For a number of years I had become more and more award of the richness of Scottish oral folk tradition. The many manuscripts in which this tradition has been recorded were gradually becoming more familiar to me, along with the books especially where that tradition had been preserved more or less unmodified. I learned that the simple ballads and songs of that oral tradition made a greater appeal to me than the improved printed versions. At first, the collection of single items in a growing anthology satisfied this aesthetic curiosity. Then the great mass of material. which had seamed a wilderness began to reveal little path running, through it. The geography of the country became familiar. It was probably the discovery and examination of Gavin Greig's manuscript that altered most, profoundly my conception. - of the real nature of that country. The significance of the musical element of that tradition was confirmed 'Then I co-operated for a short time with Mr Allan Lomax, the American folklorist and tong, collector: The evening (and half the night)': he spent in my house, playing over his recordings of Lowland and Gaelic conga and ballads helped to clarify the theories forced during and earlier study of the Groin, manuscript.

The influence of Natalis Comes' Mythologia on English literary figures of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has never been properly evaluated. Since the twenties critics have been aware of the debt owed to Comer-, by such authors as George Chapman and Francis Bacon. They hive not, however, recognized the nature of this debt. These critics, seeing only a random choice of myths from vast reservoirs of material in mythological dictionaries, failed to discover system in the Renaissance writer's approach to mythology. According to them, this material was used superficially either for mere ornamentation, or as a vehicle of controversial philosophies hidden under the guise of the wisdom of the ancients. Consequently, using Schoell's phrase, they see unrelated myths "hurled pele-mele" into the works of English Renaissance poets, prose writers, mythographers, and literary theorists. Had critics analysed the nature of the Mythologia in mythic tradition, they would have found a unique system treating standard theories formulated to explain the function of myth centred on the idea that all the dogmas of philosophy are contained in ancient fables. Comes stressed both the natural and moral philosophy derived from myth. Sharing his systematic approach, Bacon, the experimental scientist, was most influenced by naturalistic interpretations which Comes gave to creation myths. Chapman, the moralist, emphasized their moral aspect almost exclusively. Reynolds, the literary theorist, recognized both methods of interpreting myth, and condemned contemporaries limiting, myths' function in literature to tie teaching of "meere manners". This study considers and assesses various trends in mythological interpretation and assesses them, not in the light of present-day concepts of the ancient myths, but as writers of the late Renaissance valued them. It reveals the differences resulting from the fusion of a common source material with each author's individual attitude to life. In each, case, an understanding of mythology as the source of all wisdom is essential to their philosophies, and finds systematic expression in their art.

This thesis reassesses the Tiwi collections made by Jessie Sinclair Litchfield, and the Yirandali collections compiled by Mary Montgomerie Bennett, which are held at the British Museum, in order to understand their place in the history of indigenous settler relations in Australia. Both collections are entangled in the history of Aboriginal and settler relations, and understanding these relations will enable museums to give voice to the multiple dialogues the collections contain. In this way we can renew the significance of these collections for both museums and indigenous communities. Thus my thesis asks how the Litchfield and Bennett collections can be presented within a museum exhibition in the light of the changing face of Aboriginal and settler relations in Australia particularly with reference to the ‘History Wars’, the Native Title Act, the Northern Territory National Emergency Response and the Apology.

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Morgan le Fay appears in medieval literature over a period of over three hundred years and across an array of languages and genres. This study examines the development of Morgan in relation to the English romances, tracing her emergence in the English chronicle tradition, the French romance tradition, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini, combined with a detailed analysis of the four theories of origin posited by previous generations of scholars. It initially examines the potential origins of Morgan in the classical tradition, noting the analogous figures of Medea and Circe in particular; the allegorical tradition of abstract personification, including such exegetical allegories as Luxuria before discussing the possible influence of Irish and Welsh vernacular literature, focusing on such figures as the Morrigan, Medb and Modron. Morgan’s various manifestations in the French romance tradition are then examined, with particular reference to the Lancelot-Graal or Vulgate Cycle, and those texts based upon it, including the Prose Tristan and Post-Vulgate Cycle, which were in themselves highly influential in the development of later texts. This leads to an analysis of the Middle English romance tradition in the light of these French sources, focusing on a range of texts, with particular reference to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. A series of close readings challenges previous assertions that Morgan’s character is subject to a consistent process of clerkly vilification that reaches its apogee in the later middle ages. Rather, Morgan’s character is subject to the specific context of each text and its sources. Indeed, one of the earliest, twelfth-century references to Morgan demonstrates that many of the negative aspects associated with her later incarnations are integral features of her nebulous character from the beginning.

This thesis is a cross-disciplinary and wide ranging project which attempts to answer a simple but difficult question: how did it come about that by the mid C20 the human race was (unintentionally) on the edge of the possibility of self-destruction as a result of its own ingenuity - as a result either of civilisation-induced ecological breakdown, or of wars using weapons of mass destruction, or of both? The question is explored by considering "conundrums" of modernity, which include various C20 problematisations of modem science, and by analysing what I call three "myths" of modernity : Marlowe's play, Dr Faustus, Shelley's novel, Frankenstein and James Cameron's film, Terminator H. Common themes from all three texts are explored, with particular regard to questions of marriage and gender. I look at debates about the origins of modem science, and about the nature of science in the present day with particular regard to the relation between magic and science. I undertake a "case study" which looks at different and contrasting accounts of the life and work of the C 16 occult philosopher Cornelius Agrippa, and I study some of his writings, paying particular attention to his writings on women and marriage. I consider some Marxist and post-Marxist critiques of science, in particular Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of "enlightenment returning to mythology" and the epistemological theory of Alfred Sohn-Rethel that science studies nature "in commodity form". I connect these critiques to Marx's theory of commodity fetishism and to the "magical" ethos of modern advertising. I consider various modem theological and "new age" critiques of science, from the work of the Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, to critiques made by the Christian scholars Philip Sherrard and Jim Garrison and the philosopher physicist Fritjof Capra. I consider questions relating to the "two cultures", and to the division of labour in modernity, and concerning occultism and modem literature. I conclude that the central problem is the manner in which science broke free of both metaphysics and ethics in a way which lost touch with the human, in particular with the centrality to human society of the primary human relationship between male and female, and that the growth of modern science was intrinsically connected with the development of capitalism. My thesis offers a re-consideration of the manner in which this "break" took place, with particular regard to what the "occult philosophy" of C16 Europe contained which ceased to be included within science but migrated into art and literature. I argue that this creates the schizoid culture of modernity with its multitude of incompatible discourses, and that a symbiosis of modern science and capitalism has developed which generates the apocalyptic and destructive possibilities which may endanger the survival of civilisation. My thesis argues that it is this symbiosis which needs to be understood, and challenged, for human society to have a future.

Part One of this study consists of a survey of the changing relationship of the West African writer to English as the medium of literary creation throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The African writer is followed through the almost complete cultural and linguistic dispossession of the eighteenth century which by its dose showed signs of slackening. In Chapter Three the changing attitudes towards the African, his education in English, and the gradual re-establishment of his literary independence in the new medium during the nineteenth century are discussed. The process of the 'externalisation' of the African, the emergence of undeniable evidence of his cultural dignity and the final divergence from the British tradition which arose from the early nationalism are also considered as necessary background to the study of the later use of English in West African writing. In Chapter Four, the question of the choice of a language for literary expression in English-speaking West Africa is examined with reference to linguistic thinking. Part Two is a study of present-day attempts to adapt the English language for literary purposes. The various methods by which this adaption has been attempted are subjected to linguistic examination, and their varying success is discussed in the light of the writers' bilingualism, which provides a useful insight into the literary effort in West Africa. The study as a whole is an attempt to provide the foundation of objective preclinical criteria upon which a sounder criticism of the language of West African writing in English might be based.

This thesis uncovers a body of literary magazines previously seen as peripheral to Caribbean literature. Drawing on extensive archival research, it argues for the need to open up the critical consensus around a small selection of magazines (Trinidad, The Beacon, Bim and Kyk-over-al), to consider a much broader and more varied landscape of periodicals. Covering twenty-eight magazines, the thesis is the first sustained account of a periodical culture published between the 1920s and 1950s. The project identifies a broad-based movement towards magazines by West Indians, informed and shaped by a shared aspiration for a West Indian literary tradition. It identifies the magazines as a key forum through which the West Indian middle classes contributed to and negotiated the process of cultural decolonisation which paralleled the political movement to independence in the 1960s. Chapter One explores the broad ways in which the magazines envisioned a West Indian literary tradition, before focusing on the tensions between the oral folk tradition and emerging print culture. Chapter Two moves to a closer focus on the middle-class West Indians publishing the magazines and the Literary and Debating Society movement. It argues that through their magazines these clubs sought to intervene in the public sphere. Chapter Three considers the marginalised publications of three key women editors, Esther Chapman, Una Marson and Aimee Webster and identifies how the magazine form enabled these editors to pursue wider political agendas linked to their cultural aims. Chapter Four returns to a broader focus on the magazines’ paratextual elements including advertisements and commercial competitions, to explore the business of magazine publication and the ways in which this shaped their contents and compilation. Overall, the cultural and material history of the magazines mapped by this thesis sheds new light on what remains an under-explored but critical period of Caribbean literary history, on the cusp of cultural decolonisation and formal independence.

This thesis explores the work of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British authors who set their Gothic literature in Britain between 1760 and 1820. It argues that many of these novels have previously been marginalised or excluded from studies of the genre because they do not conform to the recognised Gothic trope of displacing anxieties onto foreign Catholic settings. Rather, they represent Britain as a fertile terrain for Gothic events. In doing so, they interrogate its history, national identity, and politics, as well as directly engaging with the domestic and international crises of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. They display a keen awareness not only of the historical development of the nation, but with its refashioning during this period in response to the 1707 Act of Union, the Seven Years’ War, the loss of the American colonies, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars: all of which challenged and complicated national identity. By analysing the work of Clara Reeve, Charlotte Smith, William Henry Ireland, T. I. Horsley Curties and Walter Scott, this thesis demonstrates their shared preoccupation with the myth-making process of national history and collective identity formation, and with interrogating systems of power and leadership. ‘ Gothic’ developed as a historico-political term regarding the origins of British national identity, and as such the Gothic genre developed symbiotically alongside the Historical Romance and the national tale. Tracing the genesis of Gothic fiction back past Horace Walpole’ s 1764, The Castle of Otranto, to Thomas Leland’ s 1762 novel, Longsword, Earl of Salisbury: An Historical Romance, allows a new set of novels to be foregrounded in the genre. By refocusing critical attention on these texts, this project aims to extend the limits of this heterogeneous genre to include Gothic tales set in Britain. It also demonstrates the dialogue and dispute between Gothic texts as authors of disparate socio-political backgrounds engaged with one another through their fiction; borrowing, challenging, and redeploying generic tropes to support their political discourses.

The following thesis is a case study, a history, of -a magazine, Partisan Review, over a period of twenty years (1934-1954) treating it as a series of texts together constituting a transforming discourse. A discourse constructed in and against a discourse of Americanism, itself constructed through an interplay with representations of Europe. Partisan Review was initiated in 1934 within the institutional and intellectual framework of the American Communist Party as an organ of the John Reed Club. In 1937 formal links with the Communist Party were severed and the magazine reappeared as nominally independent but with clear Trotskyist sympathies. After a period of non-alignment without any explicit political programme, an editorial in 1952 declared a neo- Liberal and anti-communist support for "Our Country and Our Culture". It is asserted that these shifts did not constitute radical breaks, but were constructed gradually. The thesis attempts to make the discourse and its process of transformation intelligible to the reader by mapping the emergence and inter-relations of key concepts (including Aestheticism, Alienation, National, Intellectual, Science.) It is argued that each concept or element was defined both by its opposition to an antithetical concept and its place in the discourse - by the specific combination or articulation of the elements. Three editorial texts from 1937, 1941 and 1952, are taken as exemplars, momentary crystallisations of this transformatory practice, and each is subjected to an analysis which attempts to unpick and to gloss its changing component elements and the transforming articulations between elements.