This thesis centers around three pianos designed and/or decorated by the Victorian artist Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: the Priestley Piano, the Graham Piano, and the Ionides Piano. I read and interpret the Burne-Jones pianos not only as examples of the artist’s exploration of the boundaries of visual art and music, but also as reflections of the Victorian era female gender performance. Their physical forms and decorations, both designed and executed by Burne-Jones, enhance the piano as an instrument and accentuate their respective female performers. The music emanating from these pianos and the domestic space in which they inhabit prompt and contribute to the Victorian female performance of gender.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.

My dissertation, Pen and Printing-Block: William Morris and the Resurrection of Medieval Paratextuality, considers William Morris’s influence on the rise of paratextual awareness, his negotiation strategies for Victorian England’s social identity, and his rhetorical construction of an idealized past through textual artifacts. The effect of Morris’s growing social awareness on his transition from illumination to print is reframed by considering his calligraphy as paratextual experiments, based on medieval examples, in combining graphic and discursive meanings with rhetorical and social dimensions. The varied and less ambitious agendas of those printers who followed Morris’s Kelmscott Press, however, limited Morris’s legacy in the book arts. The full significance of his illuminations’ meaningful interplay between text and image, and the social intent of these innovations applications in print, has received little critical attention. The opening chapter frames Morris’s visual work in light of his philosophies and introduces the major concerns of material art, the role of history, the limits of language, and the question of meaningful labour. The second chapter surveys select predecessors of Morris’s developing conception of the Gothic, the significance of architecture as its defining form, and the irreplaceability of the physical past. The third chapter considers the role of the illuminated manuscript in Pre-Raphaelite art, tracing Morris’s calligraphic experiments chronologically while identifying medieval inspirations and examining his artistic development. These experiments led to his final collaborative manuscript, the illuminated Æneid which is the fourth chapter’s focus. The sophistication of its paratextual elements is discussed in light of its unique physicality and limitations. The fifth chapter asserts the Kelmscott Press’s role in balancing craftsmanship and aesthetic paratextual strategies with reproducible models. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the culmination of these strategies, and it is compared to the visual rhetoric of its predecessors. The final chapter compares the philosophies and calligraphic elements of major private presses that followed Kelmscott’s legacy. This evolution of aesthetic, social, and practical considerations is also identified in the work of selected Canadian printers, and a final note considers the implications of the rise of immaterial digital text (radiant textuality) for the continuation of material paratextuality’s role in the future.

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This thesis analyses the figure of Arthur, in a period spanning the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, when that figure became increasingly protean and multifaceted, and the audience for the Arthurian legend grew in both size and variety. It argues that many authors wrote through Arthur, as well as about Arthur, using the figure to understand and test their own ideas about ideals (e.g. of manliness, kingship, or heroism) as well as problems (such as war, despotism, or ungodliness). This thesis analyses Arthur by considering him as a 'type', using a definition of the term that highlights a paradox: a type, in a scientific sense, is both perfect (an exemplary model) and normal (common enough to be representative). When applied to Arthur, it means that he is both a perfect, or near perfect, example, but is also to some extent a 'normal' human being. Different authors analysed in this thesis emphasise different aspects of the figure, according to whether they focus on Arthur's perfection or his normality. Other meanings of the word 'type' are also applied when relevant: the idea is not to force all versions of Arthur into a single or definitive category, but to retain the complexity of how Arthur is characterised and written about in texts. The ultimate aim of this thesis is to put the figure of Arthur into critical focus, and explain why he has been returned to so often in history.