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The following interdisciplinary study focuses on the poetic, prose and translation work of the Austrian Jewish writer Erich Fried. The present research concentrates on expressions of Fried’s identity or his sense of self in his work. Rather than being interpreted as a constant value, identity is perceived as fluid, expressed as a strategic positioning in one’s surroundings. It is postulated that various aspects of Fried’s identity appear in his work. Several traits coalesce to show one aspect or a combination of aspects, presenting an unexpected unity in disparity, as is shown throughout four core chapters. The kaleidoscopic blend of apparent inconsistencies and uncertainties becomes visible in the shape of different faces of Fried which shine through his work. This is indicated in the main proposition: the title of the thesis and the image of the ‘Vexierbild’ draw on Fried’s idea of ‘hidden faces’. The current thesis does not seek the author’s one ‘true face’ which possibly remains hidden under layers of traced and distorted circumlocutory accounts in his work, but rather captures the dynamic which drives the interchange between and metamorphosis of various components which contribute to the framework of Fried’s identity at different times of his life. The complexity of Fried’s identity in exile and its combined evidence in Fried’s literary and translation work is an aspect which has so far not been analysed. The findings reflect the main hypothesis—as suggested by the ‘Vexierbild’ image, aspects of Fried’s identity are complementary and opposing at times, dynamically and productively mirrored in his work.

Rather than dividing John Clare's poetry into two biographically-determined categories of "pre-asylum" and "asylum" poetry, and arguing in favour of one category over the other, this study takes it as an organic whole and follows its development through three chronological periods, Early, Middle and Later. While still employing eighteenth-century models and themes, Clare demonstrated in his Early Period an unmistakable individuality. This was revealed through the originality of his nature imagery, through his use of highly expressive language and through his bold experiments with various poetic forms. During the Middle and Later periods, the personal voice was asserted in poems of intense and pure lyricism. Although Clare wrote about a wide variety of subjects, he showed from the start a special concern about the themes of nature, woman and poetry. It is in terms of the continuity of that concern and the move towards fusing those three themes into one artistic vision that the development of his poetry is discussed throughout this study. Since the criticism of Clare has generally been burdened by bio-graphical details, every effort has been made to make this study as strictly critical as possible. However, biographical details are brought in as "introductory'' or ''background" remarks when they are felt to be of crucial value to illuminate the poetry itself.

This thesis investigates the use of medical terminology in the expression of religious selfhood in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Concentrating on the period between 1590 and 1640, I examine how the diffusion of medical learning and its key vocabularies into wider cultural contexts offered writers new ways in which to interpret the body’s functions in relation to religious doctrine. Focusing on the physiology of the humoral system and the physical and religious ‘passions’, I explore how an increased use of medical terminology can support or problematize the individual’s relationship with their own body and the religious doctrine to which they adhere. Through extensive use of primary medical and religious texts, I show that knowledge of medical terminology is employed with greater specificity than has previously been considered, evidencing a lively correspondence of ideas for writers working towards a systematic understanding of the religious significance of the body.

This thesis offers a distinctive approach to writing poetry which has been developed within the context of the author’s/researcher’s observations of, and participation in, end of life care. It will be argued that poetry can have a unique role in supporting patients within a hospice setting. It emerges that there may be a further role of the poem as ‘memorial art’. The practical base to the research has been writing poetry based on conversations with, and the creative artwork of, hospice patients throughout a period of over three years. These working methods have enabled the author to produce a substantial collection of poetry, presented at the start of the thesis, as the prime evidence of the value of the approach. In this research context the ‘numinous’ is interpreted from its extended definition as relating to transcendence, wonder and otherness. Particular components of the writing practice have formed a ‘numinous poetics’. The numinous as a focus in this research has emerged through careful and scholarly reading and reflection as part of the author’s response to the perceived qualities and value of the poems as they were written. Seeking for the ‘numinous’ was not a prelude or prescription for the research but a consequence of it. It encompasses cognitive, linguistic and literary components, and further draws from the often numinous experience of a poem’s inception whilst talking with an individual patient. The numinous is argued to be of particular value to inform the creative representation of a patient’s life at a time when a more simplistic presentation of meaning and understanding may prove inadequate. The research details the poetics of the various components, and documents the writing experience to demonstrate the potential to other writers choosing to work in hospice settings. Following the Creative Work of 93 poems beginning the thesis, Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the numinous approach and outline components of numinous poetics. Chapter 3 details the development of particular techniques and skills by specific examples, and then Chapter 4 fully explains the practice and key learning points gained as a hospice poet. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with further key issues regarding the role of the poet and the case for this approach to be integrated within the end of life care aims regarding a ‘good death’.

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This thesis examines the role of music in the life and works of the Romantic Irish author and lyricist Thomas Moore (1779-1852). It details Moore's musical knowledge and ideas with the aim of repositioning him within contemporary Romantic music and literary culture. The first chapter provides a comprehensive musical biography of Moore and argues that Moore engaged with, and was influenced by, contemporary philosophical treatises on music. Chapter two investigates Moore's works alongside other popular 'national air' collections of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and focuses on Moore's popular song-book collections Irish Melodies (1808-34), National Airs (1818-27), and Sacred Songs (1816-24). The latter two works in particular have received scant scholarly attention to date, while criticism on the Irish Melodies has largely focused on these songs as poetic texts lacking in political fervour. Chapters three and four focus on placing Moore's songs back in the medium for which they were originally intended: sociable amateur performance. Chapter three explores Moore's performances of his songs in the drawing-rooms of London's elite, and argues that these are an essential, yet traditionally neglected aspect of Moore's musical career. The final chapter turns to these performances specifically in relation to gender and highlights the popularity of Moore's songs amongst female amateur performers. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of Moore's expansive and multi-faceted musical career, and will demonstrate that it is only when we consider his songs as songs that emerged from a number of important contextual influences that we can begin to reposition him as a pivotal figure in Romantic literary and musical culture.

The first section of this PhD submission is a creative thesis, the aim of which is to write an original poetry collection which belongs to the sub-genre of the poetic biography. The poetry collection, entitled The Tallest Man in Australia, details the capture and imprisonment of John Boyle O'Reilly, a 19th Century Fenian rebel who spent nine months in the penal colony of Western Australia before escaping to America. My critical thesis aims to validate the idea that in the past twenty years a new sub-genre of biography has emerged, one linked to the fictional biography yet quite distinct from it. Examples deal with the life of an historic individual but are written in poetic form. Analysis of this sub-genre, which will be referred to as 'the poetic biography', will focus on four key texts: David Constantine's Caspar Hauser (1994), Maurice Manning's A Companion for Owls (2004), Linda France's The Toast of the Kit-Cat Club (2005) and Ruth Padel's Darwin: A Life in Poems (2009). Each of the four texts has been chosen as an example of a slightly differing approach to the same form, providing enough similarity to be used as evidence for the poetic biography's existence as a separate entity from both poetry and biography, but with enough stylistic differences to show the potential of the sub-genre.