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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Being and seeming : the shaping of the woman writer in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century print

Askey, Elizabeth Ann January 2012 (has links)
This work explores ways in which early modem women writers were presented in their printed books within the literary landscape of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It consists of a survey of the typographical presentation of title pages and front 'matter in printed texts, identifying rhetorically feminine self-constructions which allow the writers to negotiate their way to publication. This survey also provides a historical context for the close reading of two case studies: Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) and Elizabeth Cary'sThe Tragedie of Mariam, The Faire Queene of Jewry (1613), together with examination of some extant copies. Early modem women writers seem to present themselves as stereotypically ideal and modest in order to be writers who are able to reach readers of the printed word. They are able to use the idea of femininity as a source of strength and as part of a wilful strategy in a fictive self-construction to fulfil readers' expectations of an ideal woman's writings, The survey suggests that the physical presentations of their books are constructed in the full awareness of these strategies.
2

Etherotopia, an ideal state and a state of mind : utopian philosophy as literature and practice

Callow, Christos January 2015 (has links)
This thesis examines the concept of Etherotopia (which literally translates to 'ethereal place'), by which I define the combination of utopian philosophy with certain ideas of individual perfection such as nirvana. The argument is made that the separation of utopian visions into social utopias and individual ones (states and states of mind) is a false dilemma, since a complete utopian theory should include both. In relation to my own utopian writing and as a transition from the critical to the creative part of this thesis, I examine the question of genre in utopian literature and, following from the view that literary genres are subjective and conventional, I argue that utopian literature doesn‘t need to be labelled as a literary genre but rather that it is utopian philosophy in literary form, and therefore philosophical writing. Having argued for the need of a contemporary Etherotopian theory and having discussed the relationship between utopian writing and genre, I proceed to introducing my portfolio of creative writing, a short story collection with the title Etherotopias, which is a series of diverse utopian/dystopian fictions that in some cases expand on the concept of Etherotopia either philosophically or aesthetically, while in other cases provide literary responses to conflicting utopian theories popular in contemporary society and its consumer culture. The collection is therefore a series of arguments and criticisms in the form of stories that range from political and satirical to religious and existential and address social issues as well as utopian and dystopian states of mind.
3

Writing wrongs : re-vision and religion in contemporary women's fiction

Howard-Laity, Elizabeth Jane January 2014 (has links)
This thesis examines in what ways contemporary women writers have revised Biblical figures and texts in order to challenge and deconstruct male authority, how previously silenced female voices are given speech through a new feminist religious discourse, and how women have renegotiated male ‘power’ for female empowerment. Focusing on five different Biblical figures or groups of women, Eve, the wives and daughters of Abraham, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and medieval female virgin martyr saints are examined in turn through the re-visionary fiction of nine authors. Examining both literary authors such as Angela Carter, Michèle Roberts, Jenny Diski and Emma Tennant and popular ones such as Penelope Farmer and Dan Brown, as well as several authors who have received little previous attention such as Anita Diamant, Sue Reidy and Ann Chamberlin, this thesis highlights the multiple and subjective nature of feminist re-vision of the Bible, while simultaneously exposing the pre-existing subjectivity within their foundational texts. By identifying how contemporary women writers both re-read and re-write received history, this thesis brings to the fore the transgressive potential of a tradition of women‘s religious writing that is marked by its marginalised position. Beginning with the suggestion that patristic origin myths validate the invisibility of women, I investigate how a focus on non-canonical and apocryphal traditions can give speech to previously silenced female voices, allowing for reconfigurations of gender beyond the patriarchally defined models of the Bible. Predicated upon Adrienne Rich‘s view of re-vision as ‘an act of survival’, this thesis suggests that religious discourse continues to affect cultural conceptions of gender. This thesis proposes therefore that feminist Biblical re-vision is just such an act of survival in which biased assumptions perpetuated about women can be exposed and problematised in order to both ‘write’ and ‘right’ the wrongs of the Bible.
4

Fierabras and the Livre de Charlemaine in London, British Library, MS Royal 15 .E. VI : an edition and study

Bailey, Jade Anushka January 2014 (has links)
British Library MS Royal 15.E.VI, sometimes called the Shrewsbury Book, is a fifteenth-century anthology of French chansons de geste, romances, chronicles and military treatises on the theme of chivalry. Commissioned by Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and captain of Rouen during the Lancastrian occupation, it was presented to the new queen of England, Marguerite d' Anjou, as a wedding gift in 1445. The second item in the anthology is a collection of three chansons de geste from the geste du roi, presented together as the Livrede Charlemaine. The subject of this thesis is an edition and study of the manuscript's redaction of the third of these chansons de geste, Fierabras. Despite the considerable scholarship that this codex has generated, very little work has been done on the texts themselves, and the Livre de Charlemaine texts -'-- copied from texts composed in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries - have never been edited. This thesis makes available for the first time an edition of this fifteenth-century version of Fierabras, - ) offering a detailed analysis of the text in relation to the wider tradition, and assesses its contribution to the manuscript. Part One considers the Livre de Charlemaine and Fierabras in context, following a 'broad-to-narrow' approach that begins with a description of the manuscript, moving through a discussion of the existing scholarship relating to the anthology's purpose and its creation and an examination -of its textual and visual representations of Charlemagne, leading finally to an in-depth analysis of the text of Fierabras itself and its relationship to the tradition. Part Two presents my critical edition to the first 1,138 lines of the text, including critical notes and editorial principles. A,basic edition of the remainder of the poem (without notes) is included as an appendix.
5

'This is a dark story' : representations of the past in eighteenth-century Gothic literature (1764-1794)

Dent, Jonathan January 2012 (has links)
This is a dark story: Representations of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Gothic Literature (1764-1794) contends that the Gothic can be read as a complex reaction to Enlightenment methods of historical representation. It discusses the ways in which both familiar (such as David Hume s The History of England, 1754 62) and lesser known historical works (such as Paul M. Rapin de Thoyras s History of England, 1721 31) influenced and shaped the genre, uncovering in the process hitherto neglected relationships between Gothic fiction and prominent works of eighteenth-century history. As well as discussing established Gothic novelists such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, the thesis breaks from tradition by devoting chapters to Clara Reeve and Sophia Lee, important women writers whose works are often ignored or marginalised in discussions of the genre s origins. Emphasising the heterogeneity of the Gothic in the eighteenth century, it shows how, although writers employ and develop similar tropes, they use them for diverse ends. Gothic pasts are sites of intense conflict, with authors (particularly female ones) often writing fictional histories to comment on pressing socio-historical issues. Tracing the Gothic s development from Walpole to Radcliffe (and beyond), this thesis goes on to re-evaluate the literary implications of the French Revolution. Suggesting new areas of enquiry for Gothic scholarship, it argues that the transgressions taking place in France shattered Enlightenment models of historical understanding and that historical discussion moved from multi-volume tomes to the domain of the political pamphlet. Contending that the Gothic reacts to changing conceptions of history and the past at this time, it maintains that the French Revolution caused the Gothic to develop and exhibit a heightened state of historical consciousness. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates how the settings of Gothic narratives move forward in historical time throughout the eighteenth century, arguing that the turbulent context of the 1790s provides an explanation for this tendency. With the Revolution in France consuming itself in the Terror, and the British government passing oppressive legislation in order to prevent a similar uprising in England, it is argued that the present had become a more frightening place than the past, and that, because of this, Gothic fiction became increasingly willing to jettison historical and geographical displacement. Although Gothic attitudes towards the past continued to be influenced by the genre s earlier contentious relationship with Enlightenment historiography, Gothic narratives became less dependent on history as a site of terror, and began to situate themselves ever-closer to the present, with significant repercussions for the genre throughout the nineteenth century.
6

Moments of revelation, fragments of modernity : an exploration of Walter Benjamin and Charles Dickens

Piggott, Gillian Anne January 2007 (has links)
No description available.
7

Writing US identities in the wars without frontlines : literary perspectives on the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars

Pitchford, J. January 2011 (has links)
For many cultural commentators, the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) signalled a new era in which technological advances transformed warfare into what Jean Baudrillard refers to as a virtual experience epitomised by “surgical strikes” and “smart-bombs”. In contrast, the Iraq War (2003-2009) was hailed by many as a return to a more conventional form of combat in which soldiers fought their enemy in face-to-face interactions. This thesis argues that such an analysis of the conflicts overlooks the complexity of the war experience for many Gulf and Iraq War combatants. It therefore seeks to construct a reading of the literary responses to these conflicts, including novels, memoirs, and poetry, as well as alternative forms of narrative, which acknowledges the complexity of each war. Whilst it is important to recognise the ways in which Gulf War combatants experienced virtual war and Iraq War soldiers experienced guerrilla warfare, it is equally important to acknowledge the ways in which these conflicts resisted popular perceptions of them, and how this incongruence affected the combatants. The specificity of each of these conflicts produced multiple literary responses which indicate that combatants‟ fragmented experiences of contemporary war often resulted in a crisis of the unified self. This thesis undertakes a thematic study of US identities in the existing corpus of Gulf and Iraq War narratives, addressing the ways in which the unique nature of each conflict shaped soldiers‟ experience of war, how transformations in military technology impacted on the perceived gendering of the military, and how technology affected national identity and the perception of the “other”. Crucially, it also examines the ways in which new communication technologies enabled Iraqi civilians to write back to Western discourses of the latter conflict.
8

Neo-Victorian cannibalism : a reading of contemporary neo-Victorian fiction

Ho, Lai Ming January 2013 (has links)
This thesis is about a body of contemporary neo-Victorian novels whose uneasy relationship with the past can be theorised in terms of aggressive eating, even cannibalism. Cannibalism operates on different levels throughout many works, and there is a sense of surreptitious insistence about it in the genre as a whole. Not only is the imagery of eating repeatedly used by critics to comprehend neo-Victorian literature, the theme of cannibalism itself also appears overtly or implicitly in a number of the novels and their Victorian prototypes, thereby mirroring the cannibalistic relationship between the contemporary and the Victorian. I argue that aggressive eating or cannibalism can be seen as a pathological and defining characteristic of neo-Victorian fiction. It provides a framework for understanding the genre’s origin, its conflicted, ambivalent and violent relationship with its Victorian predecessors and the grotesque and gothic effects that it generates in the fiction. Each chapter hinges on one type of ’cannibal’ through which the discussion of the theory of neo-Victorian cannibalism is elucidated. The first chapter investigates the phenomenon of incorporating the biographies of Victorian celebrities in neo-Victorian fiction. Using Gaynor Arnold’s Girl in a Blue Dress (2008) and Richard Flanagan’s Wanting (2008), I discuss how Charles Dickens and Sir John Franklin are portrayed as sexual and colonial Bluebeard cannibals, a form of representation which provides a revisionist critique of the misogynist, oppressive and racialist undercurrent of Victorian ideology. The second chapter examines the vampiric cannibal and analyses three neo-Victorian adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) - Tom Holland’s Supping With Panthers (1996), Leslie S. Klinger’s The New Annotated Dracula (2008) and Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt’s Dracula the Un-Dead (2009). In these works, the writers simultaneously cannibalise the original text and its author’s biography, and in so doing challenge Stoker’s authorial power and clear a creative space for themselves. In the third chapter, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) is read as an important intertext. The chapter studies the representation of Bertha, a character often portrayed in cannibalistic terms, in Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and three relatively recent neo-Victorian novels - Lin Haire-Sargeant’s H: The Story of Heathcliff’s Journey Back to Wuthering Heights (1992), D.M. Thomas’s Charlotte: The Final Journey of Jane Eyre (2000) and Emma Tennant’s Adele: Jane Eyre’s Hidden Story (2002). I argue that a narrative reorientation away from Bertha in the three later novels, which cannibalise both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, prompts us to reconsider the level of political engagementof the neo-Victorian genre. The fourth chapter centres on the ’academic cannibal’ and discusses the role of scholarly characters in neo-Victorian novels including A.S. Byatt’s Possession (1990), Graham Swift’s Ever After (1992), A.N. Wilson’s A Jealous Ghost (2005), Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip (2006), Scarlett Thomas’s The End of Mr Y (2006) and Justine Picardie’s Daphne (2008). I argue that the use of scholars in these novels reflects a mutual dependence between the neo-Victorian genre and the academy, a relationship that can be viewed as both cannibalistic and competitive. Finally, the Conclusion speculates on how, under certain circumstances, the Victorian can be seen to cannibalise the contemporary and how the relationship between past and present will continue to evolve in the neo-Victorian genre.
9

Real places and impossible spaces : Foucault's heterotopia in the fiction of James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and W.G. Sebald

Knight, Kelvin January 2014 (has links)
This thesis looks to restore Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia to its literary origins, and to examine its changing status as a literary motif through the course of twentieth-century fiction. Initially described as an impossible space, representable only in language, the term has found a wider audience in its definition as a kind of real place that exists outside of all other space. Examples of these semi-mythical sites include the prison, the theatre, the garden, the library, the museum, the brothel, the ship, and the mirror. Here, however, I argue that the heterotopia was never intended as a tool for the study of real urban places, but rather pertains to fictional representations of these sites, which allow authors to open up unthinkable configurations of space. Specifically, I focus on three writers whose work contains numerous examples of these places, and who shared the circumstance of spending the majority of their lives in exile: James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and W.G. Sebald. In each case, I argue that these sites figure the experience of exteriority constituted by exile, providing these authors with an alternative perspective from which to perform a particular kind of contestation. In Ulysses, I argue, they allow Joyce to interrogate the notion of a unified Irish identity by bringing into question the space that constitutes the common locus upon which the nation is founded. In Nabokov’s Ada, they help the author to create a world that transcends the discontinuities of his transnational biography, but also serve to contest this unreal world. In Sebald’s fiction, finally, we find a critique of Foucault’s concept. In relation to the Holocaust, he questions the validity of the heterotopia by bringing into doubt the equation of space and thought upon which it is established.
10

Transcending boundaries : modern poetic responses to the city

Almasalmeh, Bassel January 2007 (has links)
This thesis examines poetic representations of the city in the works of T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Roy Fisher, Iain Sinclair, and Aidan Andrew Dun. Chapter One discusses Eliot's vision of the city, arguing that Eliot was always seeking new ways for forming urban imagery. Concentrating on the relation between poetic form and urban images, I look at Eliot's poetry including his unpublished poems to highlight how modernism, form, and the city inform one another. Chapter Two examines briefly Williams's response to Eliot's vision of London in The Waste Land, highlighting the contrast between Eliot's cosmopolitanism and Williams's localism/ provincialism. Exploring the relation between Williams's representation of Paterson in Pater son and Roy Fisher's poetic representation of Birmingham in City and A Furnace, I reveal that Fisher adopts Williams's approach to the city but subsequently diverges from it thus creating a new urban poetics. Chapter Three investigates Iain Sinclair's visionary representation of London in Lud Heat in conjunction with Lights Out for the Territory, and I examine Sinclair's notion of the city as a text. I argue that Sinclair's textual representation of London gives a new meaning to the relation between poetry and the city. I also look at Sinclair's rewriting of the flaneur as a strategy to elide the boundaries between real and imagined spaces. Chapter Four concentrates on Aidan Andrew Dun's representation of London in his long poem Vale Royal, and I look at Dun's use of the two romantic poets (William Blake and Thomas Chatterton) as a strategy to revive the city's metropolitan history. I compare Dun's vision of London with that of Sinclair and Eliot, stressing how Dun engages in rewriting modernism's definitive view of the city.

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