In this dissertation it is argued that the concept of literary intelligence as used and developed by Frank Raymond Leavis and other members of his Scrutiny circle is a viable theoretical and educational notion and is long due a reappraisal. Their thesis that reading quality texts intelligently assists our personal and moral development is taken up and subjected to philosophical analysis. It is also argued that a theory of intellectual virtue is best suited for such a reappraisal. Literary intelligence is then found to be best interpreted as a form of Aristotelian practical intelligence. This interpretation allows us to theorize the moral salience of literary experiences. This theorization is achieved through an in-depth analysis of relevant articles written by Leavis, Harding and Bantock, assorted writings on the relationship between life and art as envisaged by a number of thinkers, as well as a sustained analysis of the theory of intellectual virtue. In particular, recourse is taken to the theory of intellectual virtue as drafted by American philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski. Consequently, a number of educational implications of the above theories are identified and commented upon. Also, it is shown that the above-mentioned theoretical insights fit in well with the consistent findings of research into reading. Finally it is argued that if the capacity to read well is best approached as a moral trait, then reading education cannot be legitimately conceptualized as one ‗competence‘ among others. On the contrary: reading education ought to form the moral kernel of the curriculum. A sustained and socially sanctioned emphasis on the fostering of reading and the creation of a culture of literacy will widely expand the social, cultural and moral horizons of children and adults alike

This thesis interrogates a particular construction of taste, or aesthetic consumption. The principal source material is the archive appertaining to Katherine Plymley (1758- 1829) which consists mainly of diaries, travel journals and study notebooks, and is held in the Shropshire Research and Records Office in Shrewsbury. The published correspondence of Mrs Delany (1700-1788) is used for the evidence it provides of a contrasting lifestyle. Katherine Plymley's stance was informed by various theoretical approaches, including those of Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), Archibald Alison (1757-1839), and Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824) all of whom were personally known to her. She was also influenced by the views of James Beattie (1735-1803), William Shenstone (1714-1772) and the Reverend William Gilpin (1724-1804). Her social milieu included the families Wedgwood and Darwin, and the Quaker industrialists of the Coalbrookdale valley. The first chapter gives an overview of Katherine Plymley's writing and establishes a social and cultural context. The second situates her in terms of theoretical developments, and shows how her view of visual culture was conditioned by theoretical views. The following three chapters discuss the influence of dissenting Christianity in the visual field, the impact of industry on visual culture, and the effect of Picturesque discourse. Women's relationship(s) with material culture and the significance of ceramics as key components of material culture are considered in chapters six to eight. The final chapter examines case studies of portraiture. Issues of class and gender are central to the argument throughout.

This product of doctoral labour is a reappraisal of Russian Formalism. It establishes the convergences between the thought of key Formalists Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, Yury Tynianov and German Idealist Philosophers Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel. The Formalists’ conceptualization of literary art is shown to be consistent with Kant’s programme of practical critique and Hegel’s objective dialectics, albeit without the reductive closures which Kant and Hegel programme into aesthetic theory. On this basis, the Formalists’ dialogue with the Bakhtin School is reconsidered, along with the utility of Formalist critique for how we are to understand the cultural environment of the Soviet 1920s, and the practice of theory in the present context of its own death.

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'Discipline After Deconstruction' is a critique of the application of deconstruction in the humanities. The thesis seeks to show that the recruitment of deconstruction to certain projects which seek to alter disciplinary practices betrays a false assumption of the material power of metaphysics. It challenges the literary theory which presents conceptual oppositions as pernicious ideological reifications and empirical methods of inquiry as naive. Part One examines the status of oppositions in metaphysical philosophy. While Derrida is unwilling to endorse the total collapse of conceptual oppositions, the disjunction between metaphysics and the real world means that actual cultural differences are impervious to deconstruction. Part Two investigates the deconstruction of discursive and generic oppositions. Chapter two analyses some abuses of rhetoric by postmodern theorists which are validated by deconstruction and promotes classical categories as a corrective to this trend. In chapter three it is shown that although in formal terms the literature/philosophy opposition is susceptible to deconstruction, a historical analysis indicates the relative stability of generic identity. Chapter four shows that mimesis and metafiction co-exist in literary realism but refutes the claim made by certain postmodern theorists that metafiction confuses the ontological categories of word and world. The third part addresses methodological, pedagogical and political issues in the humanities. Chapter four analyses the contemporary trend in university English for the application of literary theory and the practical problems that ensue. In chapter five it is shown that the historical opposition between English and cultural studies has been eroded by the introduction of literary theory. However, it is suggested that English should resist the encroachment of textualism because of its methodological inadequacy. Against the claims of contemporary poststructuralists the final chapter argues that deconstruction is fundamentally unfit for political application.

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In this thesis, I explore the meaning and effect differences between originals and their simplified versions and how to carry out systematic comparative analysis in this regard. By using 'The garden party' by Katherine Mansfield and its three simplifications, I aim to investigate (1) the extent of simplification in different versions and (2) whether the simplified versions can represent the general meanings and style of the original model. Two analytical approaches are adopted to fulfil the research aims. The first one is derived and modified from text reuse studies. I code instances of deletion, summarisation, and linguistic modification into the three comparisons. With this approach, I assess the extent of simplification and analyse the most heavily simplified text parts. The second approach is Semino and Short's (2004) analysis of Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation as Mansfield is well-known for her manipulation of discourse presentation to bring her characters to life and communicate to readers. This framework is characterised by having explicit linguistic criteria and allowing a quantitative and qualitative analyses of the stylistic differences between different texts. Detailed linguistic-stylistic analyses are also applied throughout.

My thesis aims to establish the importance of interview books as a new genre. It draws upon interview books as well as interviews given by French writers, thinkers and painters through different media channels. I argue that the interview book has changed our understanding and interpretation of the works of art and of literature and I demonstrate that the emergence of this new genre has created a dynamic that has contributed to a reconfiguring of the world of the arts. I show how interview books offer an original insight into the creative process that is not accessible through traditional critical methods.

'''Everything now is measured by after": Literary Representation of 9/11 and the Dialectics of Continuity and Discontinuity' This thesis locates an elusive but fundamental dialectic between narrative drives toward 'continuity' and 'discontinuity' in 12 major literary and cinematic representations of 9/11. It interrogates the development of this dialectic, which contains the many opposing narratives that work against each other in response to the attacks: the tension between political discourse and traumatic rupture; the dialectical aspect of trauma itself which is at once a limit experience and something that works in aggregate or in repetition; the tension between public and private consciousness, the inherent opposition in the rhetoric of a 'changed world' and 'epoch', to the historicising narratives of American imperialism or the Cold War nostalgia of the G.W. Bush administration. By engaging with this dialectic, this thesis comes to terms with some of the nuances of narratives that reflect a deeply conflicted, complicated and problematic national and international response, negotiating a broader fault line which mirrors the simultaneous need for memorialisation and self-reflexive insight. This framework allows illuminating connections to be made within a contested, emerging canon of narrative representation of 9/11 and facilitates a wider understanding of the relationships between trends and tropes in this corpus; the experimental aesthetics of early texts, the trend of domestic realism, the cautious, 'seismographic' narratives and the more explicit 'first world' national allegories. What, it will ask, do these texts suggest about the lasting impact of 9/11? Ultimately, this thesis charts and explores the cautious movement toward points of reconciliation in these polarised narrative trajectories, whilst demonstrating that these texts accrue their fullest meaning and are most instructive and illuminating as read within this framework.