The first part of this thesis offers an analysis of Elizabethan poetical treatises, such as Philip Sidney’s Apology for Poetry, in terms of Michel Foucault’s discursive formations, and the ways in which they were instrumental in redefining the sixteenth century literary terrain of poetry, prose, drama, poetics and literary criticism. It examines the role of contributory factors such as the Puritan attack, Renaissance humanism, the Ramist reform of logic and rhetoric, increased levels of literacy and printing. It explores conflicting definitions of poetry in the early modern period and its changing role and function, and the appropriation of significant elements from other discourses, notably rhetoric, arguing that this process constituted part of the wider reorganisation of contemporary knowledges. The second part of the thesis is concerned with the work and practice of the writer George Gascoigne, author of the first poetical treatise in English and his importance as an Elizabethan poet.

This thesis proposes that the character of Grendel’s mother in Beowulf is a manifestation of a mythic type, derived from studies of European goddess figures and named here as the Woman in the Water. This myth takes the form of an inherent association between femininity and water, and connotes the binary oppositions of birth and death, creativity and destruction, and the overarching themes of chaos and transience. By examining the imagery in Beowulf and its contemporary literature, this thesis studies the figure of Grendel’s mother in the context of this myth, looking at how the nature of motherhood and the element of water combine to form a powerful symbolic image emblematising the transience of life. These images are interpreted within a psychoanalytical framework as well as a mythic contextual one, providing the myth with an analogue in the human subconscious; that of the abject mother, a figure which represents the inevitable return of life to the void of the womb. The thesis concludes by demonstrating how the entire poem can be read with the character of Grendel’s mother and the battle against transience in mind, and how it complements the poem’s overall theme and structure.

This thesis investigates Lyly's ironic use of traditional images, character types, plot situations, and forms of expression to suggest that Euphues was conceived in a spirit of extravagance. Part One examines the irony in Lyly's drama. His technique is based upon the principle of contrast, the part always to be considered in the light of its context. The integration of the songs supports their claim to Lyly's authorship. Sometimes the play is 'framed' by pertinent prologue and epilogue, confirming the effect of context. Lyly's court comedies aroused and complimented Queen Elizabeth but also contained a hidden element of instruction and request. Part Two suggests that Euphues was an ironic exhibition of false wit, sophistry, and rhetorical artifice intended to test the reader's power to discriminate substance from style. Lyly remains uncommitted to the style and the attitudes of Euphues. Part Three offers further evidence of Lyly's subtlety in wording and his skill in other-statement. A tradition of ironic euphuism is traced through Gascoigne, Pettie, Lyly and Shakespeare. The conclusion summarises the motives of the ironist.

De nombreuses études témoignent des liens qui existent entre les moyens de transport et la littérature, du point de vue du marcheur, du voyageur en train ou de l'automobiliste. À son tour, cette thèse s'interroge sur le vélo, longtemps négligé, en tant qu'objet qui façonne notre interaction avec des textes et propose une interface unique pour appréhender le monde. Cet ouvrage se propose d'étudier le cyclisme utilitaire et récréatif au tournant du XXe siècle dans une sélection de textes en anglais et en français, dont des romans, des récits de voyage et des guides. Il s'agit de démontrer que le vélo est devenu un dispositif privilégié, qui permet de faire bien plus que simplement déplacer des personnages d'un endroit à un autre. Les voyages à vélo deviennent un moyen de structurer les récits, de les ponctuer ou de dépeindre une nouvelle expérience sensorielle et esthétique. Le vélo est une des nombreuses technologies qui ont transformé la vie quotidienne à la fin de l'ère victorienne. La littérature démontre que cette technologie a contribué dans une certaine mesure à l'émergence d'une modernité accélérée, subjective et marchande que John Urry conçoit comme un fondement du XXe siècle. Or cette thèse révèle que depuis ses débuts, le vélo allait à contre-courant de la culture dominante, proposant une modernité alternative qui remettait en question la société bourgeoise, patriarcale et capitaliste. En brouillant les différences entre les classes et les sexes, en proposant une interaction plus responsable et stimulante avec la machine, en permettant une expérience corporelle et sociale de l'espace, le vélo a proposé une route à propulsion humaine vers le progrès. / The compelling links between modes of transport and literature have been widely examined from the perspective of the walker, the train traveller and the car driver. This thesis engages with the long overlooked bicycle as an object that actively shapes our interaction with text and provides a unique interface for viewing the world. I assess literary treatments of utilitarian and recreational cycling in a range of English and French fiction, as well as some travel writing and non-fiction, from the turn of the twentieth century. I show how the bicycle became a favoured literary device, allowing writers to do much more than simply make a story appear up-to-date or move a character from place to place; authors used cycle journeys as a means to structure or punctuate their narratives or depict a novel sensory and aesthetic experience. The late-Victorian era saw the emergence of the modern bicycle along with a host of other transport and communication technologies that transformed everyday life. Literature from the early period of the bicycle's adoption shows how this technology contributed in some measure to the emergence of an accelerated, subjective, commodified modernity that the critic John Urry argues defined the twentieth century. Yet this thesis reveals that from the earliest days of its use, the bicycle played a crucial counter-cultural role, proposing an alternative modernity that directly challenged bourgeois, patriarchal, capitalist society. From blurring gender and class divisions, to offering a more empowering interaction with the machine, to allowing an embodied and social experience of space, the bicycle suggested a human-powered route to progress.Mots clefs en français: Littérature anglophone, littératures comparées cultural studies, vélo, technologie, transports, modernité.Mots clefs en anglais: English literature, comparative literature, cultural studies, bicycles, technology, transport, modernity.

My first year as an educator has followed a tumultuous pattern. Not only was I exploring who I was becoming as an educator, but I was also a full-time graduate school student. I attempted to collect student data through a variety of ways, including formal and informal assessments and listening to student anecdotes, which proved to be more difficult than anticipated. When I began writing this narrative, I had yet to step foot into a classroom and work with children. I had a different idea and perspective than I did after becoming a teacher of record. Throughout the year, my mental and physical health was altered multiple times. There were times when I let my own school work suffer in favor of my work with my students and vice versa. There were times when I fantasized about dropping out of graduate school and quit my job, and there were times when I thoroughly enjoyed working on my homework and going to work. This narrative is a reflection of those ups and downs and tracks the progress of myself and the students I have interacted with. What follows is a yearlong exploration of myself, my environment, and my students who have proven to be simultaneous sources of stress and comfort.

Abstract Modernism tends to be criticised, internationally, as politically conservative. The objection is often valid, although the charge says little about the quality of artistic achievement involved. This article argues that the alliance between Modernism and political conservatism is by no means a necessary one, and that there are instances where modernist vision has been used to convey substantive political insight, effective social critique and solid resistance. To illustrate the contrast,the article juxtaposes the abstract Modernism associated with Ben Nicholson and World War 2, with a neglected strain of South African railway poetry which uses modernist techniques to effect a powerful critique of South Africa’s apartheid dispensation. The article sustains a distinction between universalising modernist art that requires ethical work from its audiences to achieve artistic completion, and art in which modernist vision performs the requisite ethical work within its own formal constraints. Four very different South African railway poems, by Dennis Brutus, John Hendrickse, Alan Paton, and Leonard Koza, are examined and contextualised to demonstrate ways in which a modernist vision has been used to portray the social disruptions caused by apartheid. Modernist techniques are used to turn railway experience into a metonym for massive social disruption,without betraying the social reality of the transport technology involved.

Christianity, as a religion centered on the Incarnation of a spiritual being, is always necessarily a religion of embodiment, but its attitude toward that embodiment has always been one of distrust. The juxtaposition of seemingly opposing forces—flesh and spirit, affect and intellect—results in problematic but inevitable troubling of binary oppositions. Late medieval devotion is replete with mediators that serve to focus meditation and prayer in order to bring the individual closer to God, but they can also represent the physical presence of God and bring God closer to the individual. A study of these various modes of mediation will reveal how the connections between spiritual and physical were conceived. Mediation—whether of language, the senses and emotions, texts and objects, or saints—reveals and reestablishes our connection to the divine. Using the depictions of the Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix, found in the devotional literature of medieval England as a starting point, this study explores the mechanism of mediation in medieval Christian thought. The first two chapters examine the problem of the erotic in religious discourse, focusing primarily on architectural allegory and imagery and language borrowed from the Song of Songs. Architectural allegories representing the female body of the Virgin Mary and the female religious draw on both spiritual allegories and allegories found in secular love poetry and romance. The use of eros in devotional discourse creates a tension between the prescribed chastity and sensory restriction and the highly sensual, sexual language and heightens the emotional effect of the text. The second two chapters focus on compassion, first looking at planctus Mariae, or Marian laments, to examine how a meditating reader is drawn into the scene of the passion through dialogue with Mary and through Mary’s control of the meditative gaze. The final chapter examines how devotional images can be used as mediators because of their ability to represent (and in some sense be) an invisible, divine reality.

Christianity, as a religion centered on the Incarnation of a spiritual being, is always necessarily a religion of embodiment, but its attitude toward that embodiment has always been one of distrust. The juxtaposition of seemingly opposing forces—flesh and spirit, affect and intellect—results in problematic but inevitable troubling of binary oppositions. Late medieval devotion is replete with mediators that serve to focus meditation and prayer in order to bring the individual closer to God, but they can also represent the physical presence of God and bring God closer to the individual. A study of these various modes of mediation will reveal how the connections between spiritual and physical were conceived. Mediation—whether of language, the senses and emotions, texts and objects, or saints—reveals and reestablishes our connection to the divine. Using the depictions of the Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix, found in the devotional literature of medieval England as a starting point, this study explores the mechanism of mediation in medieval Christian thought. The first two chapters examine the problem of the erotic in religious discourse, focusing primarily on architectural allegory and imagery and language borrowed from the Song of Songs. Architectural allegories representing the female body of the Virgin Mary and the female religious draw on both spiritual allegories and allegories found in secular love poetry and romance. The use of eros in devotional discourse creates a tension between the prescribed chastity and sensory restriction and the highly sensual, sexual language and heightens the emotional effect of the text. The second two chapters focus on compassion, first looking at planctus Mariae, or Marian laments, to examine how a meditating reader is drawn into the scene of the passion through dialogue with Mary and through Mary’s control of the meditative gaze. The final chapter examines how devotional images can be used as mediators because of their ability to represent (and in some sense be) an invisible, divine reality.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007. / Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 25, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0608. Adviser: Lawrence Clopper.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.