The Imperative Commands is an interdisciplinary creative writing PhD in two parts: (a) a poem-object of 365 pages, which is an original engagement with found everyday instructional language, reimagined in an experimental/visual format; (b) ‘Appropriate Language,’ a critical and theoretical afterword exploring the inspiration, themes and methods of the poem. The premise of The Imperative Commands is to investigate current institutional and corporate language and appropriate it as poetry. It is a collagistic arrangement of found imperatives and assertions, harvested from the language of state institutions and corporate bodies that hail people on a daily basis. To create this long poetic work I set myself the initial constraint of harvesting found language during the course of a calendar year (May 1st 2014 to 30th April 2015). During this time I collected found imperatives, assertions, naturalizations of contestable information as fact, and other forms of overt and tacit instruction. The material was then transcribed, organized and rearranged in a variety of forms, using both chance and editorial interventions to make deviant collocations, stochastic juxtapositions, concrete-visual constellations and lyrical expression. ‘Appropriate Language’ breaks into several forms of afterword. The introduction outlines the general architecture and aims behind The Imperative Commands, as well as key influences on my practice and what inspired the thesis. Its main purpose is to explore ideas around how society is manipulated by language and ideology by, and for, the various institutions that seek to influence us. To do this it focuses on the writing of two thinkers: (1) the so-called ‘father of public relations’ Edward Bernays (1891-1995), who was instrumental in developing PR in the 20th century; and (2) French philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990) and his theory of Ideological State Apparatuses—which form and inform the essential structure of society outside the state—and interpellation, whereby individuals become ‘subjects’ through the ways in which they are hailed by ISAs and ideology. The second purpose of ‘Appropriate Language’ is to consider the affinities and differences that The Imperative Commands has with Conceptual Writing, with a particular focus on the work and ideas of poet Kenneth Goldsmith (b. 1961). My research into Conceptual Writing, and its claims of unreadability, helped to remind me of the importance of readability that I feel about my own work. That the organization of the found texts should be a readable, though idiosyncratic, book is crucial to The Imperative Commands. The harvested material when reorganized to make the poem reveals aspects of the life of a subject during a specific period of time, with disparate facets of social control brought into focus through the various language forms that constitute everyday life. The poem-object, that is also a social document, explores ways of uniting the notion of ‘concept’ and experimental writing—particularly within some of the methodologies of Conceptual Writing—with ways of maintaining and supporting a ‘self’ that is both lyrical and political.

Frequently employing the device of close textual analysis, this thesis attempts to chart, and subsequently examine, some of the ordering systems which would appear to inform, in a variety of ways, Malcolm Lowry's novel Under the Volcano. The introduction sets out to try and explain why the novel can be regarded, to some extent at least, as an 'open' text, and further suggests that the reader himself is posited by Lowry as an implied organising consciousness. Dividing the analysis into the fields of external, symbolic and motival areas of potential order, the thesis then proceeds to further examine smaller units of Lowry's processes. Although generally acknowledged as a dense or complex text, Under the Volcano has infrequently been subjected to rigorous textual analysis and, as such, the thesis charts some large new areas which have so far only remained peripheral to Lowry studies, always seeking to draw attention to how any given system corresponds to itself, as well as to other related areas of reference. Mythic, literary, cabbalistical, and other relevant material is introduced if it assists in defining any specific aspect of a potential ordering system. The thesis concludes that Under the Volcano seeks to draw attention to its own obsession with pattern and that one of Lowry's purposes is to enable his reader to imaginatively participate in the ordering and re-ordering of the novel's basic materials.

This thesis concerns the conflict between Byron the poet and Byron the man of action in so far as such a study illuminates the poetry. The aim has been to trace this conflict as it developed in Byron's work, in terms of a discourse between what he himself regarded as the spectator role of the poet and the participatory role of the man of action. The study therefore concentrates on those poems and materials that illustrate the tension between the poet and the man, and reflect Byron's movement from poetry to action. The first chapter outlines the argument of the subsequent discussion and provides certain relevant biographical details as a background to it. Hence we move from Byron's early poetic expressions of his desire for fame and action, through his critical observations on poetry and action, his parliamentary schemes and his attitude towards Napoleon, to his engagement in the Italian uprising and, finally, to his active commitment to the Greek War of Independence. Bach succeeding chapter seeks to formulate more cogently the principal issues that arise in this first chapter. Chapter 2 discusses Byron's interest and performance in the House of Lords. His speeches, which have met with little critical scrutiny, are considered both as pieces of oratory and as an effort by Byron to engage seriously and actively with English politics. The third chapter analyses Byron's attitude towards Napoleon as the archetype of the contemporary man of action. In particular, a sustained critique is offered of the ode to Napoleon Buonaparte and the Napoleon poems of 1815, since none of these has received due critical attention. Chapter 4 studies closely three crucial texts The Prisoner of Chi lion. The Lament of Tasso and The Prophecy of Dante. These are considered as a sequence, as an extended meditation on the theme of mental imprisonment, in order to reflect Byron's coming to terms with himself and his emergence from poetry to action. The final chapter continues this profession, resuming a polarity sketched in the first chapter between the world of poetry and the world of action. The aim here has been to re-iterate the tension between the poet and the man, in order to secure more forcefully the argument that the poem 'On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year', of which a new MS reading makes a material difference to its interpretation, is a poem of choice, the poetic endorsement of Byron's commitment to action. Marchand's complete edition of Byron' s Letters and Journals has been used throughout, as have, wherever possible, the first three volumes of McCann's new edition of The Complete Poetical Works.

This study aims at investigating the representations of Persia in a number of canonical and non-canonical texts in English literature. The theoretical framework comes from Edward Said’s analysis of orientalism. It is argued that the case of Persia instances the heterogeneous and striated character of orientalism (‘representations’ rather than ‘representation’ in the title). It is shown that while a number of relatively similar set of motifs and topoi, mainly derived from classical tradition and contemporary travel writing, circulate in the works of the three Renaissance authors included (Spenser, Marlowe, Milton), they are differently inflected and serve different thematic and ideological purposes. It is also suggested that the somewhat nascent orientalism of these authors develops into a more fully-fledged one in Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh where a basically Romantic notion of Persia as an exotic land is overridden by its construction as a realm fallen to foreign domination and cultural dispossession so as to displace the poet’s radical political views. Finally, it is shown how the motifs and topoi teased out in the analysis of the matter of Persia in the works of the authors preceding James Morier find their characteristic form and their most effective articulation in his fiction, especially the Hajji Baba novels which arrogate the representation of the ‘real’ Persia. Central to the analysis is the point that though Said’s theorisation of orientalism is immensely useful, and essential, to any consideration of the orientalist canon, issues such as masquerading and displacing as well as the specificities of each text, of its context, and of the object of representation, compound the notion of orientalism as merely a mode of Western domination and hegemony.

Rethinking Urban Space in Contemporary British Writing argues that the prose literature of its featured authors offers a unique forum through which to perceive and account for the multifarious agency of urban space. Chapter one examines the limitations of using the Marxist spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre, widely adopted by literary scholars, to account for the widespread appearance of abandoned, subterranean and transient spaces in contemporary British writing. The thesis then develops new ways of reading which, unlike Lefebvrean theory, allow such spaces to emerge as affective and narrative agents, shaping narrative form and action. Chapter two focuses upon reading abandoned spaces in the work of Iain Sinclair and Cheshire-born author Nicholas Royle; chapter three examines the agency of the subterranean city-space in narratives by Neil Gaiman, Tobias Hill and Conrad Williams; and chapter four interrogates the agency exerted by the hotel space in contemporary hotel novels by Ali Smith and Monica Ali. Throughout, the materialism of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer is combined with affect theory to stress the narrative and affective agencies achieved by such urban spaces, precisely due to their transcendence of the networks of production and exchange which dominate the capitalist-driven cities of their fictional worlds.

This thesis examines the functions of music in the extant repertory of a single playing company, the Admiral’s Men, at their primary venues between 1594 and 1621. Music’s effectiveness as a theatrical tool depends upon the presence of an audience willing and able to be affected by it. The mimetic relationship between representation in the playhouse and musical practices in the non-dramatic world allows that ability. This thesis traces the dissemination of musical behaviors and ideas to potential playgoers and offers a critical analysis of the evidence of musical performance and discourse in the repertory. Contrary to the long-standing reputation of the company as appealing primarily to a rough and rowdy audience (particularly at the first Fortune), the use of music throughout the repertory suggests the continuous presence of a socially diverse and musically literate body of theatrical patrons.

Suspense and surprise, as common and crucial elements of interest realised in literary fiction, are analysed closely in a sample of short stories, so as to develop a detailed explanation of how these forms of interest are created in literary texts, and to propose models for them. Creating suspense involves more conditions, necessary and optional, and more complication than surprise: the several optional conditions mainly serve to intensify the feeling of suspense the reader experiences. Surprise requires two necessary and sufficient conditions, with only a couple of optional conditions to maintain or ensure coherence in the text. The differences are considered attributable to a more fundamental difference between suspense and surprise as emotions. Suspense can be regarded as a progressive emotion, whereas surprise is a perfective emotion. As such, suspense as an interest is considered as a process-oriented interest, while surprise is an effect-oriented one. Suspense is mostly experienced while reading and has the reader involved with the story. Surprise drives the reader to reassess the story in the new light it throws on events and to look for some further message; this is often a main aim of the literary fiction which ends in surprise.

William Haughton’s Englishmen for My Money, published in three extant early modern editions in 1616, 1626 and 1631, began to receive the literary attention it deserves in the 1990s. Fuller contextual and bibliographical enquiries have yet to be offered, which this edition seeks to redress. The Introduction begins by identifying Haughton’s biographical details, before moving on to issues in dating Englishmen’s composition. It then offers a survey of the play’s generic, historical, and cultural contexts. A reconstruction of theatrical practices is provided. Provisional studies of the underlying manuscript, a hypothetical Q0, and Q1 are offered. Editorial methods are discussed, together with brief descriptions of Q2, Q3 and later editions. The modern-spelling edited Text that follows conforms, with noted exceptions, to the guidelines of Arden Shakespeare Third Series. The Commentary provides glossing, discusses readings and textual cruces, and highlights Haughton’s use of sources, proverbs, and literary, cultural and biblical allusions. Two appendices present information on Q1’s running title descriptions and a census of extant copies for Q1–3. A DVD at the back of the second volume contains a digital facsimile of the base text.

The purpose of this research is to investigate Thomas Hardy’s relation to the Gothic tradition, especially that deriving from the classic period 1760-mid-1820s. The main novels chosen for such an investigation are Two on a Tower, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Parallels with the following texts form the heart of the thesis: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, William Godwin, Caleb Williams, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer. This investigation has been instigated by three major elements noted in the criticism on Hardy’s literary art in general and on his tragedies in particular. First, although Hardy scholars employ terminology pertaining to the Gothic and romance genres in describing Hardy’s plots, characters and settings, very few of them make a direct and explicit connection to the Gothic novel. Second, the few who do broach the Gothic elements in Hardy’s fiction limit their understanding of the kind of Gothic Hardy employs mainly to the second quarter of the nineteenth century and onwards. Moreover, they seem to be more willing to admit such influence in his minor works, obfuscating the influence of Gothic discourse on his major novels. Therefore, this research will attempt to investigate Hardy’s involvement with Gothic discourse and examine the ways in which the characteristic settings, drama and character-types of such discourse are domesticated, complicated and made more subtle in Hardy’s work. Finally, it envisages further investigation into Hardy’s work in its relation to his architectural knowledge and his philosophic views of life in general, and his views of humanity’s place in it in particular.

This study investigates William Butler Yeats’s relationship to the issues of colonialism and anti-colonialism and his stance as a postcolonial poet. A considerable part of Yeats criticism has read him either as a revolutionary and anti-colonial figure or a poet with reactionary and colonialist mentality. The main argument of this thesis is that in approaching Yeats’s position as a (post)colonial poet, it is more fruitful to avoid an either / or criticism and instead to foreground the issues of change, circularity, and hybridity. The theoretical framework is based on Homi Bhabha’s analysis of the complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized identities. It is argued that Bhabha’s views regarding the hybridity of the colonial subject, and also the inherent complexity and ambiguity in the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized can provide us with a better understating of the Irish poet’s complex interactions with Irish nationalism and British colonialism. By a close reading of some of Yeats’s works from different periods of his long career, it is shown that most of the time he adopted a double, ambiguous, and even contradictory position with regard to his political loyalties. It is suggested that the very presence of tensions and uncertainties which permeates Yeats’s writings and utterances should warn us against a monolithic, static, and unchanging reading of his colonial identity. Finally, it is argued that a postcolonial approach which focuses on the issue of diversity and hybridity of the colonial subject can increase our awareness of Yeats’s complex role in and his conflicted relationship with a colonized and then a (partially) postcolonial Ireland.