Burchiello's poetry has traditionally offered many difficulties of interpretation, and too often been neglected because of its obscure language. / The present work sets its goal not only to restate the validity of the metaphorical dimension in Burchiello, but also to offer an angle through which one can consider his poetic production as the signal of somehow a spiritual anxiety.

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Part 1 of the succeeding work deals with aspects of form which are neither binary nor ternary In basis, and concerns Itself with the addition of sections of music which are either disparate or basically alike. Multi-movement works in instrumental music have certain conventions with regard to the number of movements and with regard to the sequences in these movements of speeds, tonalities and forms. Pressures for unity within such basically discrete works may manifest themselves by thematic quotation, thematic metamorphosis or motific similarities between movements. Slow introductions are necessarily harmonically wayward and are mostly thematically connected with the subsequent part of the movement.

Part Two demonstrates the centrality pf this preoccupation with solitude and the definition of the self in Shakespeare's work, comparing and contrasting the development of his ideas with that of his contemporaries. The thesis considers Shakespeare's sympathies, moral judgements r and ideals through the changing perspectives on the solitary from play to play, Despite his sensitivity to the deepest levels of the contemporary cult of solitude, Shakespeare finally keeps faith with the essentially medieval ideal of the social bond. Solitude, for him, fails as an ideal, and is acceptable only where the social ideal is irreparably corrupted.

This thesis is a study of Beckett's later plays (those written in English as a first language) beginning with All That Fall. There are three main areas of investigation. Part One considers the importance of structure in Beckett's writing and the extreme precision with which his plays are patterned. The circular movement found in most of the plays is seen to reflect Beckett's constant theme of the human life cycle, in a precise fusion of content with form. Part Two, the bulk of the study, considers the evolution of the plays through their various drafts. The exploration of a large body of draft material affords some insight into Beckett's characteristic approach to his writing, his working method and the craftsmanship with which the plays are shaped, both structurally and linguistically. A tendency for ambiguity to develop and increase as the drafts progress is discovered in the plays. Part Three considers the plays in performance and discusses the various aspects of Beckett's dramatic technique in the writing, acting and direction of the plays. The innovatory quality of Beckett's dramatic ideas is observed in his work for the different media of stage, radio, cinema and television. The discussion thus seeks to increase our understanding of Beckett's plays in English by studying not only the structures ultimately arrived at, but the process of gestation also and finally by observing their efficacy in production.

This thesis examines Shelley's interest in the mythologies of non-Christian cultures. It argues that Shelley's use of mythology can be best understood as an artistic response to his perception of contemporary historical events and within the context of the hostility of the younger Romantic poets towards the religious and political beliefs of the elder generation. The theological defence of the Mosaic account of the origins of the world by orthodox Christians set against the sympathy towards pagan culture expressed by secular historians and antiquarians of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries forms a recurrent theme in the background to Shelley's interest in myth. While criticism has often seen Romanticism itself as a mythological tendency in defiance of Enlightenment scepticism, the starting-point for Shelley's examination of the origins of religious belief, witnessed in "Mont Blanc", is his refutation of Christian monotheism and his preference for an explanation of the basis of religion and mythology in the primitive fear of Nature. Combined with his Enlightenment optimism in historical progress, the use of Zoroastrianism encourages the invention of his own myths of origins and of historical destiny in Prometheus Unbound and "The Witch of Atlas", which overcome the regressive doctrine of original sin and defy the historical actuality of the failure of the French Revolution. The presence of the Orient in Shelley's mythological poetry can be interpreted in terms of a critique of "Romantic Hellenism", a category which has failed to account for his sympathy with the popular natural religion of Bacchus, a figure associated in classical history with the East, who represents the antithesis of the rational, Hellenic Apollo. In the final two years of his life, Shelley develops a different kind of mythologised history in which an idealist defence of the poet is incorporated into the Enlightenment concept of philosophical history. It is this investment which he questions in "The Triumph of Life".

In December 1925, Vladimir Nabokov said that "everything in the world plays" and that "everything good in life - love, nature, the arts and domestic puns - is play." This thesis argues that, after December 1925, play was Nabokov's leading idea. Previous critics have spoken of Nabokov as a playful writer but have not drawn on the untranslated early Russian texts; have rarely discussed the actual games depicted in his novels; and have been vague on what it means to call Nabokov a playful writer. This thesis argues that Nabokov's novels after 1925 are all playful or game-like in different ways related to the games they depict, and become ever more radically so. It provides a chronological narrative of play as the evolving subject and style of Nabokov's writing. The first chapter discusses the sources of Nabokov's idea of aesthetic play in Kant, Schiller, and Nietzsche. The second chapter traces the emergence of play in Nabokov's earliest writings, from 1918 to 1925, isolating the themes of play of self, play as make-believe, and play as violence. The third chapter looks at how in King, Queen, Knave (1927) and The Luzhin Defense (1930), Nabokov adopted the scheme of Lewis CarrolPs two Alice books, first using cards as an image of play and freedom, then chess as an image of rule and game. The fourth chapter shows that in the 1930s Nabokov wrote about play in contrast to work, and deals with Glory (1931), Despair (1934), Invitation to a Beheading (1935-6), and The Gift (1937-8; 1952). The fifth chapter is about free play in Nabokov's American writing, and emphasises the influence of Joyce's Finnegans Wake. It covers Bend Sinister (1947), Speak, Memory (1951; 1967), Lolita (1955) and Ada (1969). The sixth chapter argues that Pale Fire (1962) belongs to the genre of the literary game, and is in complex intertextual relation to a previous literary game, Pope's Dunciad.

This thesis explores the concept of dialogue, and of reading as a dialogue, in relation to Sarraute's novels. Its view of dialogue draws on various theories of (spoken and written) communication which see dialogue as transcending the limits of linguistic expression (Ch.l). This transcendence of language through language is epitomised by the ironic exchange, where communication succeeds in spite of the utterance which is openly recognised to be defective. Full participation in dialogue entails ironically recognising the inadequacy of one's discourse; if the subject's language constitutes his identity, then engaging in dialogue further involves acknowledging one's lack of authority as a subject. However, reading Sarraute complicates this idealistic notion of dialogue: despite her writing's formal dialogism, it not only represents but also enacts aspects of communication which oppose rather than promote consensus. The way the authorial voice inevitably reasserts an initially renounced unitary identity (something her fiction condemns), demonstrates how speaking always unifies the subject despite itself, reaffirming that authority which the aspiration to dialogue should reject (Chs.3 and4). Secondly, reading as a form of dialogue raises the question of the relationship of writing to speech: their structural identity means that spoken communication cannot offer mutual presence but always involves alienation (Ch.2). Thus Sarraute's attempt to counter the alienation of writing by simulating speech cannot succeed, and so she replays a conversational strategy of her characters to control the distant reader's response she defines him (as passive and assenting) in her address. But the mediation of writing preserves the reader from this definition, and so Sarraute finally rejects this uncontrollable other (Ch.5). However, spoken dialogue also illuminates the text-reader exchange: its reciprocity, which counters the alienation of writing, indicates how the text too can "answer" the reader by resisting his interpretation and making him revise it. Some text-reader communication is possible, for the text's language exceeds both its author's intention and its reader's interpretation, uniting them in the symbolic universe within which they define themselves (Ch.6). But their linguistic selfdefinition means that their dialogue around the text will always be oppositional as well as consensual.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the images of the self constructed by Florbela Espanca in her poetry, viewing the complexities of her work in the light of her difficult position as a woman writing in the early twentieth century and showing how this work challenges conventional ideas of womanhood. The first part of the study provides the necessary background to understand the poet's early career. Chapter 1 examines the emergence of women's poetry in Portugal at the turn of the century, showing how it provided a favourable context for her aspirations to become a writer. Chapter 2 focuses on Florbela Espanca's poetic beginnings and her assimilation and reworking of male influences, while drawing attention to the problems facing a woman writer trying to emulate male authors. The central part of the study is divided into three chapters. They deal in turn with each of her collections, Livro de Mágoas (1919, Livro de Soror Saudade (1923)) and her most famous work, Charneca em Flor (1931, posthumous). The chronological order aims to throw into relief the evolution in her poetry. Each chapter provides a detailed analysis of the poet's treatment of her problematic identity as a woman and as a writer, and of love as a means to self-assertion, through which traditional sexual stereotypes can be subverted. The final part of the thesis looks at the transformations which her image has undergone since her death. It shows how initially Florbela Espanca was viewed as a neglected romantic artist, forever seeking something more. It analyses how it then took a lengthy argument over the erection of her bust in Évora to reinforce the poet's place in the literary canon and to ensure that her stock image became that of a representative woman writer.