Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-181).

The purpose of this study is to recover and revise the contribution made to women's writing by the English minor novelist and poet, Isabella Jane Blagden (1817-1873), who was the centrifugal force of an influential literary and artistic milieu in Italy, in the mid-nineteenth-century. Key figures in the group were the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning and the American writer, Henry James. This study is a revisionist critique which questions the prevailing masculine discourse and conventions which oppressed women in terms of their sexual, political and economicfreedom. This, therefore, fits into the Victorian phenomenon of women poets finding their own space and expression against patriarchal norms. My focus on Blagden's poetry, with its scope for liminal/subliminal suggestiveness, enables an explorationof her subversive and transgressive feminist-lesbian poetics. Recent contributions from feminist and lesbian theorists and critics, are examined in order to establish a feminist-lesbian interpretation of gender, sexuality, subversion and transgression. A secondary consideration is Blagden's role in the aesthetic consciousness of others and her apparent inspirational position at the centre of the creative groups of intellectual emigrės in her circle. While most of her friends and acquaintances had a public persona, Blagden did not, and her work has received little discussion anddebate. In order to ensure her significance as a feminist-lesbian poet and Muse, this study will focus on her contribution to nineteenth-century women's poetry. As a contribution to literary scholarship my aim is to bring Blagden in from the margins asa poet of non-canonical status, to one whose status is placed firmly within the continuous literary tradition of radical feminist-lesbian women writers in the nineteenth century.

The research is a hermeneutic-cum-semiotic approach to the study of the translatability of religious language in a secular play, using The Merchant of Venice in China as a reference. Under the ”power turn” or “political turn” in translation studies, omissions and untranslatability of religious material are often seen as the product of censorship or self-censorship in the prevalent socio-political context. But the theology of each individual translating agent is often neglected as an important contributing factor to such untranslatability. This thesis offers a comprehensive approach in tracing the hermeneutical process of the translators/directors as a reader and the situational process and semiotics of theatre translation, which altogether gives rise to the image of translated literature which in turn influences audience reception. This interdisciplinary study thus traverses the disciplines of translation studies, hermeneutics, theatre studies, and sociology. In this thesis I argue that while translation theorists under the current “sociological turn” view social factors as the overarching factors in determining translation activities and strategies, I will show how the interaction between the translator’s or the dramatist’s theology and religious values interact with the socio-cultural milieu to carve out a unique drama production. Often, as one can see from my case studies, it is the religious values of the translating agents that become the overarching factor in determining the translation product, rather than social factors. This thesis further argues that the translatability of religious discourse should be understood in a broader sense according to the seven dimensions proposed by Ninian Smart, rather than merely focusing on untranslatability as a result of semantic and linguistic differences.

Esta pesquisa qualitativa promove reflexões sobre a prática pedagógica no ensino de literaturas de língua inglesa em cursos superiores de formação de professores, a partir de dados coletados da prática docente do próprio pesquisador e em diálogo com a perspectiva teórica dos novos letramentos. O viés metodológico adotado é o da autoetnografia, abordagem de análise de práticas sociais que se define no entrecruzamento da etnografia e da autobiografia. O estudo narra e analisa dois eventos pedagógicos que focalizam a interpretação de textos literários em inglês, a saber: a) uma prática de interpretação colaborativa em aulas presenciais; b) a construção de um espaço virtual e a formação de uma comunidade online dedicada à construção colaborativa de sentidos. A discussão teórica que acompanha a apresentação das práticas tem como norte o conceito de crítica e sua acomodação às teorias dos letramentos, as quais sublinham a dimensão social e ideológica das práticas pedagógicas e alinham-se com os objetivos de formação cidadã para a democracia em resposta aos desafios contemporâneos de construção de espaços sociais que acolham a convivência com a diferença e nutram a responsabilidade ética. A avaliação feita sobre o potencial pedagógico das práticas de interpretação colaborativa, presencias e virtuais, aponta para possibilidades concretas de desenvolvimento da criticidade em tais eventos; nos casos estudados, algumas dessas possibilidades foram realizadas. / This qualitative study gathers data from the researcher/professors own pedagogical practices to build up a discussion about teaching literatures in English in the context of teacher education undergraduate courses from the theoretical standpoint of the new literacies studies. It embodies the methodological principles of autoethnography through which the analysis of social practices intermingles with an autobiographic approach. It narrates and analyzes two pedagogical events which focus on the collaborative interpretation of literary texts in English: a) the practice of teaching through face-to-face collaborative interpretation; b) the development of virtual spaces and the formation of an online interpretive community devoted to meaning making. The theoretical discussion that takes place alongside the description of such events concentrates on the conceptualization of criticism/critique and the placement of such notions within the academic field of literacies studies, a current which highlights the social and ideological dimensions of pedagogical practices besides framing its objectives around the idea of citizenship education towards democracy as a response to contemporary challenges for building social spaces that may welcome living across differences and nurture ethical responsibility. Upon assessing the pedagogical potential of collaborative interpretive practices, virtual or otherwise, this study finds real possibilities for the development of critical thinking. In the examples analyzed herein some of those possibilities came true.

This thesis sheds light on Dollie Radford as one of the talented women writers whose work is still insufficiently acknowledged by contemporary studies because of the lack of extant information about her life. LeeAnne Richardson, Ruth Livesey, and Emily Harrington are three of only a handful of scholars who have discussed in any detail Radford's role as a poet, socialist, and activist who was surrounded by key figures in the history of English literature and culture, such as William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Eleanor Marx, and Olive Schreiner. Despite being identified by Victorian reviewers as a “domestic” woman poet, all contemporary scholars who have hitherto considered Radford pinpoint her “radical” thoughts and engagement with the New Woman. Building on arguments by Radford's contemporary scholars, my argument highlights Radford's role as a Victorian feminist who sought, through her poetry, to challenge patriarchal attitudes and defy social conventions which imprisoned women of her generation. While the first two chapters of this thesis provide a contextual background of women's rights and women's poetry in the Victorian era, the four remaining chapters explore how Radford's personal conflict as an ignored married woman and unsupported writer might have influenced her empathetic portrayal of marginalised figures, such as prostitutes, the working classes, women writers, and homosexuals. Simultaneously, the chapters highlight the subversive meanings obscured by Radford's use of evocative and aesthetic language. The majority of the poems, letters, and diary entries included here are unpublished and have not yet been considered by contemporary critics. Thus, this research adds to the existing body of knowledge, offering a new approach to Radford's life and poetry in relation to aspects concerning women in Victorian and Edwardian England. By continuously interrogating Radford's choice of metaphors and images in contrast with those depicted by other Victorian poets, I aim to establish Radford as a significant fin-se-siècle woman poet whose poetry embraces a literary tradition which questions negative gendered attitudes biased against passionate women writers.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma leitura do romance Drácula, do escritor irlandês Bram Stoker, publicado em 1897. O propósito do estudo é identificar os arquétipos e imagens predominantes em Drácula, mostrando em que medida eles representam questões pertinentes à sociedade vitoriana e aos públicos receptores que obra teve desde então. A obra é publicada em um momento histórico que se configura ponto crucial na conflituada transição entre os antigos valores rurais britânicos e os da moderna sociedade urbana contemporânea, e a conseqüência desta transição é uma mudança drástica no código comportamental britânico. Diversos elementos desta transformação podem ser identificados nas representações simbólicas encontradas no romance de Stoker, e a voracidade com que a obra é consumida pelos leitores desde a época vitoriana se configura sintoma das premências decorrentes da excessiva repressão daquele período. A análise do arquétipo do vampiro e das imagens arquetípicas apresentadas em Drácula se dará predominantemente através do exame das implicações psicológicas e antropológicas ligadas ao imaginário do Sangue. O embasamento teórico se ampara nas contribuições prestadas por Carl Gustav Jung e Gilbert Durand. A dissertação vem subdividida em três capítulos. Na primeira parte do capítulo um apresento as contextualizações referentes a certos fenômenos observados na sociedade vitoriana, especialmente no que tange às implicaturas de gênero no código comportamental da época, e na segunda apresento contextualizações referentes a personagens históricos que influenciaram Bram Stoker na criação de seu personagem principal. No segundo capítulo, remeto ao embasamento teórico, apresentando os conceitos definidos por Jung nos quais a leitura do capítulo 3 se ampara, bem como analiso símbolos, imagens e arquétipos em Drácula de acordo com os regimes da imaginação propostos por Durand. No terceiro capítulo ofereço minha leitura do romance, na qual identifico e analiso imagens e símbolos do Sangue presentes no romance. Na conclusão, apresento as últimas considerações, com o intuito de ratificar as fortes ligações que se estabelecem entre os significados velados inscritos no romance e as vivências da sociedade receptora, tendo como base o mito do vampiro e sua associação com o imaginário do sangue na tentativa de explicar a bemsucedida e contínua recepção do romance. / The aim of this thesis is to present a reading of Dracula, published in 1897 by the Irish author Bram Stoker. The purpose of the investigation is to identify the predominant archetypes and images in Dracula, showing to what extent they represent relevant issues to Victorian society and the audiences the novel has had since then. The work is published in a crucial historical moment, during which the British traditional rural values are replaced by modern and urban ones. A major consequence of such a transition is a drastic change in the British behavioral code. Several elements in such a transformation can be identified in Stoker’s novel, and the eagerness with which the work was accepted by Victorian audiences is a symptom of the needs that resulted from the excessive repression from that period. The analysis of the archetype of the vampire and the archetypal images presented in Dracula unfolds predominantly through the examination of the psychological and anthropological implications connected to blood imagery. The main theoretical tools come from the studies of Carl Gustav Jung and Gilbert Durand. The thesis is subdivided in three chapters. In the first part of chapter one I present some contextualization referring to certain phenomena perceived in the Victorian society, mainly the ones regarding the gender implications in the behavioral code of the time, and in the second part I present contextualization connected to historical characters who influenced Bram Stoker in the creation of his main character. In chapter two I present the theoretical approach, introducing the concepts defined by Jung upon which the reading in chapter 3 is based. I also analyze symbols, images and archetypes in Dracula according to the orders of the image proposed by Durand. In chapter three I offer my reading, identifying and analyzing blood images and symbols in the novel. In the conclusion, I present the final considerations, with the purpose of ratifying the strong bonds connecting the underlying meanings present in the novel and the life experience of the audience, having as a basis the myth of the vampire and its association to the blood imaginary, in an attempt to explain the successful and continuous reception of the novel.

‘The Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Carlyle’s French Revolution’ examines the work of Thomas Carlyle as a crucial aesthetic intervention in the modern reception of the French Revolution in Europe. It interrogates the prevalent critical constructions of Carlyle’s work and finds them to proceed predominantly from the Whig historical agenda, structured around such key nineteenth-century concepts as utilitarianism and civilisational and moral progress. Within this critical framework, Carlyle’s largely conservative cultural stance and Christian spirituality are hardly allowed any creative potential and, ever since the famous fabrication of James Anthony Froude who depicted Carlyle as ‘a Calvinist without the theology’, they have been perceived as artistically-stunted, irrational, and out of touch with the nineteenth-century political, social and cultural realities. In examining Carlyle’s involvement with German Romanticism on the one hand, and with contemporary British periodical press on the other, this thesis proposes a more comprehensive reading of Carlyle’s politics, aesthetics and spirituality in an attempt to represent his radically open, catholic and indeed cosmopolitan artistic agenda which taps into the Scottish Enlightenment concept of rationality, Calvinist scepticism towards nineteenth-century progressivism and acute perception of evil in this world, and post-Burkean Romantic aesthetics of the sublime. We chart the aesthetic movement from Carlyle’s early dialogue with Schiller and Goethe to ‘The Diamond Necklace’, Carlyle’s first artistic rendition of the French pre-revolutionary scene, delivered as a (Gothic) moral tale and anticipating The French Revolution (a historical work that uniquely employs the Gothic genre within historical narrative, arguably unparalleled in British post-Burkean Romanticism). The critical reception of The French Revolution in Britain is examined, with special attention paid to the highly unfavourable review by Herman Merivale in The Edinburgh Review, in order to challenge the Whig line in Carlylean criticism and to expose the fundamental artistic, political and moral disagreement between Carlyle and Merivale. Carlyle’s Calvinist stance sees both Merivale’s and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s facile exorcism of the categories of good and evil from their historical agendas as irrational given the recent French terror (which, in Carlyle’s reading, released its demons precisely through such a botched ethical deal). Similarly, I highlight Carlyle’s close dialogue with John Stuart Mill both in their correspondence, and in the publications in the London and Westminster Review, while I argue that this intellectual exchange is crucial for the reading of The French Revolution as a text challenging Mill’s utilitarianism, and written within the institutional framework of the contemporary periodical press. Finally, Carlyle is seen to make capital of the concepts of Gothic and sublime, introduced by Edmund Burke and popularised by the Anti-Jacobin Review in Britain, by applying them directly to the French mob in search of a new spiritual tongue for his times (a move that even a nineteenth-century radical liberal thinker such as Mill sees as politically, if not artistically, far too subversive and revolutionary). Creative non-conclusiveness and playful deconstruction of the prevalent post-revolutionary narratives of 1789 characterise Carlyle’s deeply spiritual and artistically-sophisticated text, which, in an orthodox Christian reading, rejoices in the messy, dark and complex residue of human history, through which Christian providence acts in mysterious and unexpected ways that do not allow for any simple, de-mythologised reading.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma leitura do romance Drácula, do escritor irlandês Bram Stoker, publicado em 1897. O propósito do estudo é identificar os arquétipos e imagens predominantes em Drácula, mostrando em que medida eles representam questões pertinentes à sociedade vitoriana e aos públicos receptores que obra teve desde então. A obra é publicada em um momento histórico que se configura ponto crucial na conflituada transição entre os antigos valores rurais britânicos e os da moderna sociedade urbana contemporânea, e a conseqüência desta transição é uma mudança drástica no código comportamental britânico. Diversos elementos desta transformação podem ser identificados nas representações simbólicas encontradas no romance de Stoker, e a voracidade com que a obra é consumida pelos leitores desde a época vitoriana se configura sintoma das premências decorrentes da excessiva repressão daquele período. A análise do arquétipo do vampiro e das imagens arquetípicas apresentadas em Drácula se dará predominantemente através do exame das implicações psicológicas e antropológicas ligadas ao imaginário do Sangue. O embasamento teórico se ampara nas contribuições prestadas por Carl Gustav Jung e Gilbert Durand. A dissertação vem subdividida em três capítulos. Na primeira parte do capítulo um apresento as contextualizações referentes a certos fenômenos observados na sociedade vitoriana, especialmente no que tange às implicaturas de gênero no código comportamental da época, e na segunda apresento contextualizações referentes a personagens históricos que influenciaram Bram Stoker na criação de seu personagem principal. No segundo capítulo, remeto ao embasamento teórico, apresentando os conceitos definidos por Jung nos quais a leitura do capítulo 3 se ampara, bem como analiso símbolos, imagens e arquétipos em Drácula de acordo com os regimes da imaginação propostos por Durand. No terceiro capítulo ofereço minha leitura do romance, na qual identifico e analiso imagens e símbolos do Sangue presentes no romance. Na conclusão, apresento as últimas considerações, com o intuito de ratificar as fortes ligações que se estabelecem entre os significados velados inscritos no romance e as vivências da sociedade receptora, tendo como base o mito do vampiro e sua associação com o imaginário do sangue na tentativa de explicar a bemsucedida e contínua recepção do romance. / The aim of this thesis is to present a reading of Dracula, published in 1897 by the Irish author Bram Stoker. The purpose of the investigation is to identify the predominant archetypes and images in Dracula, showing to what extent they represent relevant issues to Victorian society and the audiences the novel has had since then. The work is published in a crucial historical moment, during which the British traditional rural values are replaced by modern and urban ones. A major consequence of such a transition is a drastic change in the British behavioral code. Several elements in such a transformation can be identified in Stoker’s novel, and the eagerness with which the work was accepted by Victorian audiences is a symptom of the needs that resulted from the excessive repression from that period. The analysis of the archetype of the vampire and the archetypal images presented in Dracula unfolds predominantly through the examination of the psychological and anthropological implications connected to blood imagery. The main theoretical tools come from the studies of Carl Gustav Jung and Gilbert Durand. The thesis is subdivided in three chapters. In the first part of chapter one I present some contextualization referring to certain phenomena perceived in the Victorian society, mainly the ones regarding the gender implications in the behavioral code of the time, and in the second part I present contextualization connected to historical characters who influenced Bram Stoker in the creation of his main character. In chapter two I present the theoretical approach, introducing the concepts defined by Jung upon which the reading in chapter 3 is based. I also analyze symbols, images and archetypes in Dracula according to the orders of the image proposed by Durand. In chapter three I offer my reading, identifying and analyzing blood images and symbols in the novel. In the conclusion, I present the final considerations, with the purpose of ratifying the strong bonds connecting the underlying meanings present in the novel and the life experience of the audience, having as a basis the myth of the vampire and its association to the blood imaginary, in an attempt to explain the successful and continuous reception of the novel.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma leitura do romance Drácula, do escritor irlandês Bram Stoker, publicado em 1897. O propósito do estudo é identificar os arquétipos e imagens predominantes em Drácula, mostrando em que medida eles representam questões pertinentes à sociedade vitoriana e aos públicos receptores que obra teve desde então. A obra é publicada em um momento histórico que se configura ponto crucial na conflituada transição entre os antigos valores rurais britânicos e os da moderna sociedade urbana contemporânea, e a conseqüência desta transição é uma mudança drástica no código comportamental britânico. Diversos elementos desta transformação podem ser identificados nas representações simbólicas encontradas no romance de Stoker, e a voracidade com que a obra é consumida pelos leitores desde a época vitoriana se configura sintoma das premências decorrentes da excessiva repressão daquele período. A análise do arquétipo do vampiro e das imagens arquetípicas apresentadas em Drácula se dará predominantemente através do exame das implicações psicológicas e antropológicas ligadas ao imaginário do Sangue. O embasamento teórico se ampara nas contribuições prestadas por Carl Gustav Jung e Gilbert Durand. A dissertação vem subdividida em três capítulos. Na primeira parte do capítulo um apresento as contextualizações referentes a certos fenômenos observados na sociedade vitoriana, especialmente no que tange às implicaturas de gênero no código comportamental da época, e na segunda apresento contextualizações referentes a personagens históricos que influenciaram Bram Stoker na criação de seu personagem principal. No segundo capítulo, remeto ao embasamento teórico, apresentando os conceitos definidos por Jung nos quais a leitura do capítulo 3 se ampara, bem como analiso símbolos, imagens e arquétipos em Drácula de acordo com os regimes da imaginação propostos por Durand. No terceiro capítulo ofereço minha leitura do romance, na qual identifico e analiso imagens e símbolos do Sangue presentes no romance. Na conclusão, apresento as últimas considerações, com o intuito de ratificar as fortes ligações que se estabelecem entre os significados velados inscritos no romance e as vivências da sociedade receptora, tendo como base o mito do vampiro e sua associação com o imaginário do sangue na tentativa de explicar a bemsucedida e contínua recepção do romance. / The aim of this thesis is to present a reading of Dracula, published in 1897 by the Irish author Bram Stoker. The purpose of the investigation is to identify the predominant archetypes and images in Dracula, showing to what extent they represent relevant issues to Victorian society and the audiences the novel has had since then. The work is published in a crucial historical moment, during which the British traditional rural values are replaced by modern and urban ones. A major consequence of such a transition is a drastic change in the British behavioral code. Several elements in such a transformation can be identified in Stoker’s novel, and the eagerness with which the work was accepted by Victorian audiences is a symptom of the needs that resulted from the excessive repression from that period. The analysis of the archetype of the vampire and the archetypal images presented in Dracula unfolds predominantly through the examination of the psychological and anthropological implications connected to blood imagery. The main theoretical tools come from the studies of Carl Gustav Jung and Gilbert Durand. The thesis is subdivided in three chapters. In the first part of chapter one I present some contextualization referring to certain phenomena perceived in the Victorian society, mainly the ones regarding the gender implications in the behavioral code of the time, and in the second part I present contextualization connected to historical characters who influenced Bram Stoker in the creation of his main character. In chapter two I present the theoretical approach, introducing the concepts defined by Jung upon which the reading in chapter 3 is based. I also analyze symbols, images and archetypes in Dracula according to the orders of the image proposed by Durand. In chapter three I offer my reading, identifying and analyzing blood images and symbols in the novel. In the conclusion, I present the final considerations, with the purpose of ratifying the strong bonds connecting the underlying meanings present in the novel and the life experience of the audience, having as a basis the myth of the vampire and its association to the blood imaginary, in an attempt to explain the successful and continuous reception of the novel.

<p>  </p> <p>While the field of Monster Studies has proliferated across disciplines, particularly in relation to studies of the medieval period, often Early Middle English literature has been ignored. In some ways, this is sensible, since the term “monster” is not attested in English until Chaucer’s use of it in the late 14th century in <em>The Canterbury Tales. </em>However, nonhuman beings that might otherwise have been categorized as monsters are still present in the literature. Building on the idea of Hughes’ “non-human human beings” and Mittman’s and Heng’s reconceptualization of race and the “monstrous races,” I propose a new term: nonhuman person. I propose three criteria for determining if a particular literary being falls in this category. I use literary analysis to determine if each criterion is met. Then I examine the lexical choices made to identify and describe each of these nonhuman persons in two sample texts from each rough time period in the language: .<em>The Wonders of the East </em>and <em>Beowulf </em>for Old English; <em>The Owl and the Nightingale </em>and Layamon’s <em>Brut </em>for Early Middle English; and <em>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight </em>and <em>The Canterbury Tales </em>for Late Middle English. Finally, I examine the shifts in the lexicon over time in order to examine how English re-envisions the nonhuman person from the Old English period up through Chaucer’s use of “monster” in his <em>Tales. </em></p>