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By comparing the novels of William Faulkner and Patrick White, this thesis reconsiders modernism's elitism and solipsism by revealing within them a critical interest in liberating minority perspective. Theoretical debates which continue to insist on modernism's inherent distance from the identity politics which front the postmodernist movement are overlooking modernism's deeply embedded evaluative mechanisms which work to expose and criticize the activity of psychic and social co-optation. Faulkner and White are both engaged in fictionally tracing the complexities of a failing patriarchy which can no longer substantiate its primary subjects — the white, upper class male. As representatives of modernism we can see that Faulkner and White, perhaps unwittingly, initiate the awareness that the 'failure' of their chosen subjects is in large measure due to processes of marginalization which both created the authoritative power structures within which they are constructed and helped serve to collapse them. The classic isolation of the modernist subject can be looked at not simply as an isolation predicated on endless self-referentiality, but rather on a desperate social outreaching for which he or she is not psychically equipped. By following the trajectory and perspective of specific novels and characters it becomes clear that it is precisely this handicap which clears the textual space for diversity of representation, just as it overturns the notion of modernism's functioning separatism. Chapter one concentrates on the double-edged representation of the female subject constructed as always-already 'guilty' within the psychologically, emotionally and physically repressive terms of the dominant male power structures within the context of Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun and White's A Fringe of Leaves. Chapter two investigates the psychological parameters of the morally disenfranchised modern subject whose disillusionment results from prejudicial social practices promoted by virulent racial anxiety as exemplified in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and White's Voss. The third and final chapter discusses Light in August and Riders in the Chariot with attention to modernism's own investigation of the exclusion of minority voices from collective social imagining. The thesis posits that literary modernism is interested less with reconciling its literary subjects within a self-contained totalizing project than it is with invoking new social and psychological paradigms that stress the necessity of external, not internal, represented multiplicity, and that what has been (mis)recognized as modernism's self-closure is, in fact, the key not only to its own continuing relevance, but to the contemporaneous literary injunction to let all voices be heard.

This dissertation is a scholarly edition of the correspondence between the Canadian poet Irving Layton and the critic and historian of Canadian literature, Desmond Pacey; on November 3, 1954, Desmond Pacey wrote to Contact Press, inviting the poets Irving Layton, Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster to submit their recent work for discussion in an article on Canadian literature for The International Year Book. Pacey and Layton met in Montreal a few months later, and so began a long friendship and a lengthy correspondence which continued until Pacey’s death on July 4, 1975. The correspondence is an extremely important document in the history of Canadian poetry and criticism in the decisive decades following World War II because it so directly and extensively explores the crucial issues of the times: the function of the poet and the critic in contemporary society; the debate over a “cosmopolitan” versus a “native” aesthetic; the debate over a “mythopoeic” versus a “realist” approach to the creation of, and criticism of, poetry; and the attempt to define a position for the Jewish writer in a gentile society. But aside from this prolonged and invaluable theoretical discourse, and aside from the countless useful insights into the life and work of practically every writer active in Canada between 1954-1975, the letters between the two men are important because the two men were so vitally important to the development of a viable Canadian literature. The basic principle of this project’s editorial philosophy is the decision to abjure the “editorial pedantries” of the diplomatic text which tend to exclude the non—specialist educated public, and to assume greater flexibility in the standardization and regularization of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and matters of format——placement of addresses, closings, postscripts and marginalia. Headnotes contain all textual information about the letter; transcriptions are in the main literal, but in the interest of consistency some standardization has been imposed. Footnotes follow each letter; cross—references are by letter and, where applicable, note number; when the reference is to a letter with a single footnote, no number is cited. These almost three thousand annotations are employed to identify individuals referred to in the text, to provide publication information on the works of Layton, Pacey, and numerous other individuals referred to in the text, to document and frequently quote from the reviews, articles, radio and television programs they discuss, to elucidate references to current events, and to provide miscellaneous but necessary background information on matters ranging from the private lives of the two correspondents to majcir vnts and isuë in the history of Canadian li’áttñ.

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The purpose of this study is to critically compare and contrast John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Frederick Manfred's The Golden Bowl in order to evaluate the two novels with regard to the Western literary tradition and to assess the significant contribution of the two writers to Western American literature.

In this thesis, I have studied the elements that distinguish the biography as a literary genre. After analysing the different facets involved in the making of a biography, I have applied some theories to practical use. I chose a subject, became acquainted with the facts of this person's life, found the ideal form and produced on paper the life of a real human being. I chose to write a biography on Odelie Brisebois, a very loving and humble woman. Her seventy-seven years encompasses a period of Quebec history and life style that we will never see again.

This thesis examines the medical case records of the Imperial Qing Palace. The case records were examined with a view to see how Chinese medicine was practised in the Qing period in China. I also analysed the role of medical cases as another way of adding to an understanding of history. My primary sources were the archive medical case records of the Qing Imperial Palace as compiled by Chen Keji. I also used selected secondary sources, particularly research by Chang Che-Chia on the Qing cases. I concentrated my research on selected emperors and the Empress Dowager. I analysed the case records of Kangxi, Qianlong, Tongzhi, Guangxu and Cixi. Each of these figures were analysed using medical analysis and historical analysis. Using clinical knowledge, I analysed each of these political figures considering the historical and social context of the time. While analysing selected cases I also analysed the medical approach and style of one doctor of the nineteenth century, Ma Peizhi. This physician was selected as representative of elite doctors in China in the late Qing period. Using the methodology of textual analysis I supplemented analysis of the primary sources with examination of secondary sources such as biographies and other journals. In medical terms, I found that the practice of Chinese medicine changes according to social and historical circumstances. In line with the social norms of the elite at the time in Qing China, medicine was practised with the approach of gentleness and balance. This distinctive style, practised by Ma Peizhi, saw the root of physical disease in mental unease. In historical terms, I found that the medical records provided primary evidence for trends in Qing history. The Kangxi emperor looked askance at Chinese medicine, while avidly practising his Manchu shamanic rituals. His grandson, Qianlong, in contrast, presented himself as a patron of Chinese classical learning, of which he saw Chinese medicine as an important component. This was evidence that the sinification of the Manchu conquerors was almost complete. A key finding of the thesis was that the realities of the Qing emperors and the Empress Dowager Cixi differed from the personas they had projected to the public. The Qing emperors and the Empress Dowager were, on the whole, frail in health, psychologically vulnerable and suffering from chronic anxiety, if not depression. The Qing images of power did not fit the reality.