Studies of memory in the works of William Wordsworth and George Eliot have hitherto focussed mainly on individual recollective memory. By contrast, this study explores habit-memory in the work of both writers, on both an individual and a collective level. It proposes that for Wordsworth as well as for Eliot, habit-memory can enhance moral awareness and maintain the cohesion of a community. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first discusses ‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. Drawing on the idea of an ethics of memory in the work of the philosopher Avishai Margalit, I argue that the two writers regard habit cultivation as an important means of developing a sense of universal humanity in their characters as well as in their readers. The second chapter looks at the relationship between habit and duty through a discussion of ‘Ode to Duty’, Silas Marner and Romola. Wordsworth’s notion of duty, a universal law governing both the natural and the human world, is different from that of Eliot, which is identified with the habitual feelings of the body. Despite this difference, both believe that habit can help mould an individual into a duty-bound being. Chapter Three deals with the relationship between habit and guilt in Book X of The Prelude, Adam Bede and ‘Janet’s Repentance’. Rather than looking at guilt over a real transgression, it examines what Frances Ferguson terms ‘circumstantial memory’, the remorse that occurs when the unforeseen outcome of an action is interpreted as though it had been intentional. Wordsworth and Eliot differ in their view of the origin of wrongdoings and the pattern of recovery from guilt, but they both believe that this recovery can never be complete. The final chapter shifts from individual to collective habit-memory. Adopting a phenomenological approach to habit in discussing ‘Michael’ and The Mill on the Floss, I suggest that Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory can help us to understand Michael’s and Mr. Tulliver’s embodied relationships with their patrimonial land. I also draw on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Maurice Halbwachs to show that the habitual lives these characters lead and their attachments to their habitual states of being are collectively rooted. The chapter concludes by examining the two writers’ criticism of the intrusion into agrarian society of capitalism, which disrupts the transmission of collective memory from one generation to another.

This thesis will explore the evolution of the narrative of the Industrial Revolution, from the association of the Prometheus myth with ideas of science and revolution in the late eighteenth century to the development of a myth of the Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century. It will address works by Goethe, Mary Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with an aim to explore how they participated in using and creating myths to understand the social and economic changes affected by industrialisation in Britain. Chapter One will establish current problems within the historiography of the Industrial Revolution in order to introduce the concept of ‘mythistory’, before discussing Promethean narratives during the late eighteenth century, and the etymology of the term ‘Industrial Revolution’. Chapter Two will discuss Goethe’s Faust, and the ways in which Promethean ideas, as well as Goethe’s own worldview, transformed the old legend into a useful narrative with which to consider industrialisation. Chapter Three will explore the ways in which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein undermined and questioned her contemporaries’ assumptions about the heroism of scientific endeavours. Together, these two chapters will establish the myths Marx and Carlyle used to engage directly with the Industrial Revolution. Chapter Four will discuss the works of Thomas Carlyle, specifically his early essays and Past and Present. It will underscore Carlyle’s admiration for Goethe, and his ‘great man’ approach to history, before analysing his own mythmaking. Chapter Five will follow on by studying the mythmaking of Marx and Engels, particularly in their early works, ‘The Communist Manifesto’, and Capital, Vol. 1. Discussion will concern how these authors contrast ideologically with Carlyle while nevertheless sharing a mythic diagnosis of present industry. Finally, the conclusion will discuss how these myths have since been processed, particularly by Humphrey Jennings in his composite text on the Industrial Revolution, Pandaemonium: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers, 1660-1886, as well as pointing out avenues for future research.

The thesis analyses the sensation novels of Edmund Yates and Wilkie Collins with emphasis on the representation of devotion within the texts. The thesis examines the depictions of four distinct types of character, the wife, the female friend, the disabled male and the servant, and identifies a trend within the novels of Yates and Collins whereby characters defy the conventional power structures of class and gender, obtaining agency via acts of devotion that nevertheless also perform and reinforce conventional social structures. The devotion between characters can therefore be understood as a force that ‘queers’ identity, reconfiguring relationships in ways that unsettle the bounds of heteronormativity. The sensational devotion of Yates and Collins is analysed in the context of the periodical press with which both Yates and Collins were closely involved. By using periodical articles as indicators of contemporary opinion and argument, the thesis explores Yates’s and Collins’s divergence from cultural norms, a divergence that opens up new possibilities for the sensation genre. Via these discussions the thesis seeks to re-assert Yates as a significant member of the sensation canon.

The thesis examines how religious memory permits the medieval prisoner to redeem himself textually from any potential shame associated with his imprisonment through the creation of a self-promotional, autobiographical discourse. By combining his interest in his spiritual affairs with his experiential memory of his recent past, the prisoner presents himself as a virtuous Christian, deserving of God’s reward. This work not only demonstrates how the prisoner utilises memory to justify the actions or beliefs engendering his downfall, but it also considers how this reified sense of self-perception prompts the incarcerated writer to think upon his salvation prospects. Thus I argue that memory is inextricably linked to the construction of an autobiographical narrative in which the prison-writer ponders his past, present and future identity. Throughout the thesis, the multiple sub-genres that constitute prison-writing are illuminated as I demonstrate how each prisoner suggests his virtue by inscribing his self-reflective thought into a religious genre, including hagiography, biblical letters, Passion mediations and penitential prayer. In the Introduction, I draw attention to the need for scholars to recognise the existence of the medieval subject, who is often denied ontology in studies of the history of selfhood. I also discuss the need to develop the current understanding of pre-modern autobiographical inscription by examining the mnemonic practices and strategies that underpin this form of writing. Moving on from here, the thesis examines six late-fourteenth and fifteenth-century narratives to show the different ways in which acts of recollection legitimise identity in the medieval prison. Chapter One explores the creative and political function of memoria by showing how two Ricardian traitors, Thomas Usk and William Paris, compare their own experience of imprisonment to that of a virgin martyr as they set about reframing their reputations for treachery. As Richard himself used hagiographic commemoration to promote his kingship, this act permits Usk and Paris to respectively appeal to and critique the king, who is responsible for their imprisonment. Chapter Two examines two prose epistles that were written by the Wycliffite preachers, Richard Wyche and William Thorpe. By considering how both men frame their memory of persecution in a narrative structure which emulates the epistle format deployed by medieval popes, as well as the prison epistles that St Paul wrote to the early Church, I argue that Wyche and Thorpe use their letters to entreat the recently formed Lollard community to stand firm in her faith, even if she is threatened with death. Chapter Three also considers how the prison-writer seeks to inspire a community outside the prison. Here I argue that the orthodox writers, John Audelay and George Ashby, both imprint a memory of the prisoner in the minds of the reader so that this latter figure will remember to cleanse her own soul of sin by showing mercy to the imprisoned community. The prisoner is thus shown to be nothing less than a conduit to divine grace. Throughout this thesis, religious memory, which is combined with experiential memory, is shown to be integral to the construction of the late medieval prison-writers past, present and future autobiographical identity.

This thesis examines modern fiction's debt to Romantic poetry for its key concepts in terms of educating an individual. The persistence of William Wordsworth's views on education in the modern fiction of James Joyce and E. M. Forster is evidence of The Prelude as a classic study of the growth of an individual. It is argued that Wordsworth does not envisage the institutional mode of education as a totally reliable means of educating an individual. He challenges the assumptions underlying the institutional mode of education. It is argued that the influence of Wordsworth's views on education is not limited to Victorian writers alone. Joyce and Forster take up a position similar to Wordsworth. Almost all the protagonists in the novels and short stories discussed in this thesis are educated at privileged institutions of education, and yet they rebel against the mode of education there. All the novels and short stories discussed, in a series of close readings, bear testimony to the fact that Wordsworth's The Prelude is fundamental to both Joyce and Forster in terms of the growth of an individual. Seen within the framework of the Romantic notion of education, this thesis contributes to an increase of the understanding of modern fiction. It is possible to study this theme in other modern writers such as D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Ford Madox Ford. The thesis retrieves a traditional reading of the writers under discussion by foregrounding the pattern of humanitarian values the Wordsworthian model of growth engenders. The recent studies in my field are referred to where necessary to indicate what they are missing in their study of Joyce and Forster.

The present study opens up the field of Catalan connections with English literature. The importance of Edwardian influences on the general transmission of English authors and works is demonstrated. Original data on the reception of G.K. Chesterton, the Edwardian figure with a most remarkable impact in Catalonia, is brought to light (Chapter 1, Appendix 1), followed by discussion of the presence of H.G. Wells and G.B. Shaw and an account of the reception of Well's early fiction (Chapter 2); their influence sheds new light on the aspiration of an élite to modernise Catalan culture. Catalan translations of English fictional works produced in the period 1918-38 (Chapter 3, Appendix II) are linked to the reception of the roman anglais in the context of the crisis of the roman à thèse, and the meditating influence of French criticism is revealed. The values of romance, adventure, and the common man (from Defoe to Stevenson, from Stevenson to Conrad) constitute the recurrent thread associated with the English tradition and with the Edwardian fictional canon, as these were mediated from France to Catalonia. This panorama of transmission enhances an understanding of Catalan views of the novel, in the light of Edwardian values (Chapter 4), as exemplified in Carles Riba's critical appraisal of two Catalan authors, in the appeal of Joseph Conrad's narrative technique and its influence on J.M. de Sagarra, as well as in the comparison of Frank Swinnerton's Nocturne (a best-seller of 1917) and its Catalan counterpart, M. Teresa Vernet's Les algues roges. This thesis also includes a chronology of the reception of Chesterton and a list of Catalan translations of English works of fiction.