Figuring reticence.
Item
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Title
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Figuring reticence.
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Identifier
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AAI9325118
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identifier
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9325118
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Creator
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Kupersmidt, Jane.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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1993
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Cinema | Literature, English | Literature, Germanic
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Abstract
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This study examines the nature of reticence in fictional discourse as it is found in three contrastive configurations in works by Goethe, Charlotte Bronte, and the filmmaker Robert Bresson. Signals of reticence occur as gaps in narration, deflections from speech, interruptions in dialogue, and structurings of hesitation in characterization and plot sequencing, strategies which are seen as presences that indicate the fullness of absent assertions. Psychoanalytic approaches to locating and defining such assertions permit a discussion of elements not explicitly present yet determinant in instructing the reader in interpreting verbal articulation.;Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften, characterized by its serenity of expression and elusiveness of meaning, is a paradigm of formal incorporation of an aesthetic of reticence. Bronte's Villette multiplies voices in order to conceal, disclaim and divert narrative centrality. Bresson's film Une femme douce works with the miscommunication of silence and speech, and through filmic means of narration suggests reticence as a formal equivalent to a spiritual problematic. In all of these works, resistances to disclosure signify; the narrative worlds are organized around deviously articulated, idealized or denied positions of self and voice.
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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.
