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This thesis discusses the effect that the use of more than one genre in a medieval narrative has upon the way we read the character of the main protagonist. Where most medieval writing aligns protagonist and narrative with a single genre, the main texts in this thesis confuse the reader's sense of such an alignment and the resulting generic interaction has the effect of separating the protagonist from the narrative, an effect I have called 'alienation'. This terminology relates to the Augustinian metaphor for the experience of the righteous in a fallen world. It is an image which describes a conflict of semiologies: individuals who operate according to one set of terms in a context which operates according to a different set of terms. The thesis examines the idea that the gaps in the narrative that are created by the alienation of the protagonist - the reader's sense of the protagonist having a meaning which does not work smoothly within his/her narrative context - allow for an interpretation of the character of the protagonist which is more sympathetic to a post- Romantic concept of individuality than is usual in medieval characterisation. Chapter One defines 'genre' and 'alienation' in relation to their application in the thesis, and discusses medieval ideas of individuality and the framework of language available to medieval writers for describing the individual. Two texts are used to illust~ate some of the points made in this discussion: the Confessions of Saint Augustine, and William Langland's ?iers Plowman. The following five chapters each give a reading of one of the main texts. Chapter Two shows how the romance characterisation of Sir Gawain, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is undermined by penitential and fabliau elements, Chapter Three, how Sir Lancelot in Malory's ~ale of the Sankgreal, is juxtaposed with a hagiographical narrative and an alternative hero, Sir Galahad. In Chapters Four and Five Criseyde, in Chaucer's ~roilus an~_~iseyd~, and his Canon's Yeoman, in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, are both generically alienated as a mimesis of their---- thematic alienation as traitor and as alchemist. And Chapter Six establishes a working definition of Complaint and shows how Hoccleve, in his Complaint, uses and then transcends the genre's characteristic representation of righteous alienation to demonstrate his recovery from madness. Finally, Chapter Seven looks beyond Middle English to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and the representation of character in the Renaissance.

A coherent reading of the Solomon Narratives in First Kings is obstructed by a variety of textual contradictions and uncertainties.  Such difficulties can be approached through a variety of interpretive and critical schemes.  Using a literary/stylistic approach, the difficulties are perceived as components of a larger narrative format, of which an ambiguous tone towards Solomon is integral.  This ambiguity is maintained by the presence of two literary forces in the text.  The first is an overt presence of Deuteronomic values supplied through various agencies.  Larger Deuteronomic themes of blessing are situated in the text which herald Solomon as one who achieved Deuteronomic privileges for his kingdom.  Other Deuteronomic principles are dispersed through a seven-fold selection of Deuteronomic terms, placed in a context of contingency and exhortation.  The chiastic arrangement of these Deuteronomic word-clusters highlights national solidarity and contingence. The cumulative force of these Deuteronomic elements contributes a pro-Solomonic tone to the text.  The second literary force is a sustained ambiguity which is provided through a variety of stylistic devices designed to subvert a purely one-dimensional favourable vision of Solomon.  The consequent ambiguity is not an autonomous feature within 1-2 Kings, however.  Instead, the ambiguous tone towards Solomon and his accomplishments provides the thematic and narrative framework by which Josiah, Solomon’s narrative foil, will be later presented.  The accounts of these two monarchs are connected through a complex of literary and thematic elements common to both accounts, one of which is the reissuing of the Deuteronomic word-clusters found in the Solomon Narratives.

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This thesis is concerned with the interpretation of Coptic and Greek documents from the two Coptic monasteries founded by Apa Apollo at Bawit and Titicooh in the Hermopolite nome in Egypt. It uses Coptic and Greek sources to illustrate the workings of these monasteries in the VI-IXth Centuries C.E. One hundred and six Coptic and two Greek documents are edited, twenty-one of which have been published previously. None of the documents is dated and all but a few are unprovenanced; they comprise legal texts, orders, tax demands, accounts, lists and letters which are currently in the possession of libraries, museums and private collections around the world. Many of the documents mention a monastery of Apa Apollo which is, or may be, located in the Hermopolite nome; most of them are written by or addressed to monks from that institution. One of the main aims of the thesis is to ascertain which texts relate to the Bawit and which to the Titkooh monastery of Apa Apollo. The existence of other, unconnected Egyptian monasteries named after other Apollos complicates the process of identifying the Hermopolite monasteries of Apa Apollo. I include in the thesis texts which do not mention a monastery of Apa Apollo but which appear to be related to an Hermopolite one from external evidence, such as the circumstances of their acquisition, or from internal evidence, particularly linguistic, palaeographical, prosopographical, and toponomastic data. One chapter examines documents concerned with the collection of aparchê chiefly by monks of a monastery of Apa Apollo. Other chapters investigate documents which contain two epistolary formulae which I have identified as peculiar to documents relating to the Hermopolite monasteries of Apa Apollo: "I, brother (pason) NN am writing", and "Our father is the one who writes".

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