The primary aim of this thesis Me he korokoro kōmako [‘With the throat of a bellbird’] is to demonstrate the existence of a distinctive Māori aesthetic in Māori literature written in English. Its introductory section, of three chapters, investigates the ways in which mainstream critical discourse in various ways appropriates Māori literature to its own Western-derived models of meaning and values, and proposes instead a definition of a Māori aesthetic grounded in the principle of whakapapa, whose whole cultural components for Māori literature include distinctive textual functions for myth, orality, acts of naming, other aspects of language, and symbolism. The concept of whakapapa also provides the organizing principle and methodology of the central chapters of the thesis, which are divided into two Parts – each of six chapters. These are framed by a Prologue and Epilogue, whose subject is the profound cultural symbolism of the waka in the work of a founding figure for Māori writing in English, Jacqueline Sturm, and in Star Waka, by a major later writer in English, Robert Sullivan. Part One devotes three chapters each to the adult fiction of one female writer, Patricia Grace (Potiki and Baby No-Eyes), and one male writer, Witi Ihimaera (The Matriarch). Part Two, following the principle of whakapapa, devotes six chapters to Māori literature for children. Its primary text is the major anthology of such writing – Te Ara O Te Hau: The Path of the Wind, Volume 4 of Te Ao Mārama, edited by Witi Ihimaera, with Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D.S. Long. It grounds its reading of the volume’s many texts (literary and visual, in Māori and in English) in the many distinctive cultural behaviours and meanings attached to the figure of Māui. Each of the authors and texts has been chosen in order to study and exemplify a particular aspect of the Māori aesthetic defined in the Introduction, through close readings which draw strongly on the work of major Māori social historians, authors of iwi histories and genealogies, and interpreters of cultural meanings attaching to the natural worlds, and recent work on literary stylistics by Geoffrey Leech and others. It also draws on conversations with numerous Māori informants, including some of the authors discussed. The readings are designed to reveal the rich, culturally contextualised knowledges which Māori readers bring to the texts, and which their authors share and invoke through their deployment of the values and practices of whakapapa. While such representations and explorations of self offer new interpretive possibilities for Pākehā readers, they are also part of a global movement in which indigenous peoples engage in the politics of decolonisation from a position of strength, the stance of self-knowledge. E kore e hekeheke he kākano rangatira Our ancestors will never die for they live on in each of us. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

This thesis is an investigation of writing by New Zealand children in the Children's Pages of five New Zealand newspapers: the New Zealand Herald, Christchurch Press and Otago Daily Times in the 1930s and 1980s, the Dominion in the 1930s; and the Wellington Evening Post in the 1980s. Its purpose is to show how children reflected their world, interacted with editors, and interpreted the adult world in published writing, and to examine continuities and changes between the 1930s and 1980s. It seeks evidence of gender variations in writing. and explores the circumstances in which the social role of writing was established by young writers. It considers the ways in which children (especially girls) consciously and unconsciously used public writing to create a public place for themselves. It compares major themes chosen by children, their topic and genre preferences in writing, and the gender and age differences evident in these preferences. The thesis is organised into three Parts, with an Introduction discussing the scholarly background to the issues it explores, and its methodology. Part One contains two chapters examining the format and tone of each Children's Page. And the role and influence of their Editors. Part Two (also of two chapters) investigates the origins and motivations of the young contributors, with a special focus on the Otago Daily Times as a community newspaper. Part Three. of four chapters, explores the children's writing itself, in separate chapters on younger and older children, and a chapter on the most popular genre, poetry. The conclusion suggests further areas of research, and points to the implications of the findings of the thesis for social history in New Zealand and for classroom practice. The thesis contains a Bibliography and an Appendix with a selection of writings by Janet Frame and her family to the Otago Daily Times Children's Page in the 1930s. / Note: Whole document restricted at the request of the author, but available by individual request, use the feedback form to request access.

This thesis examines contemporary interpretations of a selection of important texts written by New Zealand women between 1910 and 1940, and also a film and film script written more recently (which are considered as re-readings of a novel by Mander). The thesis argues that, though reading or meaning-making is always an activity of construction there will, at any given moment, always be reasons for preferring one way of reading over another-a reading most appropriate to a situation or circumstances. This study is motivated by a desire to understand how literary criticism has changed in recent years, particularly under the influence of feminism, and how a reader today can make a choice among competing methods of interpretation. Comparisons are drawn between various possible readings of the texts in order to classify methods of reading, particularly nationalist and feminist reading strategies. The over-all tendency of the argument is to propose a more self-critical and self-conscious approach to reading, and to develop a materialist and historical approach which I see as particularly important to the New Zealand context in the 1990s. / Thesis is now published as a book. Paul M. (1999) Her Side of the Story: readings of Mander, Mansfield and Hyde. Dunedin: Otago University Press. http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/ for more information.

This thesis explores the topic of literature-into-film adaptation by investigating the use of New Zealand fiction by film-makers in this country. It attempts this task primarily by examining eight case-studies of the adaptation process: five features designed for cinema release (Sleeping Dogs, A State of Siege, Sons for the Return Home, The Scarecrow and Other Halves), one feature-length television drama (the God Boy), and two thirty-minute television dramas (The Woman at the Store and Big Brother, Little Sister, from the series Winners and Losers). All eight had their first screenings in the ten-year period 1975-1985. For each of the case-studies, the following aspects are investigated: the original work of fiction, a practical history of the adaptation process (including interviews with people involved), and a study of changes made during the scripting and shooting stages. The films are analysed in detail, with a focus on visual and auditory style, in particular how these handle the themes, characterisation and style of the original works. Comparisons are made of the structures of the novels and the films. For each film, an especially close reading is offered of sample scenes (frequently the opening and closing scenes). The thesis is illustrated with still photographs – in effect, quotations from key moments – and these provide a focus to aspects of the discussion. Where individual adaptation problems existed in particular case-studies (for example, the challenge of the first-person narration of The God Boy), these are examined in detail. The interaction of both novels and films with the society around them is given emphasis, and the films are placed in their cultural and economic context - and in the context of general film history. For each film, the complex reception they gained from different groups (for example, reviewers, ethnic groups, gender groups, the authors of the original works) is discussed. All the aspects outlined above demonstrate the complexity of the responses made by New Zealand film-makers to the pressure and challenges of adaptation. They indicate the different answers they gave to the questions raised by the adaptation process in a new national cinema, and reveal their individual achievements. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

This dissertation examines the eight dramas which Lord Byron wrote in Italy, to evaluate this motives in writing plays, and to trace his views on various fields. The plays are discussed individually in some detail. The Introductory Chapter indicates the status of the theatre in Byron's time, and distinguished "poetic" dramas from plays written with a view to the stage. Byron's idea of a "mental theatre" is indicated, together with his involvement in the production of dramas as a member of the Drury Lane Management Committee. Chapter Two: Manfred, Byron's first play, written in 1817, is seen as a development from Gothic drama; a closer examination suggests Byron described the world in dualistic terms. The eponymous protagonist defies the claims of the "evil Principle in propria persona." Promethean aspects of the hero are indicated, and auto-biographical elements in the play are considered. Chapter Three: Marino Faliero is seen as a "political" drama, in which the tragic protagonist identifies the State as the oppressor of individual rights. The Doge Faliero's "traditional" code of ethics is opposed by a revolutionist ethic which he adopts in order to crush the State. Byron suggests the Doge is used by both the State and his revolutionary allies as a figurehead; the Doge's character is investigated, and Byron's involvement in political affairs is briefly examined to show any political motive in his writing the play. Chapter Four: Sardanapalus explores the idea of a humane ruler condemned by his subjects as too "soft," and deposed by traditional elements in the army and state religion. Byron's skeptical and "liberal" views are indicated. Chapter Five: The Two Foscari shows the "suppressed passions" operating against a political current. Byron is seen to question assumptions concerning "duty" and patriotism, along lines explored in the two preceding neoclassical plays. Chapter Six: Cain. Byron's most controversial play is seen as an attempt to define man's relationships to God and nature. Byron takes up earlier suggestions in his plays of a dualist view of the universe, and expatiates on his sceptic views. A notion of the mind's self-sufficiency, outlined in Manfred, is further developed. Chapter Seven: Heaven and Earth provides further definition of man's place in an ostensibly hostile universe. Japhet, the "hero" of the drama, is confounded by the apparent indiscriminateness of God's punishment of man in the Flood. The notion of plural worlds, suggested in earlier works, and particularly in Cain is again utilised. Chapter Eight: Werner. In Byron's most "theatrical" work, an inheritance of guilt is reviewed to suggest the notion of a "damned world." Byron's deliberate melodramatic structuring of Werner, and his concern with psychological investigation of notive are examined. Chapter Nine: The Deformed Transformed. Byron's last, unfinished, play provides a recapitulation of themes of the earlier plays and looks forward to the style and concerns of Don Juan. Byron is most "inventive" and unrestrained in this drama that abrogates all the classical unities and appears to work toward an endorsement of the idea of salvation by act of will. The concluding chapter relates Byron's view of the universe that emerges form the dramas considered separately and together. The particular aims of each play, and the stylistic features of each, which defy general statements about an overall ambition, are recapitulated. Byron's reasons for choosing dramatic form are briefly sketched in light of the investigation of individual works. His concern to experiment, and to avoid prescription, is seen as indicating a possible mode of operation for a revival of the English drama in the Romantic era.

This thesis is an investigation of writing by New Zealand children in the Children's Pages of five New Zealand newspapers: the New Zealand Herald, Christchurch Press and Otago Daily Times in the 1930s and 1980s, the Dominion in the 1930s; and the Wellington Evening Post in the 1980s. Its purpose is to show how children reflected their world, interacted with editors, and interpreted the adult world in published writing, and to examine continuities and changes between the 1930s and 1980s. It seeks evidence of gender variations in writing. and explores the circumstances in which the social role of writing was established by young writers. It considers the ways in which children (especially girls) consciously and unconsciously used public writing to create a public place for themselves. It compares major themes chosen by children, their topic and genre preferences in writing, and the gender and age differences evident in these preferences. The thesis is organised into three Parts, with an Introduction discussing the scholarly background to the issues it explores, and its methodology. Part One contains two chapters examining the format and tone of each Children's Page. And the role and influence of their Editors. Part Two (also of two chapters) investigates the origins and motivations of the young contributors, with a special focus on the Otago Daily Times as a community newspaper. Part Three. of four chapters, explores the children's writing itself, in separate chapters on younger and older children, and a chapter on the most popular genre, poetry. The conclusion suggests further areas of research, and points to the implications of the findings of the thesis for social history in New Zealand and for classroom practice. The thesis contains a Bibliography and an Appendix with a selection of writings by Janet Frame and her family to the Otago Daily Times Children's Page in the 1930s. / Note: Whole document restricted at the request of the author, but available by individual request, use the feedback form to request access.

The principal objective of this doctoral research is to examine the ways in which key contemporary (2000-2005) fictional writings by Māori women authors Patricia Grace, Paula Morris, and Kelly Ana Morey demonstrate “survivance” – a term used by University of New Mexico Professor Gerald Vizenor and Ohio State University Professor Chadwick Allen to refer to the ways in which indigenous authors use their texts as “a means of cultural survival that comes with denying authoritative representations of [indigenous peoples] in addition to developing an adaptable, dynamic identity that can mediate between conflicting cultures” (Allen “Thesis” 65). I argue that acts of Māori cultural survivance are manifested in the works of these three authors both internally, in terms of the actions of characters in their fictional narratives, and externally, by the authors themselves who fight for survivance in a literary publishing world that is often slow to recognize and value works of fiction that challenge traditional (Western) modes of novel form and style. Thesis chapters therefore include both extensive critical readings of Grace’s novel Dogside Story (2001), Morris’s novels Queen of Beauty (2002) and Hibiscus Coast (2005), and Morey’s novel Bloom (2003) as well as detailed biographical information based on my interviews with the authors themselves. The thesis emphasizes the ways in which each woman’s approach to writing survivance fiction is largely driven by her personal history and whakapapa. The study also asserts that Grace, Morris and Morey are producing acts of indigenous literary cultural survivance that “imagine the world healthy,” something author and critic Maxine Hong Kingston demands that contemporary writers of critical fictions must do if they are going to convince the book-buying populace “not to worship tragedy as the highest art anymore” (204). Grace, Morris, and Morey depict the creative, generative, and “healthy” aspects of Māori cultural survivance as taking place in both the real and imagined communities which they live in and write about. Their texts offer hope for the ongoing survival – and survivance – of Māori culture in the twenty-first century.

The principal objective of this doctoral research is to examine the ways in which key contemporary (2000-2005) fictional writings by Māori women authors Patricia Grace, Paula Morris, and Kelly Ana Morey demonstrate “survivance” – a term used by University of New Mexico Professor Gerald Vizenor and Ohio State University Professor Chadwick Allen to refer to the ways in which indigenous authors use their texts as “a means of cultural survival that comes with denying authoritative representations of [indigenous peoples] in addition to developing an adaptable, dynamic identity that can mediate between conflicting cultures” (Allen “Thesis” 65). I argue that acts of Māori cultural survivance are manifested in the works of these three authors both internally, in terms of the actions of characters in their fictional narratives, and externally, by the authors themselves who fight for survivance in a literary publishing world that is often slow to recognize and value works of fiction that challenge traditional (Western) modes of novel form and style. Thesis chapters therefore include both extensive critical readings of Grace’s novel Dogside Story (2001), Morris’s novels Queen of Beauty (2002) and Hibiscus Coast (2005), and Morey’s novel Bloom (2003) as well as detailed biographical information based on my interviews with the authors themselves. The thesis emphasizes the ways in which each woman’s approach to writing survivance fiction is largely driven by her personal history and whakapapa. The study also asserts that Grace, Morris and Morey are producing acts of indigenous literary cultural survivance that “imagine the world healthy,” something author and critic Maxine Hong Kingston demands that contemporary writers of critical fictions must do if they are going to convince the book-buying populace “not to worship tragedy as the highest art anymore” (204). Grace, Morris, and Morey depict the creative, generative, and “healthy” aspects of Māori cultural survivance as taking place in both the real and imagined communities which they live in and write about. Their texts offer hope for the ongoing survival – and survivance – of Māori culture in the twenty-first century.

The principal objective of this doctoral research is to examine the ways in which key contemporary (2000-2005) fictional writings by Māori women authors Patricia Grace, Paula Morris, and Kelly Ana Morey demonstrate “survivance” – a term used by University of New Mexico Professor Gerald Vizenor and Ohio State University Professor Chadwick Allen to refer to the ways in which indigenous authors use their texts as “a means of cultural survival that comes with denying authoritative representations of [indigenous peoples] in addition to developing an adaptable, dynamic identity that can mediate between conflicting cultures” (Allen “Thesis” 65). I argue that acts of Māori cultural survivance are manifested in the works of these three authors both internally, in terms of the actions of characters in their fictional narratives, and externally, by the authors themselves who fight for survivance in a literary publishing world that is often slow to recognize and value works of fiction that challenge traditional (Western) modes of novel form and style. Thesis chapters therefore include both extensive critical readings of Grace’s novel Dogside Story (2001), Morris’s novels Queen of Beauty (2002) and Hibiscus Coast (2005), and Morey’s novel Bloom (2003) as well as detailed biographical information based on my interviews with the authors themselves. The thesis emphasizes the ways in which each woman’s approach to writing survivance fiction is largely driven by her personal history and whakapapa. The study also asserts that Grace, Morris and Morey are producing acts of indigenous literary cultural survivance that “imagine the world healthy,” something author and critic Maxine Hong Kingston demands that contemporary writers of critical fictions must do if they are going to convince the book-buying populace “not to worship tragedy as the highest art anymore” (204). Grace, Morris, and Morey depict the creative, generative, and “healthy” aspects of Māori cultural survivance as taking place in both the real and imagined communities which they live in and write about. Their texts offer hope for the ongoing survival – and survivance – of Māori culture in the twenty-first century.

The principal objective of this doctoral research is to examine the ways in which key contemporary (2000-2005) fictional writings by Māori women authors Patricia Grace, Paula Morris, and Kelly Ana Morey demonstrate “survivance” – a term used by University of New Mexico Professor Gerald Vizenor and Ohio State University Professor Chadwick Allen to refer to the ways in which indigenous authors use their texts as “a means of cultural survival that comes with denying authoritative representations of [indigenous peoples] in addition to developing an adaptable, dynamic identity that can mediate between conflicting cultures” (Allen “Thesis” 65). I argue that acts of Māori cultural survivance are manifested in the works of these three authors both internally, in terms of the actions of characters in their fictional narratives, and externally, by the authors themselves who fight for survivance in a literary publishing world that is often slow to recognize and value works of fiction that challenge traditional (Western) modes of novel form and style. Thesis chapters therefore include both extensive critical readings of Grace’s novel Dogside Story (2001), Morris’s novels Queen of Beauty (2002) and Hibiscus Coast (2005), and Morey’s novel Bloom (2003) as well as detailed biographical information based on my interviews with the authors themselves. The thesis emphasizes the ways in which each woman’s approach to writing survivance fiction is largely driven by her personal history and whakapapa. The study also asserts that Grace, Morris and Morey are producing acts of indigenous literary cultural survivance that “imagine the world healthy,” something author and critic Maxine Hong Kingston demands that contemporary writers of critical fictions must do if they are going to convince the book-buying populace “not to worship tragedy as the highest art anymore” (204). Grace, Morris, and Morey depict the creative, generative, and “healthy” aspects of Māori cultural survivance as taking place in both the real and imagined communities which they live in and write about. Their texts offer hope for the ongoing survival – and survivance – of Māori culture in the twenty-first century.