Thèse--Université de Paris. / "Bibliographie": p. [125]-128.

No description available.

Thèse--Université de Paris. / "Bibliographie": p. [125]-128.

Zugl.: Diss. phil.-hist. Bern.

No description available.

Alexander Pope’s 1743 Dunciad in Four Books and its preceding iterations were a reaction to rapidly shifting eighteenth-century culture. With the rise of Grub Street hack writers and undeserving Poet Laureates like Lewis Theobald and Colley Cibber, Pope saw the fall of British civilization. The mock-epic Dunciad portrays this degradation with the progress of the goddess Dulness through London and her eventual and inevitable return of Britain to darkness and chaos. Many of Pope’s contemporaries are depicted as acolytes of Dulness, with a complex footnote system explicating their inclusion on the basis of their works, political alignments, education, patronage, or even disagreements with Pope. These representations of eighteenth-century print culture are not only comedic on an individual level; rather, they participate in and reinforce Pope’s overarching satire. Within this context, the following study closely examines Pope’s satirical construction of the “dunce-head” with a particular focus on the physical aspects of the skulls of the dunces. The facial features of the dunces, whether dull, twisting, or asinine, are the most obvious visual indicators of Dulness. However, the satire is extended by Pope’s conception of the skull as a physical container, in which the brain fluids of the dunces are no better than lead or brass. The mud, owls, poets’ bays, and other materials perched on the dunces’ crowns also contribute to the parody. Finally, Pope’s establishment of the dunce-head as a passive object, with the few notable exceptions such as its propensity for noise-making, concludes the study. These crucial visual signifiers and their combination with Pope’s complex abstract conception of Dulness shifts the dunce-head from mere caricature and mocked object to a satirical symbol. The Dunciad, a brilliant lampoon of eighteenth century print culture, has an archetypal skull at the center of its satire: the dull, braying, filth-covered dunce-head.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College Dept. of Classics, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p> The following study describes the evolution of Alexander Pope's Pastorals from their embryonic state in the earliest extant manuscript of them, the Houghton holograph, to their final resting place in the last authorized version of them, the posthumous 1751 edition of the poet's Works edited by his friend and literary executor, Rev. William Warburton. During this period the four poems -- "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter" -- and the brief critical treatise that accompanied them underwent hundreds of alterations, from single words to entire stanzas. A careful examination of the earliest extant version, in conjunction with a close study of the many changes and additions Pope made during this lifetime, provides a considerable amount of information concerning precisely what Pop endeavours to accomplish in creating this cycle of poems. A xerox copy of the Houghton holograph, together with a diplomatic transcript of it and a list of all subsequent authorized alterations to the text has been included to facilitate the study. Though some of the variants of this holograph have been cited (with varying degrees of accuracy) in previous editions of Pope's poetry, the manuscript itself has never before been reproduced in its entirety. </p> <p> This study concentrates particularly upon the evolution of the Pastorals primarily because a comparison of the final version of any given passage with earlier versions often makes the poet's intentions clearer. Pope himself would seem to have been aware of this fact since he includes a number of variant readings from manuscripts and earlier printed texts in the notes he appends to these poems in the 1736 edition of his Works. Likewise, an examination of the sources of Pope's allusions to other poems in the pastoral tradition -- some though by no means all of which he also records in his 1736 notes -- sheds additional light on the poet's meeting. Though the vast majority of these allusions have been identified by previous scholars, their function in the poems themselves has to date been, for the most part, ignored. Yet, as this study demonstrates, these allusions and their contexts form an integral part of the poet's design, frequently providing an oblique, but highly pertinent comment upon what is actually taking place. </p> <p> This study leads ultimately to a new reading of the Pastorals, one that focuses upon the numerous alterations and additions to them between 1704 -- the supposed date of the Houghton holograph which may be regarded as their first limited "edition" -- and 1751. Particular emphasis is placed on the major additions -- the dedicatory stanzas inserted into the first three poems in 1709, the revised version of the prose treatise added in 1717 and the apparatus of notes appended in 1736. For, in each of these Pope would appear to be providing his readers with the necessary direction to comprehend precisely what he is endeavouring to accomplish. To study Pope's creation without reference to these and the other factors previously mentioned is to miss much that is of the utmost importance in them. Only through a reconstruction of their evolution can be Pastorals be fully understood and appreciated. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study considers the relationship between landscape and the Arcadian funereal imagination in the context of eighteenth century Britain, arguing that the Arcadian landscapes imagined by the British elite were instruments of rituals facilitating the reformation and transformation of socioeconomic, political, and moral structures of the British empire. Drawing upon texts and landscape practices, three case studies are examined: Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) Twickenham grotto and his descriptive letter to Edward Blount; Sir William Chambers’ (1723-1796) Dissertation on oriental gardening and his design for Kew gardens, Sir John Soane’s (1753-1837) manuscript Crude hints towards an history of my house in LIF and his house-museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. The landscape itinerary of Pope’s Twickenham villa, in relation to his letter to Blount, suggests that it was structured analogous to the initiatory route of the Eleusinian mysteries as accounted in Pope’s translation of the Odyssey. Noting Pope’s engagement with Freemasonry, associated with the Opposition party, I suggest this implied Odyssean journey not only metaphorically anticipates the restitution of the Stuart dynasty and the reassertion of a political order founded upon aristocratic land ownership, but is also a means by which the ‘initiates’ contest the Enlightenment ideal of a mind of autonomy. In relation to the Burkean sublime, Chambers’ Dissertation, an imaginary travel narrative, is read as a city landscaping theory which aims to shape the morals of British citizens exposed to the erosion of commercial society. Whilst the scenes of luxury in the Chinese gardens imply a double effect of commercial society, the funereal imagery of ‘the surprising,’ built upon the Burkean sublime-effect, is intended as a cure of moral corruption associated with luxury. Stimulated by geological notions (e.g. stratigraphy and catastrophism), Soane’s ruinous text of Crude hints, a mirror of the house-museum as well as the earth, illustrates a parallel between the ‘first principles’ of the movement of the earth and that of the mind, i.e. imagination and signification. The funereal imagination in the text, which itself represents simultaneous creation and destruction, is revealed to be the architect’s construction of an ideal language that can express the being of the nation and the self. This thesis ends with a theoretical discussion of the role of the funereal imagination in eighteenth century landscape and architecture, i.e. how British imperial identity was forged, transmitted, negotiated, and reconstructed constantly within the temporally and spatially extended discursive realm of Arcadian mythology.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-104). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.