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Author: Carolina Dodu-Savca Degree: doctor of philology Speciality:  10.01.06 - World and Comparative Literature Year: 2009 Scientific adviser: Elena Prus doctor habilitat, professor, Free International University of Moldova Institution: Scientific council:

Status The thesis was presented on the 17 June, 2009 Approved by NCAA on the 1 October, 2009 Abstract – 0.35 Mb / in romanian

Keywords

Summary

The thesis "The quest of the Self in the 20th century essay" tackles the matter of the modern/postmodern "crisis" of consciousness as an intuitive quest cogitatum/mens in spiritus on the universal values. Treating the quest of the Self in French essay, the work develops a double theoretical perspective: elucidating the literary genre "essay" from various viewpoints (esthetical-literary, philosophical-literary, morpho-genealogical, taxonomic, linguistic-lexicographical, formal-pragmatic etc.) and analyzing idiosyncratically the concept of "the Self" (literary-typological, hermeneutical, descriptive-phenomenological etc.).

The axis of the problem lies in the conception of the "dialogical consciousness" (M.Bakhtin) of the Self, as the unremitting dialog with Myself, the Other, the World and in the fundamental modalities of quest – in a pyrrhonist key (as the continuous quest) – by means of inside/outside world, illustrated in the French essay of the 20th century.

The innovative scientific character of the research consists in a twofold poetics: the human being as Myself versus myself-the Human Being. Conceived as a study with binary heuristic approach, the thesis proposes an axiomatic model of the look-quest in the individualistic vision of the essayistic modernism and a phenomenological model of the embodiment-quest in the universalistic vision of the essayistic postmodernism. Elucidated in the works of P.Valéry and M.Yourcenar, these paradigms infer the conceptualization of the Self-solitary human being and the Self-unitary human nature to symbolize, on one hand, the expression of an intellectual in the crisis of the spirit and, on the other one, the global superlative physiognomy of human nature in a discontinuous crisis, where the notion crisis means, in the conception of the present work, the quest mens in spiritus. The new perspective of analysis – operating a series of innovative formulae: contemplation/conception-quest; staging/procreation-quest; the Self as intellectual “eye”/as “voice” of the human genealogy etc. – opens up prospects of dichotomous interpretation in the problem of the quest of the Self.

From theoretical, methodological and heuristic perspective, the proposed poetics allows an interdisciplinary extension of the literary models and synergic outlooks in the space of literary expression.

Oficial Reviewers

• Mihai Cimpoi
  doctor habilitat, professor, Institute of Philology
• Victoria Baraga
  doctor, associate professor (docent)

 Theses