning to their former homes after World War II.The Japanese American Archival Collection documents the people, places, and daily life of Japanese Americans, primarily those who lived in the once thriving community of pre-war Florin in the Sacramento region, as well as the conditions in American incarceration camps during World War II. The approximately 7,000 original items include personal and official letters, photographs, diaries, arts and crafts, newsletters, textiles, camps artifacts, yearbooks and other publications
Notes on the visual identity of the territory
No full textThis contribution highlights the main aims of the research into the Po delta, conducted by a Iuav multidisciplinary research team between 2008 and 2012, that is to say to raise the level of awareness and knowledge on the part of the local community concerning the development opportunities for the future.
The author outlines how the research into the territory’s identity has been conducted, starting from the methodological and operational tools of visual communication design
Lessing, Schlegel y la ilustración romántica: Sobre la incidencia de Lessing en la crítica de Schlegel
No full textAlong with Goethe, Lessing is the modern author to whom Friedrich Schlegel devoted the most attention. The 1804 prologue On the Essence of Criticism is considered indispensable for understanding the notion of criticism he develops throughout his work. However, influential authors such as Manfred Frank have prioritized Jacobi and his concept of feeling (Gefühl) in the philosophical origins of early Romanticism. This paper argues that Lessing was a referent of critical thought in Schlegel's early approaches to transcendental criticism. In particular, his early philosophical fragments presume a notion of critical thinking repeated in his 1797 review of Lessing and his characterization of Nathan.Lessing es, junto con Goethe, el autor moderno al que Friedrich Schlegel dedicó mayor atención. El prólogo Sobre la esencia de la crítica de 1804 se considera un testimonio imprescindible para entender la noción de crítica que desarrolla en toda su obra. Sin embargo, autores tan influyentes como Manfred Frank han dado preeminencia a Jacobi y su noción de sentimiento (Gefühl) en la génesis filosófica del primer romanticismo. El presente trabajo propone que Lessing estuvo ya presente como referente de un pensamiento crítico en las primeras aproximaciones de Schlegel a la crítica trascendental. En concreto, los primeros fragmentos filosóficos presumen una noción de pensamiento crítico que se repite en la reseña sobre Lessing de 1797 y su caracterización de Nathan el sabio
‘Oh, there are so many things I want to write’ : Becoming an author: Doris Lessing and the Whitehorn Letters from 1944 to 1949
No full textThis paper explores the narrative process identified in the Whitehorn Letters, written by Doris Lessing from 1944 to 1949, as historical documents that form a single, coherent whole. Their significance is assessed by means of an epistemological reflection that sheds light on the path by which the young Lessing established her identity as an author (Bieder, 1993). In the letter-writing process, Lessing declares her aim to become a writer. The letters also characterise the writer as a historical subject, and describe the relationship between this historical subject and the individual who writes the correspondence. Since the letters formulate a coherent discourse about Lessing’s authorial identity, I investigate whether using a model for reading them may be beneficial. I believe that additional nuances could be detected in her narratives by revisiting Lessing and examining, in the centenary of her birth, some hitherto unknown parts of her writings, as these letters represent
The Hermit in German Literature: From Lessing to Eichendorff
No full textIn this thorough study of the figure of the hermit in the works of German writers Fitzell analyzes characters in works by Lessing, Goethe, Klinger, Hoffmann, Wieland, Eichendorff and others. The author argues that the figure of the hermit characterizes the quality of inwardness and withdrawal from society characteristic of German literature, and shows how this quality was represented in the age of Goethe
Women Look into Love: Reimaginings of Heterosexual Love in Contemporary Women’s Fiction
No full textThis thesis explores how contemporary women writers write about heterosexual love, considering not only the ways it has been implicated in patriarchal models and traditional romance plots, but also its portrayal in light of developments in feminism and fiction in the 1990s and 2000s. The thesis examines Carol Shields’s The Republic of Love (1992), Toni Morrison’s Jazz (1992), Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine (1993), Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup (2001), Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto (2001), Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin (2000) and Doris Lessing’s Love, Again (1995). In this study it emerges that as well as illustrating continuities, the scope of the treatment of love is opened up further in recent fiction as aspects like age or social, economic and historical factors are centralised and considered in interesting ways. The thesis also identifies some positive approaches to heterosexual love, as in, for example, the emphasis on men’s capacity for emotions. However, this is not always the case, as a writer like Lessing further develops a vision of love without providing an affirmative view. Thus, the contemporary women writers’ work can be said to contribute to understandings of heterosexual love on many different levels, even as feminist criticisms of repressive, patriarchal forms of romantic relationship continue to remain relevant
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