Thesis--Gothenburg University. / Bibliography: p. 227-234.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1952. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-233).

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This study examines ways in which supporters of William III and his opponents used literature to buttress their respective views of government in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Understanding the polemical character of this art provides more insight both into the literature of the 1690s and into the modes of political debate in the period. As the English people moved from a primarily hereditary view of monarchy at the beginning of the seventeenth century to a more elective view of government in the eighteenth century, the Glorious Revolution proved to be a watershed event. Those favoring James II relied on patriarchal ideas to characterize the new regime as illegitimate, and supporters of the coregent asserted the priority of English and Biblical law to assert that the former king forfeited his right to rule. Chapter one examines three thinkers – Robert Filmer, John Milton, and John Locke – whose thought provides a context for opinions expressed in the years surrounding William of Orange’s ascension to the English throne. In chapter two, John Dryden’s response to James II’s abdication is explored. As the deposed Poet Laureate and a prominent voice supporting of the Stuart line, Dryden sheds light on ways in which Jacobites resisted the authority of the new regime through his response to the Glorious Revolution. Chapter three addresses the work of Thomas Shadwell, who succeeded Dryden as Laureate, and Matthew Prior, whose poetry Frances Mayhew Rippy characterizes as “unofficial laureate verse.” These poets rely on ideas similar to those expressed by Milton and Locke as they seek to validate the events of 1688-1689. The final chapter explores the appropriation of varied conceptions of government in pamphlets and manuscripts written in favor of James II and William III. Focusing on the polemical character of these works from the late 1680s and the 1690s enhances our understanding of the period’s literature and the prominent interaction of politics and writing.

The purpose of this thesis is to uncover the meaning of the difference between original versions and translations of two texts from Publius Ovidius Naso's Heroides, "Phyllis to Demophoon" and "Phaedra to Hippolytus." The first chapter describes John Dryden's system of translational practices and some theoretical issues surrounding literary translation and its critical interpretation. Even though translations have connections to the source text to some degree, each product of translation is a literary artifact on its own. The second chapter uses three translations of "Phyllis to Demophoon" by respectively Wye Saltonstall, Edward Pooley, and Edward Floyd as case studies demonstrating the variety of literary works that can originate from a single source text. The third chapter interprets Thomas Otway's translation of "Phaedra to Hippolytus" against Ovid's original in order to reveal the extensive presence of a certain characteristic irony in Otway's text. Otway also effectively translates Ovid's witty subtext.

The Reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in Contemporary Literature Kristýna Hoblová abstract This work of literary history analyses the reflection of the Exclusion Crisis (1678-1683) in contemporary literature across genres. It is based on the theory of the rise of the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas and on the theory of Michael McKeon, understanding the ideology of the late Stuarts as a last remnant of aristocratic ideology. The Exclusion Crisis is presented here as a period of unsettling negotiations between the declining Stuart ethos and the Whig ideology of the rising mercantile classes. The interpretation of chosen texts serves to discover creative transformations of the political discourse of the newly emerging political parties of Whigs and Tories, stressing the negotiations between genres, individual authors and political ideologies. The first chapter offers a brief overview of the socio-historical context, Habermas's theory of the rise of the public sphere and Michael McKeon's conception of aristocratic ideology. It also introduces the Tory political theory defending the Stuart divine right of kings on the basis of Robert Filmer's patriarchal household-state analogy and the Whig defence against absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts through asserting the priority of Law over the Royal...

In this project, I examine the impact of early literary criticism, early literary history, and the history of knowledge on the perception of the laureateship as it was formulated at specific moments in the eighteenth century. Instead of accepting the assessments of Pope and Johnson, I reconstruct the contemporary impact of laureate writings and the writing that fashioned the view of the laureates we have inherited. I use an array of primary documents (from letters and journal entries to poems and non-fiction prose) to analyze the way the laureateship as a literary identity was constructed in several key moments: the debate over hack literature in the pamphlet wars surrounding Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of Morocco (1673), the defense of Colley Cibber and his subsequent attempt to use his expertise of theater in An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740), the consolidation of hack literature and state-sponsored poetry with the crowning of Colley Cibber as the King of the Dunces in Pope’s The Dunciad in Four Books (1742), the fashioning of Thomas Gray and William Mason as laureate rejecters in Mason’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Whitehead (1788), Southey’s progressive work to abolish laureate task writing in his laureate odes 1813-1821, and, finally, in Wordsworth’s refusal to produce any laureate task writing during his tenure, 1843-1850. In each case, I explain how the construction of this office was central to the consolidation of literary history and to forging authorial identity in the same period. This differs from the conventional treatment of the laureates because I expose the history of the versions of literary history that have to date structured how scholars understand the laureate, and by doing so, reveal how the laureateship was used to create, legitimate and disseminate the model of literary history we still use today.