James Joyce é um dos escritores mais famosos do século 20, sendo sua obra muito comentada por leitores e acadêmicos, especialmente devido ao alto nível de complexidade de Ulisses e Finnegans Wake, os romances da fase madura. O foco da presente dissertação, todavia, são os primeiros livros de Joyce que, apesar de serem mais acessíveis ao público em geral, também contêm toda a elaboração linguística e simbólica que caracteriza o autor. Trato especificamente do volume de contos Dublinenses e do romance Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, utilizando para análise deste o suporte oferecido pelo outro romance anterior, não publicado em vida, Stephen Hero. O objetivo da pesquisa é investigar aspectos presentes na prosa de Joyce que revelem a formulação e a aplicação de sua teoria estética. Como a cidade de Dublin surge como uma metáfora sobre as circunstâncias de ser irlandês, interessa ao leitor adquirir alguma familiaridade com a cultura e a história daquele país e com as relações existentes entre os irlandeses e sua terra natal, especialmente no que tange às questões sobre religiosidade e sobre a dominação inglesa. A dissertação vem estruturada em quatro capítulos. O primeiro apresenta James Joyce tanto como pessoa quanto como escritor em formação, nascendo e crescendo em Dublin na virada dos séculos XIX e XX. São analisadas as influências exercidas pelo contexto católico de sua criação e pela crise social e econômica enfrentadas tanto pelo país quanto pela família do autor. O segundo capítulo lida com Dublinenses, o conjunto de contos que apresenta a visão de Joyce sobre a cidade de Dublin. Esses contos podem ser lidos individualmente, mas a obra assume um significado maior quando considerada de forma unificada em termos de linguagem, simbologia, estratégias narrativas e objetivos, em um plano de evolução que abrange fases da infância, da adolescência, da maturidade e da vida pública. As personagens compartilham características comuns: paralisia, falta de perspectivas e incapacidade de entender ou de reagir aos fatores históricos e sociais que os colocam naquela posição. Entre tais fatores predominam três, a cultura católica, a dominação inglesa e a inabilidade das pessoas para reagir de maneira criativa e produtiva aos problemas que se apresentam. O terceiro capítulo analisa a evolução do fazer artístico de Joyce a partir do binômio Stephen Hero e Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, tendo como elemento comum a ideia do Künstlerroman. No quarto e último capítulo, apresento um comentário sobre as marcas de individuação de Joyce em relação a alguns de seus contemporâneos que também tratam sobre questões envolvendo arte, história e tradição. Ao término do trabalho, espero que a minha percepção sobre o conjunto de fatores que propiciaram o surgimento de um autor como Joyce possa ser de utilidade para pessoas que, como eu, acreditam tanto na importância estética quanto na relevância política e social desses três primeiros livros, os primeiros retratos de Dublin que James Joyce produziu. / James Joyce is one of the most famous writers in the 20th century, whose work is very commented both by readers and scholars, especially because of the high level of complexity of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, the two mature masterpieces. The focus of the present thesis, however, lies on the first books written by Joyce, because they are more manageable for reading, and yet bear all the linguistic and symbolic sophistication that marks Joyce’s production. The corpus of the research comprises the book of short stories Dubliners and the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using as support to the analysis of the latter, the previous novel, never published in life, Stephen Hero. The aim of this thesis is to investigate aspects of Joyce’s prose that expose the stages of construction and application of his aesthetic theory. The city of Dublin comes as a metaphor about the condition of being Irish. As a consequence, some familiarity with Irish history and culture is relevant for a better understanding of the books, and of the complex relations involving the Irish and their land, especially in matters concerning Catholicism and English domination. The thesis is divided in four chapters. The first draws on James Joyce, considered both as a person and as a writer in progress, born and raised in Dublin in the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries. The chapter centres on the relations involving the influence of the Catholic context of his formation and the economic and social crises experienced by Ireland and by the Joyce family at the time. Chapter two is about Dubliners, the collection of short stories that presents Joyce’s view about the city of Dublin. These stories can be read independently from one another, but they acquire a finer meaning if considered as a unit in terms of language, symbolism, narrative strategies and goals, besides following a plan of evolution from childhood to adolescence, and to maturity, and public life. The characters share common characteristics: paralysis, lack of perspective, incapacity to understand or to react to the historical and social factors that put them in that position. Among those factors we have the Catholic tradition, the English domination and the inability of the people to react to circumstantial problems in a creative and productive way. Chapter three analyses the evolution of Joyce’s craftsmanship through the duo Stephen Hero/A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using the notion of Künstlerroman as a starting point. In the last chapter I deal with the peculiarities in Joyce’s style, contrasting them to the practice of some other contemporary authors who also state their views about art, history and tradition. As an aftermath to this thesis, I hope that my comments about the body of elements that propitiated the rise of Joyce as the author he is may prove useful to other people like me, who believe in the relevance of his contribution to the aesthetics of literature and to the discussion about political and social issues related to Ireland, in the first portraits of Dublin displayed in Joyce’s three first books.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-02-18Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:59:51Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 galbiati_ma_me_sjrp.pdf: 761552 bytes, checksum: bc41402ea93ebfc4ee1b035547567ee6 (MD5) / O presente trabalho focaliza o processo de composição de The Voyage Out (1915), o primeiro romance de Virginia Woolf. Este percurso demorado e conturbado caracteriza-se pelas várias interrupções geradas por crises emocionais e pelo trabalho intenso de revisão e reescrita da autora. Por conta disso, há muitos pré-textos (manuscritos, fragmentos inacabados, cópias datilografadas), chamados pela crítica de “rascunhos”. Um deles é Melymbrosia, o “romanceensaio” terminado em julho de 1912, editado por Louise DeSalvo e publicado nos Estados Unidos apenas em 1982. Para atingirmos nosso objetivo, extraímos trechos, indicadores das preocupações político-sociais da escritora, de Melymbrosia e os compararmos com The Voyage Out. A partir da constatação de alterações formais e conteudísticas entre os livros, verifica-se a forte tendência da autora em modificar/atualizar seu texto em função dos acontecimentos históricos durante o período de escrita do romance. Com isso, observa-se também a forma distinta com que Virginia construiu suas personagens – coerentes com a realidade social de sua época – em relação com os outros elementos constitutivos da narrativa e, assim, identificam-se os comportamentos, valores e pensamento ideológico da sociedade britânica no início do século XX. Por isso, entende-se que o processo de revisão e reescrita de The Voyage Out, é, de fato, um movimento de “re-visão”, de “re-criação”, pois a presença do olhar crítico de Virginia e a sua percepção da realidade reavaliam o contexto sócio-histórico britânico, revelando-se elementos fundamentais no processo de composição de sua obra como um todo. / This dissertation focuses on the process of composition of Virginia Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). This lengthy and problematic journey is characterized by several interruptions resulting from psychological crises and by the author’s intense work of revising and rewriting. Because of this there are many pre-texts (manuscripts, unfinished fragments and typed copies), described as “drafts” by the critics. One of these is Melymbrosia, the “novel-essay” completed in July 1912, edited by Louise DeSalvo only published in the U.S.A. in 1982. In order to realize our objectives excerpts indicative of the writer’s social and political concerns were taken from Melymbrosia and were compared with The Voyage Out. Based upon the formal and content modifications it was possible to confirm the author’s strong tendency to alter/update her text according to the historical facts and events during the period of composition. In addition, it was also possible to observe the distinct way in which Virginia Woolf constructed her characters – consistent with the social reality of the historical moment – in relation to the other narrative elements, thus identifying behavior, values and ideological thought of British society in the early 20th century. The process of revision and rewriting of The Voyage Out may therefore be understood to be a movement of “re-vision”, of “re-creation”, since Virginia Woolf’s critical vision and her perception of reality re-evaluate the British social and historical context, and become essential elements in the process of composition of her literary work as a whole.

James Joyce é um dos escritores mais famosos do século 20, sendo sua obra muito comentada por leitores e acadêmicos, especialmente devido ao alto nível de complexidade de Ulisses e Finnegans Wake, os romances da fase madura. O foco da presente dissertação, todavia, são os primeiros livros de Joyce que, apesar de serem mais acessíveis ao público em geral, também contêm toda a elaboração linguística e simbólica que caracteriza o autor. Trato especificamente do volume de contos Dublinenses e do romance Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, utilizando para análise deste o suporte oferecido pelo outro romance anterior, não publicado em vida, Stephen Hero. O objetivo da pesquisa é investigar aspectos presentes na prosa de Joyce que revelem a formulação e a aplicação de sua teoria estética. Como a cidade de Dublin surge como uma metáfora sobre as circunstâncias de ser irlandês, interessa ao leitor adquirir alguma familiaridade com a cultura e a história daquele país e com as relações existentes entre os irlandeses e sua terra natal, especialmente no que tange às questões sobre religiosidade e sobre a dominação inglesa. A dissertação vem estruturada em quatro capítulos. O primeiro apresenta James Joyce tanto como pessoa quanto como escritor em formação, nascendo e crescendo em Dublin na virada dos séculos XIX e XX. São analisadas as influências exercidas pelo contexto católico de sua criação e pela crise social e econômica enfrentadas tanto pelo país quanto pela família do autor. O segundo capítulo lida com Dublinenses, o conjunto de contos que apresenta a visão de Joyce sobre a cidade de Dublin. Esses contos podem ser lidos individualmente, mas a obra assume um significado maior quando considerada de forma unificada em termos de linguagem, simbologia, estratégias narrativas e objetivos, em um plano de evolução que abrange fases da infância, da adolescência, da maturidade e da vida pública. As personagens compartilham características comuns: paralisia, falta de perspectivas e incapacidade de entender ou de reagir aos fatores históricos e sociais que os colocam naquela posição. Entre tais fatores predominam três, a cultura católica, a dominação inglesa e a inabilidade das pessoas para reagir de maneira criativa e produtiva aos problemas que se apresentam. O terceiro capítulo analisa a evolução do fazer artístico de Joyce a partir do binômio Stephen Hero e Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, tendo como elemento comum a ideia do Künstlerroman. No quarto e último capítulo, apresento um comentário sobre as marcas de individuação de Joyce em relação a alguns de seus contemporâneos que também tratam sobre questões envolvendo arte, história e tradição. Ao término do trabalho, espero que a minha percepção sobre o conjunto de fatores que propiciaram o surgimento de um autor como Joyce possa ser de utilidade para pessoas que, como eu, acreditam tanto na importância estética quanto na relevância política e social desses três primeiros livros, os primeiros retratos de Dublin que James Joyce produziu. / James Joyce is one of the most famous writers in the 20th century, whose work is very commented both by readers and scholars, especially because of the high level of complexity of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, the two mature masterpieces. The focus of the present thesis, however, lies on the first books written by Joyce, because they are more manageable for reading, and yet bear all the linguistic and symbolic sophistication that marks Joyce’s production. The corpus of the research comprises the book of short stories Dubliners and the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using as support to the analysis of the latter, the previous novel, never published in life, Stephen Hero. The aim of this thesis is to investigate aspects of Joyce’s prose that expose the stages of construction and application of his aesthetic theory. The city of Dublin comes as a metaphor about the condition of being Irish. As a consequence, some familiarity with Irish history and culture is relevant for a better understanding of the books, and of the complex relations involving the Irish and their land, especially in matters concerning Catholicism and English domination. The thesis is divided in four chapters. The first draws on James Joyce, considered both as a person and as a writer in progress, born and raised in Dublin in the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries. The chapter centres on the relations involving the influence of the Catholic context of his formation and the economic and social crises experienced by Ireland and by the Joyce family at the time. Chapter two is about Dubliners, the collection of short stories that presents Joyce’s view about the city of Dublin. These stories can be read independently from one another, but they acquire a finer meaning if considered as a unit in terms of language, symbolism, narrative strategies and goals, besides following a plan of evolution from childhood to adolescence, and to maturity, and public life. The characters share common characteristics: paralysis, lack of perspective, incapacity to understand or to react to the historical and social factors that put them in that position. Among those factors we have the Catholic tradition, the English domination and the inability of the people to react to circumstantial problems in a creative and productive way. Chapter three analyses the evolution of Joyce’s craftsmanship through the duo Stephen Hero/A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using the notion of Künstlerroman as a starting point. In the last chapter I deal with the peculiarities in Joyce’s style, contrasting them to the practice of some other contemporary authors who also state their views about art, history and tradition. As an aftermath to this thesis, I hope that my comments about the body of elements that propitiated the rise of Joyce as the author he is may prove useful to other people like me, who believe in the relevance of his contribution to the aesthetics of literature and to the discussion about political and social issues related to Ireland, in the first portraits of Dublin displayed in Joyce’s three first books.

James Joyce é um dos escritores mais famosos do século 20, sendo sua obra muito comentada por leitores e acadêmicos, especialmente devido ao alto nível de complexidade de Ulisses e Finnegans Wake, os romances da fase madura. O foco da presente dissertação, todavia, são os primeiros livros de Joyce que, apesar de serem mais acessíveis ao público em geral, também contêm toda a elaboração linguística e simbólica que caracteriza o autor. Trato especificamente do volume de contos Dublinenses e do romance Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, utilizando para análise deste o suporte oferecido pelo outro romance anterior, não publicado em vida, Stephen Hero. O objetivo da pesquisa é investigar aspectos presentes na prosa de Joyce que revelem a formulação e a aplicação de sua teoria estética. Como a cidade de Dublin surge como uma metáfora sobre as circunstâncias de ser irlandês, interessa ao leitor adquirir alguma familiaridade com a cultura e a história daquele país e com as relações existentes entre os irlandeses e sua terra natal, especialmente no que tange às questões sobre religiosidade e sobre a dominação inglesa. A dissertação vem estruturada em quatro capítulos. O primeiro apresenta James Joyce tanto como pessoa quanto como escritor em formação, nascendo e crescendo em Dublin na virada dos séculos XIX e XX. São analisadas as influências exercidas pelo contexto católico de sua criação e pela crise social e econômica enfrentadas tanto pelo país quanto pela família do autor. O segundo capítulo lida com Dublinenses, o conjunto de contos que apresenta a visão de Joyce sobre a cidade de Dublin. Esses contos podem ser lidos individualmente, mas a obra assume um significado maior quando considerada de forma unificada em termos de linguagem, simbologia, estratégias narrativas e objetivos, em um plano de evolução que abrange fases da infância, da adolescência, da maturidade e da vida pública. As personagens compartilham características comuns: paralisia, falta de perspectivas e incapacidade de entender ou de reagir aos fatores históricos e sociais que os colocam naquela posição. Entre tais fatores predominam três, a cultura católica, a dominação inglesa e a inabilidade das pessoas para reagir de maneira criativa e produtiva aos problemas que se apresentam. O terceiro capítulo analisa a evolução do fazer artístico de Joyce a partir do binômio Stephen Hero e Um Retrato do Artista Quando Jovem, tendo como elemento comum a ideia do Künstlerroman. No quarto e último capítulo, apresento um comentário sobre as marcas de individuação de Joyce em relação a alguns de seus contemporâneos que também tratam sobre questões envolvendo arte, história e tradição. Ao término do trabalho, espero que a minha percepção sobre o conjunto de fatores que propiciaram o surgimento de um autor como Joyce possa ser de utilidade para pessoas que, como eu, acreditam tanto na importância estética quanto na relevância política e social desses três primeiros livros, os primeiros retratos de Dublin que James Joyce produziu. / James Joyce is one of the most famous writers in the 20th century, whose work is very commented both by readers and scholars, especially because of the high level of complexity of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, the two mature masterpieces. The focus of the present thesis, however, lies on the first books written by Joyce, because they are more manageable for reading, and yet bear all the linguistic and symbolic sophistication that marks Joyce’s production. The corpus of the research comprises the book of short stories Dubliners and the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using as support to the analysis of the latter, the previous novel, never published in life, Stephen Hero. The aim of this thesis is to investigate aspects of Joyce’s prose that expose the stages of construction and application of his aesthetic theory. The city of Dublin comes as a metaphor about the condition of being Irish. As a consequence, some familiarity with Irish history and culture is relevant for a better understanding of the books, and of the complex relations involving the Irish and their land, especially in matters concerning Catholicism and English domination. The thesis is divided in four chapters. The first draws on James Joyce, considered both as a person and as a writer in progress, born and raised in Dublin in the turn of the 19th into the 20th centuries. The chapter centres on the relations involving the influence of the Catholic context of his formation and the economic and social crises experienced by Ireland and by the Joyce family at the time. Chapter two is about Dubliners, the collection of short stories that presents Joyce’s view about the city of Dublin. These stories can be read independently from one another, but they acquire a finer meaning if considered as a unit in terms of language, symbolism, narrative strategies and goals, besides following a plan of evolution from childhood to adolescence, and to maturity, and public life. The characters share common characteristics: paralysis, lack of perspective, incapacity to understand or to react to the historical and social factors that put them in that position. Among those factors we have the Catholic tradition, the English domination and the inability of the people to react to circumstantial problems in a creative and productive way. Chapter three analyses the evolution of Joyce’s craftsmanship through the duo Stephen Hero/A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, using the notion of Künstlerroman as a starting point. In the last chapter I deal with the peculiarities in Joyce’s style, contrasting them to the practice of some other contemporary authors who also state their views about art, history and tradition. As an aftermath to this thesis, I hope that my comments about the body of elements that propitiated the rise of Joyce as the author he is may prove useful to other people like me, who believe in the relevance of his contribution to the aesthetics of literature and to the discussion about political and social issues related to Ireland, in the first portraits of Dublin displayed in Joyce’s three first books.

This PhD thesis analyses the influence of drama, contemporary to Virginia Woolf, on Woolf’s fiction and life writing. Plays by a range of dramatists from Ibsen to Eliot affected Woolf as both an individual and writer, yet little research has been done to link the late nineteenth/ early twentieth-century theatre with her fictional works or her concept of everyday life as expressed in the diaries, letters and memoir papers. An enthusiastic reader, playwright, theatregoer, and friend of playwrights, critics, actors, set designers and theatre owners, Woolf was naturally stimulated by exposure to this creative force and this research analyses its significance. The thesis begins by examining the non-fiction as a dramatization of her lived reality (see Chapter 1) which reached its apotheosis in the private plays (including Woolf’s Freshwater) that were performed in Bloomsbury (see Chapter 4). The discussion, focused in Chapters 2 and 3, addresses Woolf’s fictional output and explores the effect of the most influential plays and playwrights on Woolf’s novels and the concept of theatre as a metaphor within the texts’ imagery, style and structure.

One rarely sees the names James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway together in the same sentence. Their obvious differences in writing styles, nationalities, and lifestyles prevent any automatic comparison from being made. But when one compares their early short story collections, Dubliners and In Our Time, many surprisingly similarities appear. Both are collections of short stories unified in some way, written by expatriates who knew each other in Paris. A mood of despair and hopelessness pervades the stories as the characters are trapped in the human condition. By examining the commonalities found in their methods of organization, handling of point of view, attitudes toward their subjects, stylistic techniques, and modes of writing, one is continually brought back to the differences between Joyce and Hemingway in each of these areas. For it is their differences that make these artists important; how each author chose to develop his craft gives him a significant place in literature.

When analyzing literatures that expose the effects of colonialism one can identify similarities between the lives of the oppressed. Although colonization occurs in different times and locations the consequences upon the subjugated become comparable throughout history. One prominent pairing of mirrored colonial episodes can be identified in the literature of Irish author James Joyce and St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott. Both authors endured British colonialism and produced literatures which revealed similar themes and narratives. Yet simply because both authors lived through colonization does not equate their experiences as parallel. This thesis argues that Joyce and Walcott created comparable literatures because they experienced subjugation on islands. A comparison of Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Walcott's Omeros (1990) reveals the similar colonial experiences which were produced by island landscapes. Overall, this thesis will argue that the colonial turmoil which Joyce highlighted in Ulysses becomes mirrored in the postcolonial plot of Omeros. / by Sebastian Terneus. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis argues that tasting appears as an act of creative empathy and of knowledge acquisition in Virginia Woolf's writing. First contextualising my discussion within Woolf's own reading of the aesthetic and literary history of ‘taste', I then use Cixous' essay ‘Extreme Fidelity' (renamed ‘The Author in Truth') as a theoretical entryway to passages from The Voyage Out, Jacob's Room, A Room of One's Own, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, and Orlando which centralise the role of gustatory pleasure in creativity and epistemology. Cixous elaborates an oral, ‘poetic' and feminine ontology rooted in a receptivity to sensual pleasure, a concept that assists my reading of Woolf in several aspects. I suggest that in Woolf, both literal and figurative experiences of taste contribute to physical and psychic repletion, consequently eliciting empathy with the other (Cixous' term). This empathy which originates in the body constitutes an epistemological source distinct from intellectual or emotional intelligences, but one equally integral to the creative process. I assert that empathy features in Woolf as an extension or enlargement of the imagination through which a subject incorporates knowledge of alterity, but without consuming the other - as in the act of tasting. This ideation differs from notions of empathy as an analogical mapping or projection of self onto other. I discuss the ways in which a ‘gustatory epistemology' informs Woolf's approach to her craft, shapes the interrelationships of her characters, and materialises stylistically in her development of a ‘poetic' prose language.

Title from accompanying document. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Tennyson, and Virginia Woolf: three major figures of British art and letters who have received much critical attention individually, but have not yet been studied together. In this project I consider the valedictory works of these artists at their convergence, first through their obvious geographic, familial, and aesthetic relationships, then in more subtle, deeper, and overarching dimensions. The chief texts that are the focus of this dissertation are Tennyson's Idylls of the King, plus five of the Laureate's most popular poems; Cameron's photographic illustrations of these poems; and a selection of Virginia Woolf's late work, with a focus on "The Searchlight," Three Guineas, Between the Acts, and Anon. The dissertation also makes use of apposite poems, essays, life writing, and fiction created by these artists. Since "The Theatre of Anon" focuses primarily on Cameron's Illustrations, a chapter containing photographs of all the books' pages concludes the dissertation text. An additional selection of images is included as an appendix, in support of the central thesis of this project. The complex friendship between Tennyson and Cameron inspired the latter's only published book, a collection of poetic excerpts accompanied by images of his poems staged as scenes from amateur theatricals. The photos, with the photographer acting as their playwright-director, evoke the literary pageant in Woolf's last novel. In photographing the Illustrations, Cameron took control of the Laureate's poetry, metaphorically assuming the role of Vivien stealing Merlin's poetic spells. This dissertation traces Woolf's perception of her great aunt as it evolved over the decades, beginning with the eccentric, affected, and comical Cameron of Freshwater (1926) and ultimately portraying her as a dynamic, determined, and creative artist who helped provide inspiration for the character of the playwright-director Miss La Trobe of Between the Acts (1940). I argue that her great aunt's work influenced Woolf to create the figure she called Anon as a counterpart to Tennyson's King Arthur, and to place La Trobe's pageant-play at the center of her last novel, Between the Acts, as a final act of homage to Cameron. An aggregate of all anonymous minstrels, artists, and authors who ever lived, Anon appears in the guise of Miss La Trobe, whose communal, participatory art demonstrates how the traditionally monocular "eye" of history can be enlarged in community theatre from a single "I" to a collaborative project accommodating multiple perspectives. The Arthurian chivalry to which the ideology of Anon is set in counterpoint represents a conservative point of view based on the belief in a divinely-ordained social order headed by a monarch, with prescribed roles for each of its members. Valor in combat and devotion in courtly love, chivalry's two chief expressions, are the basis of Arthur's knightly code, which has influenced British national character and identity from the country's founding. Arthur reached his Anglophone apotheosis in the nineteenth-century's Gothic revival, epitomized in Tennyson's Idylls of the King. At the end of her career, at the start of the Second World War, Woolf came to believe that theatrical performance offered a better paradigm for social organization than the chivalric hierarchy at the root of the patriarchal British Victorian culture in which she had grown up. She saw in the community theatre a gathering place that could foster moments of transcendent unity, intellectual freedom, and imaginative inspiration, and in drama an art form resilient enough to withstand an audience's interruption and disillusionment. Performance provided a collaborative alternative to the conservative constraints that were her Victorian legacy; history, she felt, could be more accurately portrayed through the accretion of expressive theatrical performances than by the monolithic, linear narrative it had become as the official transcript of the nation's past. The theatricals scenes of La Trobe's pageant and Cameron's Illustrations - both composed of scraps and fragments of quotidian life rearranged and recombined - offer a new visual conception of the past. Working at the level of what Walter Benjamin has called photography's optical unconscious the dissertation demonstrates how Cameron's photographs reveal a reconstellation or reconfiguration, of the dominant British narrative from defamiliarized versions of the past that resonate with La Trobe's pageant. I propose that Cameron's photos re-envision canonical texts, inspiring a new mythology for Woolf, one that reflects a fluid and elastic version of the British national story. Challenging the received Carlylean conception of history as the biographies of great men, Woolf's counter-history, like Cameron's book of illustrations, features ordinary men and women playing extraordinary roles. The legendary Arthur, traditionally credited with uniting the country's thirteen tribes, founding Britain, and shaping the nation's identity, is but one actor among many in Woolf's pageant of history; his starring role in Tennyson's Idylls of the King is reduced to a few key scenes in the Illustrations and a cameo appearance in Between the Acts. Woolf implies that though there may still be room in history's narrative for heroic men, they will no longer dominate it. With its evolving, democratic nature, the community theatre created by Anon offers a paradigm of citizenship and social organization that Woolf believed could encompass British history, re-envision it, and offer the world's citizens hope for the future.