This thesis re-examines Jakobson's theory of poetic function and develops the axial model of his metaphoric and metonymic poles in order to construct a suggested iconic and poetic space, with special reference to a city poetic. The suggested model is used to develop a possible genre of a city poetic. The role of the narrator in poetry is explored with specific reference to shifters and deictics, with a view to a gendered analysis of self and place within a city poetic. The construction of space within the Jakobsonian axial model is developed with the assistance of iconicity, parallels, and movement (with reference to the Russian Formalist Movement's interest in byt). Ile question as to why women poets have not extensively explored their position within a city poetic is investigated by way of a discussion of deixis and shifters (place and self) - with special attention given to the benefits of distinct terms for these two stylistic categories. This thesis is practice-led and half is comprised of the long poem: Shades of Light: A Triumph of City. This poem is based on the Petrarchan sequence of Triumphs and interprets the woman poet, and poetry, within a city environment. It is a full length practical exploration of how the theory of a city poetic can be expressed in practice. The Commentary which accompanies the poem supplies information on the sources for the poem's background information and inspiration. The thesis and the poem are proposed as an integrated whole - theory plus practice and practice plus theory. It is hoped that this thesis, both in theory and practice, will inspire further research and work based on this presentation of: the first entire poetic sequence of Triumphs since Petrarch; a first in the use of Adobe Indesign software by a poet to construct poetry; a first diagrammatic representation of city poetic space; a first theoretical attempt to establish a genre of city poetry; and almost a first women's long poem about women in the city - in this case London.

The aim of my thesis is to investigate the interplay between ideology and narration in the novels by the Czech writer Vaclav Rezac (1901-1956). Rezac is a controversial figure in Czech literary history because of his association with the Party after the Communists' take-over of power in February 1948. In the 1930s and during the German Occupation, Rezac developed into one of the most highly regarded authors of Czech 'psychological analytical' fiction. In June 1945, Rezac joined the Party and, subsequently, began to propagate Socialist Realist modes of writing. This fact appears to have made it difficult for academic critics to approach Rezac at all objectively. My thesis constitutes a new interpretation of Rezac's novels which has the texts themselves as its primary focus. It represents a dialogue with previous literary criticism. I do, however, acknowledge that texts belong within a given context. I address this fact by defining the interpretive horizon of my analyses in terms of a semiotic definition of ideology, as ideologemes. In my view, ideology is to be understood as the text's production of significations which are simultaneously evaluated within a given process of narration. I define the ideologeme as a structuration of semes which has a nodal function between the text and its intertext it is both intrinsic to the text and links up the text with its context. I assert that it is possible to identify the ideologemes on a textual level through an approach based on a theory of narration.

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This study examines the literary production of five writers from the former Yugoslavia during the civil war of the 1990s. These writers include Semezdin Mehmedinović, Slobodan Selenić, Vladimir Arsenijević, Dubravka Ugrešić and David Albahari. The central concern of this thesis is to analyse the engagement of their literary narratives in relation to the actual and symbolic waging of war as these works respond, in equal measure, to destruction of homes (homeland) and populations as well as the discursive dissemination of national import. This thesis brings these writers together under the categories of war front, home front, and exile (or migratory movements) which provide a comparative bridge not predicated on the national dimension of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The first chapter considers Mehmedinović’s Sarajevo blues which attests to life under siege and under direct authority of warfare, military logic and the international media organ. The second chapter on Selenić and Arsenijević is schematized through the home front: the territory from which war is displaced (as a material force) but that still registers a change in socio-economic living conditions as a result of severe sanctioning throughout the 1990s. Chapters three and four are focused on the exilic and migratory movements of Ugrešić and Albahari respectively: the critical dimension of their narratives demonstrates the doubled perspective of being elsewhere and not at home, analysing and writing on the war with a clarity and distance which establishes the grounds for judgment. This thesis contributes to the academic knowledge on the subject of Yugoslavia’s break-up by redressing a discursive imbalance that was weighed in favour of social sciences and history. Discussing literary discourse in the context of war explicitly demands that literature be understood as socially relevant. This thesis corrects the paucity of material that has been devoted to examining the contribution of these writers while simultaneously demonstrating how literature can carve out a role of critique, autonomous from homogenizing discourses of the period.

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This thesis presents a detailed examination of four key Soviet plays on the theme of the Civil War: Shtorm by V. Bills-Belotserkovskii; Dni Turbinykh by M. Bulgakov; Lyubov Yarovaya by K. Trenev and Optimisticheskaya tragediya by V. Vishnevskii. The thesis is approximately 80,000 words in length and is divided into four main chapters each containing a separate treatment of each play. The treatment consists of: a descriptive analysis of the original text; a tracing of the creation of the first production, including a study of the relationship between playwright and theatre company; a presentation of the political-historical context in which it was both written and produced; an examination of contemporary newspaper and journal reviews; an evaluation in terms of artistic merit and theatrical achievement and, finally, a consideration of its relationship to the other plays selected for this study and its wider dramatic significance. The primary sources used for this work are hitherto largely neglected Soviet newspapers, journals and memoirs as well as the play texts. The conclusion finds that in the decade 1924-1934 these plays filled a vital role in serving both political and artistic causes and that today, despite their diminished topicality, their function is still to educate, explain and entertain and, by so doing, to underpin the very fabric of Soviet society.

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