"Rudy Wiebe and the Historicity of the Word" analyzes Wiebe's six major novels published to date: Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), First and Vital Candle (1966), The Blue Mountains of China (1970), The Temptations of Big Bear 1973), The Scorched-Wood People (1977), and My Lovely Enemy (1983). Traditional literary critical terms and concepts prove inappropriate to Wiebe's work because they implicitly reinstate the ideological postulates Wiebe calls into question. This study therefore employs the theoretical framework developed by Mikhail Bakhtin and V. N. Vološinov. The introductory chapter provides a synoptic view of the six novels, relates Wiebe's authorial objectives and practices to his cultural and religious background, surveys relevant critical discussions of Wiebe's work, and defines the central theoretical principles of Bakhtin and Vološinov. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss Peace Shall Destroy Many and First and Vital Candle respectively, establishing that although Wiebe shows considerable interest in "the dialogic principle" at a thematic level, his overt rhetorical intentions prevent him from realizing this principle in his writing. Chapters 4 and 5 examine Wiebe's use of polyphonic narrative forms in The Blue Mountains of China and The Temptations of Big Bear. Analysis of the inter- and intra-textual politics of these two novels demonstrates that overtly dialogic narrative forms may remain functionally monologic. Chapter 6 considers The Scorched-Wood People and Wiebe's strategy of embedding voices within other voices, a practice which compounds the "internal dialogization" of the prose. Chapter 7 discusses My Lovely Enemy as a challenge to various forms of anti-imaginative discourse, and to prevailing notions of artistic creativity. Chapter 8 focusses on the question of the provenance of "voice" and concludes that although Wiebe's novels exploit the historicity of the Word—indeed, of all words—they also bear the legacy of a monologic Christian fundamentalist model of language. An Appendix entitled "The Early History and Doctrines of the Mennonite Church" describes Wiebe's dialogue with Menno Simons' doctrines of the Word. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The major conclusion of this thesis is that Henry Watterson, while representative of the Redeemer element, was the product of a Jacksonian, rather than a Whig, heritage which had an ideology quite similar to the Redeemer appeal. In determining his exact philosophy the study shows that the editor was quite different from his contemporaries in the New South in both the substance and integrity of his beliefs.

In 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy. This effectively stripped all of the authority the Pope held in England and gave it to Henry VIII. Also because of the Act of Supremacy Henry VIII gained a new title: Supreme Head of the Church of England. However, there was a problem. The Act of Supremacy only vaguely defined the new powers that had been given to the King. Consequently, what exactly his new powers were and their limits had to be established. The other issue that had to be dealt with was the establishment of the canons of the Church of England. It was a new church with no canons or rules in place other then the establishment of Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England The purpose of this thesis is to explore the use of Anabaptists and Sacramentaries in the formulation of the doctrine of the Church of England and the expansion of Henry VIII's power as Supreme Head of the Church of England. Henry was able to use the Anabaptists and Sacramentaries because they posed no real threat to the state but were easy tools to be manipulated. The main documents that will be dealt with are the November 1538 Royal Proclamation Prohibiting Unlicensed Printing of Scripture, Exiling Anabaptists, Depriving Married Clergy, Removing St. Thomas à Becket from Calendar, the trial of John Lambert, and the February 1539 Royal Proclamation Prescribing Rites and Ceremonies, Pardoning Anabaptists.

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Washington Square, like The Portrait of a Lady, is an open-ended Henry James novel that concludes ambiguously and unhappily, counter to the trend of many other Victorian novels. While many contemporary Victorian novels center on marriage and inheritance plots, concluding their protagonists' struggles with felicitous performative utterances of "I do" and "I bequeath," Catherine Sloper's future is less clear: at the conclusion of Washington Square, she remains both unmarried and disinherited. Both characters and readers alike seem stymied by Catherine's motivations at the end of the novel, as famously studied in Judith Butler's essay, "Values of Difficulty." Catherine seems calculable, submissive, and guileless at the beginning of the novel--both her father, Dr. Sloper, and her suitor, Morris Townsend, judge her to be good but "decidedly not clever." So what happens over the course of the novel to produce Catherine's infelicitous and incomprehensible outcome? This thesis's performative reading of Washington Square sheds light on the infelicitous and inscrutable conclusion to Catherine's story. At a critical moment in the novel, when her inheritance is at stake, Catherine refuses to be coerced into offering a promise that is demanded from her by her father. "I can't explain," says Catherine," "And I can't promise." This refusal to promise, or refusal to enact a felicitous performative--accompanied by an inability to explain her refusal--is a suspensive and powerful method of disinterpellation. Catherine unmakes herself as a subject in the capitalist ideology of the male antagonists in Washington Square--and thus, becomes incomprehensible to them--by insisting on infelicity. This powerful disinterpellation helps Catherine regain control over her future.

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