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The aim of this study is to give a coherent overview of the <i>Correspondence</i> in terms of epistolarity and as a text that is amenable to critical literary analysis in its own right. The <i>Correspondence </i>is analysed in terms of rhetoric. Diderot employs rhetoric to tailor his letters to their addressees. Thus an integral part of letter writing which is examined throughout is the adoption by Diderot of different epistolary personae and the various means of persuasion used. The first chapter is a discussion of the essential historical background needed in order to understand the epistolary form as practised in the eighteenth-century. The second chapter is an introduction to the issues surrounding the publication history of the <i>Correspondence </i>and its various editions. The different genres of letters found in the <i>Correspondence </i>are then examined. These are categorized by using seventeenth and eighteenth-century letter manuals as the basis for the definition of these genres. The focus of the study then moves to a detailed analysis of the letters. The third chapter is a consideration of constant features of the epistolary form and how these relate to Diderot's actual letter writing practice. These constants which appear in most writing about epistolarity are absence, temporal distortion and the creation of epistolary personae. This is followed by a discussion of the letters in terms of sensibility, and the discourse of love and friendship, focusing on the letters to Anne-Toinette Champion, Sophie Volland and Grimm. The discourses of love and friendship are very much interrelated in Diderot's letters. The fifth chapter is an analysis of the different forms of wit and humour in the <i>Correspondence</i>. Wit and humour are another means of reinforcing the reader centred and interactive nature of letters.

This thesis makes accessible an unedited and hitherto unpublished text of great value for the history of literature and theatre. It was written c. 1450-1500 and consists of about 25,000 lines. It is a unique document of its time, as there is no other hagiographic mystery play of this size or importance with a woman as the central character. The play contains numerous stage directions that make it even more compelling for a historian of theatre. Barbara is arguably the most celebrated female saint of the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Too often, specialists of the period choose the high-profile Saint Catherine to exemplify their work. Here I argue that Saint Barbara is central to the understanding of popular devotion of the period. <i>Le mystere de sainte Barbe en cinq journées </i>helps us to shed light on that very devotion, as this text is meant for the stage : to be performed before an audience from all walks of life. The fifth day presents us with a prime example of what a Mystery play could offer. It contains diableries, the final tortures of the saint and her death, numerous miracles and a farce, and a holy war between pagans and Christians. The language of the manuscript is also very interesting. For example, the use of <i>suymes</i> and <i>quel</i>, the many infinitives in <i>er </i>and <i>ir</i> written respectively <i>ez </i>and <i>iz</i>, the consistent use of <i>-ou </i>and where <i>-o </i>is found in modern French, to name but a few. I suggest also that the versification and the didascalies should be understood in such a way so as to help the reader break the text in smaller, more convenient sequences without imposing a modern structure onto the Mystery play. The body of this thesis is the edition of the fifth day, which consists of 5531 lines. It is preceded by an introduction comprising: a description of the manuscript: a section on the legend and devotion to Saint Barbara; a survey of the dramatic texts and productions related to the saint; a review of the sources used by the author; a guide to reading the mystery plays (making use of the Pausa) and more specifically the <i>Mystere de sainte Barbe en cinq journées, </i>together with a summary of the fifth day; a study of the farcical elements found in the text; and a reflection on the importance of Cyprus and the later Crusades.

The aim of this thesis is to provide a coherent study of Edmond de Goncourt’s four solo novels - <i>La Fille Elisa</i> (1877), <i>Les Frères Zemganno</i> (1879), <i>La Faustin</i> (1882), and <i>Chérie</i> (1884) - in terms of Naturalism and Decadence and the changing literary field of late nineteenth-century France. The thesis approaches Goncourt’s solo novels as novels in their own right rather than simply as extensions of the joint oeuvre of Goncourt brothers. The first chapter, as well as providing an overview of the state of Goncourtian studies, furnishes background information on the joint writings of the Goncourt brothers and on the various literary movements of the nineteenth century. The second chapter is devoted to paratexts and demonstrates, in the first instance, how the title changes of the joint and solo nóvels offer insights into Edmond de Goncourt’s evolving literary aesthetic. The chapter then moves on to a detailed analysis of the prefaces to Edmond de Goncourt’s novels and argues that Goncourt used the prefaces to simultaneously establish his authority as the founder of Naturalism and to distance himself from the movement in order to present his solo novels as initiating a new mode of literature. The third chapter studies the concept of the ‘document humain’ and its role in the process of literary creation in Edmond de Goncourt’s novels. The chapter makes use of archival material - the Goncourt correspondence - and begins with a discussion of the (changing) nature of the document, drawing on examples from <i>La Fille Elisa.</i> It then enters into a textual analysis of the three final novels and argues that while a Naturalist documentary apparatus is retained by Goncourt, the thematic ends to which this documentary process is used are increasingly decadent in nature in the later novels.

This thesis examines the concept of rhythm and its importance to the survival of the French poetic idea following Baudelaire’s formal and generic revolution. Part One situates he symbolic value of poetic rhythm in terms of a religious world view which crumbles with the mid-nineteenth century fall of absolute values. Once an absolute notion of poetic beauty disappears, poetic rhythm and indeed, the very definition of poetry itself, become unstable and require constant re-motivation. Baudelaire, therefore, problematizes in prose poetry the characteristics by which we traditionally recognize and trust a poetic text, namely notions of form and the poet’s authority. Reading poetry now becomes a search for meaningful rhythm and constant values of poeticity as guaranteed by a provocative, enigmatic poet. Part Two suggests that Rimbaud’s aesthetic development follows a strikingly similar trajectory. Following failed experiments with objective and formally inclusive poetics, <i>Illuminations </i>presents form as constantly in process, towards an indefinitely deferred future perfection, and guaranteed by a similarly elusive, mischievous poet figure. Part Three explores Mallarmé’s realization of the fictional nature of the poetic idea, and the techniques via which he by turns admits and denies this fiction. Thus the illusion of Poetry’s universality is tempered by suggestions of the poet’s personal agenda. Poetic form is used to project a fictional hierarchy of aesthetic values and an Ideal whose guarantee is no longer an external divinity but rather, an internal poetic sensibility. The poetic value of rhythm and harmony is thus re-motivated, as verse regularity protects a henceforth unstable poetic idea, the fragility of which is acknowledged by a number of equally important irregularities. I conclude that, since the roots of French poetic modernity are to be found in this new awareness of the fundamental instability of the poetic idea, the poet’s task is now to defend Poetry from reduction to predictable, restrictive formal and thematic characteristics, with the poet himself assuming a self-consciously unstable authority. Critical appreciation of poetry requires, therefore, recognition of the mechanisms by which the poet allows the poeticity of his text to elude the reader, and a willingness to engage in a necessarily irresolvable search for guarantees of poeticity, in order to preserve the very mystery of Poetry.

This thesis centres on the intersection between four French nineteenth-century novels and the writings of the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, work which appeared in the 1960s and early 1970s and which has been given the label ‘anti-psychiatric’ because of its hostility to established psychiatric practices. The aims of this thesis are, firstly, to demonstrate that a congruence of concerns exists between the two domains in spite of the wide distance which may seem to separate them, and secondly, to argue the case for using Laingian anti-psychiatry as an analytical framework within which to examine the de-motivated turning point of each novel - for example why Julien Sorel attempts to kill Madame de Rênal in <i>Le Rouge et le Noir</i> or why Claude Lantier commits suicide in Zola’s <i>L’Œuvre.</i> In chapter one, I lay out the founding principles of the anti-psychiatry movement as well as its many shortcomings, focusing on the work of Laing and his involvement in the ill-fated anti-psychiatric therapeutic community at Kingsley Hall in London. I argue that although anti-psychiatric practice has today fallen into disrepute among mainstream psychiatric clinicians, in part because of the failings of Kingsley Hall, it nonetheless offers a fruitful if vastly under-utilised interpretative framework within which to analyse literary texts. In chapter two, I demonstrate the relevance of anti-psychiatric theory to the four novels under consideration by means of an analysis of the de-motivated turning point of each novel. I argue that the congruence of concerns shared by anti-psychiatry and the four novels centres on foregrounding notions of authenticity and on questioning received views of madness. I also outline in the conclusion to this chapter a series of questions which ask why the main protagonist of each novel, much like the schizophrenic as described by Laing, acts in a manner which is seemingly inexplicable and contrary to their self-interest, particularly at the moment in the text when it is least expected or least ‘vraisemblable’. In the third chapter, I review the approaches other critics have taken to these questions, enabling me to propose that there does indeed remain room for a Laingian anti-psychiatric approach.

This thesis has as its object to investigate the fate of epic in France in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Piron's La Louisiade of 1745 and Chateaubriand's Les Martyrs of 1809 are chosen to indicate the precise delimitation of the period of study. Given the incidence of epic composition during these sixty-odd years, no attempt at completeness has been made but representative works are examined in sufficient number and detail to ensure an accurate idea of the genre. In the belief that an informed reading of epic is impossible without a knowledge of epic theory, Chapter One explores the substantial corpus of critical writing on the subject during the years under review. There is constant reference to previous critical opinion in an attempt to discover to what extent the theory of epic remained faithful to the neoclassical norm in France. Following this necessary preliminary, Chapters Two to Four present a detailed analysis of the three major categories of this generic form. These latter comprise: the national historical epic, epics on the discovery and conquest of the New World and the biblical epic. The first and third categories represent a continuation of an established French tradition, whereas the second is innovatory and peculiar to the eighteenth century. Within these three chapters, each of which is therefore devoted to one class of epic, works are subjected to individual critical assessment and are normally treated in a chronological sequence based on subject-matter. In order to achieve an overall picture of epic practice, Chapter Five briefly charts the general features of creative epic writing in France from 1745 to 1809. The Conclusion evaluates the genre and offers some reasons for its failure.