This thesis examines the representation of ‘otherness’ in postcolonial neo-Victorian fiction. It analyses a selection of novels that not only engage critically with the Victorian past but specifically with the legacy of Victorian Britain’s empire. By looking at the ways in which neo-Victorian novels depict the (de)construction of their characters’ identities, this thesis investigates whether these representations are able to provide insight in present-day constructions of who is seen as being at home in British or Western European society and who is defined as ‘other’. Otherness, these novels show, is not limited to a binary of the Western ‘self’ and the stereotyped, non-Western ‘other’. Rather, many of the novels’ characters are made to discover the other(ness) within themselves. The introductory chapter considers neo-Victorianism’s postmodern background and the way it relates to postcolonial theories of race and sexuality. Chapter One focuses on two novels: Julian Barnes’ Arthur & George (2005) and Belinda Starling’s The Journal of Dora Damage (2007). Both novels are set in Britain and engage with the figure of the other coming (too) close to home. The chapter employs a potentially multidirectional ‘looking relation’ to study how postcolonial neo-Victorian fiction constructs the other against which the British characters define their own identities. Moving away from Britain, Chapter Two looks at the notion of the journey, specifically sea voyages between metropole and colony. Using Gail Jones’ Sixty Lights (2004) and Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea (2002), this chapter studies how the liminal experience of travel can function as an othering device. Chapter Three, finally, examines how Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner (2002) and David Rocklin’s The Luminist (2011) describe British society in the colonies. Away from the imperial mother country, making stable distinctions between self and other becomes increasingly difficult for the novels’ characters. Ultimately, this thesis questions whether postcolonial neo-Victorianism maintains a binary between the Western self and a stereotyped figure of the other, or if it can play a role in changing readers’ views of those people seen as ‘other’ in Western society.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This thesis is the first thorough investigation into the phenomenon known as the Burns Supper. This has grown spontaneously over the years from a nine man dinner at Burns Cottage, Alloway in July 1801 which marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Robert Burns, to over 3,500 dinners embracing more than nine million people across the world during the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth in 2009. The original event took the form of a convivial club dinner, typical of that period and using invented ritual paying homage to Freemasonry, key elements were grafted onto the running order which remain core today: notably a toast to Burns (‘the Immortal Memory’), poetically addressing (and eating) a haggis and performing Burns’s songs and poems including Auld Lang Syne. While the other contemporary societies and annual literary dinners have fallen into desuetude, the Burns Supper has exhibited longevity and a growth in scale annually that is exceptional. The success of the format is three-fold. First, the Burns Supper remains a social and convivial party; secondly, there is a greater degree of flexibility in how it can be arranged than is often recognised; and finally, the few mandatory elements are key to understanding Burns’s own imperative to be recognised as ‘Bard’ within a milieu which calls for participation. The original Burns Suppers recognised this and deliberately utilised Burns’s most performative verse to capture the spirit of his oeuvre and by incorporating that bardic quiddity, the Burns Supper two hundred years later still shares that fundamental experience which is essential to its immediacy and integrity as a vehicle for the appreciation of Robert Burns. By detailed study of the original minutes of the early suppers, combined, for the first time, with extensive newspaper reports, club archives and biographical sources, the expansion of participation in the Burns Supper from friends of the poet through to Scots at home or expatriate, to the wider global audience is tracked and analysed. As with all amateur (in both senses) movements, enthusiasm has at times exceeded critical judgement and the fear of change has been self-defeating. The simple paradox is that from the Second World War while the academic study of Burns was in steep decline, the number of people attending Burns Suppers grew consistently. By a mutual recognition that the Burns Supper, like Burns’s poetry, is not in the ownership of one nationality, political party or gender, the Burns Supper remains the largest literary festival in the world.

This PhD thesis consists of two major sections. The critical commentary, Authenticity and alterity: evoking the fourteenth century in fiction, reflects upon issues of authenticity and alterity in historical fiction. The historical novel, The Nature of Things, through its structure, themes, style and language, aims to deliver an authentic and naturalistic portrait of life in the fourteenth century. The commentary and novel are supplemented by a bibliography, and three appendices: a synopsis of the novel, a list of the characters, and a summary of a review of historical novels undertaken alongside the writing, which sought to discover how other novelists addressed the issues of authenticity and alterity. The critical commentary considers what makes good historical fiction, specifically how to bring a sense of authenticity and the role of ‘alterity’. It first addresses the alleged ‘problems’ of historical fiction claimed by nineteenth-century author Henry James and others: the impossibility of authenticity, its innate falsehood, and its failure to portray the past’s strangeness. It then explains the process of writing The Nature of Things: its concept and themes, structure and characters, narrative metaphors, language and style, its quest for authenticity and ‘naturalism’. Then it looks at authenticity in historical fiction and how it can be achieved: through narrative form, recorded history, social context, physical details, and the historical thought-world, including religion and superstition. It goes on to consider the need for, and use of, ‘alterity’ (strangeness) as a means of achieving authenticity, looking at such concepts as magic, spells, the supernatural and monsters. Finally, it looks at the authenticity of language in historical fiction, the relationship between thoughts and words, and the problems of both anachronisms and archaic language. Throughout the commentary, examples are drawn from both The Nature of Things and ther historical novels. Concluding remarks are given at the end. The novel, The Nature of Things, spans the fourteenth century. It is structured in seven parts, each of which is narrated by one of seven different voices. The titles of the parts allude to the four biblical apocalyptic horsemen plus three invented ‘horsemen’ – Poverty, Famine, War, Plague, Death, Dissent, Despair. The titles allude to the disasters that befell the fourteenth century, which form the backdrop for the narrators' stories, but are also metaphors for the narrators’ emotional sensibilities. People's response to disaster is one of the novel’s themes, but so is hope and continuity, expressed in a garden metaphor that is given physical shape in a fictional thirteenth-century gardening book, The Nature of Growing Things.

Michel de Montaigne believed that to judge a man, we must follow his traces long and carefully. This chronological study of Fou Lei (1908-1966) traces, firstly, his footsteps as a cogent critic of art, literature, music and politics, and as the most accomplished translator of French literature in China of the twentieth century, and secondly reveals a fraction of an intellectual labyrinth meandering through China’s fragmented modern history, almost Oedipal in its disposition towards its past, and its tragic love relations with the West, real or envisioned. Fou Lei the translator of Balzac and Fou Lei the art critic have been the subjects of recent scholarly work of Nicolai Volland and Claire Roberts. This thesis proposes an intellectual biography of Fou Lei and commences, by necessity, with a narrative of his youth – especially the years he spent in Europe – which he himself scarcely mentioned, and the analysis of which is sorely missing in existing literature. Hitherto unpublished documents that I discovered in France and Switzerland contribute to this biography. A close examination of Fou Lei’s early, especially emotional, life is made with the purpose of contextualising his subsequent moral and existential choices. These choices in turn are historicised through his writing, translation and correspondence. Archival findings in Paris lend significant insight into the agony in which he lived during his last years in China, where political predicaments alone were responsible for his death. There are two dimensions to this investigation: intellectual and linguistic. A recurring theme is that of parallels, and a sustained inquiry that of how to reconstruct, then deconstruct, the process of cultural translation and appropriation. Allowing the material to dictate my treatment of it, I make as my focus the internal life of an individual against external conditions. Fou Lei, who chose to live a strictly sedentary life in response to his circumstances, justifies and demands this treatment. Squarely through the point of view of an intellectual who made sense of external and internal realities by way of rigid dichotomy, I obliquely challenge generalised ideas, in particular those of this intellectual himself. I thereby draw attention to the specific thought process of his generalising and the possible ways of understanding it, throwing into question the linguistic instability inherent in these efforts. Under psychological considerations, pre-supposed categorisations dissolve. The ingenium of an individual scrutinised in a given historical situation makes specific the notion of “culture” in a defined context, itself routinely entangled not least semantically. Other than situating Fou Lei, where necessary, in his social milieu, I make apparent, and give accent to, a milieu of words, one with indistinct geographical and temporal boundaries, to glimpse the mental world of a multilingual literatus, the devotion of whose entire adult life was to the craft of language. For the same reason that a thesis on Joseph Conrad might not be expected to discuss Poland, I restrain, where possible, inclined elaboration on the elephantine subject that is China in my study of Fou Lei. I hope to illustrate the “obsession with China” – as C. T. Hsia termed it – that he shared with his contemporaries without falling victim myself to that obsession. This individualistically-driven narrative yet serves a historical purpose. It allows Fou Lei himself to take us from a post-revolutionary, post-May Fourth, post-White Terror Shanghai to an inter-war Europe during the Great Depression, and back to a China entering the Sino-Japanese War, then the Civil War, changing thereafter from a Republic to a People’s Republic under progressively totalitarian control, and traversing endless upheavals into the Cultural Revolution. This voyage becomes thereupon itself a witness both to Fou Lei’s desperate interaction with his time, and to his fierce insistence on autonomy. Notwithstanding our way of arguing being by and large linear, in no way should Fou Lei’s journey be conceptualised as so. In a peculiarly three-dimensional manner, there was more a dislocation, or a continuous array of dislocations, that he had to make sense of in relation to his own country, the political signification of which changed several times over in the lifetime of that particular generation, than the easily supposed confrontation and integration between the so-called East and West. What this modern Chinese intellectual, decidedly archaic in his moral standing and profoundly romantic in a nineteenth-century European sense, obliges, is multi-disciplinary research from multiple angles. What this study of his youth, now positioned in relation to his entire life, reveals, are aspirations that were never fulfilled, seeds that never grew. What it portrays is a sensitivity determined to educate himself against all odds. To a certain extent, this is not so much an analysis of what he achieved – and achieve he did, formidably – as of how he was aborted, and why. In Fou Lei and his Alibis, we observe a man of letters turning time and again to art and literature as a refuge, and I raise, and leave open, questions about his conditions and reactions, still unresolved; questions of alienation and exile, imposed and chosen; questions of perceived roots, perceived universality; the question, as Simone Weil put it, of the relationship between destiny and the human soul.

The thesis explores the boundaries of sensation fiction with particular emphasis on masculine discourse as evidenced in these and their performance of ideological work. In its contemporary emphasis on the 1860s the study focuses on sensation novels in their initial published form as serials in family magazines and masculine discourse in paratexts surrounding instalments. Although masculinity is only one perspective in magazines there is sufficient cumulative evidence of a strong masculinist orientation in editorial selection of paratexts which I argue may affect the reading of instalments of sensation fiction. Critical reviews of these novels, the cultural anxieties and ideological fears they provoked are discussed in the following chapter. These critical reviews were a persistent feature of the periodical press and this is worth mentioning because they form a powerful, reactionary and persuasive viewpoint in the masculine boundaries of sensation fiction. Turning to modern criticism the thesis examines the neglect and omission of Edmund Yates, a sensation author who was very much part of the mid-nineteenth century literary scene. Through its emphasis on masculinities the thesis attempts to offer critical insights into the vexed and contentious question of how far sensation fiction is subversive and how far it is successfully and deliberately contained. In its assessment of Edmund Yates the study attempts to show that narrative structures which seem to support the containment of subversive trends in sensation fiction can be used to support dissident readings of a modern canon of sensation.

No description available.

This thesis asserts that J.R.R. Tolkien recreates Beowulf for the twentieth century. His 1936 lecture, ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ sets the tone not only for twentieth century criticism of the text, but also Tolkien’s own fictional project: creating an imagined world in which ‘new Scripture and old tradition touched and ignited’ (‘B: M&C’ 26). At the core of his analysis of Beowulf, and at the core of his own Middle-earth, are the monsters. He creates creatures that are an ignition of past and present, forming characters that defy allegory and simple moral categorization. To demonstrate the necessity of reading Tolkien’s Middle-earth through the lens of his 1936 lecture, I begin by examining the broad literary source material that Tolkien draws into his creative process. I assert that an understanding of the formation of monstrosity, from classical, Augustinian, late medieval, Renaissance, Restoration and Gothic sources, is fundamental to seeing the complexity, and thus the didactic element, of Tolkien’s monsters. As a medieval scholar and professor, Tolkien’s focus on the educational potential of a text appears in his critical work and is enacted in his fiction. Tolkien takes on a mode of writing categorized as Wisdom Literature: he writes a series of texts that demonstrate the imperative lesson that ‘swa sceal man don’ (so shall man do) found in Beowulf. Tolkien’s fiction takes up this challenge, demonstrating for the reader what a hero must do when faced with the moral and physical challenge of the monster. Monsters are a primarily didactic tool, demonstrating vice and providing challenges for the hero to overcome. Monsters are at the core of Tolkien’s critical reading; it must be at the core of ours.

Tha an tràchdas seo a’ coimhead air buidheann de dhàin fhada a nochd aig toiseach an fhicheadaimh linn. Cha deach cus ùidh a shealltainn sna dàin seo bho sgrùdairean Gàidhealachadh sa chiad dol a-mach. Bho chrìoch an fhicheadamh linn, tha ùidh air nochdadh sna dàin seo a-rithist, gu h-àraidh An Cuilithionn, Aeòlus agus Balg agus Mochtàr is Dùghall. Ach ’s e an tràchdas seo a’ chiad sgrùdadh domhain air a’ bhuidheann seo de dhàin nan aonar. Gus an rannsachadh seo a dhèanamh thèid corpas a lorg am measg leabhraichean agus irisean bhon àm, agus na co-chruinneachaidhean a chaidh fhoillseachadh nas anmoiche. Thèid taghadh a dhèanamh a tha a’ riochdachadh prìomh fheartan nan dàn seo. Thèid rannsachadh a dhèanamh air cuid de dh’eisimpleirean bhon 18mh agus 19mh linn ann an Caibideil 2. Air sgàth ’s an uidhir de shurbhaidhean nas fharsainge a tha ri fhaotainn de litreachas na Gàidhlig, seallaidh an sgrùdadh sin air feartan sònraichte. Chìthear mar a chleachd bàrdachd Mhic Mhaighstir Alasdair cruth a’ chiùil mhòir gus gnè-sònraichte ùr de dhàin fhada a chur air bog ann an 1751. Ghabhar sùil mar an ceudna air Uilleam MacDhùn-Lèibhe air tàilibh a bhuaidh air Somhairle MacGill-Eain, agus gu robh amasan nàiseantach agus socio-cànanachais an Ìlich ri fhaicinn anns a’ mhòr-chuid de bhàird a’ chorpais cuideachd. Seallaidh Caibideil 3 air na bàird fhèin, gu h-àraidh na beachdan aca agus na ceanglaichean eatorra. Bha iad seo ri fhaicinn ann an saoghal litreachais agus poilitigs. ’S e prìomh amas na h-anailisean (Caibideilean 4-10) tuigse nas fheàrr fhaighinn an dà chuid air na dàin fhèin agus air ceistean teòiriceil a tha a’ buntainn ris a’ chorpas. ’S e an dàrna amas barrachd dhòighean-obrach teòiriceil a chleachdadh sa Ghàidhlig gus bruidhinn air litreachas na cànaine. Stèidhicheadh na h-anailisean air na feartan a bha ri fhaicinn anns gach dàn, a leithid iar-phlanntachais ann am Mochtàr is Dùghall, air neo air coimeasan a bha gus tuigse nas fheàrr a thoirt seachad air a’ chorpas shlàn. Bidh na h-anailisean seo a’ dearbhadh cuid de na ceanglaichean cudromach a th’ aig litreachas na Gàidhlig ri litreachasan Eòrpach eile, air uairean airson a’ chiad uair. Tha an co-dhùnadh a’ tilleadh do sealladh nas fharsainge air a’ chorpas. Chìthear gu bheil buidheann sònraichte de dhàin ri fhaicinn bhon chiad leth den fhicheadamh linn, dàin nach deach a sgrùdadh còmhla riamh. Tha na dàin seo ceangailte ann am meud, cuspairean, iomraidhean agus amasan nam bàrd. Leasachaidh tuigse nas fheàrr air na dàin seo an t-eòlas a th’ againn air bàrdachd na Gàidhlig, gu h-àraidh sna bliadhnaichean nuair a bha na nua-bhàird a’ nochdadh an toiseach.

This thesis aims to establish an impression of the readership and reception of Benedict Burgh’s Middle English Distichs of Cato. The intended outcome of this research is to demonstrate the layer(s) of society in which the text was read and the ways in which it was presented by scribes and marked by its readers. Presentation and annotation are viewed as the best way of identifying the esteem and attention paid to the Distichs and thus of evaluating its cultural importance. These research goals are therefore achieved through examination of the Distichs’ manuscript contexts. The first chapter delineates the text’s background as a translation of a late Classical Latin original, heavily used in primary education throughout Europe both for its practical advice and its suitability for teaching basic Latin grammar. The chapter discusses the authorship of the Latin Disticha Catonis, the translator of the Middle English version under investigation, and the medieval theories of translation and authorial ‘authority’ which impact on the nature of Burgh’s translation efforts. The second and third chapters focus on specific manuscripts, collating and discussing information on their contents, the circumstances of their production, and the likely audience for which they were produced. In chapter two, British Library MSS. Harley 7333 and Harley 2251 are examined in light of their relationship to the miscellanies of fifteenth-century secretarial clerk, John Shirley. Through examination of the likely audience of Shirley’s manuscripts and the nature of other volumes copied from them, it is argued that manuscripts such as the two Harley volumes are likely to have been owned by members of the gentry and/or the literate ‘middle class’ of clerks and merchants. Chapter three focusses on Glasgow, University Library MS. Hunter 259 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. e.15, both of which are in the hand of the Carthusian monk Stephen Dodesham. Dodesham was resident at the Charterhouse of Sheen, which had strong connections to neighbouring Bridgettine nunnery, Syon Abbey. This chapter considers the possibility that these manuscripts were made for Syon nuns but, through comparison with other comparable Distichs volumes, also suggests that their audience may have lain more in the network of pious lay patrons surrounding Sheen and Syon. The members of this patronage milieu were predominately from the gentry, and thus overlapped with the audience of the Harley volumes. Chapter four considers patterns of presentation and use of the manuscripts across the group to support the gentry/middle-class audience established in chapters two and three, and to draw a general picture of the Distichs’ reception by this audience. This includes establishing that both male and female readership was common, and that the dissemination of the text may have been aided by close association with the poetry of John Lydgate. Selection/excerption of stanzas for copying, annotation of particular stanzas, and evidence of wear on the manuscripts are presented as evidence that medieval readers did engage with the text, and continued to value it as previous centuries had valued the Latin source text. A concluding chapter summarises the main points of the argument, and offers directions for future research.