This dissertation employs the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and Jean Laplanche in order to analyze the role of the "rhetoric of seduction" in masculine self-identifications and in transformations of the meaning of masculinity between 1890 and 1918. Seduction is understood as simultaneously a process of disrupting the subject's illusion of a stable masculine identity and a process through which that illusion is regained and sustained. Chapter 1 discusses the competing discourses of corruption and the Platonic model of male bonding in the Oscar Wilde trials and the unstable boundary between self-development and influence in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Chapter 2 focuses on Andre Gide's construction of an "authentic," masculine homosexual identity in his memoir If It Die and in The Immoralist, arguing that such an identity necessarily contains the impulse of its own internal disintegration. Chapter 3 argues that the vampire in Bram Stoker's Dracula resembles the psychoanalyst in facilitating the subject's access to his unconscious but also serving the subject's retreat within the boundaries of a stable ego formation. Finally, Chapter 4 explores E. M. Forster's Maurice as an account of the development of a masculinity appropriate for a "liberal individualist," through an emphasis on the role of sexuality and personal relationships in Forster's political vision.

<p> Using Michel Foucault's knowledge/power dynamic I demonstrate the ways in which Jane Austen examines the socially constructed nature of truth in her last three novels. In <i>Persuasion</i> competing ideas of power are represented by Captain Wentworth and Sir Walter Elliot, positing the idea that a society based on hierarchy is antiquated as economic, political and social configurations within England change. The detrimental effects of the marriage myth are revealed in <i>Mansfield Park</i>, as the social and sexual limitations of women are seen through the parallel stories of the Ward sisters and Fanny, Julia and Maria. <i>Emma</i> highlights the way in which Mrs. Elton uses Jane Fairfax to build her social identity, while it also promotes writing as a method for counteracting prescribed identity formation. Refocusing the analysis of Austen's work based on Foucault's work illuminates contentious characters and passages while revealing the ways in which people respond to social pressure.</p>

<p> The oceans and seas play a fascinating role in human culture and literature. This thesis examines the sea imagery in several Anglo-Saxon poems in order to gain a deeper understanding of the function the sea plays in the Anglo-Saxon literary psyche. These texts include <i>Beowulf, Andreas, Exodus,</i> as well as the shorter "Seafarer" and "Whale" poems. The first part of this thesis focuses on sea imagery at the word level, analyzing Anglo-Saxon morphology and lexical compounding as a key to the metaphorical content of sea-kennings. The second part expands this focus to a textual level, examining the symbolism of sea imagery in Anglo-Saxon literature as an anthropomorphic will-power, a habitat of the monstrous, and a place of heroic action. Finally, the last part will argue for an underlying cultural archetype of the sea, based on parallel passages and common themes involving the sea in Anglo-Saxon poetry.</p>

<p> <i>Separate Lives</i> is a collection of nine thematically connected short stories. Each of these stories deals in its own way with the idea of home and separation that is prevalent in the relationships of family, friends, and significant others. At the heart of these stories are characters with intertwining backgrounds that deal with similar experiences in different ways.</p>

<p> My dissertation &ldquo;Seventy Years of Swearing upon Eric the Skull: Genre and Gender in Selected Works by Detection Club Writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie&rdquo; shows how the texts produced by Detection Club members Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie challenge assumptions about the value and role of popular genre fiction and demonstrate how the detective novel engages pressing social issues related to gender in modern Great Britain. Sayers and Christie addressed serious concerns of gender in relation to topics including war and an emerging market economy in inter-war Britain; however, because they were doing so in genre fiction, their insights have not been fully explored. The popularity of detective fiction, according to critics, has resulted in a lack of criticism and a distrust of the popular. Christie, more so than Sayers, has been ignored by critics because of her popularity and the formulaic nature of her fiction. Glenwood Irons claims that Christie's popularity is responsible for the &ldquo;general ignorance of the sheer volume of detective fiction written by women&rdquo; (xi), while Alison Light theorizes that the dearth of Christie criticism, because of her popularity, is &ldquo;an absence which the growth of 'genre' studies of popular fiction has yet to address&rdquo; (64). My goal is to understand how Sayers and Christie responded to modern issues through their writing and to set their writing in context with contemporary concerns in inter-war Britain. I advocate for a reexamination of Sayers and Christie that goes beyond their popularity as writers of genre fiction and analyzes the ways in which their fiction incorporates modern concerns.</p>

Catholic writers traditionally approach the laity through the sacraments rather than the Word. Nonetheless, three devotional genres - meditation, hagiography and catechism - recognize that effective written appeals to a reader can be made using rhetoric. This thesis analyses such rhetoric, in recusant devotional texts published by secret presses between 1580 and 1603. Most detailed examinations of Catholic works think of rhetoric as emasculating the virile yet chaste prose of a 'shining band of martyrs'. This thesis proposes that the rules of rhetoric are used to empower the reader of these works by Grafting a new character in him. Meditations act as deliberative orations, swaying the reader's will. They use amplificatio and memoria to produce matter and to dwell on it. Late sixteenth-century translations of continental meditation manuals by Granada, Scupoli, Estella and Loarte provide a theory of meditation for the English works studied: rosary texts by John Bucke, Thomas Worthington and Henry Garnet; several anonymous collections of meditations and prayers; contemplations on Scriptural stories by Robert Southwell, I.C., C.N. and Robert Chambers. In the second section, saints' lives are read as rhetorical examples which support this deliberative discourse, rather than as blazons, innocent of intent on the reader. Hagiographies by Worthington, Robert Persons, William Alien and Thorns Alfield reflect images of what a martyr or saint should do, not what he did. The last chapters show how catechisms recreate these idealized images in the reader by acting as dramatic scripts for him. Repetition through rhetoric dissolves the element of theatre, allowing the reader to absorb these rules for life. Once again, Elizabethan translations of foreign catechisms by Granada, Bellarmine and Canisius are used to illuminate English catechisms by Persons, Southwell and Lawrence Vaux.

This thesis is concerned with the stimulus and influence of studies of the historical Jesus on literary depictions of Christ. It examines imaginative reconstructions of the Gospels, alongside significant works of Biblical scholarship, and seeks to establish the role played by fiction in promulgating ideas of the Higher Criticism in Britain. At the same time, it considers how far the demands of working with a sacred source encouraged or restricted literary innovation. The contextual aspects of the study underline how advances in disciplines such as psychology, anatomy, and archaeology informed writers’ conceptions of the New Testament. The Introduction traces changing perceptions of the relationship between fiction and faith in the light of contemporary developments in Biblical interpretation. Chapter One examines a representative selection of Lives of Jesus, looking specifically at their affinities with fiction. The following chapter explores the kind of prose-fiction writing that developed in response to these Lives and to theological revisionism generally. The second part of the thesis focuses on two Anglo-Irish writers: Oscar Wilde and George Moore. Their transformations of the Gospels are analysed in the context of some of their other literary works, their attitudes to Christianity, and their engagement with theology. Chapter Three considers Wilde’s New Testament oral tales, looking especially at their treatment of current theological debates. Chapter Four considers the reappearance of these tales in the writings of Wilde’s contemporaries, and links the study’s two major authors through its discussion of Frank Harris, an acquaintance of them both. The final two chapters deal with Moore’s abiding interest in the religious temperament, following through the development of his drama, The Apostle, into the novel, The Brook Kerith. The Conclusion considers the aesthetics of Biblical fiction and its contribution to the religious discourses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-02, Section: A, page: 0582. Adviser: Carol Thomas Neely. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-198) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2003. / Adviser: Lee Edelman. Submitted to the Dept. of English Literature. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-213). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 2937. Advisers: Karma Lochrie; Patricia C. Ingham. Title from dissertation home page (viewed April 8, 2008).