This thesis explores the involvement of Russian emigres in disseminating and informing the reception of Russian literature in England. It examines their use of translations and literary commentary as vehicles for propaganda, and considers the impact of their unique approach to literature on both Anglo-Russian relations and English letters. Part One describes the arrival of Russian émigrés in England and their mixed reception: as victims of a brutal regime, mysterious sages, exotic outcasts, Slavic barbarians, or at worst, as dangerous 'incendiarists' to be feared and reviled. It reflects on the welcome and assistance offered them by socialists, feminists, literati and Nonconformists, as well as the dangers they faced from Russian government agents and their English confreres. It then introduces, in turn, each of the five Russian exiles featured in this thesis, providing biographical details, outlining their work in Britain as propagandists and political agitators, and mapping out their political and literary affiliations. Part Two opens with an analysis of the motives - financial, political, cultural, and personal - which compelled Russian exiles to promulgate Russian literature in England. A chapter is then devoted to each of the five émigrés, chronicling their work disseminating the Russian canon, and outlining the circumstances surrounding their translations, lectures, books, journal articles, and publishing activities. Interspersed within these five narratives are discourses on each propagandist's aesthetic vision. Part Three is a case study of the émigré impact on Turgenev's English reputation. It starts by tracing the author's early reception, showing how he was initially regarded in England as a European novelist whose artistry took precedence over his politics, and whose exquisite writing revealed universal truths through its careful selection and presentation of minute details. It then shows how émigré commentary altered perceptions of the author, transforming him from a disinterested artist dealing only in universal themes into a radical critic of various epochs of Russian national life, whose novels revealed important inner truths about the state of Russian society and politics. The conclusion examines what may be termed the 'collateral' effects of émigré commentary on Russian literature and their involvement in translation projects in England. Firstly, it looks at the political impact of their criticism: how the émigré presentation of Russian literature affected Anglo-Russian relations and attitudes towards the first Russian revolution in 1905. It then considers how émigrés helped or hindered reputations of writers according to their own politically and aesthetically motivated preferences. Finally, it looks at the possible ramifications of émigré literary theory on English approaches to literature and criticism, and suggests further avenues of inquiry.

This thesis is a systematic study of the representations of Telamonian Ajax in archaic and classical Greece. Its aim is to trace, examine, and understand how and why the constitutive elements of his myth evolved in the way they did in the long chain of its receptions. Particular attention is paid to the historical, socio-cultural and performative contexts of the literary works and visual representations I analyse as well as to the audience for which these were produced. The study is divided into three parts, each of which reflects a different reality in which Ajax has been received (different with respect to time, place, or literary genre). Artistic representations of the hero, as well as his religious dimension and political valence, are consistently taken into account throughout the thesis. The first part - Ajax from Salamis - focuses on epic poetry, and thus investigates the Panhellenic significance of the hero (rather than his reception in a particular place). It treats the entire corpus of early Greek hexameter poetry that has come down to us in written form as the reception of a common oral tradition which each poem has adapted for its own purpose. I establish that in the larger tradition of the Trojan War, Ajax was a hero characterised by his gift of invulnerability. Because of this power, he is the figure who protects his companions - dead or alive - par excellence. However, this ability probably also led him to become over-confident, and, accordingly, to reject Athena's support on the battlefield. Hence, the goddess's hostility towards him, which she demonstrated by making him lose the reward of apioteia (Achilles' arms). His defeat made Ajax so angry that he became mad and committed suicide. I also show how this traditional Ajax has been adapted to fit into the Iliad's own aesthetics. The second part - Ajax in Aegina - concentrates on the reception of Ajax in the victory odes of Pindar and Bacchylides for Aeginetan patrons. I argue that in the first part of the fifth century, Ajax becomes a figure imbued with a strong political dimension (especially with regard to the relationship between Athens and Aegina). Accordingly, I show how the presence of Ajax in Pindar's and Bacchylides' poems is often politically charged, and significant within the historical context. I discuss the influence this had on his representation. Finally, the third part moves to Athens, as I consider Ajax's reception during three distinct periods: the sixth century, the first half of the fifth century, and finally the rest of the classical period. I equally insist on the political dimension of the figure. I demonstrate that his figure undergoes a shift of paradigm in the early fifth century, which deeply affects his representation. By following in the footsteps of Ajax, this study prompts a series of reflections and comments on each of the works in which the hero features as well as on the relationship of these works to the historical context in which they were produced.

The present study opens up the field of Catalan connections with English literature. The importance of Edwardian influences on the general transmission of English authors and works is demonstrated. Original data on the reception of G.K. Chesterton, the Edwardian figure with a most remarkable impact in Catalonia, is brought to light (Chapter 1, Appendix 1), followed by discussion of the presence of H.G. Wells and G.B. Shaw and an account of the reception of Well's early fiction (Chapter 2); their influence sheds new light on the aspiration of an élite to modernise Catalan culture. Catalan translations of English fictional works produced in the period 1918-38 (Chapter 3, Appendix II) are linked to the reception of the roman anglais in the context of the crisis of the roman à thèse, and the meditating influence of French criticism is revealed. The values of romance, adventure, and the common man (from Defoe to Stevenson, from Stevenson to Conrad) constitute the recurrent thread associated with the English tradition and with the Edwardian fictional canon, as these were mediated from France to Catalonia. This panorama of transmission enhances an understanding of Catalan views of the novel, in the light of Edwardian values (Chapter 4), as exemplified in Carles Riba's critical appraisal of two Catalan authors, in the appeal of Joseph Conrad's narrative technique and its influence on J.M. de Sagarra, as well as in the comparison of Frank Swinnerton's Nocturne (a best-seller of 1917) and its Catalan counterpart, M. Teresa Vernet's Les algues roges. This thesis also includes a chronology of the reception of Chesterton and a list of Catalan translations of English works of fiction.

This qualitative teacher - research study investigates how secondary students in English classes might use art materials and the construction of abstract artworks to explore, develop, and express their responses to and interpretations of literary works. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What happens when students are introduced to a wide variety of art materials and encouraged to use them to discover and express their response to or interpretation of a literary text? 1a. How do students describe how their understanding of or relationship to a work of literature is impacted by their production of a work of art in response to that literature? 2. How do students describe the experience of displaying their responsive art works in a final art “show” or classroom display, and how does their preparation for such a capstone event impact their creative process or their experience of producing their work of art? 3. What challenges and obstacles seem likely to arise for a teacher who tries to implement an instructional program in literature that includes a requirement that students create works of art to explore or express their response to or understanding of a literary work? The data collected and analyzed include classroom observations in multiple classes, student writing, student artwork at all stages, student testimony, and student responses to survey questions. The analysis of the collected data suggest that the creation of works of art to explore and express literary experience and response promotes in many students an expanded understanding of the definition of ‘art’ and ‘artist’; a greater personal engagement with the assigned literary work; more original, nuanced, and insightful responses to literature; and more engaged and intellectually honest writing about literature. The greatest challenges and obstacles to implementing the arts-based approach to the study of literature in the classroom were located largely in the researcher’s own attachments to conventional practices in the teaching of literature, desire to ensure that her students acquired standard knowledge about the assigned literary work, and her lingering sense of responsibility about preparing students for conventional future literature classes.

This is a study of the translation and reception of the Roman historian Livy in the sixteenth century in the British Isles. The thesis examines five major translations of Livy's history of Rome, the Ab Urbe Condita, into the English and Scottish vernaculars. The texts considered here span from the earliest extant translation of around 1533 to the first, full-scale translation published in 1600. By taking a broad view across the century, the thesis uncovers the multiple and versatile uses to which Livy was being put and maps out the major trends surrounding his reception. The first chapter examines Livy's initial reception into print in Europe, outlining the attempts of his earliest editors to impose a critical order onto his enormous work. The subsequent chapters consider the respective translations undertaken by John Bellenden, Anthony Cope, William Thomas, William Painter, and Philemon Holland. Each translation is treated as a case study and compared in detail with the Latin original, thereby revealing the changes Livy's history experienced through the process of translation. By locating these translations in the cultural and political contexts from which they emerged, this study reveals how Livy was exploited in some of the most pressing debates of the period, from arguments over women's apparel to questions of faith. The thesis also considers how these translations responded to the most recent developments in European scholarship on the Ab Urbe Condita and on classical history more generally. Livy's contribution to the development of Scottish historiography is also considered, both as a stylistic model and as a rich source of narrative material. Ultimately this thesis demonstrates that Livy played a fundamental though hitherto underexplored role in the development of vernacular literature and historiography in the British Isles.

The reception of the Huguenot poet Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas' Semaines (1578, 1584 et seq.) is an important episode in early modern literary history for understanding relations between Scottish, English and French literature, interactions between contemporary reading and writing practices, and developments in divine poetry. This thesis surveys translations (Part I), allusions and quotations in prose (Part II) and verse imitations (Part III) from the period when English translations of the Semaines were being printed in order to identify historical trends in how readers absorbed and adapted the poems. Early translations show that the Semaines quickly acquired political and diplomatic affiliations, particularly at the Jacobean Scottish Court, which persisted in subsequent decades (Chapter 1). William Scott's treatise The Model of Poesy (c. 1599) and translations indicate how attractive the Semaines' combination of humanist learning and sacred rhetoric was, but the poems' potential appeal was only realized once Josuah Sylvester's Devine Weeks (1605 et seq.) finally made the complete work available in English (Chapter 2). Different communities of readers developed in early modern England and Scotland once this edition became available (Chapter 3), and we can observe how individuals marked, copied out, quoted and appropriated passages from their copies of the poems in ways dependent on textual and authorial circumstances (Chapter 4). The Semaines, both in French and in Sylvester's translation, were used as a stylistic model in late-Elizabethan playtexts and Zachary Boyd's Zions Flowers (Chapter 5), and inspired Jacobean poems that help us to assess Du Bartas' influence on early modern poetry (Chapter 6). The great variety of responses to the Semaines demonstrates new ways that intertextuality was a constituent feature of vernacular religious literature that was being read and written in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain.