Following the work of Sara Houghton-Walker and Edward Strickland, this thesis theorizes the "mundane sublime" as encountered in romanticist John Clare's poetry. Instead of being oriented upward, as with Longinus's elevatory sublime, Clare's mundane sublime brings the subject downward to earth. While the sublime of the Burkean tradition begins with terror, I claim that the mundane sublime emerges out of love for that which is commonplace. Still revelatory, it may be further characterized by an engagement with ecosystems, eternity, divinity, and nature as a whole. Clare's style scaffolds images resulting in a profusion of detail that arrests the mind and allows it to reflect on its own position in nature. As Clare's mundane sublime takes up simple natural objects and posits an ecological interconnectedness, it implies a more environmentally responsible relationship to one's surroundings, making it increasingly relevant for green studies. / by Dana Odwazny Pell. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

This thesis sets off from an a priori hypothetical position that the universality of certain language features, particularly poetic expression, provides an opportunity for syncretism in the reading, analysis, explication, and interpretation of African literature, specifically oral poetry, our teleological point being the formulation of a syncretic approach. In the first chapter we undertake an overview of the debate which has been ensuing among 'African' critics in the search of an 'African' poetics. We proceed, in the second and third chapters, to undertake a study of two 'Western' schools of thought, namely Formalist-Structuralism and New Criticism, with a view to setting the critical theories and practice of some major protagonists of these schools of thought against sample readings of African oral poetry. In the fourth and fifth chapters we proceed to select and analyse some of the most prominent critics of African oral poetry, and undertake detailed case studies of their critical assumptions and practice, in retrospective comparison with the theoretical paradigms and practical readings dealt with in chapters two and three. In the sixth and final chapter we assess the syncretic approach suggested, together with its implications for the future research and teaching of African oral poetry. Our findings suggest that the case studies of critiques of African oral poetry reveal certain shortcomings which might have been strengthened by a perspicacious awareness of Formalist-Structuralist and New Critical methodology. From this postpriori perspective we suggest a syncretic approach which, in its sensitivity to the idiosyncratic features of African languages, will at the same time acknowledge, adopt and adapt sophisticated poetical analyses which have been developed by Western poetics. Our findings also suggest specific ways in which Western standards could be evaluated with a considerable degree of exactitude. We conclude by, inter alia, opening directions of research which could advance the debate towards an African poetics beyond doctrinaire wrangle, so that progress can be made through further close studies of other schools of thought and theories in order to assess their applicability and/or adaptability to African poetry and other genres. / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / D. Litt et Phil (Theory of Literature)

Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The dissertation focuses on literary representation of female characters in selected novels by three particular South African writers working within the transitional phase (from the formal ending of apartheid up to the present) of South African history. By means of textual analysis, the study investigates how the representation of numerous female characters in these texts reflects on and reflects the sector of South African society that forms the social setting of each text. This thesis explores the portrayal of female characters in selected fictional works by examining the ways in which the novelists Mandla Langa, Zakes Mda (both of them black and male writers) and Nadine Gordimer (a white and female novelist) characterise women in novels depicting this adapting society. In scrutinising these texts of the transition period, the thesis writer employs detailed individual delineation of female characters, to some extent by means of a comparative approach, with emphasis on parallels between as well as differences among the abovementioned authors’ ways of describing South African women’s circumstances and responses to their social predicaments. In this study literary representations of women are examined in order to evaluate the effects of social and cultural transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. This is done by analysing these authors’ portrayals of women’s circumstances both in the private and public spheres. The thesis therefore contributes to the movement towards a greater recognition of women’s crucial, catalytic function in the achievement of social development and delineates these authors’ expressed awareness of many women’s actual direct involvement in the struggle against all forms of discrimination in society. This research project has been undertaken as an opportunity to investigate the different qualities and types of conduct attributed to female characters in ten selected novels of the transition, on the assumption that the texts reflect something of the way women are perceived and are playing new roles in a changing society. In studying how three significant ‘post-apartheid’ authors depict women affecting and affected by the social conditions of this period, the thesis traces the way the focus of more recent South African writing has shifted from an apartheid-era preoccupation with racial-political issues towards the depiction of private and public, rural and urban social and gender roles available to some contemporary South African women – and of those factors still constraining some other women. Taking in these authors’ portrayals of female political activism and leadership, the thesis also balances previous preoccupation (in South African English literature) with depictions of male political activity.

Acknowledging performance as a process through which gender identities are constituted, the thesis explores attempts in women's theatre to subject these very constructs to creative deconstruction. It offers a study of plays by Caryl Churchill, Sarah Daniels and Timberlake Wertenbaker. Setting their work in the context of prevailing discourses of representation, the analysis delineates the ways in which plays by women interrogate the Western tradition of meaning and perception. The thesis proposes theatrical performance as a strategic engagement with the very means by which women's position is constituted. Therefore, it argues that in women's dramatic work, the possibility of resistance, of agency and choice occurs in the playful adaptation of dominant discourse, allowing for new figurations of subjectivity. Exploring the difficulties and limitations involved in this strategy, the study evaluates how plays by women release a potential for transgression which dislocates the structures of representation.

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The following collection represents the critical and creative work produced during my doctoral program in English. The dissertation consists of Part I, a critical preface, and Part II, a collection of seven short stories and two nonfiction essays. Part I, which contains the critical preface entitled "What to Say and How to Say It," examines the role of voice in discussions of contemporary literature. The critical preface presents a definition of voice and identifies examples of voice-driven writing in contemporary literature, particularly from the work of Mary Robison, Dorothy Allison, and Kathy Acker. In addition, the critical preface also discusses how the use of flavor, tone, and content contribute to voice, both in work of famous authors and in my own writing. In Part II of my dissertation, I present the creative portion of my work. Part II contains seven works of short fiction, titled "Among Waitresses," "The Lion Tamer," "Restoration Services," "Hospitality," "Blood Relation," "Managerial Timber," and "Velma A Cappella." Each work develops a voice-driven narrative through the use of flavor, tone, and content. Also, two nonfiction essays, titled "Fentanyl and Happy Meals" and "Tracks," close out the collection. "Fentanyl and Happy Meals" describes the impact of methamphetamine addiction on family relationships, while "Tracks" focuses on the degradation of the natural world by human waste and other forms of pollution. In total, this collection demonstrates my approach to both scholarly and creative writing, and I am grateful for the University of North Texas for the opportunity to develop academically and achieve my goals.

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Bibliography: p. 313-324. / xii, 324 p., [31] leaves of plates : col. ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2005

This study examines the debates which marked the entry of culture as a theoretical issue in French writing at the end of the 17th century. The premise is that while culture could be said to have always been present in the very earliest treatises as the context, goal, and medium of architectural speculation, the focus on culture for considering the grounds, principles, and aims of architectural work portends a modern struggle to define a secular basis for human work. / The study begins with Claude Perrault's controversial declaration of arbitrary and positive beauty in the 17th century. Key to this research is the concept of arbitraire which attended his thinking on custom. Following Perrault's own cue, and complementing earlier studies of his scientific background, the study examines evidence of these concepts in contemporaneous discussions of jurisprudence and language. These contexts indicate that Perrault spoke from within an already prevalent discourse---one which affected the terms of architectural thought even amongst Perrault's critics in the 17th and 18th centuries. / Remaining with the question of the critical terrain opened up therein for architectural work, the study continues with an examination of the idea of caractere-convenant articulated by Germain Boffrand and Jacques-Francois Blondel, respectively. As with Perrault topical discourses of the time an examined to situate them terms, including those on luxury, taste, and civilite. As elaborations of a theory of architectural expression, the thinking on architectural character by these two authors can be considered heir to Perrault's legacy in more than one respect. The discourse of caractere itself, beginning with these first treatments, was an effort to articulate a role for human artifice, convention, and tradition within the search for enduring principles. More specifically, in seeking to ground architectural expression upon a language community---albeit a tenuous and finite one---Boffrand and Blondel developed a theory of signification which was a unique development of, and a demonstration for Perrault's analogy of arbitrary beauty and civil law. The uniqueness of this moment is framed by later developments in the thinking of grounds and fundaments, of invention and convention, and of architectural character at the end of the 18th century.

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