Imagining worlds in literature and science. Works by Paul Valéry, Virginia Woolf, and Carlo Emilio Gadda

This dissertation provides a comparative study of three modern literary authors: the French Paul Valéry (1871-1945), the English Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), and the Italian Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973). Their works are examined in relation to the main theories and discoveries of the physics of their years, mainly atomic theories, relativity, and quantum theories. The focal point of the investigation is the contemporary development, in literature and in science, of new world-views, and the role that imagination played in devising them. Arguing that the process of establishing world-views addressed similar questions and possessed isomorphic features in literary and scientific practices, both pertaining to the same cultural matrix, I develop various frameworks derived from the physics to conduct a close reading of the literary texts, mainly pertaining to fiction. Each such framework is fine-tuned by analysing the possible direct connections between the authors’ ideas and the specific physical theories. This also shows how scientific concepts are transformed, rediscussed, and adapted once they move to a different discourse. Given the focus on world-envisioning and the role of imagination in my research, I use fictional worlds theory as the main methodological background over which to apply the frameworks. In particular, I elaborate on the possibility it offers of articulating how fictions can produce inferences that may lead to general ontological and epistemological conclusions for their fictional worlds, which in turn can be compared with the actual world. Through this science-inspired framework, I aim at presenting novel and insightful readings of the works of Valéry, Woolf and Gadda, all of which were experimental and unconventional for their time, thus showing a less known facet of their commitment to the artistic exploration of reality. In addition, this leads me to investigate the epistemic role of literary imagination, as well as its possible hermeneutic uses. ; Esta tese oferece um estudo comparativo ...