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The thesis examines Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth in the Biographia Literaria in the context of the contemporary review reaction to Wordsworth's poetry and theory of poetic diction, concentrating throughout on Wordsworth's most representative and persistent critic, Francis Jeffrey. The thesis is divided into two sections, according to a distinction laid down in the opening pages of the Biographia. The first examines "the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction", the second, "the real poetic character" of William Wordsworth. The first section, on "The Language of Poetry", opens with a discussion of the explicit and implicit aspirations of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, relating them to the theory of mind and nature in Wordsworth's poetry, and to Wordsworth's poetic practice. Chapter Two discusses Coleridge's reading of the Preface, its misrepresentation of the Preface's basic assumptions, and the extent to which Coleridge assimilates many of the arguments of the contemporary reviewers, only to move beyond them. The second section, "The Poet, the People, and the Public", concentrates more closely on the criticism of Francis Jeffrey. Chapter Three deals, briefly, with the prejudices of Jeffrey's criticism - with the Edinburgh Review as an historical enterprise - and then, at length, with the principles of his criticism as revealed in his review of Archibald Alison's Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste and his reviews of other aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical writings. After establishing the critical ambiguity of Jeffrey's associationist aesthetic, Chapter Four moves to a comparison of Jeffrey's and Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth, treating their similarities and differences on the subject of poetic sensibility and poetic genius. The final chapter, Chapter Five, looks at the social and political implications of Jeffrey's rejection of Wordsworth, interpreting that rejection as prophesying and enforcing the isolation of the poet from the public. Throughout, Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is seen as a coherent response to the contemporary reviewers generally, and, more specifically, to Francis Jeffrey's criticism of William Wordsworth.

The end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth saw many women writers from numerous social ranks, political affiliations and religious denominations reading, writing, circulating and publishing polemical prose and poetry in defence of their sex. During this surge of protofeminist activity, many of these women decried 'Customs Tyranny' by advocating a more egalitarian status for themselves, especially in regard to marriage, education and religion. This thesis, then, is a socio-historic study of the lives and writings of several polemical women writers, namely, Mary Astell (1666-1731), Mary, Lady Chudleigh (1656-1710) and Elizabeth Thomas (1675-1731). It also considers how and why protofeminism evolved in the late seventeenth century and reached a climax between 1694, when Astell published A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, and 1710, when Chudleigh published Essays upon Several Subjects. Until now, scholars of early women writers have labelled Astell the foremost English feminist of her day. Consequently, many of her contemporary protofeminist writers have been neglected. By contextualizing their lives and texts within the political and literary activity at the turn of the eighteenth century, this thesis ultimately argues that women polemicists, such as Chudleigh and Thomas, who followed Astell into print, were not merely echoes and disciples. Rather, they furthered the evolution and secularization of a genre that anticipates feminism proper, which began to develop in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In order to uncover and rediscover the personal and professional details of these women's lives their class, education, friendships and patronage relationships this thesis relied heavily upon material evidence such as letters, parish records, legal records, prison records and wills. As a result, it combines feminist, materialist inclinations with traditional methodology, such as historical and archival research.

This thesis is essentially concerned with analyzing William Gilpin's criticism and relating it to the critical ideas of his age. Gilpin was a man of taste who lived during a significant transitional period in the history of criticism. His criticism is rooted in the classical tradition and centered around classical principles. But many of his ideas, values, and tastes are radically different in emphasis from, or directly opposite to, those of classical theory. Gilpin, in his criticism of literature, subscribes to the theories that literature imitates nature, that it imitates the ideal rather than the actual, and that it must appeal to the reason. He stresses the objective aspects of literature and asserts the importance of such classical principles as decorum, unity, simplicity and clarity. But his interest in the sensational aspects of literary pictorialism, his non-humanistic concern with landscape poetry, his interest in intuitionalism, his defence of sublime obscurity, his occasional delight in emotions for their own sake, all reveal a turning away from classical values. Gilpin makes little effort to reconcile the inconsistencies and self-contradictions in his literary criticism. In his criticism of painting Gilpin is strongly influenced by the classicism of contemporary British painting. Again he advocates the imitation of ideal reality. He believes that the image is all important in painting and that it must be a generalized representation of the ideal central form of an object. He also believes that painting must appeal to the reason, and he usually treats the perceptive imagination as an essentially rational faculty. Occasionally he acknowledges painting's ability to cause emotional transport. Of the painter Gilpin requires knowledge of objects and of the rules of art. The painter's knowledge and technical skill are, however, useful only if they are directed by genius. Gilpin judges paintings by the principles established by the Roman school—design (decorum), composition, harmony, simplicity, exactness—and discusses these principles in an essentially classical manner. But he uses them to praise the Venetians, the Baroque masters, and landscape paintings. His criticism of painting has many inherent contradictions but is superficially fairly coherent. Sculpture is treated only briefly by Gilpin. He believes in idealization and praises simplicity, grace, proportion. But he opposes the rigid neo-classicists of his day by praising animation and even recommending strong action and emotion in sculptured figures and groups. Gilpin has high praise for the classical tradition in English architecture, especially for Burlington-Palladianism. And his criteria of architectural judgement— symmetry, proportion, simplicity—are essentially those of the classical tradition. He is concerned with formal rather than associative architectural values, and he is insistent that architecture be intellectually satisfactory and not only visually effective. He defends the Gothic, especially late Gothic, by attempting to prove its conformity to classical principles. The defence is not very successful, but his appreciation of the Gothic is obviously sincere. He discusses in terms of picturesque or associative values only such minor architectural forms as cottages and ruins. Gilpin defends and evaluates the natural garden in terms of essentially classical principles. The garden is nature methodized, and the method is selection and arrangement according to the rules of art. But Gilpin's acceptance of irregularity, his concern for purely visual values, and his praise of wild nature are in conflict with his basic critical attitude to the garden. Gilpin, in his criticism of the fine arts, attempts to reconcile various conflicting critical attitudes and principles. He is not always successful, but his attempt is an interesting example of late-eighteenth-century eclectic criticism. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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The purpose of the present work is to shed fresh light not only upon the life and work of Maurice Greene , but also upon the whole state of music in England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Thus, while the basic framework is that of a full-scale historical biography, whole sections are devoted to a detailed discussion of various aspects of the contemporary scene. Chapter one traces the composer's family background end early career up to about 1710. His work at St. Paul's, and the general conditions which there obtained, are separately considered, as is also the musical history of the important Sons of the Clergy festival which Greene conducted from 1718 until 1750. The biographical narrative continues with an account of Greene's marriage and family affairs, and also deals with his influence as a teacher. In chapter four, the composer's career as a secular musician is surveyed against the background of London musical life, end special attention is given to the history of the Academy of Ancient Music with which he was for a time intimately connected. Throughout the 1720s, Greene's reputation grew. In 1727, he was appointed Organist and Composer of the Chapel Royal. Three years later, he took his doctorate at Cambridge, and was honoured with the title of Professor of Music in the University. In 1735, he succeeded Eccles as Master of the King's Band of Musick. Not yet thirty-nine, he now held every major musical appointment in the land. A detailed summary of this triumphal progress, and of those institutions in which Greens worked, forms the central core of the dissertation. A thorough examination of Greene's relationship with Handel is contained in chapter six. The two final chapters deal with the period during which Greene's fame stood at its height, his gradual decline, death, and posthumous reputation. An extended postscript surveys Greene's contribution to Boyce'e Cathedral Music. Two short appendices and a bibliography complete the volume. Volume two consists entirely of a Descriptive Catalogue of all Greene's knovn works, including those which are no longer extant. Both printed and MSS. sources are listed, end copyists identified wherever possible. Ten pages of plates provide examples of the composer's autograph, and those of his four chief pupil-copyists. There are also extensive notes containing any historical or bibliographical information which might possibly be of use to future researchers.

“The Sixth Sense: Synaesthesia and British Aestheticism 1860-1900” is an interdisciplinary examination of the emergence of synaesthesia conceptually and rhetorically within the ‘art for art’s sake’ movement in mid-to-late Victorian Britain. Chapter One investigates Swinburne’s focal role as both theorist and literary spokesman for the nascent British Aesthetic movement. I argue that Swinburne was the first to practice what Pater meant by ‘aesthetic criticism’ and that synaesthesia played a decisive role in ‘Aestheticising’ critical discourse. Chapter Two examines Whistler’s varied motivations for using synaesthetic metaphor, the way that synaesthesia informed his identity as an aesthete, and the way that critical reactions to his work played a formative role in linking synaesthesia with Aestheticism in the popular imagination of Victorian England. Chapter Three explores Pater’s methods and style as an ‘aesthetic critic.’ Even more than Swinburne, Pater blurred the distinction between criticism and creation. I use ‘synaesthesia’ to contextualise Pater’s theory of “Anders-streben” and to further contribute to our understanding of his infamous musical paradigm as a linguistic ideal, which governed his own approach to critical language. Chapter Four considers Wilde’s decadent redevelopment of synaesthetic metaphor. I use ‘synaesthesia’ to locate Wilde’s style and theory of style within the context of decadence; or, to put it another way, to locate decadence within the context of Wilde. Each chapter examines the highly nuanced claim that art should exist for its own sake and the ways in which artists in the mid-to-late Victorian period attempted to realise this desire on theoretical and rhetorical levels.

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This thesis is an examination of the mass-market publishing industry in Britain after the First World War and of the 'literature' read by the lower-middle and working classes: novels and weekly magazines. We chronicle the development of the industry both generally and through the experiences of three publishers, examine the activity and motivations of the reading public and consider the treatment of contemporary issues and attitudes within popular fiction as a useful barometer for the historian. There are seven chapters. Chapter 1 considers the period before 1914 in order to provide the necessary background for an understanding of the focus of this study, 1914-1950. The origins of the popular publishing industry and Wilkie Collins' 'Unknown Public' are examined and continuities with post-1914 popular literature traced. In Chapter 2 a broad overview of our period is conducted: the development of the industry and of the market, the influence of war and the depression, and the effect on reading of the growth of other leisure activities. Chapters 3 and 5 look at the reading habits of adults and children/adolescents from the lower-middle and working classes. In both cases contemporaries and readers themselves seemed to think 'escapism' was paramount in the selection of 'light' fiction and there was therefore a significant continuity between child and adult reading. Finally, Chapters 4, 6 and 7 focus on the histories and influence of three publishers of popular fiction during this period. These include two of the most successful (Mills and Boon, D.C. Thomson) and in contrast, a prominent but declining firm (The Religious Tract Society). In each case the complex relationship between market forces and editorial policies is discussed. We conclude that a reciprocal relationship existed between publisher and reader, with the latter dictating much of what was published. Popular fiction, moreover, served to reinforce predominant stereotypes and ideological views of society rather than to impose specific doctrine.