My dissertation, Making Imperial Futures: Concepts of Empire in the Anglo-Spanish Sphere, 1763-71, engages the grand narrative of exploration at the point at which that very concept was reaching the point of exhaustion and argues that the rough completion of European cartographical knowledge of the world had a profound impact on the evolution of the imperial experience. I examine the evolving concept of empire within a context of cross-imperial knowledge and rivalry, Enlightenment ideals and the changing ways in which Europeans related to the concept of a progressive future. Furthermore, I challenge the historiographically dominant notion that the British and Spanish experiences of empire are best categorized and isolated as distinct historical subjects. The first section shows that British successes in the Seven Years’ War energised the British imperial imagination, generating a broad-based debate on how best to exploit the situation and opening up the opportunity to put more than one approach into action when Britain and Spain went to war in 1762. But the Peace of Paris brought discord, and a perceived need for the government to discipline the imperial imagination and to establish an approved pathway for the future of empire in the Atlantic world. The second part looks at how the Spanish government applied state power in direct pursuit of the pan-Atlantic imperial project. In particular, it re-examines the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767 and makes the argument that the expulsion was a response to the perceived Jesuit threat to pan-Atlantic imperial norms. My third section suggests that the experimental burst of modern, state-centric imperialism that began in the wake of the Seven Years’ War suffered a reversal during the Falklands Crisis of 1770-1, during the general historical moment in which Europeans finished constructing their shared cartographical conception of the world. Although the growth of state power and impetus was temporarily reversed to some extent in the 1770s, this period helps prefigure the more extensive shift from empires primarily based on exploration and tenuous consolidation to empires that depended on dense, active exploitation to lend validity to their ontological claims.

My dissertation, Making Imperial Futures: Concepts of Empire in the Anglo-Spanish Sphere, 1763-71, engages the grand narrative of exploration at the point at which that very concept was reaching the point of exhaustion and argues that the rough completion of European cartographical knowledge of the world had a profound impact on the evolution of the imperial experience. I examine the evolving concept of empire within a context of cross-imperial knowledge and rivalry, Enlightenment ideals and the changing ways in which Europeans related to the concept of a progressive future. Furthermore, I challenge the historiographically dominant notion that the British and Spanish experiences of empire are best categorized and isolated as distinct historical subjects. The first section shows that British successes in the Seven Years’ War energised the British imperial imagination, generating a broad-based debate on how best to exploit the situation and opening up the opportunity to put more than one approach into action when Britain and Spain went to war in 1762. But the Peace of Paris brought discord, and a perceived need for the government to discipline the imperial imagination and to establish an approved pathway for the future of empire in the Atlantic world. The second part looks at how the Spanish government applied state power in direct pursuit of the pan-Atlantic imperial project. In particular, it re-examines the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish empire in 1767 and makes the argument that the expulsion was a response to the perceived Jesuit threat to pan-Atlantic imperial norms. My third section suggests that the experimental burst of modern, state-centric imperialism that began in the wake of the Seven Years’ War suffered a reversal during the Falklands Crisis of 1770-1, during the general historical moment in which Europeans finished constructing their shared cartographical conception of the world. Although the growth of state power and impetus was temporarily reversed to some extent in the 1770s, this period helps prefigure the more extensive shift from empires primarily based on exploration and tenuous consolidation to empires that depended on dense, active exploitation to lend validity to their ontological claims.

The eighteenth-century British novel derived its purpose, structure, and theory of characterization from the life-history, in the form of biography or autobiography. In eighteenth-century Britain both the novel and the life-history emerged in recognizably modern forms. Like the life-history, the novel maintained as its purpose the Horatian maxim that art should both instruct and entertain. Moreover, the novel and the life-history shared the same structure, as each novel purported to be the biography or autobiography of the title character of the work. Finally, the novel and the life-history adopted the same theories of characterization for the major as well as minor characters within the works.However, life-writing was at this time in a period of transition from the static to the dynamic theory of characterization. This transition came as a result of a significant change in the view of the source of personality. In the static life-history the central subject, as well as the minor figures, possessed an innate, unchanging personality. Thus when Plutarch wrote of Alexander or of Julius Caesar, these figures were depicted as men born to greatness. However, each was imperfect, possessing in the Aristotelian sense a tragic flaw. In the main this theory was significant because it placed no value on what was later to be considered so important in the development of personality-the individual's experiential life.In direct contrast to the static theory, the dynamic view of personality was the result of Cartesian and Lockean psychology which saw personality as the direct result of not the innate but instead the experiential processes. The experiences of the central character, rather than exemplifying innate qualities, now were seen as shaping and delineating that personality. The application of this new theory to both the modern novel and life-history produced a central character or characters growing according to the dynamic theory, though the minor characters remained "type" characters in accordance with the static theory.Therefore, the sources of the British eighteenth-century novel lay both in the dynamic biographies and autobiographies of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century and in the classical life-writers beginning with Plutarch and Josephus, as well. In this study the primary classical works analyzed are Josephus, the portrait of Herod in the Jewish Antiquities and his own in The Life; Plutarch's "Julius Caesar" and Suetonius' "Julius Caesar"; St. Augustine's Confessions; Dante's Vita Nuova; and the transitional Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. The adoption of the new dynamic theory is illustrated in two life-histories: Colley Cibber's Apology and Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage.The application of the dynamic theory to eighteenth-century autobiographical novels is exemplified by Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Tobias G. Smollett's Roderick Random. Though there was a complex psychological portrait of Richardson's Pamela Andrews, with a number of moral digressions, there were little character development and few digressions in Smollett's novel.A far more complex treatment of the theories of personality occurred in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. As narrator Tristram centered the work upon the four.crucial accidents that had formed his personality, and on those other three dynamic characters who were connected with these misfortunes--the Shandy brothers and Parson Yorick. In contrast, minor characters such as Dr. Slop were drawn according to the static theory. The digressions within the work were encased within a comic-satiric framework. Thus the two theories of personality--static and dynamic--which informed eighteenth-century life-writing served also as the principal source for characterization in the eighteenth-century British autobiographical novel.

The present thesis, entitled "Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West during the Eighteenth century", deals with Muslim images of the West at the turn of the eighteenth century as they were formulated in the minds of Indian Muslim intellectuals. It examines the modalities of experience and categories of knowledge of the West as they were perceived by Muslim scholars who had come into contact with the contemporary West. The main purpose of the present enquiry is to analyze the origins and the nature of such perceptions as were articulated in their writings. With the expansion of British political power in the sub-continent in the late eighteenth century Britain came to be identified with Europe as a whole in the minds of our intellectuals. The Indian intelligentsia's experience of the contemporary Western civilization became in fact its experience of the British society and culture. Extensive quotations from the writings of the authors under consideration are often used to illustrate the principal arguments in this essay. The thesis is based on relatively unexplored source-material which comprises Persian manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Library in London. Our writers' perceptions of the Western civilization concentrate on various aspects of European and, particularly, British culture such as social life, religion, political ideas and institutions and scientific and technological developments. The present study also attempts to assess the impact of an alien culture on various socio-economic levels in Indian society, especially since Muslims had largely lost a centralised political control over India. The declining Muslim intelligentsia accepted uncritically the impact of the new and powerful culture but the new knowledge presented in their writings was not significantly implemented in their society; rather, the indigenous society was overwhelmed by the new culture that was imposed upon it and gave in to it and its attraction.

The thesis sets out to explain the presence of women writers in the book market of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In order to do so, it examines the position of women writers in Germany - in the context both of their discursive and of their social reality. The thesis investigates the ideological and material background for women's writing, by exploring the areas of gender ideology, contemporary concepts of authorship, women's reading, and the literary market. The final chapter examines women's freedom of expression in different public circumstances. The thesis argues that women's position in the business of culture in general and literature in particular is not as unpromising as has often been claimed. By investigating less well-known texts on gender roles, such as eighteenth-century journal articles, it is possible to show that the rhetoric of prohibitions, for example regarding women's reading and writing, was by no means uniform, but fragmentary and frequently contradictory. Women's own responses to the conditions under which they were working are highlighted throughout the thesis, and examined on the basis of a range of texts, including unpublished correspondence. The examination of non-literary factors, such as the expansion of the literary market and the emergence of a newly diverse reading public, enables the identification of causes other than gender as determining women's position as writers during this period. In the course of this study, numerous neglected texts are considered, which broaden our understanding of this period of literature. The creative and successful use which women writers made of the opportunities they were afforded is emphasised throughout, thereby making an important contribution to the study of women writers.

There has been little interest in eighteenth century urban history in England and particularly in the significance of patterns of urban social structure during the transition from a traditional to a modern society. One reason for this is the intractable and fragmentary nature of the sources for this precensus period. In this study three types of source, a town directory, a Parliamentary Poll Book and the city rate and national tax returns for Bristol in 1774/5, were collated using nominal record linkage techniques to give a body of information which covered 80% of the city's heads of household. With the use of this database and various computer techniques occupation, sex, wealth, place of residence and voting allegiance were analysed. The results suggest that a professional or leisured suburban group was by this date well established in distinct areas of the city. The supremacy of the traditional élite, the overseas merchants, was challenged by this group, although the merchants themselves were in part joining the suburban dwellers. Poorer Bristolians still concentrated in dockside parishes and in parts of the city which were becoming increasingly unfashionable and homogeneous as the richer men moved out, though this process was not very far advanced and there was still a degree of mixing in the older city parishes. The economic structure of the city was changing with increased emphasis on services, professions and distribution. This increased disparities in wealth within the city and between the city and its hinterland and gave the ability to the rich to further their isolation from the poor by moving to the suburbs. The 1774 election pointed to the continuing importance of traditional influences (here of religion) In society, but also confirmed suggestions that the professions and distributors were drawing away from the mass of the populace. A revision of previous interpretations of the nature of Bristol society is necessary to accommodate this growing and important group - the emergent middle class. The thesis shows that a comprehensive computer-based study can make usable dubious sources (in particular fiscal records) and use them to revise interpretations of English urban communities at this date.

This thesis addresses three aspects of the relationship between audience, playhouse and play in Restoration theatre from 1660 to 1710. It provides a comprehensive account of the composition of the Restoration audience, an examination of the effect this group of men and women had upon the plays they attended and an account of the ways in which the plays and playhouses of the Restoration touched the lives of London's inhabitants. In the first part of this dissertation I identify the audience. Chapter 1 deals with London's playhouses, their location, archictecture and decoration. It shows how the playhouses effectively created two sets of spectators: the visible and the invisible audience. Chapter 2 is a detailed examination of those audiences, and the social and occupational groupings to which they belonged. Chapter 3 deals with the support the stage received. It analyses attendance patterns, summarizes evidence of audience size, presents case studies of attendance patterns and outlines the incidence and effects of recurrent playgoing. In the second part of the dissertation I deal with theatricality, with the representation of human action on and off the stage. I examine the audience's behaviour in the playhouses and the other public places of London. I focus on the relationships between stage and street to show how values and attitudes were transmitted between those two realms. To do this, I analyse three components of theatrical behaviour--acting, costume, and stage dialogue and look at their effect on peoples' behaviour in and ideas about the social world. Chapter 4 is an introduction to late seventeenth century ideas of theatricality. Chapter 5 examines contemporary ideas of dress and fashion and of their relationship to stage costuming. Chapter 6 considers how contemporary ideas about conversation and criticism affected and were in turn affected by stage dialogue.

The following study is an examination of the deluded heroine in the novel between 1740 and 1820. Through close readings of fiction by Samuel Richardson, Charlotte Lennox, Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe and Jane Austen, and discussion of relevant works by other authors of the period, the reasons for the prevalence of this figure are considered. The thesis proposes that this choice of protagonist enabled the exploration of a number of the issues that most concerned contemporary novelists. Principal amongst these was the question of identification between reader and literary protagonist. Throughout this period authors engaged in attempts to develop and control the audience's response. The desired end was the "improvement" of readers by the experience of the situations, mistakes and trials of the text's central characters. Increasingly though, the unpredictable and fluctuating nature of the readers' reactions was recognised. The result was a conflict between "text as instruction", the moral education that authors professed to offer, and "text as fiction", the attractions of story, adventure and imagination which were ostensibly valued only as they brought readers to works intended to improve them. The connection of the latter to romance was a further source of tension. The establishment of the novel as a model for life was premised on claims to probability, but aspects of the texts remained which worked against mimetic representation. These oppositions explain the contemporary popularity of the quixotic narrative, since the quixote both enacted the "madness" of excessive imaginative involvement with literature and could also be shown learning to make a "correct" choice of genre for reading. The strategies that can be observed within the quixote novel have a wider application when they are considered alongside the patterns of imitation, influence and parody which characterise the fiction of the period. In order to examine these features, the thesis includes an analysis of two important literary dialogues: those between Richardson and Lennox, and between Radcliffe and Austen. My focus on the heroine acknowledges the significance of gender in the period's fiction. Created by both female and male authors, such figures could be either exemplary models or quixotic warnings. They nevertheless share an experience of delusion followed by enlightenment constructed in order to benefit the "reading Misses" following their adventures. Unlike much recent criticism, however, my concern is more with the author as creative artist, text as literary process and reader as imaginative participant, than with historical or sociological contexts.

The British market has until now received little of the credit due it as the chief support of the cotton industry during the final fifty years of the eighteenth century. The manner in which this support was extended involved a restructuring of the economy, as illustrated by a qualitative change in the consumer habits of the population; the advent of a mass consumer society. The demand for cotton textiles was a distillation of many amorphous desires and aspirations that flourished in eighteenth century Britain. This was not a frivolous whim on the part of a small host of women, but a powerful economic force which might be tapped through the female section of the society, but which involved the entire society on a fundamental level. When the fashionable urge was translated into a demand for inexpensive, attractive cottons the industry was tied to one of the most potent commercial forces of that period. As a result of recent research, historians are coming to recognize a feature of economic development in the last half of the eighteenth century never before sufficiently acknowledged. This quality in the economic life of the nation set it off from all previous eras. During that time an economy developed and prospered that was geared to the profits of popular fashions, produced cheaply and in quantity for the mass market. Never before had a trade developed so quickly, exclusively on popular demand for mass-produced fashionable textiles. The provision of news on current fashions throughout the nation sparked generalized interest in British manufacturers among the middle and working classes. These classes were the basis of the market on which the cotton. industry depended for its vitality; it was among these sections of society that the creations of the cotton industry found the great new markets of the eighteenth century. Institutionalized dessimination of fashion information in print; a homogeneity of demand throughout the nation and the ranks of the nation; and the diversification and development of cotton products in response to this demand were the principal characteristics of this economic and social phenomenon.

Catherine ('Kitty') Clive (1711-1785) was the most famous singer-actress of mideighteenth century London, and one of the first women whom Drury Lane managers sought to popularize specifically as a singer. Drawing on theories of star construction in cinema, this thesis explores how the public persona of Mrs Clive 'composed' the music she sang. A key ingredient in star production is the wide-ranging dissemination of the star's image. The first chapter explains how the mid-eighteenth star was produced, outlining the period equivalents to what film scholars consider the sources of modern stardom: promotion, publicity, criticism and the work. This last means of star production is considered according to period traditions of comic writing, acting and spectatorship. These activities were part of the practice, begun in the Restoration, of creating a 'line' or metacharacter to fit the skills, reputation and unique acting mannerisms of principal players. The second chapter examines the vehicle of Mrs Clive's initial success, ballad opera. Ballad opera brought to the London stage the musical and discursive traditions of the street ballad singer, who typically communicated with audiences directly through indigenous, popular tunes. Direct address and native pedigree were to remain key elements in Mrs Clive's music, regardless of the genre she was singing. Chapters 3 to 5 trace three distinct phases in Mrs Clive's star production. Chapter 3 studies her promotion by Henry Carey, who taught her distinctive vocal techniques ('natural' singing; mimicry of opera singers) and supplied a sophisticated ballad-style repertory of which she was the chief exponent, 1728-32. Through Mrs Clive, Carey promoted his music and convictions - song in 'sublimated ballad style', the attractiveness of native traditions, female rights - and these became hallmarks of the Clive persona. Chapter 4 considers Henry Fielding's Clive publicity in his musical comedies and writings for her, 1732-6. Initially, he vivified the impudent nymph of her first 1729 mezzotint through stage characters, songs and epilogues. The criticism she drew for her refusal to join 1733-4 Drury Lane actors' rebellion forced him to re-invent Mrs Clive as a 'pious daughter'. In order to galvanize support for her, he broadened his publicity and made her an icon of conservative patriotic values and an enemy of Italian opera. Chapter 5 investigates Mrs Clive's management of her own image in her 1736 battle to retain the lead role in The Beggar's Opera. After her triumph, the duties of her new writer James Miller were simply to reflect audience perception of her. Chapters 6 and 7 analyse how the Clive persona, now rooted in public fantasy, shaped her two most important 'high style' musical roles, first in Thomas Arne's Comus, and then in Handel's Samson. Chapter 6 shows how the themes and musical procedures typical of the Clive persona were wedded to Milton's Comus, which then became the imaginative touchstone for a 'Comus' environment at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Chapter 7 examines her history as mediator of, and collaborator with, Handel, and shows how Handel's conceptualization of Dalilah in Samson mirrored that of Arne's Euphrosyne in Comus. Chapter 8 describes her ascendancy into 'polite society' through her friendship with Horace Walpole, and summarizes the means by which Mrs Clive's talents and audience perception of her shaped the works she performed.