Thesis (M.A. History)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-141). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis will examine the representation of the figure of Percy Shelley in the text of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). My hypothesis is that Percy Shelley represents to Mary Shelley a figure who embodies the contrasting and more startling aspects of both the Romantic Movement and the Enlightenment era. This I will demonstrate through a close examination of the text of Frankenstein and through an exploration of the figure of Percy Shelley as he is represented in the novel. The representation of Shelley is most marked in the figures of Victor and the Creature, but is not exclusively confined to them. The thesis will attempt to show that Victor and the Creature can be read as figures for the Enlightenment and the Romantic movements respectively. As several critics have noted, these fictional protagonists also represent the divergent elements of Percy Shelley’s own divided personality, as he was both a dedicated man of science and a radical Romantic poet. He is a figure who exemplifies the contrasting notions of the archetypal Enlightenment man, while simultaneously embodying the Romantic resistance to some aspects of that zeitgeist. Lately, there has been a resurgence of interest in the novel by contemporary authors, biographers and playwrights, who have responded to it in a range of literary forms. I will pay particular attention to Peter Ackroyd’s, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2011), which shows that the questions Frankenstein poses to the reader are still with us today. I suggest that this is one of the main impulses behind this recent resurgence of interest in Mary Shelley’s novel. In particular, my thesis will explore the idea that the question of knowledge itself, and the scientific and moral limits which may apply to it, has a renewed urgency in early 21st century literature. In Frankenstein this is a central theme and is related to the figure of the “modern Prometheus”, which was the subtitle of Frankenstein, and which points to the ambitious figure who wishes to advance his own knowledge at all costs. I will consider this point by exploring the ways in which the tensions embodied by Percy Shelley and raised by the original novel are addressed in these contemporary texts. The renewed interest in these questions suggests that they remain pressing in our time, and continue to haunt us in our current society, not unlike the Creature in the novel.

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft have been largely utilized in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries within the domain of feminist studies. They were influential throughout the 'feminist movement' of the 1960s and 1970s and Wollstonecraft is routinely given the title of 'mother' of feminism. One result of her works being classified as important feminist texts is the elision of the religious element in her works. Moreover, recent scholarship has drawn attention to the central importance of religion in eighteenth century British discourse. This thesis will primarily argue that Wollstonecraft was heavily influenced by religion, and that her writings were conceived in response to a profoundly theologico-political culture. This influence of religion has generally been overlooked by researchers and this thesis will aim to redress this absence. Four of Wollstonecraft's works - all produced within a 'similar' political climate and within a concise time period - are utilized to show that religion was a foundational element within Wollstonecraft's thought and arguments. This thesis shows that Wollstonecraft was not so much a 'feminist' thinker, but a unique intellectual determined to show that the inferior position of women went against 'God's will', teachings and the equality He had ascribed to both men and women during Creation.

The notion, which has persisted over many years, of Mary Shelley as the conservative daughter of a radical, proto-feminist mother can be traced to the views of Edward Trelawney, a contemporary and fair-weather friend of Shelley. This study, by exploring female identity, largely in terms of modern feminist psychoanalytic theory, in several of Shelley's lesser-known novels, attempts to contribute to the efforts of those who have challenged such notions and who have strived to render a more accurate portrait of Mary Shelley. / Anne Mellor's discussion of female identity in Shelley's sentimental novels, Mathilda, Lodore and Falkner, (in her book Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters) does much to dispel the notion of Shelley's apathy with regard to gender politics. Mellor convincingly argues that these novels celebrate what she terms the "relational" identity of their heroines, and thus "support a feminist position which argues that female culture is morally superior to male culture." She further maintains, however, that these novels simultaneously reveal the damage that such an identity can do to a woman's personal development. / My paper challenges Mellor's assertion that Lodore and Falkner Shelley's last novels, portray relational identity with ambivalence. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Thesis (D. Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2008. / Supervisors: Dr Fiona Stafford, Dr Jo McDonagh. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 324-352).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47-48).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 293-309).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47-48). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 407-414).

This thesis examines the influence of the proto-feminist ideas of the Enlightenment on Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, specifically their presence in the coming-of-age journey of the novel’s heroine Catherine Morland. In this thesis, the proto-feminist ideas of the Enlightenment discussed are based on the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft as presented in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I focus on Wollstonecraft’s emphasis on the importance of reason for the emancipation of women as well as the role of virtue and modesty, but also on the existence of an ambivalent relationship between sense and sentiment. The aim of the thesis is to show that Catherine Morland’s coming-of-age journey in Northanger Abbey can be understood as a representation of the emancipation of women that Wollstonecraft hopes for, and that the obstacles standing in the way of Catherine’s maturation are parallel to the obstacles which, during the Enlightenment, prevented women from claiming reason for themselves. First, I draw upon Wollstonecraft’s criticism of sentimental fiction and its hampering effect on women’s minds and show that the same idea is present in the narrative of Northanger Abbey, in the shape of gothic fiction. Then, I show how Catherine’s ability to discern between virtuous and immodest behaviour improves drastically as she starts to exercise her reason, in concurrence with Wollstonecraft’s claim that all virtuous thought must stem from reason. I analyse the importance of Catherine’s choice of partner and its relationship to the proto-feminist critique of women’s inability to express ideas contrary to those of a man. Finally, I dissect the proto-feminist ambivalent relationship between sense and sentiment and connect it to the finale of Northanger Abbey. These elements put together all point toward Wollstonecraft and Austen being coextensive, and demonstrate how Austen makes use of Wollstonecraft’s ideas to promote the emergence of female bildung.