No description available.

No description available.

The thesis presents in Part One forty-three new poems that exercise and foreground the visual, and in Part Two, a study of the determining work of the eye by three modern American poets recounting walks by the sea. Common to both parts are insights into the writer’s absorption with her/his experience of place and the passing of time. Because it daily changes state, the beach is to writers a location that heightens detachment and renders perceptions of the familiar doubtful. The extent to which vision dominates or yields to an underlying response to place, is considered in the Introduction and developed in Chapters One and Two, close readings of texts by A. R. Ammons and Elizabeth Bishop. The case studies trace poems’ inception and process within the context of the poets’ aesthetic and practical concerns. Chapter Three contrasts their modes of representing what is immediate or invisible by comparison with Jorie Graham, whose work is influenced by her predecessors’ emphasis on attention and swerve to the metaphysical. These essays also reflect on criticism by scholars evaluating attempts to locate the lived experience, in work outside the ‘confessional’ mode. The Conclusion returns to questions of how a poem forms alongside day-to-day preoccupations. Integral to the enquiry – and implicit in the work conducted in Part One – is the testing of when writing is ‘real enough’, neither too literal nor exalted. Comparisons are drawn between poets’ linguistic range and pace in transcribing physical immediacy or imaginatively reconstructing environment, aiming to maintain a poem in flux in order to convey a sense of place through which the mind moves. Part Two observes instances of change in receptivity at the boundary of the visible world and, as must happen in practice-based research, the creative work goes hand in hand with the commentary.

The following thesis seeks to make available sound critical texts of three fifteenth-century English versions of the 'Ars Moriendi' - 'The Book of the Craft of Dying,' Caxton's 'Art and Craft to Know Well to Die' (1490) and his 'Ars Moriendi' (1491). Of these three versions the fullest, most readable and most significant is 'The Book of the Craft of Dying', so that the balance of the thesis (which began as an edition of the two printed texts) has had to be adjusted somewhat in order to reflect that significance. 'The Book of the Craft of Dying' has been edited twice before, by C. Horstman, 'Yorkshire Writers', ii (London, 1896), 406-20, and by F. M N. Comper, 'The Book of the Craft of Dying' (London, 1917), 1-47. Horstman's edition takes MS. Rawl. C.894 as the copy-text, although that manuscript appears to be itself a direct copy of MS. Royal 17 C.xviii. In the present century at least four (and possibly five) more manuscripts containing 'The Book of the Craft of Dying' have been discovered, and they enable us to reconstruct a text that is a good deal more authoritative than any that Horstman could have envisaged. The present text is based upon a full collation of all the eleven extant manuscripts that are accessible. The copy-text is MS. Bodley 423 (not known to Horstman), and this has been corrected in the light of the whole body of material variation exhibited by the extant manuscripts. A complete record of the material variation is provided in the footnotes to the text, (giving at each point all the substantive evidence for the reading of the archetype). Comper also chose MS. Bodley 423 as copy-text, but simply, it would seem, on palaeographical grounds. It was not her intention, however, to do more than provide a modernised transciption of that manuscript. No modern edition of the two Caxton texts has as yet been produced, apart from the modernised transcriptions in Comper (1917), 53-88, 91-101. For the present edition the four copies of the 'Art and Craft' have been collated and typographical errors corrected. The Bodleian copy of the 'Ars Moriendi' is unique, and it has only been necessary, therefore, to correct clear typographical errors. These three texts, together with Notes and Glossaries, constitute vol. ii of the present work. The Notes aim at clarifying some major ambiguities and obscurities in the texts in the light of the readings of two copies of the Latin original and, in the cace of the 'Art and craft,' of two French translations, Some attempt is also made in the Notes to indicate the sources of the original. Such a description of sources remains to some extent incomplete, although the principal debts of the author of the Latin 'Ars Moriendi' seem to be sufficiently well established. The three glossaries which accompany the respective texts are selective, but attempt to provide a systematic record of all words and meanings that are now obsolete. [Continues in thesis]

This thesis constitutes the first attempt to examine formally the use of self-referential forms in the detective genre. By focusing detective fiction’s self-referential invocation of the genre within its narratives, it explores the relation between generic boundaries and the boundaries between reality and fictionality. Because the self-referential moments in detective fiction maintain the realistic representation of the narrative frame, they unselfconsciously indicate the textuality of the detective form, so they never wholly expose the disjuncture associated with metafiction. This creates an impression rather than an awareness of metafictionality. These self-referential moments in detective fiction directly relate to critical explication of metafiction because they negotiate the boundaries of reality and fictionality, particularly as implied in fictional narrative. Since these forms appear throughout detective fiction, my project tracks this self-referential examination of the boundaries of reality and fictionality across subgenre. As this examination continues throughout these forms, self-referentiality in detective fiction suggests that the nature of reality is the one mystery that the detective genre has not— and perhaps cannot—solve. To explore this, Chapter One considers self-referential statements that explicitly acknowledge detective fiction and its tropes, which I call overt self-referentiality. Chapter Two broadens the criteria, examining intrageneric intertextuality, where the texts refer to classic examples of detective conventions. Chapter Three explores the self-referentiality implicit in the figure of the detective protagonist who is a detective writer. The self-referentiality in these moments metafictively engages with the boundaries of text and criticism and of reality and fictionality. By considering how these moments work simultaneously to construct and deconstruct the boundaries of the genre, this study of self-referentiality provides a method for considering deviations as a means of underscoring, rather than simply undermining, our understanding of what constitutes a novel. As it exposes the critical analysis of literary construction embedded within the detective genre, this thesis challenges both the division between the popular and the literary and the dominant association of metafictionality with experimental art, revealing the philosophical debates about the nature of reality in literary realms not traditionally considered as metafictional.

No description available.

From the Gododdin to Gary Hughes, from Sir Thomas Malory to Bernard Cornwell, from Tintagel Castle to the Camelot Theme Park, the Arthurian myth has continued to exert a fascination and pull over the centuries. Different interpretations are appropriated by different cultures, subcultures and individuals as a marker of distinction, yet they find themselves tied to the dominant chivalric myth even when positioning themselves against this form of Arthur. This thesis looks at the cultural-historical conditions that result in certain Arthurian texts being valued more highly than others, and argues that contrary to Barthes's assertion of 'The Death of the Author', Foucault's author function allows for an understanding as to why the Romance chivalric version of the myth as exemplified by Malory has come to be dominant. By showing how Arthurian signifiers are 'floating signifiers' that allow meanings to be contested at any one time according to the taste-cultures concerned, this thesis looks at how the Arthurian myth is appropriated as a means of distinction for cultures, subcultures, and individuals. This contest over meanings sees different sections of society attempting to naturalise and value certain interpretations of the Arthurian myth as 'authentic' in order to legitimate their own taste-culture. Drawing on Bourdieu's notions of Cultural and Symbolic Capital, and Fields of Production, it is possible to look at how the Arthurian myth is used to naturalise the position-taking strategies of both producers and consumers. Analysis consists not only of certain representative 'Sites of Arthur', but also of inter-texts surrounding these works, and audience research in relation to specific case studies. The thesis focuses not only on the response within the cultural fields themselves, but also at how Arthur is appropriated by those outside of the respective fields, and looks at the cultural contexts in which Arthur is sited.

This thesis initiates a diachronic reconsideration of the English literary title. Unlike previous critical studies of titling practices, which focus almost exclusively on modern printed works, the thesis turns to the titling practices of manuscripts, addressing the different forms, functions and meanings of premodern titling. The overlapping of theoretical and material concerns necessitates a new multidisciplinary approach which combines critical theories of titology with codicological and bibliographical modes of enquiry. The introductory chapter contrasts different titling practices of contemporary and premodern literary cultures. Chapter two identifies shortcomings in current titological theories. The third chapter opens with a consideration of the meanings and uses the word title specific to the premodern era and the possible influences ancient and early medieval approaches to identifying and defining texts may have had on later medieval titling. Chapter four considers the growth in external and internal forms of vernacular titling practice evident in selected manuscripts of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The fifth chapter moves the discussion into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as witnessed by three important codices from this time: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 86; Scotland, National Library, Advocates 19. 2. 1 (Auchinleck); and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. a.1 (Vernon). The conclusion affirms that titling practices did have currency in premodernity though the identification of texts was a practice that exhibits great diversity, and in that feature, as well as in many others, what may appear superficially to be recognisable as titling stands a significant distance apart from modern concepts of the title and involves many other contemporary assumptions, about (para)texts, authors and readers, which are essential to an understanding of what medieval authors and scribes meant when they gave identity to texts.

No description available.

This is a study of the multi-faceted relationship between the plays of Shakespeare and W.B. Yeats. While existing studies have tended to focus on the question of poetic influence, this thesis argues that specifically theatrical questions were also at the heart of Yeats's interest in Shakespeare, and shows that these dramatic concerns were closely bound up with the system of thought Yeats developed in A Vision. Moreover, this thesis resists the limitations of an emphasis on the problematic question of influence by taking an intertextual approach that sets the plays of the two dramatists alongside one another, and examines them in terms of the wider framework of Yeats's theoretical writings. In doing so the thesis reflects the cyclical structure ofA Vision. Chapters One and Two assess the respective uses given to thresholds and masks by the two playwrights. It examines their development by Yeats as a means to representing the struggle between subjectivity and objectivity, and looks at how Yeats finds a critical stimulus for his concern with these devices in Shakespeare. The threshold is seen to originate in physical lines of demarcation on the stage which later become more sophisticated and less literal representations of liminality. Masks are considered as the functional successors to thresholds in Yeats's plays, and again both their physical and symbolic contributions are examined. Both devices are shown especially to reflect the symbolic tendencies of Shakespeare and Yeats. While masks offer one way in which a character's anti-self can be suggested, Chapter Three analyses the comparable achievement of the play-within-a-play. This self-consciously theatrical set-piece is shown to be employed by Shakespeare and Yeats as a way of confronting on-stage audiences with parallel and alternate versions of their selves. Chapter Four surveys two interlocking dramatic devices: the subplot, which is used to mirror and comment upon the main plot, and 'Shakespeare's Myth', which pairs contrasting characters in order to mutually enhance the audience's understanding of them. These devices posit subjective and objective qualities against each other. The Fool is considered as representative of subjectivity in Chapter Five, which looks at how both Shakespeare and Yeats conceive of the Fool as subversive of conventional wisdom. The analysis of self and anti-self of preceding chapters is extended. Chapter Six explores tragic joy, which is experienced by the hero in his acceptance of death. It is shown how the themes of liminality, destiny and subjectivity are conjoined in the act ofputting on a mask to confront death. In recapitulating the material of the preceding chapters the Conclusion argues that what Shakespeare and Yeats share is an interest in the subjective conflict of the soul as opposed to a concern for practical objective appearance. Shakespeare's ability to represent the soul is a great inheritance for Yeats as a symbolist dramatist because the soul is, to him, a constant subject of drama and the only subject of symbolism. The continuation of the anti-naturalistic dramatic tradition in twentieth century absurdist plays is regarded as a legacy of Shakespeare and Yeats. Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge'