This thesis takes as its focus the concept of self- sufficiency in the works of women writers 1740-1814, in order to re-evaluate the relationship between moral and economic modes of eighteenth-century female (in)dependence. This focus comprises two more refined aims: to formulate an appropriate methodology for using the term self-sufficiency within the project by establishing its definitions and applications, both contemporary and modern (addressing, in effect, whether it can be said to establish its own discourse); and to discuss a range of work by female writers whose thematic and strategic investigation of moral and economic issues positions the nature of female self-sufficiency amongst their concerns. As part of this, the thesis seeks a broader definition of female economic behaviour than has been the case in recent critical debates in order to reconsider women's presence as economic beings in the fiction of the period. Sarah Fielding's works are discussed in terms of her fascination with exchange motifs and how this is manifested in her management of narrative forms to structure moral and economic models of self-sufficiency. The work of Frances Brooke is used to explore the implications of self-sufficiency in a range of sexual and economic categories of femininity- the spinster, the widow, the coquette and the female writer. An investigation of Frances Sheridan's novels is concerned with the relationship between individual morality and the collective values, together with the processes of acculturation, structured by female education and conduct procedures. It evaluates how the self-sufficiency of the personal economy engages with wider economies - moral, domestic and political. A fourth chapter on Frances Burney examines her sustained preoccupation with the concept of female self-dependence, and with the nature of female employment. These investigations suggest that only by encompassing non-monetary economies can the nature and scope of eighteenth-century women's economic experiences be determined.

The first part of this thesis considers Joseph Strutt's life, and his place in antiquarian 8tudieo. Strutt (1749- 1802) was trained as an engraver. Some of his early commissions introduced him to the illuminated, manuscripts of the British Museum, and led to the serie8 of illustrated volumes on antiquarian subjects which he published between 1773 and. 1778 (the Regal and. Ecclesiastical Antiquities, the Manners and Customs, the Chronicle of England.). The next fifteen. years were devoted to engraving and related work, including an extens ively-researched biographical dictionary of engravers: this aspect of Strutt's work is not covered by the present study. In the 1790's, Strutt pubLished two more work6 of antiquarian research, the Dress and Habits and the ports and Pastimes. A number of literary works were published posthuniously:two plays (Ancient Times and The Test of Guilt); a mock-epic poem (The Bumpkins' Disaster); and. a four-volume novel set in the fifteenth century (Queenhoo-wall). A further prose work survives in manuscript. The literary works are studied. in the second part of the thesis, and a transcript is given of the unpublished maiuscript. This study attempts to show how Strutt's interpretation of the early periods of English history and literature helped to form the pre-Romantic taste for the medieval. The plates of his antiquarian works, taken almost exclusively from manuscripts contemporary with the subjects described, familiarised his audience with what had formerly been strange to all but the specialist. His works of fiction are attempts to do the same thing by literary means. Walter Scott was employed. to edit the incomplete manuscript of Queenhoo-JTall: be was encouraged by Strutt's example to take up his own writing of historical fiction.

This thesis argues that the representation of black violence in the twentieth century American novel is shaped by two principal rhetorical strategies, which I term denial and demonisation. Denial refers to modes of literary discourse which seek to refute the possibility of black violence, or to circumscribe it as an exclusively intraracial phenomenon. Demonisation denotes textual strategies which figure a racially determined form of violence as a natural element of black character. These strategies may appear antithetical, but they are rarely deployed in isolation. Rather, they appear in complex combinations in most representations of black violence in American literature, as I demonstrate using a range of novels by black and white authors which span the twentieth century. These strategies have their roots in racist ideologies which seek to obliterate any connection between the impact of racism upon African Americans and black violence. Hence they are most noticeable in literary texts which reflect and contribute to racist ideology. However, texts which seek to expose social and cultural causes of black violence are also unavoidably influenced by these modes of literary discourse, and this includes the work of African American authors. They have to negotiate the racist tropes and assumptions encoded within the language and literary forms of hegemonic American culture, because they have no alternative, completely separate resources for cultural production. External pressures experienced by any author representing black violence compound these difficulties. These include the demands of black community leaders and white liberals not to represent African Americans in ways which may hinder the cause of racial equality, and the demands of publishers to represent black violence in ways with proven commercial potential. Furthermore, despite the retreat of racism in modern America, certain images and fantasies of blackness retain a hold over the American cultural imaginary, and continue to influence literary discourse. As my thesis demonstrates, this ensures that denial and demonisation can still be detected in contemporary American novels.

This thesis examines the discursive significance of violence in twentieth century popular culture. It explains the desire and demand for representations of violence by analyzing their dual role as a force of subjectivation and subjugation. I argue that modern subjectivity is historically constituted and delimited by violence but that recognition of this is prevented by an overly instrumental understanding of its role. The reduction of violence to simple blunt force figures prominently within cultural and social theory, leaving the armature of cultural analysis ill equipped to explain the demand for violent representation. By providing a genealogy of the political violence once expressed in examples of public torture and execution but transmuted into the more minute expressions integrated within discursive regimes, this thesis argues that State violence produces a Janus-faced consciousness; a subject split between its performance of political Sovereignty and its political subjugation. The thesis progresses through historical-textual analysis of four phenomenally popular films that were, or continue to be, noted for their excess of violence [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919); The Sheik (1922), Once Upon a Time in The Kest (1969); and Deliverance (1972)]. While a subject divided by violence explains the dynamic of attraction and repulsion characteristic to violent narratives, these films also comment directly on the relationship between violence and subjectivity. Each film, in its own way-, is concerned with subjectivity understood as a force of violence as well as an object of violence. Their continuing significance suggests a more general practice of the cultural exploration of violence; a desire to understand and know its elusive terms. These narratives, and so popular representations of violence in general, can be understood to provide a focus for audiences to imagine (however momentarily and however questionably) a shared sense of subjectivity and cultural bearings.

This study investigates the role of authority in the works of Francis Bacon, arguing that the issue of authority provides not only an interpretation of New Atlantis, but an important structural component of his body of works. From the first manifestation of his philosophical project to his last works of natural history, authority is an all-pervasive issue - the authority of nature, of scripture, of the named author, and how authority functions in the dissemination of natural knowledge. Chapter one argues that the publication of New Atlantis alongside Sylva sylvarum in 1626/7 was more the result of William Rawley's need to assert his own authority as the protector and disseminator of Bacon's textual legacy than an appreciation of the work's own qualities. Chapter two considers Bacon's views of history and time, suggesting that Bacon not only conceived of a new, progressive mode of historical time which would allow for the assertion of a textual authority based on the records of a civilisation unbroken by the vicissitudes of time, but that he figured these theories in New Atlantis. Chapter three argues that Bacon used theology both as defence and imperative to his intellectual programme, while his attempt to move beyond the deterministic, Calvinist world-view to allow for multiple possible futures, or `chance': Bacon could then present experiment as the way of eliminating chance, in order to accelerate the rate of new discovery. Chapter four investigates Bacon's manipulations of textual authority, from the early rehearsals of the Instauratio magna to the performance of reliability in print in Sylva sylvarum. Finally, the afterword seeks to suggest that the New Atlantis hinges on the issues of authority with which Bacon engaged throughout his career and writings: in the issue of authority, Francis Bacon found the beginning and the end of his philosophy.

Two opposing philosophical outlooks can be discerned in the thought of the men discussed in this dissertation.. The humanist view, associated with Archer and Barker, sees life as centred solely on man; the religious thinkers, Yeats and Craig, are concerned with man's relationship with a power beyond himself. Shaw is unique in his advocacy of contradictory elements from both philosophies. The humanist thinkers are concerned in art with the communication of information about man; those of the religious party value an indescribable experience communicated by artistic symbols. These two kinds of communication can perhaps be seen in the English theatre of the nineteenth century; the theatre of the early part of the century made use of a traditional language of theatrical symbols, while the later theatres of Irving and the Bancrofts abandoned tradition in favour of new "realistic" portrayals of society and human psychology. Archer illustrates the humanist approach to art in his concern for the moral and psychological information conveyed by the play. In his humanist guise, Shaw emphasizes the need for drama to convey new social and philosophical ideas. For Barker, drama conveys, through the medium of the actor, a special kind of "subjective" truth. Each of the religious theorists seeks symbolic value in a different facet of the theatrical performance;, for Yeats, the religious communication is achieved by the traditional symbols of poetry; for Shaw, in his religious guise, the performer is the prime source of symbolic value; for Craig, purely visual symbols of natural process provide a glimpse of a world untainted by man's egotism. The theories are open to criticism. The humanist theories seem to deny the value of artistic form, while the religious theories seem to seek form without content. All the theories seem to show insufficient respect for the laws of audience psychology.

The imagery of the plays of John Webster and John Ford is not only verbal: in staging as well as language these dramas display strongly imagistic, symbolic elements. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the seven extant tragedies of Webster and Ford from the point of view of their total dramatic nature - to examine the staging, costumes, hand and large properties, movement and gestures as well as the verbal imagery, and the interplay of these verbal and visual elements. The original appearance, of these plays in their contemporary theatre, and the dramatist's intentions for performance, can only be surmised. The original stage directions are examined for hints of the original presentation: these stage directions may not always be authorial, but, especially in the case of Ford, they seem to reveal the playwright's hand. The dialogue, too, frequently implies particular gestures, grouping or stage placement. The visual imagery, it is here suggested, is created by the dramatist for several purposes: a moral or ironical point may be silently established; a chain of related visual motifs may bind various actions and characters into an organic union; a visualization may appeal outward to other works of art or theatrical or non-dramatic conventions, enlarging the immediate significance by this shorthand reference; visual ceremonies may make concrete the more ephemeral words and feelings of the characters. Each of the tragedies is studied in a separate chapter, in the following order: Webster's The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, and Appius and Virginia (the authorship of which is disputed); John Ford's The Broken Heart, Love's Sacrifice, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Perkin Warbeck. A conclusion indicates the differences between Webster's more overtly theatrical visualizations and Ford's quiet tableaux. The thesis is accompanied by illustrations which are either explanatory or comparative.

This thesis is an intensive study of a manuscript miscellany dating from the early years of the reign of James VI and 1: British Library Manuscript Additional 22601. Compiled by someone who had close links to the court, but who was also likely to have been associated with the Inns of Court and possibly with the south-west of England, the miscellany contains verse (including that of King James) and prose in a wide range of genres, with a particular interest in the political culture of the period. My thesis provides a description of the manuscript's contents as a whole and then goes on to focus on texts from three specific genres: the letter, political prose, and poetry. Studying these individually and in their immediate context, it goes on to trace their appearance in a number of other contemporary miscellanies held in British and North American archives. The two primary contentions of the thesis are (1) that manuscript miscellanies need to be treated as coherent wholes, whose arrangement to some extent determines the meaning of the texts they contain and (2) that in the process of transmission from one manuscript to another texts and their meanings are significantly modified. The act of transcription is thus also an act of interpretation. Building on work by Peter Beal, Mary Hobbs, Harold Love, Henry Woudhuysen and others, the thesis aims to expand our understanding both of the culture of scribal publication and of the ways in which that culture engaged with the political, religious and literary life of the nation.

The thesis investigates the cultural interventions of Hindu nationalist, C. Rajagopalachari (CR), by offering a close reading of his re-tellings of the Hindu epics, The Mahabharata (1951) and The Ramayana (1956). It positions them alongside the writings of M. K. Gandhi and the key responses to Katherine Mayo’s controversial text Mother India (1927). The thesis explores the central female protagonists of the epics – Sita and Draupadi – asking how these poetic representations illuminate the ways in which femininity was imagined by an influential Hindu ideologue during the early years of Indian Independence. Using close textual analysis as my principal method I suggest that these popular-literary representations of sexual identities in Hindu culture functioned as one means by which Hindu nationalists ultimately sought to regulate gender roles and modes of being. I focus on texts emerging in the years immediately before and after Independence and Partition. In this period, I suggest, the heroines of these versions of the epic texts are divested of their bodies and of their mythic powers in order to create pliant, de-sexualised female icons for women in the new nation to emulate. Through an examination of the responses to Katherine Mayo’s Mother India (1927), and of Gandhi’s writings, I argue that there one can discern an attempt in the Hindu Indian script to define female sexual identity as maternal, predominantly in service to the nation. These themes, I argue, were later articulated in CR’s recasting of the Hindu epics. CR’s epics represent the vision of gender within Hindu nationalism that highlights female chastity in the epics, elevating female chastity into an authentic and perennial virtue. I argue, however, that these ‘new’ representations in fact mark a re-working of much older traditions that carries forward ideas from the colonial period into the period of Independence. I explore this longer colonial tradition in the Prologue, through a textual analysis of the work of William Jones and James Mill. Thus my focus concerns the symbolic forms of the nation – its mythologies and icons – as brought to life by an emergent Hindu nationalism, suggesting that these symbolic forms offer an insight into the gendering of the independent nation. The epics represented an idealised model of Hindu femininity. I recognise, of course, that these identities are always contested, always unfinished. However I suggest that, through the recasting of the epic heroines, an idea of female sexuality entered into what senior Hindu nationalist and Congressman, K.M. Munshi, called ‘the unconscious of India’.

The thesis demonstrates how Wallace Stevens' poetry utilises pre-Socratic philosophy in overcoming post-Kantian dislocation from the 'thing-in-itself'. I initially consider Stevens’ poetry in terms of Hans-Georg Gadamer's ontological conception of the 'play' of art, an interactive existence overlooked by Kant. Through the ‘play’ of Stevens’ poems the reading audience are implicated in their reduction to being. The origin of this conception leads Gadamer back to Parmenides who Stevens had read. I argue that Stevens’ poetry ‘plays’ its audience into an ontological ground in an effort to show that his ‘reduction of metaphysics’ is not dry philosophical imposition, but is enacted by our encounter with the poems themselves. Through an analysis of how the language and form of Stevens’ poems attempt to reduce mind and world to concepts that parallel Parmenides’ poetic sense of being, and Heraclitus’ notion of becoming, the thesis uncovers the ground in which Stevens attempts a reconnection with the ‘thing-in-itself’. It is through the experience of reconnecting to an ontological centre, which his poetry presents as the human project, that Stevens’ poetry also presents itself as a means of replacing religion.From here we turn to Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida for an exposition of how such a reduction reduces the ‘Other’ to ‘otherness’ and their worry that this reduction legitimates violence within the thought of Martin Heidegger and Parmenides. From this I make a case for how such reductions are connected to what I refer to as 'the play of violence' in Stevens' poetry, and to refer this violence back to the mythology Stevens' poetry shares with certain pre-Socratics and with Greek tragedy. This shows how such mythic rhythms are apparent within the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Heidegger and Gadamer, and how these rhythms release a poetic understanding of the violence of a ‘reduction of metaphysics’.