Forever Chasing Neverland: A Preliminary Look at a New, Developing Trend in American (and One Isreal Author's) Literature

Kristensen, Petur Højgaard

4. term

English, Master

2014

2014-07-30

76

This thesis investigates the emergence of a new tendency in contemporary American short fiction by examining portrayals of desire and imagination. It begins by defining desire as the interplay between what the authors call Aristophanesian and Diotimatian forms of desire, and by considering the role of imagination in this context. Drawing on a wide range of short stories and a few films, the study uses comparative analysis to identify recurring themes and to distinguish this tendency from other contemporary currents. In dialogue with modernist and postmodern fiction—including modernism’s post–World War I drive to “make it new” and postmodernism’s post–World War II skepticism—the thesis argues that differences across periods lie not in the presence of desire but in its specific expression. The central finding is that the new trend seeks to fuse modernism’s ambition for a unified, transformative world with postmodernism’s proliferation of multiple, provisional worlds, resulting in a desire for a personal existence and a social order that may never be realized yet remains worth pursuing for the dream it sustains. The study also outlines defining characteristics of this tendency and notes a possibly unique feature, while acknowledging that its full contours warrant further clarification.

Denne afhandling undersøger fremkomsten af en ny tendens i samtidsamerikansk kortprosa med fokus på, hvordan begær og fantasi fremstilles. Den indleder med at definere begær som samspillet mellem det, forfatterne kalder den Aristofanesiske og den Diotimatiske form for begær og overvejer fantasiens rolle i denne sammenhæng. Med udgangspunkt i et bredt korpus af noveller og enkelte film anvender studiet komparativ analyse til at identificere gennemgående temaer og afgrænse tendensen i forhold til andre samtidige strømninger. I diskussion med modernistisk og postmodernistisk fiktion—herunder modernismens efterkrigstidige “make it new”-ambition og postmodernismens skepsis efter Anden Verdenskrig—argumenterer afhandlingen for, at forskellene mellem perioderne ikke ligger i, om der findes begær, men i hvordan det udtrykkes. Hovedresultatet er, at den nye tendens søger at forene modernismens stræben efter en samlet, forandrende verden med postmodernismens mangfoldighed af midlertidige verdener, hvilket munder ud i et begær efter en personlig tilværelse og en samfundsorden, der sandsynligvis aldrig realiseres, men som alligevel er værd at forfølge for drømmens skyld. Afhandlingen skitserer derudover karakteristiske træk ved tendensen og peger på et muligt unikt kendetegn, samtidig med at den anerkender behovet for videre afgrænsning.

[This apstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]

Skønlitteratur ; Doritos ; Begær ; Fantasi

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