The intent of this thesis is to convey the distinctiveness and the contributions of Tejano culture in Texas. It focuses on the traditions of governance employed by Tejanos as well as their contributions to industry, economy and defense that Texas benefited from and still enjoys today. .given by Spain and México to Tejanos in establishing their settlements affected the development of a distinct Tejano culture. Furthermore, this study will also examine Anglo-Tejano interaction and Anglo American intentions toward Texas. It will also outline how Anglo Americans made determine efforts to wrest Texas away from Spain and México. Finally, the thesis examines Tejano cultural perseverance whose indelible imprint still resonates today.

This dissertation examines the evolution of the early English travel narrative as it relates to the development and application of mercantilist economic practices, theories of aesthetic representation, and discourses of gender and narrative authority. I attempt to redress an imbalance in critical work on pre-colonialism and colonialism, which has tended to focus either on the Renaissance, as exemplified by the works of critics such as Stephen Greenblatt and John Gillies, or on the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as in the work of scholars such as Srinivas Aravamudan and Edward Said. This critical gap has left early travel narratives by Sir Francis Moore, Jonathan Harris, Penelope Aubin, and others largely neglected. These early writers, I argue, adapted the conventions of the travel narrative while relying on the authority of contemporary commercial practices. The early English travelers modified contemporary conventions of aesthetic representation by formulating their descriptions of non-European cultures in terms of the economic and political conventions and rivalries of the early eighteenth century. Early English travel literature, I demonstrate, functioned as a politically motivated medium that served both as a marker of authenticity, justifying the colonial and imperial ventures that would flourish in the nineteenth century, and as a forum for experimentation with English notions of gender and narrative authority.

This dissertation examines the role of stage properties-props, slangily-in the construction and expression of characters' identities. Through readings of both canonical and non-canonical drama written between 1600 and 1707-for example, Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), Edward Ravenscroft's adaptation of Titus Andronicus (1678), Aphra Behn's The Rover (1677), and William Wycherley's The Plain Dealer (1677)-I demonstrate how props mediate relationships between people. The control of a character's props often accords a person control of the character to whom the props belong. Props consequently make visual the relationships of power and subjugation that exist among characters. The severed body parts, bodies, miniature portraits, and containers of these plays are the mechanisms by which characters attempt to differentiate themselves from others. The characters deploy objects as proof of their identities-for example, when the women in Behn's Rover circulate miniatures of themselves-yet other characters must also interpret these objects. The props, and therefore the characters' identities, are at all times vulnerable to misinterpretation. Much as the props' meanings are often disputed, so too are characters' private identities often at odds with their public personae. The boundaries of selfhood that the characters wish to protect are made vulnerable by the objects that they use to shore up those boundaries. When read in relation to the characters who move them, props reveal the negotiated process of individuation. In doing so, they emphasize the correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic worth. They are a measure of how well characters perform gender and class rolls, thereby demonstrating the importance of external signifiers in the legitimation of England's subjects, even as they expose "legitimacy" as a social construction.

Cette étude veut montrer comment le travail est décrit et vécu dans les utopies littéraires et programmatiques du dix-huitième siècle, de John Bellers (1695) à Robert Owen (vers 1830). Dans la société britannique de l’époque, le travail évolue, de nécessaire condition de l’homme vers un moyen de progresser dans la hiérarchie sociale. Les utopies, micro-sociétés idéales, sont toujours isolées, de sorte que le travail agricole et artisanal est la principale occupation de leurs habitants. De pénible qu’il est en Europe, il devient léger en utopies car il est équitablement partagé entre des individus qui savent se contenter de peu. Les autres professions, plus intellectuelles, jouissent d’un prestige nettement moins important qu’en Europe, puisque chaque utopien est à la fois son prêtre, son avocat, son médecin. Tous les utopiens contribuent également à la beauté de leur environnement, on ne trouve que rarement des artistes identifiés par leur fonction. La façon dont les utopistes abordent la question du travail traduit leur projet de société, le plus souvent égalitariste et coopératif, par opposition à une Grande-Bretagne dominée par la compétition. / The point of this thesis is to show how work is depicted in eighteenth-century utopias, from John Bellers (1695) to Robert Owen (in the 1830s). Labour is the necessary condition of the vast majority of the British population at the beginning of the period. Over the century, though, work takes on a more positive connotation as it becomes a means of ascending the social ladder (especially for the merchants and members of the professions). In utopian texts, European “toil” becomes pleasant and healthful “exercise”, because the inhabitants of ideal societies have few needs that are easily satisfied. A little agriculture and craft industry only is required to provide them with anything they want. The intellectual professions, that were more prestigious in Britain, are disregarded as each citizen is able to act as his own priest, lawyer or physician. All utopians are artists, contributing to the beauty of their environment, so that none is really identified as such. The last part aims at demonstrating that work and labour are at the heart of the utopists’ view of society. Their plans are vindications of more egalitarian and cooperative societies.

When a particular phase of music theory is omitted from the contents of a treatise or textbook on that subject, the omission can usually be ascribed to one of two causes. Either the omitted phase is of little importance or it is not used in the music of the period on which the treatise or textbook is based. It is the purpose of this research study to discuss a particular phase of music theory that has been omitted or avoided by numerous counterpoint and theory textbook authors. The material in the contents of this work is based on a discussion of the melodic use of the augmented second in the music of the eighteenth century.

This study is an exploration into the Romantics' transcendence of the dualistic world view and their attainment of a holistic vision. Chapter I formulates a dichotomy between the archaic (sacrosanct) world view and the modern (mechanistic) world view. Chapter II discusses the reality of the religious experience in Romanticism. Chapter III elucidates the Romantics' use of mystic myths and noetic symbols. Chapter IV treats the Romantic transcendence of the dualistic world view and the problems of expressing the transcendental experience in aesthetic form. Supporting theories include those of Henri Bergson, Martin Buber, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and M. H. Abrams. The study concludes by assessing the validity of the Romantic vision in the modern world.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.