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This study explores the impact of religion on Byron's poetry. It will not only examine the effects of his Calvinist upbringing but also investigate how this influenced his attraction to and utilisation of Dualist heresies in his poetry. The first Chapter looks at the reasons behind Byron's repudiation of his Scottish Calvinist heritage caused by his negative perceptions of its God and its adherents. This will be followed by an exploration of the effects that this Calvinism had on Byron's mental state, with particular reference to the uniquely Calvinist form of depression known as Religious Despair. The second Chapter will argue that it was his rejection of Calvinist doctrines and abhorrence of the Calvinist God that caused Byron to search for alternative answers to the existence of evil, eventually leading him to Dualism in its various forms. After an examination of the numerous sources of information on Dualism that Byron encountered, both historical and doctrinal, there will be a detailed analysis of the presence of Dualism in his poetry. The third Chapter considers the purpose behind Byron's adaptation of Dualist imagery and ideology and its presence in his poetry. This will be achieved by first addressing the ways he uses Dualist doctrines and imagery to subvert Calvinist teachings and precepts, and then by detailing the surprisingly numerous parallels between Calvinism and Dualism. Particular attention will be paid to Byron's use of light and dark, linking it back to his remarkably complex relationship with the various religions that influenced him. An awareness of Byron's interest in these religions can serve to provide a new and useful reading of his texts. Although there have been various works briefly touching upon the influence of different religions and philosophies on Byron's poetry, there has been no serious consideration of the overall effect and consequences of Byron's interaction with these faiths. Nor has there been a full, detailed examination of the sources of his knowledge, his understanding of them and the use which he makes of this knowledge in his writings. I say writings, as this thesis will rely on his letters and journals as evidentiary sources with a value almost equal to that of his poetry. In this context, the thesis considers Byron's letters and journals as evidentiary sources alongside his poetry and plays. Moreover, the persistence in Byron's career and subsequent reception of a conflation between poet and poetry, creator and creation, by Byron's friends, family and critics means that his reputation and perception by his peers must also be considered and analysed as part of his artistic endeavour, particularly given his grasp of 'spin' and cult of publicity. Finally, in challenging Calvinism and its adherents through a variety of means, including the appropriation of Dualist imagery and theology, Byron operated within a tradition that had an established history. The presence of several religious ideologies in his poetry will be contextualised by contrasting Byron's poetry with other literary works which present these faiths in a similar fashion.

This thesis examines the persistent influence of Gothic fiction upon the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley throughout his career, beginning with its obvious manifestations in his early novels and the Victor and Cazire poems, and proceeding to trace its continued presence throughout the major works. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of this trope within depictions of love and sexuality -a conjunction which may be traced from the juvenile period to `The Triumph of Life' - and it is argued that in spite of repeated attempts to devise a redemptive system of sexual ethics (most comprehensively attempted in the Platonic commentary `A Discourse On the Manners of the Antient Greeks Relative to the Subject of Love'), Shelley is unable to reject his psychological scepticism which the Gothic - with its depictions of morbid and sadistic sexuality - embodies. Chapter one focuses upon the early works - especially Zastrozzi - with particular comparison to the powerful influence of The Monk and Zofloya upon Shelley at this period. The possible early influence of Plato - especially the Phaedo - is also considered, as well as the gothic cadences of Plato's own work. Chapter two deals with The Cenci, considering it as the most obviously gothic work of Shelley's mature career. His use of the genre is explored in psychoanalytic and socio-political terms, and compared to Freud's Civilisation and its Discontents as a dramatic study in dysfunctional social institutions. Chapter three considers the figure of the vampire and other parasitic lovers of Romantic fiction, concluding with the veiled apparition of `Alastor'. Dante's dream of the siren in the Purgatorio is presented as a possible prototype with this manifestation of a self-consuming, antisocial existence. Conversely, however, society itself is presented in none too attractive or redeeming a light. This dilemma leads into Chapter four, where the reform of society by the exposure and abolition of `crimes of convention' (in Shelley's terms) is the central issue. Incest is considered both as an example of a pointless and unethical social code (as depicted by Shelley), and as a possible expedient for promoting Platonic relations within a fully-sexual partnership. Chapter five deals with `The Triumph of Life', in which gothic horror comes to the fore along with new heights of pessimism regarding worldly sexuality. The legacy of Rousseau, and his profound influence on Shelley, is intertwined with this, and the poem appears to be reaching away from the sensuality of the disgraced philosopher towards a more rarefied, Dantean concept of love, when it breaks off. Chapter six pursues the Dantean theme through Epipsychidion and Adonais, paying particular note to the claiming of the deceased Keats as a more appropriate spiritual guide than Emilia Viviani. It considers whether this constitutes an affirmation of transcendent Platonic love, or an outright rejection of sexuality as `sweet degradation', chaining humanity to the apparent and imperfect.

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My thesis explores how Wordsworth develops his poetic identity in ‘Growth of a Poet’s Mind’ in The Prelude. I argue that Wordsworth’s attempt to stabilize an identity in the mutability of time – in writing – results in a self precariously situated between past and present, speech and silence, for example. This thesis will examine how Wordsworth engages with time and language in his creation of ‘timely utterances’ about the self in The Prelude throughout the process of his writing. The identity Wordsworth seeks to stabilize in writing is not stabilizable because of ‘two consciousnesses’. However, Wordsworth projects a continuity of self by looking back to ‘a dark / Invisible workmanship’ in his childhood communion with nature, which generated the aspiration to ‘some philosophic Song’ that Wordsworth, now, still feels and acts upon. My thesis goes on to look at how Wordsworth, in the act of writing, tries to establish an identity as a poet in the very act of rising to the challenge of being a poet posed by the French Revolution. As a result, it is precisely such recognition of fragmentations and contradictions in his identity-formation that keeps Wordsworth’s writing moving forward and evolving into an epic poem for humanity. In the formulation and reformulation of self, Wordsworth comes to recognize that his self is subject to continual revisions of his poetic ‘self’ in The Prelude. The represented self of Wordsworth vanishes into language in his act of writing. But in the act of self-representation, Wordsworth protects his self from the ‘defacing’ power of language by locating the self in the silence left by ‘life’. Nevertheless, Wordsworth also recognizes the generative powers of language for poetically reconstructing the self as a ‘[prophet] of Nature’. However, a profound recognition of and restless dissatisfaction with the otherness of language locates the Wordsworth of The Prelude ‘midway’ between the construction of a coherent textual identity and the recognition of identifications that reach beyond textuality. One of these identifications is to be found in Wordsworth’s relation to Coleridge. Taking up the poetic project of prophesying hope to the humankind Coleridge assigned him, Wordsworth attempts to escape the contradiction between his own aims and those of Coleridge by using the recreative powers of language to recreate Coleridge and his project while recognizing his poetic obligation to Coleridge. Equally, in the act of rewriting a self, Wordsworth recognizes a sense of self perpetually subject to change and revision, and his relationship with Coleridge is valued for its power to stimulate such change. Wordsworth’s lifelong re-interpretation, re-evaluation and revision of his project constitute an identity that is perpetually shifting, evolving, self-transforming.

This dissertation examines the meaning of law in Blake's work. I argue that Blake's poetry intersects with contemporaneous challenges to the traditional model of the ancient constitution, a debate which I present as a conflict between custom and code. Blake's support for the French Revolution's overthrow of the customary systems of the ancien regime is countered by his nervousness about the rights-based discourse advanced by leading radical intellectuals such as Thomas Paine, a belief that the new systems which they proposed merely re-stated those which they sought to replace within an even narrower compass. Law is also a contested ground within radical political discourse of this period; although the dominant proposals advocated the enshrinement of fundamental rights and the codification of law, there was also a tendency towards a more enthusiastic radicalism These millenarian groups, emerging from antinomian heresy, rejected the notion of life being framed within a set of moral laws. I argue that Blake cannot easily be placed in either group; his work exhibits a fidelity to the redemptive potential of law, coupled with a real concern that to define freedoms in legal terms serves to limit rather than to liberate. Blake's work thus engages with a problem of the period: how to understand the new discourses of law. The customary account of the ancient English conunon law is predicated on the idea that it is codified, yet not written down; secular, though grounded in divine principle. These ambivalences are exploited by Blake in his poetic exploration of the law in the 1790s. In his nineteenth-century epics, Blake finds increasing help in dissenting religion's reconstruction of a radicalized Jesus. Through this radical prophetic voice, Blake is able to construct a redemptive legality founded on a deinstitutio-nalized Christianity, a constitutionalism that is also recovered from the conventional customary account.