Though this study had its origins in the consideration of children's writing and their responses to reading it explores in a wider context the nature of imagination and its relation to the discursive. Within imagination there seem to be three modes that are frequently conflated - fantasy, identification and the imagination itself. Each, however, has distinctive epistemological implications and significance for identity. In normal discourse imagination is often conflated with fantasy. Whereas fantasy seeks to exercise power in attempting to transform the world into its own terms and imagination shares this capacity for refiguration, the one is associated with obfuscation and the other with insight. In reading, the distinction is crucial. Generally, children are empowered by the fantasy that texts exploit or stimulate. Yet the absence of significant cognitive control constitutes a kind of blindness. Identification differs from fantasy in that the reader is drawn, say, into the world of the book - this supposes a differentiation, an escape, from the self that is merely placated in fantasy. Yet, here too, is blindness, particularly with regard to the constitutive aspects of the writing. On the other hand to teach texts through exerting cognitive control may shift the text too quickly into the discursive with the danger that students are expected to respond to experiences that they have not had. The distinctions between identification and imagination are manifest in some of the fictions of Chaucer and Kafka where differentiation is achieved through irony. Imagination is what facilitates the sh

This thesis argues that, while the Revelation of John claims to unveil reality, the interpretative structures built on the book are undermined by its own rhetoric. A historical examination of its use shows the fragility of hermeneutics, but also the power of the 'apocalyptic tone' to engender new unveilings. The first chapter presents the Apocalypse as a book constantly inviting but constantly confounding interpretation, refusing to fit conventional generic definitions or reading strategies. The next two chapters show the book's continuing prominence in eighteenth-century England after its pivotal role in the Reformation. First - writers such as Isaac Newton and William Whiston - it serves as rationalistic evidence for God's providence, as well as giving encouragement to moral 'usefulness' and to the reformation of Christianity. Secondly, its imagery reinforces the more individualistic appeal of the Wesley's preaching and hymns. But it is only with the French Revolution (treated in Chapter 4) that the Apocalypse recovers political immediacy, as seen in both radical millenarian writers like Priestley and Bicheno and in conservative ones like Burke and G.S. Faber. The Romantic period also saw a revival of prophetic and visionary writing, and for many poets John of Patmos was a guiding spirit. Coleridge, the subject of Chapter 5, moved from the millenarian declamation of 'Religious Musings' and the fragmented vision of 'Kubla Khan' to an attempt to interpret the Apocalypse as symbolic representation of polar logic and moral order.

This thesis is a study of the autobiographical writings of Naomi Mitchison, a prolific writer of exceptional versatility who was born in the last years of the Victorian period and is now best known as a writer of fiction, and as part of the 'Scottish literary Renaissance' of the first half of the twentieth century. In her late seventies, towards the end of a highly productive literary career, Mitchison published three volumes of autobiography, Small Talk: Memoirs of an Edwardian Childhood (1973), All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (1975) and You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940 (1979). Unusually for retrospective memoir, however, these texts cover less than half of her hundred and one years, leading the reader to question the location and mode of her complete autobiographical writings. Working extensively with archival material, much of which has been previously unavailable, this thesis sets out to demonstrate that Mitchison's personal writings are far more extensive than have been previously acknowledged, and are to be found through a wide range of out-of-print and unpublished material which include diaries, travel writing, personal correspondence, and, in few instances, poetry and prose fiction. In the course of this research I have compiled two substantial volumes of source materials which have been lodged in the Department of Scottish Literature Library. A contribution to Mitchison studies in themselves, I here draw attention to their existence and availability. While at first sight many of the texts on which this study focuses are minor writings in relation to the major achievements of Mitchison's literary career, this thesis argues that as a collected body of work, they form an autobiographical corpus which documents and bears witness to an extraordinary twentieth-century life, and constitutes a substantial literary achievement. Autobiographical- and life-writings often escape strict generic boundaries, and this study employs genre theory to interrogate the categorisation of literary genre. Central to this focus on traditionally marginalised non-fictional writings are questions of the changing position of memoir, the diary, epistolary and travel writings to the canon, and recent theoretical approaches are examined.

(This thesis is an attempt to apply literary criticism, specifically a narratological approach, to the reading of the biblical text.) There is an incongruity in the story of Isaac's (near) sacrifice by Abraham insofar as it is too economical with language in what is otherwise a complex set of important issues about obedience and sacrifice. Interpreters throughout the centuries have tried to resolve the textual difficulties created by the incongruity. Yet the variety of their conclusions are evidence of the impossibility of overcoming the ambiguities of the story. But these ambiguities are scarcely given any thorough investigation by the interpreters, whose assumed duties are commonly to clarify the story either for the sake of religious or moral obligation or, in the pursuit of intellectual satisfaction, as is apparent in many historical readings of the text. A closer look at the story reveals that there are many ambiguities that can be grasped from many angles. By using the focalization theory of narratology one can illuminate differing points of view involved in the process of narration. The narrator's voice should not be regarded as the only representation of the events as there are also the characters' ways of looking and the related events. One should be careful so as not to follow slavishly the narrator's voice while neglecting others' standpoints in the narrative which may contradict the narrator's voice. There should be communicative links seen amongst the voices or focalizations in the narrative which may or may not be verbally said. Here, it is proposed that reading is experiencing the multilayered world of the narrative. Reading is not necessarily and ultimately bound with the task of producing meaning, although it may mean a threat towards rational objectivity.

Through the imaginative literary genius of the Scottish author George MacDonald (1824-1905) an exploration of the Mystery of Man and his/her relationship with and to God is explored along the lines of Theological Anthropology. Myth and the literary genre of fantasy (which, like religion is moral in character and relies on relationships with supernatural forces) are explored as vehicles for transmitting and articulating deep truths about what it means to be human. Moral and spiritual growth are explored from psychological sources (Existential and Humanistic Schools of Psychology), and religious sources (Cambridge Platonists and Thomistic Theology) with the goal seen as the perfection of love --deification; And this understood as an irrevocable destiny for all rational creatures.

This thesis interweaves the lives and works of three Latin American women writers – Victoria Ocampo, Alfonsina Storni and Gabriela Mistral – into a travel narrative undertaken as part of a research project. The journey begins in Glasgow, Scotland and takes the reader as far as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago, exploring the legacies left by Ocampo, Storni and Mistral. Through a variety of interviews, encounters and experiences, against the backdrop of political unrest of 2002/3, a colourful tapestry unravels to reveal why and how these three women made such a profound impact on their people and countries. The researcher/traveller was able to explore culture, custom and history through the generous hospitality of local artists China Zorrilla, Monica Ottino and Eduardo Paz Leston. The narrative recalls relationships shared between Victoria Ocampo and Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene. Questions of class, society and the after effects of Argentina’s Dirty War are considered, and Chile’s past is investigated through the open testimonies of present day Chileans. The researcher/traveller learns 9sometimes the hard way) valuable lessons about how to survive as a twenty-something woman travelling on her own and reflects on the changes time has imposed, not only on south America but also on herself. The focus on the ‘inner journey’ is vital to the overall theme of women and the sense of self. By staying in youth hostels an element of the backpacker’s subculture is incorporated into the overall story, which in turn surfaces as a parallel theme. The narrative is broken up into forty-one chapters which are divided into two separate sections; one relating to Argentina and Uruguay, the other to Chile. The section on Argentina and Uruguay makes up the majority of the text, while the section on Chile can be interpreted as an extended epilogue. Both sections are completely unique in terms of circumstance and material but complement each other in their preoccupations with the troubled terrain of gender, writing and travel.

Knox has seldom been taken seriously as a literary figure; in fact it is often assumed that he was hostile to `art' of any kind. Most British literary critics who have examined his work have done so superficially and have concluded that his prose was plain or unadorned and that its most important feature was a drift towards anglicisation. In the introductory section, `The Myths, the Writer and the Canon', it is argued that, on the contrary, the latter assessment cannot be made definitively for textual reasons and is, in any case, irrelevant to literary criticism. Moreover, the study suggests that Knox was one of the most highly rhetorical of all the sixteenth-century prose writers, although his rhetoric was never decorative. Chapter one traces the beginnings of Scottish literary prose from 1490 onwards, examining such texts as John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome, John Gau's The Richt Vay to the Kingdom of Hevin, The Complaynt of Scotland and so forth, and establishes that works before Knox reflect religious belief even at the levels of lexis and syntactic structure, but generally speaking, do not consistently and convincingly reveal the personalities of their authors (with the possible exception of the Complayner). Chapter two illustrates that Knox's prose is always double-edged; its rhetorical aims are both offensive and defensive, it is often psychologically self-expressive and simultaneously revealing of his fundamental religious beliefs. The remaining chapters attempt to identify the range of rhetorical devices through which Knox manifests his own character and his religion, to assess how they may have affected his audience, to establish his sources, and whenever possible, to set them within pre-existing literary traditions, Scottish or otherwise. Chapters one and five are concentrated especially on the historiographical milieu in mid-sixteenth century Scotland and beyond, in order to set The Historie of the Reformatioun, the first great work of Scots prose, in its proper context. Chapter five itself consists of a number of generic divisions which are isolated to facilitate detailed analysis of disparate literary strands in Knox's magnum opus. Thus, according to the author, as far as prose is concerned, Knox's rhetoric and literary works represent the culmination of homiletic and historiographical traditions, the maturation of incipient religious forces in the sixteenth century, and the earliest establishment in Scotland of a fully-rounded literary personality.

This thesis is concerned with the Revolutionary press in the provinces and Paris as it relates to the local female community. It aims to show that the Revolutionary press was a vehicle for community information both aimed at and originating from literate women who had access to printed material. That is to say, literate women used their local papers to advertise themselves and their wares, express their views on a subject, to seek answers to questions and also to refute false information which was circulating about them. In addition, local information which was relevant to women could be publicised in the pages of a newspaper and it would be read. Finally, when describing women in news reports these periodicals employed a stock of phrases and literary or linguistic devices to present a specific picture of the females in question. The way in which women were depicted was intended either to unite the Revolutionary community against a female foe or to exalt a particular woman as a beacon of Revolutionary virtues. The approach to the sources will be one of considering newspapers and journalistic rhetoric as being engaged in the process of creating their own view of the world from the raw material of actual events, views which promoted the political loyalties or the ethos of a particular journal. Since it aims to examine continuity and rupture between the pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary press, the time-scale for this thesis is 1780-1800. This allows for comparisons and contrasts to be made and the thesis will show that although the provincial press contained many of the elements found in their pre-Revolutionary predecessors, the cultural changes engendered by the Revolution meant that new elements of journalistic language and new subjects for discussion developed or emerged. This work is located in the existing body of literature on the French regional and Parisian press in the eighteenth century, particularly the work of Jeremy Popkin, Hugh Gough, Jean Sgard, Gilles Feyel and Pierre Rétat. It is also linked to works on the wider world of contemporary print, for example by Robert Darnton and Roger Chartier and to the literature by Olwen Hufton, Sarah Maza and Joan Landes on the experience and roles of eighteenth-century French women. Its place in the midst of all this literature is that of drawing together the strands of Popkin's, Gough's, Sgard's and Feyel's work to argue that the Revolutionary newspaper was an instrument not simply of general information for a particular community or section of the population but also of communication on subjects which were of importance to, or which were deemed by editors or government officials to be of importance to women.

This thesis examines the relationship between multilingualism and defamiliarisation in Joyce, Beckett, Nabokov and Rushdie. Focusing on Joyce’s Ulysses, Beckett’s Trilogy, Nabokov’s Bend Sinister, Pale Fire and Ada, and Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the study considers the reasons for these authors’ uses a foreign languages and examines their specialised compositional processes. It evaluates the textual effects produced by these processes, and compares overtly multilingual effects (such as multilingual puns and the hybridisation of language) to more general characteristics of the authors’ prose-styles, including monolingual forms of defamiliarisation. The prose of all four authors is characterised by extreme forms of defamiliarisation, and the thesis develops the concept of ‘linguistic estrangement’ to elucidate a perceived relationship between each author’s perspective of ideological or literal estrangement from language and his subsequent estrangement of that language. In particular, these writers tend to turn the distinctive features of the foreigner’s perspective on language - semantic ambiguity and linguistic materiality - to positive effect: semantic ambiguity is used to produce puns, plays on words and linguistic overdetermination, while in focus on the material characteristics of language is fundamental to the construction of phonetic and rhythmic linguistic patterns. As a result, the work under scrutiny is often characterised by high levels of musicality, iconicity and textual performativity. Apparently ‘negative’ aspects of language - interlingual confusion, distortion, mistranslation, misunderstanding and misuse - thus form the basis of some of the most productive stylistic aspects, and indeed the radically innovative nature, of each author’s work. The thesis explores a wide array of evident intentions associated with such processes including, among others, mimetic, aesthetic, literary historical and socio-political concerns. Translational processes, interlingual contact and linguistic estrangement are thus demonstrated to be fundamental to the particular thematic and stylistic features of the work of each individual author. This study can also, more generally, be seen to address a central dynamic within modernist (and subsequent late-modernist and postmodernist) literary production.

This thesis examines some perceptions of collective behaviour and psychology in some nineteenth and twentieth century literature. Focusing on selected works by three novelists, Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1841) and A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Emile Zola's Germinal (1885) and Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fe (1935), it is an attempt to analyse the cultural representations of the nature, psychology and behaviour of crowds from 1841-1960. We attempt to contextualize the models of the crowd present in each novel and the interpenetration of the development of crowd theory and political experience. We also evaluate the novelists' attitudes towards the crowd and the implications of their approaches for public policy. We argue that Dickens, failing to distinguish between individual and collective psychology, has a pre-modern perception of the crowd. Zola, placing collective behaviour in a positivist framework presents a modern view of the crowd psychology that prefigures in essentials the classical crowd theory of Le Bon. Canetti, questioning the approach of received crowd theory, and the traditional presumption that the crowd is necessarily unconscious, instinctual and anti-social, presents a post-modern interpretation of the crowd which corresponds to the highly original insights of his crowd monograph, Crowds and Power.