This thesis explores theatre's capacity to act as a medium for the 'production' of history. Proposing a theoretical model capable of accommodating this significantly underexplored function of contemporary drama, I adapt recent developments in the debates over textual historiography to the processes of theatrical production. Concurrent with this investigation, I examine certain examples of one of the most popular forms of contemporary historical theatre in Britain - the documentary strand known as 'verbatim' - and demonstrate the ways in which a lack of attention to theatre- historiography has allowed some uninformed and unstable historical methodologies to proliferate in theatrical discourses. Initially focussing upon the August Riots of 2011, I demonstrate the ways in which the political disingenuousness of key verbatim methodologies renders them unfit to engage productively with the demands of their surrounding context. Arguing the necessity for theatre to fulfil this societal function, I then consider alternative, politically conscious theatrical approaches to history. Exploring the work of Edward Bond through a preliminary study of Saved and a chapter-length analysis of Lear, I address the topic of narrative historiography in theatre. Interrogating the trajectories of dramatic and performance texts over time, I demonstrate that theatre's propensity to respond to the conditions of its performing context complicates the notion of a single or 'stable' narrative. Thus, in conjunction with the theatrical and scholarly responses of Peter Brook and Jan Kott, I argue that the Shakespeare with whom Bond interacts in Lear is a product of the twentieth, rather than the seventeenth century. Focussing in on the theatrical 'event' as a site of historical production, I then examine the National Theatre's 2012 production of Howard Barker's Scenes from an Execution. Barker's plays employ an ambiguous and disruptive approach to history, designed to oppose the orthodoxies of the performing contexts into which they are brought into being. However, using this production as example, I show that this opposition is only possible if a historiographic consciousness is maintained at the level of performance. The studies of Bond and Playing with the Past: The Politics of Historiographic Theatre Barker outline a model for the production of 'historiographic theatre' - theatre that exploits its own unique capacities to produce and engage with history. I reassert the value of this kind of theatre by returning, in the 'Epilogue', to the August Riots, events that I propose are symptomatic of wider instabilities in contemporary socio-political climates. Historiographic theatre, I argue, has the capacity to point beyond these climates, providing a space in which these instabilities may be engaged.

The goal of this thesis is to propose a cognitive approach to intertextuality. Intertextuality has attracted the attention of a number of literary scholars interested in discussing the interrelations between literary texts without, however, focusing on how readers create these connections. On the other hand, despite its reader-oriented approach, cognitive poetics has largely neglected the concept. This project employs recent developments in the field of cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology and proposes a multi-layered approach to intertextuality in the light of the principles of cognitive poetics. The main part of the thesis draws on the cognitive notion of frames defined as online processing domains. I propose that readers create intertextual links by combining their background knowledge with textual elements in intertextual frames. Three types of frames are identified: semantic, topical and stylistic. The term 'semantic frame' refers to the more impressionistic links that emerge from the identification of a single lexical item, while the term 'topical frame' refers to more complex constructions built by readers through the identification of multiple textual elements. The term 'stylistic frame' refers to links based on quotation identification or genre similarities. A variety of literary texts will be discussed in order to illustrate how these frames may be created. The final part of the thesis is dedicated to the investigation of the relationship between intertextuality and the emotional engagement of readers with literary texts reflecting recent directions in cognitive poetics. This is accompanied with a mixed methods study designed to present empirical data on how readers construct intertextual links and on the effects these have on the reading experience. The overall aim of this project is to provide the foundations and the theoretical point-of-entry for further related research.

The metropolitan hotel is a rich space for exploration in hotel fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to its interesting connection with both the city and the home, and its positive and negative effects on the individual. Using spatial theory as a foundation for understanding how the hotel functions, and drawing on theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Edward D. Soja, Fredric Jameson, Yi-fu Tuan and David Harvey, this thesis offers an alternative approach to the culturally specific readings of past hotel studies; by contrast, it will draw on two alternate readings of the space: those which are concerned with the geographical and with the sociological make-up of the hotel. The ambition behind this thesis is to provide a framework for discussing novels from the realist tradition through to post-modern examples of spatial exploration. A selection of works will be studied, including: Elizabeth Bowen, The Hotel, Henry Green, Party Going, Arnold Bennett, Imperial Palace and Grand Babylon Hotel, Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled and Ali Smith, Hotel World. These writers are linked through the particular use they make of the hotel and the creation of spatial identity in their novels. Spatial identity in turn arises through an awareness of the power of space, and its variable effect on an individual’s identity. This thesis begins by examining past hotel research, which centred on late nineteenth-century novels by Henry James and Edith Wharton. It then introduces the theoretical studies that have informed the current thesis. Before moving onto the two central chapters, which examine the geography and sociology of space, it includes a brief ‘interlude’ on Richard Whiteing’s No. 5 John Street, a work which introduces many of the themes central to this thesis. The central argument considers the agency or power of the hotel space, a concept which has been generally overlooked in criticism. The power of space in hotel fiction is exhibited in its capacity to alter events and emotions and identities in general. In this view landscape, traditionally considered two-dimensional, is no longer flat, but can be rather seen as a multifarious ‘character’ in its own right. This conception of the spatial environment of the hotel encapsulates what it means to function in the modern urban environment.

Recent research on cultural citizenship focuses on issues of identity and belonging in multicultural societies and examines the political, economic, and cultural aspects of community membership in local, national, and transnational groups. Postcolonial research into colonial and neocolonial representations of individual and national cultural identities offers a means of interrogating hegemonic discursive practices of Orientalism, neocolonialism and globalization as they relate to the representation of cultural citizenship. This dissertation positions the representation of Indian cultural identities in the films of Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair, and Gurinder Chadha as practices of cultural citizenship that attempt to reposition the Indian as a local identity in three Western multicultural societies: Canada, the US and the UK. It draws on postcolonial, gender, and literary theory to textually analyze the discourses underlying the filmic representations of marginalized identities by incorporating the theories of Said, Spivak, Mohanty, and Bhabha into a socio-cultural analysis of Indian identity construction. The study utilizes the Lacanian theory of the mirror stage within the canonical writings of postcolonial theorists like hooks, Said, Fanon, and Bhabha, all of whom use Lacan’s work to describe the splitting of the subject from the Other in order to illustrate the production of the derogatory figure of the Indian as inscribed in Orientalist, and Western/ Eurocentric discourses. This figure is precisely that produced in and consumed through Bollywood films. Chapter one offers an analysis of the Lacanian subject formation as a moment in which the spectator of these films views the cinematic representation of the imago of Indian cultural identity—which in these films can be read as sociocultural constructions of local non-alien figures with community memberships in the adopted homelands—as practices of cultural citizenship acquisition affecting both the alienation of the characters and the spectators. My second chapter, by revising the feminist perspectives of Spivak and Mohanty, strategically locates the subject position of these diasporic filmmakers as intellectuals to relate the representation of Indian cultural identity as a cultural practice within the praxis of Western film. In doing so, it aims to unearth the Indian woman in the West as the cousin of the subaltern woman, positioning her vis-à-vis a Western and local identity within a multicultural society. In my exploration of the filmmakers’ practices of cultural citizenship I relate their community membership to the concept of Dharma as a culturally grounded feminist and postcolonial writing back to the subordinate representation of female Indians in their multiple locations. In the third chapter I offer that cultural citizenship as a practice of representation of visible minorities constructed by these filmmakers offers a necessary splintering of the dominant national identities of their multicultural societies that illuminates the hybridity of cultural identities and the plurality of national identities. The filmmakers achieve this revision by positioning the Indian as local of, rather than Other to, multicultural society. The discussion of Canadian multiculturalism in this chapter illustrates that these filmmakers’ representations of plurality in their construction of national identities, splinters the representation of white monocultural national identities prevalent in Western multicultural nations. My thesis contributes to the fields of postcolonial, literary, and cultural theory in the following ways: a) I add to the discussion of Lacan’s subject formation, and the mirroring of the Other and the alienation of the immigrant, by examining the imago as a reflection of identity which can offer spectators a moment of belonging within an adopted homeland as a cultural citizenship practice; b) I add to the debate on cultural citizenship by relating the historic concept of Dharma to my discussion of the intellectual production of female identities and explicate how its counter-narrative challenges to the gender roles of Indian men and women. Ultimately I conclude that the representation of Indian cultural identity by these filmmakers and the representation of the imago as external spectral image of the Indian, immigrant, or visible Other, discloses a discursive strategy of social cohesion in its challenging representation of plural national identities which are local, multiracial, and multicultural.

French and English literature in the eighteenth century are generally held to have a symbiotic relationship and the links between the two sentimental traditions, in particular, have been well documented by scholars. However the connections between the sentimental and the libertine discourse have tended to be obliterated. The main assumption underlying this project is the existence of an intimate interplay between sentimentalism and libertinism. Its main aim is to trace the strong attraction existing between the two and to question the genre and national dimensions which have been perpetuated by previous critical discourses through close textual analyses of mid-century French and English novels (Sterne's A Sentimental Journey and Crebillon's Les Egarements du Coeur et de I 'esprit and Les Heureux Orphelins, Haywood's The Fortunate Foundlings, Riccoboni's Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby, Burney's Evelina, and Cleland's Fanny Hill). The focus will be on the moment when the libertine is tempted to behave sentimentally or when the sentimental (wo)man is tempted to act as a libertine. The relationships between these core texts being very rich, they will be approached from different perspectives in each of the issue-based chapters which will centre on questions of language, non-linguistic communication, sociability, epistolarity and difference.

Lyric poetry is frequently viewed by critics as distinct from narrative poetry and prose. This distinction rests largely on the positioning of the lyric speaker vis-à-vis the poet author. Part of any definition of the lyric is the understanding that the lyric speaker is identical to the poet and therefore the poem is the unmediated direct expression of the poet’s thoughts and experiences. These assumptions which are endemic to literary and sometimes linguistic criticism have led to restricted critical studies and a preponderance of inappropriate biographical criticism. This thesis examines how the speakers in certain types of lyric poetry are positioned, and identifies where conceptions of lyric speakers may be causing the problem of the biographical fallacy. The central questions that structure this thesis are: • Why is the lyric speaker so often considered by critics to be identical to the poet and therefore an unmediated direct expression of the poet’s thoughts and experiences? • Can lyric poetry instead make use of the same complexity of perspectives, voices and mediation that narrative prose does? • What linguistic and narratological features in poetry deemed ‘personal’ to the poet might be creating the illusion of personalness, causing us to reduce this potential complexity to unmediated and monologic autobiography? I argue that the assumption that lyric poetry represents the monologic and unmediated voice of the poet is endemic in criticism and without a more precise examination of what lyric speakers do, poetic criticism will continue to fall back on biographical criticism despite the many theoretical attempts to leave it behind. By demonstrating that there is narrativity present in lyric poetry, I argue that narratological concepts can and should be applied to lyric poetry, and therefore I join a growing discussion about how theoretical approaches to poetry can be improved by using the tools that are used to analyse narrative. Overall, my thesis is an application of narrative theory to three distinct types of lyric poetry that best demonstrate the multiperspectivism of the lyric, but are at the same time central examples of the genre: lyric poetry which uses a turn or volta to encode multiple viewpoints, poetry which appears extremely personal and connected to its poet, and poetry based on experiences of real conflict. By using narrative theory (and where necessary drawing on literary linguistic models, such as text world theory, relevance theory and transitivity) , I analyse the point(s) of view expressed in poems considered quintessentially lyric and the positions and levels of mediation that the lyric speaker can adopt, thus demonstrating not only that lyric poetry can make use of the same complexity of perspectives, voices and mediation that narrative prose does, but that the poetic speaker operates in much the same way as that of a prose narrator. I argue that this should cause us to rethink how the speaker in lyric poetry is approached. In addition, I argue that by examining poetry in this way, we can move on from making assumptions about the biographical links between poetry and poets, and instead identify the linguistic features which cause us to assume that such a link is present.

This thesis considers prose texts by the Austrian authors Marlene Streeruwitz and Lilian Faschinger from the viewpoint of intertextuality. The research does not rely on the narrow definitions of intertextuality which are concerned with the appearance of an anterior text in a later text, or on studies of source and influence. Rather my treatment of the novels considers the way meanings are constructed by a network of cultural and social discourses which embody distinct codes, expectations and assumptions. This study discusses the ways in which the chosen texts, through their intertexts, display a postmodern impetus towards reappropriating authorized discourse in new and challenging ways, from feminist perspectives. My intertextual readings are alert to two main threads – the critique of aspects of Austrian society evident in the novels of Streeruwitz and Faschinger and their place within the tradition of Österreich-Beschimpfung, and the interventions into issues pertaining to gender. I examine thematic similarities and differences in the texts, which draw attention to specifically Austrian or gender related issues, as well as scrutinizing formal and linguistic elements. Ultimately, my thesis poses and suggests answers to questions regarding strategies of intervention by feminist authors and the fruitfulness of intertextual readings.

My doctoral thesis uses the ‘institutional approach’ to analyse the mechanics of the production and distribution of lianhuanhua (comics) from 1949 to 1966. From this analysis, I extrapolate what made the medium unique and therefore what insights lianhuanhua can offer into Maoist ‘political culture’. Lianhuanhua originated in the Republican era and the unique characteristics of its publishing and distribution had important consequences for the medium’s subsequent development after 1949. During the ‘seventeen years’ lianhuanhua functioned as a propaganda tool, supporting political campaigns and celebrating CCP history. Despite these functions however, the themes inherent in the medium were a lot more varied. Analysis reveals that what was allowed and disallowed was considerably more ad hoc than what we might expect of a strictly controlled totalitarian state. Irregular approaches to production and censorship were also mirrored in the lack of an overall national publishing strategy before 1966. Meanwhile, as the producers of an art form which managed to successfully reconcile the inherent contradictions in CCP art policy, lianhuanhua artists developed a complex give and take relationship with Party-State agencies. Comics were disseminated through highly regulated channels, including bookshops, libraries and factories to ensure ‘revolutionary’ content reached a wider audience and Party-State agencies also sought to advocate ‘appropriate’ reading through ‘reading tutorship’. However, these agencies simultaneously faced challenges in regulating the stocks and location of the highly popular lianhuanhua ‘guerrilla vendors’ and this had profound implications for the kinds of content which persisted in circulating in the early PRC.

This thesis sets out to facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue between literature and architecture by drawing specific connections between the architectural elements of the twentieth-century built environment and the literary representation of that environment in the late modernist novel. Focusing on the mid-century work of three modernist women writers – Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys, and Virginia Woolf – I argue that the architectural spaces they negotiate, and their specific articulation of those spaces, offer important insights into modernity’s crisis of home, belonging, and identity. Moreover, arguing that this crisis is exacerbated in the mid-century by the Second World War, I advance current understandings of ‘late modernism’. In particular, I provide detailed evidence of how these writers collectively respond to the architectural instabilities of the mid-century by developing the anxious forms of high modernist urbanism. Each chapter comprises an extended author-specific case study that brings together critical and theoretical debates on space and place through close readings of pertinent architectural themes and forms: Bowen and architectural ruination, Rhys and the architectural uncanny, and Woolf and architectural ambivalence. Throughout these chapters I demonstrate how the late modernist novel complicates Martin Heidegger’s conservative and mythic conception of the dwelling place through representing the built environment in terms of flux and interchange, thus playing an important role in (re)imagining and (re)constructing understandings of architectural space and place. Taking a literary geographic approach, but moving beyond the existing focus on ‘textuality’, I argue for an increased awareness of the immersive ‘textures’ of space and fiction. Developing literary geographic practice to take better account of architecture and affect, I thus establish a new vocabulary for elaborating the interdisciplinary connections between literature and architecture: what I term a ‘critical literary architexture’.

This thesis explores the effect produced when contemporary novelists write about fellow authors. Since the mid-1990s, the biographical novel, which fictionalises the lives of real-life historical authors, has become an increasingly popular literary genre in Britain and the United States. This contemporary exploration of authorial subjectivity, viewed here through the lens of life-writing, provides a reengagement with debates surrounding the crisis of the author-figure (exemplified by Roland Barthes), and the unreliability of biography as a discourse of subjectivity at the turn of the twenty-first century. Through its inherent self-reflexivity (with its exposure of both the author-biographer alongside the author-subject), I consider how the biographical novel succeeds in reconciling the author-figure with the literary text in new ways. While critical interest in the biographical novel has tended to focus on a limited number of texts, little attention has been paid to their status as an emergent sub-genre of life-writing. Through the exemplary figures of Sylvia Plath, Henry James and Virginia Woolf and their corresponding biographical novels, I draw together a core body of texts to demonstrate their unity as a literary form. With an emphasis upon the role of life-writing in the construction of authorial subjectivity, I consider how each of the three author-subjects have cultivated — and been cultivated by — particular recurrent motifs: firstly through their own texts (whether fictional or biographical), then as they become manifest once again in the writing of the contemporary biographical novelists. Modernist developments in biographical modes, particularly Woolf's revision of the relationship between the biographer and his or her subject, provide both context for the biographical novel, and a rich framework upon which to build contemporary forms of life-writing and authorial subjectivity. Taking these as a starting point through which to view the 'author question', my thesis reveals how the genre of the biographical novel offers a redefinition of both the author as a multiple, progressive and changing figure, and a highlighting how the reinterpretation of life-writing in fictional form both enhances and supports the future of biography and autobiography as an equally evolutionary form.