In this thesis I have undertaken a close reading of texts by William Walwyn, Abiezer Coppe and James Nayler. In reading Nayler, I have also engaged with texts by Richard Farnsworth and Richard Baxter. My approach has been to consider these writings in their own terms and right, rather than merely as contextual sidelights on literary or social matters. I believe that all writing expresses aesthetic concerns and social attitudes. I hope my study will contribute to a necessary and continuing project of recovering such voices, so often marginalised and considered either as symptoms of mental disorder, or simply of no literary value. I have applied Bakhtinian perspectives and Discourse Analysis in my readings, although I hope not to the detriment of the writers' own understanding of their work, as I am reluctant to impose ahistorical interpretations on the writings of a previous era. I believe many misunderstandings arise from such procedures. I have not wished to apply a strategic reading to these texts, but rather to recover what they meant for their writers and readers at the extraordinary moment which produced them. I have attempted to integrate them in their own historical context, to explain difficulties arising in their interpretation, to explore their theology and social message, and as far as possible to relate them to the literary history from which they have been largely divorced. The thesis is not intended as a general review of pamphlet literature, of which there are several valuable examples, but as exploration and explanation of specific writings by representatives of the 'Radical Protestant' movements known as Levellers, Ranters and Quakers.

This thesis considers the life and poems of John Milton, particularly his biography and critics contained in Paradise Lost and its inspiring influence on others' work, such as Wordsworth's The Prelude.

Hardy approached the problem of nineteenth-century realism as an ontological and literary concern largely through images of perception. This thesis suggests that Hardy adopted an innovative approach in an effort to identify the term, and argues that his subversive contribution to the Great Debate occasioned the necessary impetus for the experimental fictions of the twentieth century. In rejecting the orthodox, aesthetic prescriptions established by such authorities as George Eliot and Henry James, it is suggested that Hardy released the Victorian novel from its restricting reliance on ostensibly objective fact and paved the way for a more subjective interpretation of reality and a more introspective kind of narrative. It is contended that Hardy's literary response to a range of optical treatises encouraged his challenging reinterpretation of reality. As a preparatory measure, 'A Pair of Blue Eyes' metaphorically petrifies the perspective; 'Far from the Madding Crowd' interrogates Ruskin's theory of moral perception; 'The Return of the Native' looks at phenomena through an intellectual lens; 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' judges a reality filtered through a sartorially-inclined public eye instructed by Carlyle; 'The Woodlanders', the turning point in the sequence, observes with an eye disillusioned by the evolutionists; 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' creates a reality from the affective eye championed by Comte and Fourier; 'Jude the Obscure' wanders blindly between two literary eras, perceptual incoherences, and dislocations between phenomenal and noumenal compromising the narrative's formal integrity. This thesis maintains that, through an idiosyncratic frame of referentiality as well as regard, Hardy transforms the objective, material world into his own versions of reality, and triumphs over oppressive facts by subjectively appropriating them. Each of Hardy's works offers an alternative yet equally viable perceptual angle from which the creation, form, and function of reality as a psychological, practical, ontological, and literary concern can be judged.

This thesis studies the subject of Spiritualism in relation to the life and work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Introduction refers briefly to the controversial phenomenon of Spiritualism in the nineteenth century, and the problems relating to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's belief and active interest in the subject. Chapter One traces the rise of Spiritualism in Victorian times from its ancient origins, concentrating on the life of the famous medium D. D. Home. Chapters Two and Three describe Elizabeth Barrett Browning's experience of the phenomenon, and the following four chapters discuss her poetry within the context of her spiritualistic beliefs. Although she rarely referred specifically to Spiritualism in her work, she was much preoccupied with death, the notion of immortality, the nature and condition of the human soul and of the spiritual life; Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven do not seek to detect spiritualistic elements in all of her poems, but to explore her handling of these related themes, and her interest in Death as an important thematic element in her work, and as a source of much of her imagery.

Old English poetry is centred on the concept of community and the importance of belonging. Landscape was a component of any community since, during the period when Old English poetry was being composed and written down, the landscape was a far more important constituent of daily life than it is for the majority of people today. Landscape dictated the places that could be settled, as well as the placing of the paths, fords, and bridges that joined them; it controlled boundaries, occupations, and trading routes. In the poetry of the period landscape, as part of the fabric of community, is the arbiter of whether each element of a community is in its proper place and relationship to the others. It is the means of explaining how a community is constructed, policed, and empowered. Erring communities can be corrected or threats averted through the medium of landscape which also positions communities in place and time. Landscape is presented as the cause of dissension in heaven, the consequent creation of hell, and the key to comprehension of the fundamental difference between them. The linguistic landscapes of Old English poetry are a functional component of the meaning inherent in the narratives.

This thesis examines the process of adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays into the graphic novel medium. It traces the history of these adaptations from the first comic books produced in the mid-twentieth century to graphic novels produced in the twenty-first century. The editions used for examination have been selected as they are indicative of key developments in the history of adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays into the medium. This thesis explores how the plays are presented and the influences on the styles of presentation. It traces the history of the form and how the adaptations have been received in various periods. It also examines how the combination of illustrations and text and the conventions of the medium produce unique narrative capacities, how these have developed over time and how they used to present the plays. Sales data of Shakespeare graphic novels is presented and analysed to reveal the target audience is the education sector which in turn drives the publisher’s promotion of the authenticity and fidelity of their editions. How authenticity is claimed and invoked in the adaptation into graphic novels is also examined.

The thesis consists of a biography of Ulpian Fulwell (1546-1586) and a critical edition of The Art of Flattery (1576). The biography contains new material derived from documents at the Public Record Office and the Gloucester Diocesan Registry, giving new information on Fulwell's family background and his career as a clergyman. It is argued that the conflict between the townspeople of Wells and the Cathedral clergy provides the background and impetus for Fulwell's satire in The Art of Flattery. The critical edition of The Art of Flattery outlines the printing history of the book and discusses the variants between the first and second editions, and between the two copies of the first edition. The identification of the Archdeacon of Wells attacked in the Fifth Dialogue is attempted. The Literary Introduction sets Fulwell's satirical dialogues in the context of Lucian, the colloquies of Erasmus, and the English Renaissance dialogues of More, Elyot and Ascham. A critical analysis of the work traces its form to the bipartite structure of classical verse satire, with its confrontation between Author and Adversarius.

Troilus and Cressida is the unusual instance of a Shakespearean play which had long been read and commented upon before stage practitioners explored it in the theatre. My thesis examines the changing perceptions of the play’s characters, paying attention to the chronological relationship between revisions in literary criticism, much of which was written with little proximity to performance, with reinterpretations during its British stage history. The thesis has a particular focus on issues of gender and sexuality. Both the theatre and literary criticism reflected and responded to social change in their dealings with this play, but they did so at different moments. By using the case of Troilus and Cressida, I examine whether theatrical practice or academic literary criticism has acted as the more efficient cultural barometer. Revisions of Cressida are my central example and I also examine the reinterpretations of eight other characters. The delayed acceptance of the play into the theatre means that the claims of relevance become especially acute. Despite the perceived progressive potential of performance, I conclude that theatrical representations of characters in this play have been slow to change in relation to the revisions seen on the pages of literary criticism.

This thesis consists of studies of Lodge's writings in the major genres during his literary career, from 1579 to 1596. The first chapter is a biographical sketch, with particular attention to that period. The literary career is seen as a diversion and a postponement of his real vocations, medicine and Catholicism. The sixth chapter comments briefly on the pamphlets and the later works. The four main chapters treat, respectively, plays, prose fiction, lyric poems and sonnets, narrative and satirical verse. The studies include description of little-known works, structural and prosodic analysis, critical assessment, some textual criticism, source study and consideration of Elizabethan literary history as it impinges upon Lodge's writings. The bibliography is part of the thesis and is intended as a research, tool in its own right. It consists of classified lists of essential materials for scholarly and critical work on Lodge. The thesis is thus partly exploratory and preparatory. The main critical contention is that Lodge's literary reputation has suffered from its subsidiary relationship with Shakespeare's. Lodge excelled as a poet, particularly as a lyrist, and ought to be regarded primarily as such, rather than primarily as a prose romancer (i.e., author of Rosalynde). It is urged that editions of Lodge's works, beginning with the verse, are needed.

Focusing on the novels of Wilkie Collins, this thesis identifies the ways in which Collins’s narratives outline the complex nature of layperson interactions with, and experiences of, medicine, healthcare and illness in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a variety of contextual sources, ranging from letters, diaries and recipe books to newspaper articles, architectural plans and courtroom testimonies, the discussion uses Collins’s work alongside these documents to demonstrate that many of his middle-class readers would have encountered aspects of medicine and illness in a surprising array of settings, spaces, discourses and domains. In bringing these points of intersection to light, the thesis argues that Collins’s work stands as a substantial record of how the lay public energetically and intelligently engaged with medical matters – a point often overlooked – but also emphasises Collins’s own vibrant interest in medicine, bodies and illness. In so doing, the discussion is able to draw out new dimensions to Collins’s treatment of key themes, such as the relationships between bodies and gender, architecture and illness, and medicine and literature, and to provide new readings of a range of his major and lesser-known works.