The textual image of Reinaldo Arenas.
Item
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Title
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The textual image of Reinaldo Arenas.
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Identifier
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AAI3063820
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identifier
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3063820
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Creator
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Correa, Miguel.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Susana Reisz
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Date
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2002
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Language
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Spanish
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Latin American | Literature, Caribbean
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Abstract
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The image of the 'implicit author' projected in the fictional universes of Reinaldo Arenas' literary works is distinctively dual in nature. The texts written in Cuba, when the author suffered ostracism and prosecution by the Castro regime, construct the image of a boundless, irreverent, marginal, humorous, tragic, homosexual Arenas. These "Cuban texts" also reflect the image of an author who opposed and subverted not only the political system introduced on the island by the Revolution, but also the moral values sustained by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which Arenas considered both perverse and oppressive. The author's literary image is therefore constructed around the concept of political and sexual dissidence.;However, the narrative produced by Reinaldo Arenas in his New York City exile since his arrival in the U.S. in 1980 (until his suicide in 1990) portrays a different image of the implicit author in the textual realities. This new image is that of a more thoughtful and composed Arenas who, despite attempting to sound as humorous and in control as before, is visibly contained by a profound sense of immediacy and urgency. These texts also portray the image of an author more preoccupied with formal narrative aspects and techniques than with the density of the literary message. The fact that the author was facing his own mortality may have contributed to the transformation of his textual image.;From the theoretical point of view, this study has been largely based on the concept of the 'implicit author' developed by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction, and on his treatment of fictional narrators, seen by Booth as entities capable of building a faithful (or unfaithful) textual image of the real author. The study has also been based on Michel Foucault's concepts of 'discourse', 'author-function', and 'transgressive texts' (in What is an author?). The treatment of sexuality in Arenas' fictional narrative (and the concept of sexual confession in particular) has been based on Foucault's The History of Sexuality.;The study on Reinaldo Arena's autobiography has been partially based on the works of Sylvia Molloy and James Olney.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
