in the follovina pages I have set out to discover what English critics of the nineteenth century thought of the works of Victor Hugo* It has not been my intention to study the extent to which the general public of the period were acquainted with his works either directly or through the medium of translations but to confine myself to an enquiry into the reactions of the more cultivated minds of the century to the writings of the great Frenchman. Indeed it would be futile to consider the influence of the works of Hugo on the English public generally, during the nineteenth century for they had none. The Poetical works were in many cases not made available to them until years after their original publications and even then only a small minority would be able to read them. There were some translations of the poems, e.g. Reynold's "Songs of Twilight" ("Les Chants du Crepuscule") but the translations were Inevitably but a poor shadow of the original. There were several adaptations of the plays but as I have shown in a previous thesis "Victor Hugo on the English Stage, most of them bore little resemblance except in plot to the original work., In rmany cases the public did not even know nor were they always told, that the piece was founded on a drama by Hugo. The novels, of course were much more widely read by the general public and numerous translations were made, but in most instances English versions were reduced to an exalting story the ethical and Sociological purpose of the work being forgotten The works of Hugo were however read and studied by a large number of eminent English critics of the nineteenth century, Numerous quotations will be found from the articles of such men as H. Southerns, G. Moir, G.H. Lewes, J.H. McCarthy, G. Colvin, A.C. Swinburne, E. Dowden, J. Morley, R.L. Stevenson, Roden Noel, F.W.H. Myers, Matthew Arnold, W.H. Pollock, G. Saintsbury, C. Vaughan, W.E. Henley, Mrs Oliphant, G.B. Smith, J. Cappon, P.T. Marzials, R. Buchanan, J. Forster and J.P. Nichol. These men among others made a definite attempt to evaluate the works of Hugo, and their opinions are worth studying as giving a clue to 'the attitude adopted by the more enlightened. literary minds of the century towards the work of Hugo This I have attempted to do, and in doing It Ihave incorporated into the text the exact words of the critics in the form of quotations in the belief that this is the best way of presenting a true and clear picture of English opinions of Hug's works during the period under survey. In the Preface to her book "English opinions of French Poets (1660,. 1750)" in which she sets out to do in a general way for the late seventeen and early eighteenth centuries what I have tried to do in a more particular way for the nineteenth. Miss R.H H Wollstein writes as follows: It is the judgment of this time that is the subject of our study and the Individual opinions that form it must be left to speak for themselves, I have therefore collected such opinions as are Important for our purpose*" This seems to me to be the most scientific method in dealing with the subject, and absolves the writer from any possible charge of tampering with the evidence. In order to make the narrative more continuous and to avoid breaks in the thread of the argument It ls sometimes tempting to state ones conclusions and to leave the reader to sift the evidence for himself. I have sedulously avoided doing this In the belief that in a work of this kind accuracy Is of the utmost importance* The method I have adopted in treating the subject Is to take each of the works of Hugo, poetry, drama, novels, miscellaneous prose works, and to study the reactions of the critics to each separate work drawing together in a final chapter the conclusions to which these separate studies have brought me. In presenting the material I have usually preferred to study each facet of the problem in turn stating one side of the case before proceeding to a consideration of the other. I have thus brought together all the unfavourable criticism of a work before presenting the favourable criticisms. In this way I believe a better picture can be drawn of the general reactions. to the works. In the case of the smaller works where the amount of evidence is restricted, I have sometimes used the chronological method as being the most satisfactory. As the present work purports to be a study of Hugo in the light of English criticism and opinion I have taken no account of the many French critics who during the nineteenth century, contributed articles on Hugo to English journals. One of tha first Critics to introduce Hugo to the English was Stendhal in the "London and "New Monthly' magazines. Other French critics whose names will not be found in the present survey are Gabriel Honods Jules Janin, D. Nisards, Camille Barrero, H. Ceard, Paul Bourget Their opinions are Interesting especially those of Stendhal who gave Hugo a very unfavourable start in England, but do not fall within the scope of the present works.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The original purpose of the dissertation was to settle as closely as possible by philological means the question of date and place of the Macro Castle of Perseverance. However, in the initial stages of the study it was discovered that the play had undergone some redactions before it was written down in the Macro version. The purpose then became twofold: to separate the redactions from the original part of the play and study them for any light they might throw not only on The Castle of Perseverance but also on the evolution of the morality itself as a dramatic form; and to settle the problem of date and place of the redacted portions as well as of the original. The redacted parts of the play were separated from the original by means of such criteria as meter, alliteration, style, grammar, syntax, and dramatic effectiveness. The method for dating and locating the work consisted of a close linguistic analysis in an attempt to find phonological, morphological, and lexioal features which might be indicative of specific place and date. [TRUNCATED]

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is about the application of modern literary criticism to the epistle of Jude. One of the major questions it asks is "What happens to a text (Jude) when a reader reads it using one of these literary theories?" Or to put it a different way, "What does this way of reading emphasise which may have been neglected, ignored, or treated as irrelevant by other forms of reading?" The answers to these questions have been constructed around three loci: the reader, the text, and the author. Within the chapters constructed around those foci, the issues of power and desire, knowledge and language are brought to the forefront by the methods used for reading Jude. These methods include ideas drawn from reader response criticism, feminism, psychoanalysis, intertextuality, the study of tropes, structuralism, and post-structuralism. These methods and the ideas which they highlight are drawn together to comment on the relationship between the reader, the text, and the author and to accent their access (or lack of it) to desire, power, knowledge, and language. The epistle of Jude becomes an epistle that is about power and desire just as much as it is an epistle about "false teachers" and about a community of people known by the name Beloved.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)—Boston University / Mary Ellen Chase, a contemporary author of many parts, has followed the double career, not uncommon in twentieth-century Anerica, of writing and of teaching college English, contributing the vigor of her New England heritage in a complementary fashion to both professions. She has written short stories, and novels, biographies and autobiographies, volumes of essays and Biblical commentary, textbooks and a miscellany of introductions, reviews, articles, and pamphlets. Although she retired from the Smith College faculty in 1955, she continues to write books and many lesser pieces. Since the body of her published work is now a substantial one, it has seemed a good time to survey her general accomplishnent to date, in the individual use of many ideas and traditions, both historical and literary. The name of Mary Ellen Chase has appeared in footnotes, appendices, and lists. She has sometimes been mentioned or even briefly discussed as a New England regionalist. Almost all of her books have been reviewed, some of them often and quite generously, but there has been no general survey or study of the whole body of her writing. Thus there has been very little established opinion to guide this study. The problem has been to bring together such ideas about Miss Chase's writing as have been separately expressed, mainly in reviews, and to find in her writing its motivating themes, recurrent interests, and developing characteristics of style. A complete bibliography of her books and contributions to major periodicals has been attempted. Miss Chase's New England heritage has been the pivot on which many of her interests have turned. Unfailingly her concern for her own traditions and others as well has been motivated by her delight in them and by the search for any understanding which can contribute to a "good life" in the present. She makes it clear that the past, even at its high points, should inform the present, but never afford a mere retreat from it. The New England past forms a large part of her New England consciousness, which includes a strong sense of place and of the things and people to be found in the rural and coastal areas of Maine. Her contributions serve mainly to brighten old knowledge into new. Often the sense of place in her writing outweighs the impact of the past. Some of her best style describes the relationships between her characters and their natural environment. Sonetimes she shows the symbolic power of one single object from the natural environment. In her interest in England and in the Bible, Miss Chase is focusing on secondary aspects of the cultural heritage of New England. In her studies of the Bible, past and place are again important, as is the love of language, which has permeated all her writing with increasing effectiveness. Characteristic of Miss Chase's books about the Bible is her infectious enthusiasm for the ancient Hebrew people and for their literature. The impact of literary traditions on rer work has occasionally been noted, and sone close examination has been made of her imagery, the aspect of her style most generally useful to her. Its use has often allowed her to make distinct the multiple pasts producing together the total sense of the past which she never wishes to separate from the present.

This thesis challenges the way feminist literary criticism has been represented as a field polarized between American and French positions. As an alternative to the American/French distinction, I propose one between feminist criticism oriented to research and feminist criticism oriented to aesthetics. In keeping with this alternative distinction, I relocate the shift in feminist criticism within American feminism. The "aesthetic turn" inaugurated by American "gynocriticism" is itself identified in relation to a more general philosophical shift from discovery to creation. While the relativistic and voluntaristic tendencies which distinguish the latter pole are exemplified by French feminism, I argue that they are anticipated by American feminism's "aesthetic turn." Finally, this thesis not only relocates and redefines the shift in feminist literary criticism, but provides arguments in favour of a research-oriented feminist criticism.

No description available.

The genesis and development of modern African literature in indigenous languages in South Africa cannot be satisfactorily handled without linking them to the historical, social and political developments in South Africa. The first literary works to be published in South Africa in indigenous languclges were the products of western imperialist agents, the missionaries especially. This literature was later exposed to further ideologies when the government took control of education for Af~cans. The intensification of th€ liberation struggle from mid 20th century saw literature becoming another area of resistance politics in South Africa. African writers began to write in English. The birth of the Black Consciousness Muvement in the late sixties gave further impetus to this development with the emergence of black protest literature. This study seeks to investigate thes. developments in both African literature and black protest literature by employing a materialist analysis, specifically focusing on ideology as a material condition. / Afrikaans & Theory of literature / (M.A. (Theory of Literature ))

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the significance of conflict stories in the Gospel of Matthew from a literary critical perspective. The key research question the thesis has attempted to answer is, how do conflict stories function in Matthew’s narrative? Because their interest is often limited to the Sitz im Leben behind the Matthean text, previous studies attempting the similar pursuit view conflict stories as transparent accounts of Matthew’s polemical program against the Jews or Judaism. Thus they have neglected a vital purpose of the author, that is, besides his interest to record or preserve what happened in history, the Gospel author is also interested to arouse or affirm the readers’ faith in Jesus through his preservation and redaction of his sources, which is an inseparable part of the author’s theological program. How exactly then has his literary work achieved this purpose? Assuming the literary unity of the Matthean text, this study has treated the Matthean text as a mirror and explored literary nuances reflected by the textual ‘surface.’ Under such a premise, the narrative analysis of this thesis has highlighted three foci: 1. The connection which each conflict makes with its narrative context; 2. How the Hebrew Scripture interacts with the author’s composition or redaction of the stories; and 3. The literary impact these stories have on the implied reader. This study selects a total of seventeen conflict stories in Matthew based on three criteria, Matt 9.1-8, 9-13, 14-17; 12.1-8, 9-14, 22-37, 38-45; 13.53-58; 15.1-9; 16.1-4; 19.1-9; 21.14-17, 23-27; 22.15-22, 23-33, 34-40, 41-46: 1. The presence of an attitude of hostility or challenge in the setting of the narrative (either explicit or implied); 2. The presence of a question of an accusation or a challenge; and 3. The question or the accusation is usually followed by a reply of Jesus. In conclusion, the literary analysis of this study suggests two most important functions of Matthean conflict stories: 1. Conflict stories function, either individually or in clusters, as kernels of the Matthean plot to advance the narrative forward in order to reach its climax in the passion narrative. 2. The Christological focus in conflict stories is consistently concerned not only with the superiority of Jesus over the opponents, but more importantly with the nexus between the divine status of Jesus and him being the messianic figure.