This thesis examines the life and poetry collection of the woman poet Li Shuyi (1817--?) within the context of women's literary culture in late imperial China. In particular, the textuality of Li Shuyi's poetry collection Shuyinglou mingshu baiyong (One Hundred Poems from Shuying Tower on Famous Women) forms the centre of critical analysis, which aims to articulate her gendered intervention into representations of women's image in poetry. The thesis is organized into three interconnected sections: the reconstruction of Li Shuyi's life in order to provide a context to articulate her relationship to writing, a reading of Li Shuyi's self-preface to discuss her motivation to write, and critical analysis of poems according to the three thematic categories of "beauty, talent, and qing ." The thesis demonstrates how a woman author's self-perception leads to her becoming a conscious writing subject, and how this self-realization then motivates her to produce a gendered writing project.

This study examines the rise of the Babi movement in its first phase (1844-47), the formative period which has been less fully explored than later phases (1847-52) but deserves a thorough critical examination. An attempt has been made to explain the complex relationship between the intellectual and social aspects of the movement; ideas, events and personalities are seen in a wide historical perspective, and the early impact of the movement on 'ulama, tujjār and other groups in Iranian urban society, and the reactions it evoked from them, are examined. The first two chapters deal with the intellectual and social climate of Iran in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with particular attention to the development of millenarian ideas. Chapters III and IV are concerned with the process which eventually gave birth to the movement. The early life of Sayyid 'Alī Muhammad, the Bab, his family background and personal characteristics are discussed in some detail, so as to show the external influences and inner experiences which finally brought him to proclaim a new 'revelation' in 1844. The conflicts and confusions within the Shaykhi ranks, which served as a stimulus to the conversion of those Shaykhi students who formed the first Babi nucleus in Shiraz, are examined; so too the traditional Shi'i ideas and their similarities and differences with the new doctrine. Chapters Five to Seven study the earliest Babi attempts in the 'Atabāt and Iran to spread the new message to specific groups, and to a wider public in general, and the opposition first of the religious authorities and then of the secular power. Chapter Eight is a case-study of the growth of the early Babi community in Khurasan, within the context of socio-political change, the pattern of the local economy, and inter-communal links in the small rural and urban centres. Chapter Nine, finally, looks at the Bab's own efforts to declare his mission to a wider public; however circumstances forced him to reinterpret the mission in a symbolic way, and for the first time the enormous practical problems which faced the expansion of the movement were realised.

In October 1875 the Canadian government reserved a tract of land along the southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg for the exclusive use of Icelandic immigrants. This was part of a larger policy of reserving land for colonization projects involving European immigrants with a common ethno-religious background. The purpose of this policy was to promote the rapid resettlement and agricultural development of Aboriginal territory in the Canadian Northwest. The case of the Icelandic reserve, or Nýja Ísland (New Iceland), provides a revealing window into this policy, and the ways in which it intersected with the larger processes of colonization in the region during the late nineteenth century. The central problem that this study addresses is the uneasy fit between "colonization reserves" such as New Iceland and the political, economic and cultural logic of nineteenth-century liberalism. Earlier studies have interpreted group settlements as either aberrations from the "normal" pattern of pioneer individualism or communitarian alternatives to it. This study, by contrast, argues that colonization reserves were part of a spatial regime that reflected liberal categories of difference that were integral to the extension of a new liberal colonial order in the region. Using official documents, immigrant letters and contemporary newspapers, this study examines the Icelandic colonists’ relationship to the Aboriginal people they displaced, to other settler groups, and to the Canadian state. It draws out the tensions between the designs and perceptions of government officials in Ottawa and Winnipeg, the administrative machinery of the state, and the lives and strategies of people attempting to navigate shifting positions within colonial hierarchies of race and culture.

An extensive database of the tracks of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean since 1851 is known as the North Atlantic Hurricane Database (HURDAT). While this database is valuable to public and private agencies, many of the deadliest hurricanes on record occurred prior to 1851. This study will address the research problem of the availability of historical information and the feasibility of collecting data and producing historical tropical cyclone tracks. This thesis describes a methodology for identifying tropical cyclones that existed during the one hundred year period from 1751-1850 referred to as the “pre-HURDAT era” in this study. Uncovering historical tropical cyclone tracks are important for researchers seeking long term patterns in the climate record. This study is a synthesis of all readily available historical data which can be used to identify the tracks of documented tropical cyclones that occurred during the pre-HURDAT era. To emphasize the applicability of historical hurricane tracks, a study comparing landfall patterns of landfalling east coast hurricanes was also done. These tracks were analyzed using historical chronologies, ship data, and other “regional literature”. / Department of Geography

This Creative Project is a slide-tape presentation titled A Historical Survey of United States Architecture, with Emphasis on the Nineteenth Century. The presentation includes 273 slides of American buildings and their European prototypes and covers the evolution of distinctive architectural styles in this country from the seventeenth century to the present time. The nineteenth century is treated in depth and 167 of the 273 slides included in the presentation cover this time period. The tape is synchronized with the slide presentation.

Three late Victorian novels provide significant insight into the Victorian crisis of faith because of their singleminded focus on an Anglican clergyman facing the issues that undermined received belief after 1860. William Winwood Reade's The Outcast (1875), Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere (1888), and George MacDonald's Thomas Wingfold, Curate (1876) cast the theme of doubt in a fresh light by systematically exploring what happens when a clergyman entertains doubt and investigates issues of faith and the ideas of evolutionary theory and higher criticism.Each novelist's distinctive perspective on the Victorian crisis of faith clearly shapes the delineation of the protagonist's crisis, determines which aspects of his crisis receive emphasis, and reflects the novelist's purpose for exploring doubt in a clergyman. Of deep interest is what these novelists achieve by exploring an Anglican clergyman's crisis of faith. First, using an Anglican clergyman as protagonist allows the novelists to explore the impact of doubt on the Established Church and the ramifications of doubt for a clergyman. Second, exploring a clergyman's crisis of faith allows the novelists to comment on how the Church failed to respond adequately to the Victorian crisis of faith. Third, the redefinition of faith advocated by all three novelists is best portrayed through an Anglican clergyman.In The Outcast Edward Mordaunt loses his traditional faith because of science, and through him, Reade suggests that the rejection of orthodoxy is the natural result of accepting the scientists' claims. He offers natural religion as a substitute for Christianity and uses the experience of his protagonist to criticize orthodox belief and intolerance. In Robert Elsmere Mrs. Ward defends intellectuals who accommodated their belief to new knowledge. She uses Robert Elsmere to show that accommodation is both possible and necessary and to accentuate the potential for social change when a sincere clergyman comes to terms with the claims of historical criticism. In Thomas Wingfold, Curate MacDonald acknowledges that the claims of science and higher criticism should be considered but suggests that they are not enough reason not to believe. He uses Thomas Wingfold to demonstrate a desirable approach to doubt and to argue for change from within the Church. / Department of English

This dissertation is a study of the use of guitar in opera. Ten operas were chosen from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century as a representative cross section of operas that use the guitar. The operas studied are: The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini, Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber, Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti, Beatrice and Benedict by Hector Berlioz, Otello and Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, La vida breve by Manuel de Falla, The Nightingale by Igor Stravinsky, Wozzeck by Alban Berg, and Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten. The study examines the technical aspects of each guitar part and how the guitar relates to the libretto and to the other instruments of the orchestra.The study finds that, with some exceptions, the guitar parts are idiomatic and not difficult to execute. There is some need on the part of the guitarist to edit the parts for technical and historical reasons and editorial suggestions are made by the author. The guitar is often related to the libretto and often appears onstage, yet it is almost always used as a prop and the performing guitarist is placed offstage or in the orchestra pit. There are significant problems found concerning the guitar's lack of volume. Composers tend to limit the number of instruments in use with the guitar. They do not, however, tend to give the guitar louder dynamics when other instruments are used at the same time. The guitar is generally used in outdoor scenes, to evoke a folk idiom, or when specifically referred to in the libretto. The use of the guitar is found to be mostly limited to simple accompaniments which do not utilize the full resources of the instrument. / School of Music

This study focuses on three significant issues addressed by utopian literature of the late Victorian period: the class struggle and the resulting debate about capitalism and socialism, the nature and significance of language, and the influence of Darwin's theory of evolution on attitudes toward human existence. The utopian reaction to each of these three issues reflects the increasingly scientific investigation and analysis of specialized fields of knowledge that developed throughout the nineteenth century. Within the context of major scientific advancements in biology, geology, linguistics, and technology, utopian literature of the late-Victorian period, c. 1871-1905, responds primarily to two opposing nineteenth-century attitudes, the complacent optimism of laissez-faire individualism and the resigned pessimism of naturalistic determinism. Literary utopianism of the late nineteenth century is an attempt to resolve the philosophical and epistemological conflict between the impersonal and seemingly unalterable natural laws of science and the indomitable human will. I contend that the utopian novel re-emerges in the last third of the nineteenth century at the intersection of scientific discourse and literary discourse. I further argue that the late Victorian utopia marks a critical transition between the classic utopia the modern utopia. / Department of English

The thesis examines Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth in the Biographia Literaria in the context of the contemporary review reaction to Wordsworth's poetry and theory of poetic diction, concentrating throughout on Wordsworth's most representative and persistent critic, Francis Jeffrey. The thesis is divided into two sections, according to a distinction laid down in the opening pages of the Biographia. The first examines "the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction", the second, "the real poetic character" of William Wordsworth. The first section, on "The Language of Poetry", opens with a discussion of the explicit and implicit aspirations of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, relating them to the theory of mind and nature in Wordsworth's poetry, and to Wordsworth's poetic practice. Chapter Two discusses Coleridge's reading of the Preface, its misrepresentation of the Preface's basic assumptions, and the extent to which Coleridge assimilates many of the arguments of the contemporary reviewers, only to move beyond them. The second section, "The Poet, the People, and the Public", concentrates more closely on the criticism of Francis Jeffrey. Chapter Three deals, briefly, with the prejudices of Jeffrey's criticism - with the Edinburgh Review as an historical enterprise - and then, at length, with the principles of his criticism as revealed in his review of Archibald Alison's Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste and his reviews of other aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical writings. After establishing the critical ambiguity of Jeffrey's associationist aesthetic, Chapter Four moves to a comparison of Jeffrey's and Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth, treating their similarities and differences on the subject of poetic sensibility and poetic genius. The final chapter, Chapter Five, looks at the social and political implications of Jeffrey's rejection of Wordsworth, interpreting that rejection as prophesying and enforcing the isolation of the poet from the public. Throughout, Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is seen as a coherent response to the contemporary reviewers generally, and, more specifically, to Francis Jeffrey's criticism of William Wordsworth.

This thesis examines a practice of nineteenth-century novelists which has often been mentioned by critics but never studied in detail - the setting of much of their work in a period a generation or two before the time of writing. Its main focus is on the fiction of George Eliot set in the recent past: Scenes of Clerical Life (1857-58), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Felix Holt, The Radical (1866), and Middlemarch (1871-72). However I begin by looking briefly at the pioneering novel in the field, Waverley (1814), and go on to discuss three more novels by Scott - Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquary (1816) and Redgauntlet (1824) - as well as three by Thackeray: Vanity Fair (1847-48), Pendennis (1848-50) and The Newcomes (1853-55). Since I aim to discover the attitudes these writers adopted to the recent past, and conveyed to their first readers, this study involves discussion not only of the periods in which the novels are set, but also of the periods in which they were written, so as to establish the knowledge and preconceptions which the books' early readers brought to bear on the fiction. Where possible I quote the responses of actual contemporary readers, notably those of the early reviewers. This thesis draws attention to the various functions a setting in the recent past could serve in nineteenth-century fiction: to arouse nostalgic feelings for a vanished but remembered past, or sympathy for the people of the past, to point out that change is sometimes more apparent than real, to comment obliquely on contemporary issues, to highlight the unchanging features of human nature and human predicaments, to examine the role of the individual in effecting change.