Literature of impasse : a comparative analysis of Joseph Roth's Radetzkymarsch, Giorgio Bassani's Gli Occhiali d'Oro and Henri Fauconnier's Malaisie

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation sets out from the assumption that there is a phenomenon one can call literature of impasse. By this is meant that there is a body of literature that can be defined as a literature of impasse because of the specific time of writing or of its setting. The definition used in this exploration is based upon the historical, social, political and psychological forces that shape literature of impasse. Broadly speaking the term refers to works of literature of which the authors are considered to be fully aware that what they were describing, analysing and exploring was the impasse which the Western individual had to navigate in order to arrive at any coherent sense of self. The authors in this study – Joseph Roth (1894-1939), Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) and Henri Fauconnier (1879-1973) – can be regarded as three such authors, and the aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate in what way they are indeed authors of impasse in the works under discussion and what the devices are that they have employed to convey their vision. Far from being a vision that (myopically) sees no resolution, the authors demonstrate a need to identify the impasse itself and its causes and consequences in a narrative style. As part of the acknowledgement of impasse, the description of the ontological impasse of the protagonists is also explored as is the central discussion of modernity and Modernism and how modernity appears to exacerbate the sense of impasse. The position of the protagonists in these works leads in turn to the exploration of individual attempts to overcome the impasse and, in so doing, the study inevitably has to explore the philosophical attributes reflected in each of the works.The comparative nature of this analysis, straddling three languages and literary traditions, and the complex contexts of 'impasse, necessitates studies in other disciplines. The works of Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) seemed particularly suited to this exploration as an analytical springboard inasmuch as his works examine the anthropological and philosophical aspects which have determined the historical forces and milieux with which the three novelists have to contend in the formulation of their respective visions.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University