Fictions of femininity: Fin-de-siecle representations of hysteria.
Item
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Title
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Fictions of femininity: Fin-de-siecle representations of hysteria.
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Identifier
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AAI9707154
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identifier
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9707154
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Creator
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Simmons, Margaret Ann.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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1996
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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 | Literature, Modern | Psychology, Clinical | Literature, Germanic | Literature, Romance
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Abstract
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This dissertation studies works by male authors who were engaged in describing and characterizing female hysteria at the turn of the last century. The dissertation argues that hysteria is a literary and cultural trope for the ways in which culture perceives and characterizes women. The dissertation studies hysteria as a way of understanding how the fin-de-siecle questioned language, representation and feminine sexuality.;The texts include Freud and Breuer's Studies on Hysteria; Klimt's Beethoven Frieze and portraits of upper-class women and working girls; Hofmannsthal's Elektra, and "Charcot's hysterics" in Salpetriere, with a look at Breton's use of madness in Nadja. The dissertation analyzes two Goncourt brothers' novels, Germinie Lacerteux and La Fille Elisa, and their naturalist depictions of hysteria and sexuality. The "decadent" text of J.-K. Huysmanns' La-Bas and its relationship to Barbey D'Aurevilly's "La Vengeange d'une Femme" is also studied. The last chapter is a reading of Wedekind's Lulu: Erdgeist und Die Buchse der Pandora.
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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.
