The language(s) of exile: Conrad, Nabokov, Beckett.
Item
-
Title
-
The language(s) of exile: Conrad, Nabokov, Beckett.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9431375
-
identifier
-
9431375
-
Creator
-
Waters, Alyson Lee.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
-
Date
-
1994
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, Comparative | Literature, English | Literature, American | Literature, Romance
-
Abstract
-
Bilingualism and exile--two biographical factors that connect three modern masters: Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, and Samuel Beckett. In what way do these factors inform the fiction of these writers? Is it possible to speak of a bilingual, or biscriptural, literature of exile?;The study focuses primarily on three texts, yet attempts to use each text as a springboard for placing bilingual exile literature within a broader theoretical context. The first chapter focuses on language's and, by extension, narrative's failure to capture, express, and communicate experience, in particular the experience of someone who does not belong to the dominant culture, as is the case of Yanko Goorall in Conrad's Amy Foster. It examines some of Conrad's sophisticated narrative techniques as they provide the structure within which to present the points of view of the "other," represented here as both a "carpathian mountaineer" and the English community to which he is exiled. The second chapter addresses some of the issues of the reception of texts written by bilingual writers, and then concentrates on Nabokov's use of parody, primarily in his novel Despair, to both incorporate and react to the literature and literary conventions of "home" and the "place of exile." The final chapter on Beckett continues to address questions of the reception of the "double text," that is, the text translated by the author himself. In this chapter, I use my own experience as a "bilingual reader" to bring to light the results of reading "original" and "translation" in tandem. (Here, the text I use primarily is Mercier and Camier). In other words, I use myself to test empirically some of my theories about bilingual reading and writing. In the conclusion, I look at the appropriateness of using the labels "bilingualism" and "exile" to illuminate the fiction of three writers whose exile and bilingualism were so different from one another's.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
