Thesis--Berlin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Berlin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 473-498).

Diss. : Anglistik : Mainz : 1980. - Bibliogr. p. 180-200. Résumé en anglais. -

Recently, literary critics have increasingly drawn on methods of quantitative analysis to understand the readers and literature of the eighteenth century. Ironically, however, the eighteenth century is home to debates concerning the nature and usefulness of number, counting, and therefore, on some level, quantitative analysis. Eighteenth-century questions of number form an important part of the intellectual history of this period; these questions of number, in turn, hold important implications for language and the period's literature. I argue that the far-reaching influence of eighteenth-century questions of number can be seen especially well in the nature poetry of James Thomson. To explore this influence, I first discuss the problems of number presented to eighteenth-century mathematicians and philosophers by George Berkeley's critique of the infinitesimal calculus popularized by Isaac Newton. I then further explain the problems of number for eighteenth-century thinkers by drawing on philosopher Alain Badiou's theorization of the collapse of number in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This background brings to light connections between eighteenth-century questions of number and similar questions philosophers, such as John Locke, asked of language. These connections set the stage to discuss number in Thomson's The Seasons. Because of Thomson's rather unique exposure to the Newtonian tradition through his Edinburgh education, he was introduced not only to Newton's more popular discoveries, but also the mathematical and philosophical debates that swirled around Newton's methods. Coming out of this environment, Thomson's The Seasons display a particular kind of interest in number at its limits—infinity and zero. This paper will explore Thomson's tropological expressions of infinity and zero in the poem and note how these tropes replicate the logic of the sublime. Ultimately number at its limits in Thomson suggests the problems of expression, and, reading against traditional interpretations of Thomson, the limits of the Enlightenment project.

Over the long eighteenth century, Britain developed into the foremost naval power in world; with a fleet that could match the combined might of the next two largest European powers – as demonstrated in the Napoleonic Wars – Britain was understood, and understood itself, through the lens of maritime mastery. At the centre of this enduring framework was a potent symbol of Britain in the fused image of the sailor and the ship, as James Thomson’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’ and David Garrick’s ‘Heart of Oak’ fastened together the nation, the sailor, and the ship in a narrative of divinely ordained power and freedom, at once a justification of the empire and its mythology. This dissertation examines the ways that authors navigated these prevailing currents of naval exaltation, focusing closely on how those patriotic constructions were coopted to question the imperial cause. Indeed, I argue that, far from being a stable patriotic icon, the metaphorical unit of the sailor-ship was hotly contested in the eighteenth century. This study contributes to the growing scholarship of the ‘oceanic turn’, decolonizing the imperial assumptions of maritime discourse of and about this period. The challenges to the national narrative confronted the metaphor with its lived realities, a methodology that works both in stories of triumph and scenes of catastrophe, repudiating its assertions of mastery and liberty. This project reveals the decidedly ambivalent portrayal of British naval culture in works by well-known authors like Daniel Defoe, Tobias Smollett, William Cowper, and Olaudah Equiano in addition to engaging with some lesser-known labouring poets like Henry Needler and William Falconer. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / At the height of the British Empire, it spanned across the globe, held together by the mightiest navy the world had ever seen. The empire justified its existence, to both its own citizens as well as foreigners, as the natural result of a history of skilled sailors and strong ships. However, in the century leading up to the dominance of the British Empire, both the navy and literature about the navy were much less confident about the success of the national project. In fact, a large number of texts – both poems and novels – used the very same sailors and ships to expose the weaknesses of British ambitions. This dissertation examines how these anti-imperial texts functioned and why they were so successful. For a nation that relied on these watery symbols, what did it mean for those elements to be proven false?