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This project sits within the field of popular culture, exploring the ways in which people read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. The primary research objective was to ascertain whether political values encoded within the comedic text would be understood by its readers. An iterative mixed methods approach was used to gauge audience engagement. Of the potential audiences, there was an audience segment who rejected the text on generic (fantasy) grounds. Of those with a greater investment of time, in dramatic production, this led to resentment and a refusal to impute any significance to the text. Audiences of the productions who invested less time rejected the fantasy genre but accepted the significance of the text as they experienced it. Subsequent on-line research on the more engaged fan audience showed different levels of engagement. Among fans, there was a minority who enjoyed the text but rejected any real world significance. More often the fans described their Discworld favourites in terms that reflected a connection with their own lived experience. Specific themes emerged which were discussed in relation to the text: The accessibility of the comic protagonists is discussed in relation to models of masculinity in late modernity. Vimes was admired by all demographic groups, often as an aspirational figure, with 64% nominating him as a favourite. Transtextual relationships with the gothic articulate a female voice within the Discworld and shows how fans relate their own mortality to the Discworld character Death. The theme of personal social responsibility recurs in the Discworld and is discussed in relation to the macro level politics of terrorism and conflict. Discworld fans tended to be socially and politically active, the majority of the fan respondents felt that key socio-political themes were evident in the Discworld diegesis.

This thesis is comprised of three parts: a critical dissertation, a creative work of fiction and a bridge piece that connects the two. The critical work is an examination of the Devil as a satirist in Faustian bargains. Through the usage of the Devil as a literary figure, his character has become a more secular being: a trickster rather than evil incarnate—a facilitator of sin rather than its originator. In the tragicomedy of pacts with the Devil, he acts as a mirror, reflecting mankind’s foibles and vanity, while elevating the reader in the process. The thesis considers the language, tone, purpose and conceits of several versions of the story. While the focus is primarily on American Literature, the influence of English, Scottish, French and German folklore and fiction are recognized as an essential component of the theme’s evolution. In the bridge piece, the pact with the Devil is literalized in a modern context; a corporate business of reaping souls is theorized in which techniques of persuasion are streamlined into an effective formula. Whether immersive or expository in approach, the portrayal of the supernatural depends on the literary principles of science fiction and fantasy in order to manipulate the reader and allow irrational concepts to obey rational laws. Such theories are cited to support how the Devil functions as a believable character. The novel, Could Be Much Worse, relates the story of an egocentric boss and his dependable employee, a scout who disguises himself as a taxi driver and seeks candidates who may succumb to temptation. Passengers’ monologues of desperation and pathos are interspersed throughout the protagonist’s day-to-day narrative. At times, the work is experimental, utilizing irregular storytelling techniques, alternative forms and conceits. Light-hearted, but nonetheless poignant, the story serves as a cautionary tale, illustrating the tedium of a bureaucratic job in a transmundane existence.

This thesis examines three key moments in the intersecting histories of Scotland, Ireland and England, and their impact on literature. Chapter one Robert Bruce and the Last King of Ireland: Writing the Irish Invasion, 1315- 1826‘, is split into two parts. Part one, Barbour‘s (other) Bruce‘ focuses on John Barbour‘s The Bruce (1375) and its depiction of the Bruce‘s Irish campaign (1315-1318). It first examines the invasion material from the perspective of the existing Irish and Scottish relationship and their opposition to English authority. It highlights possible political and ideological motivations behind Barbour‘s negative portrait of Edward Bruce - whom Barbour presents as the catalyst for the invasion and the source of its carnage and ultimate failure - and his partisan comparison between Edward and his brother Robert I. It also probes the socio-polticial and ideological background to the Bruce and its depiction of the Irish campaign, in addition to Edward and Robert. It peers behind some of the Bruce‘s most lauded themes such as chivalry, heroism, loyalty, and patriotism, and exposes its militaristic feudal ideology, its propaganda rich rhetoric, and its illusions of freedom‘. Part one concludes with an examination of two of the Irish section‘s most marginalised figures, the Irish and a laundry woman. Part two, Cultural Memories of the Bruce Invasion of Ireland, 1375-1826‘, examines the cultural memory of the Bruce invasion in three literary works from the Medieval, Early Modern and Romantic periods. The first, and by far the most significant memorialisation of the invasion is Barbour‘s Bruce, which is positioned for the first time within the tradition of ars memoriae (art of memory) and present-day cultural memory theories. The Bruce is evaluated as a site of memory and Barbour‘s methods are compared with Icelandic literature of the same period. The recall of the invasion in late sixteenth century Anglo-Irish literature is then considered, specifically Edmund Spenser‘s A View of the State of Ireland, which is viewed in the context of contemporary Ulster politics. The final text to be considered is William Hamilton Drummond‘s Bruce’s Invasion of Ireland (1826). It is argued that Drummond‘s poem offers an alternative Irish version of the invasion; a counter-memory that responds to nineteenth-century British politics, in addition to the controversy surrounding the publication of the Ossian fragments. Chapter two, The Scots in Ulster: Policies, Proposals and Projects, 1551-1575‘, examines the struggle between Irish and Scottish Gaels and the English for dominance in north Ulster, and its impact on England‘s wider colonial ideology, strategy, literature and life writing. Part one entitled Noisy neighbours, 1551-1567‘ covers the deputyships of Sir James Croft, Sir Thomas Radcliffe, and Sir Henry Sidney, and examines English colonial writing during a crucial period when the Scots provoked an increase in militarisation in the region. Part two Devices, Advices, and Descriptions, 1567-1575‘, deals with the relationship between the Scots and Turlough O‘Neill, the influence of the 5th Earl of Argyll, and the rise of Sorley Boy MacDonnell. It proposes that a renewed Gaelic alliance hindered England‘s conquest of Ireland and generated numerous plantation proposals and projects for Ulster. Many of which exhibit a blurring‘ between the documentary and the literary; while all attest to the considerable impact of the Gaelic Scots in both motivating and frustrating various projects for that province, the most prominent of which were undertaken by Sir Thomas Smith in 1571 and Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex in 1573.

This thesis analyses answers to prayer in Chaucer’s works. It contextualises this analysis through attention to late-medieval devotion, arguing that Chaucer uses petitionary prayer both to explore important themes, such as the injustice of suffering innocence, and to challenge elements of contemporary religious practice. Chapter One explores petitionary prayer in theory, teaching, and lay practice, proving that late-medieval understandings of prayer’s effectiveness are varied, contradictory, and at times problematic. Two of Chaucer’s dream visions, 'The Book of the Duchess' and 'The House of Fame', feature in the second chapter, which demonstrates that answers to prayer in these texts fulfil a dual function, operating both as literary device and as the means through which Chaucer examines themes of profound importance which recur throughout his works. Chapter Three addresses conflicting prayers in two romances, arguing that Chaucer uses answered prayer in 'The Knight’s Tale' to obliquely critique the weaponisation of prayer in contemporary Christian society, inviting a focus on human responsibility for conflict, and that this emphasis on agency is continued through relegating the role of prayer in 'The Franklin’s Tale'. Chapter Four analyses the divergent discourses surrounding prayer in the hagiographic tales, concluding that the extent to which the narratorial voice faithfully represents the answers to the hagiographic subject’s prayers depends on the didactic purpose expressed. The final chapter examines the unanswered and unanswerable prayers of 'Troilus and Criseyde', arguing that Chaucer offers the poem’s Trinitarian conclusion and a poetic recreation of the Boethian conception of time in response to the problems posed by these prayers. This thesis demonstrates that, rather than operating as a mere device for advancing plots, petitionary prayer provides Chaucer with a powerful tool with which to pursue several philosophical and theological issues at the heart of his writing.

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

This thesis builds on cognitive stylistics, humour studies and psychological approaches to literature, film and television to explore how the stylistic features of comic novels and short stories may shape readers’ experience of comedy. I suggest that our responses to written humorous narratives are triggered by two types of stylistic cue: those which lead to amusement and stabilise our experience of comedy, and those which destabilise it by evoking non-humorous emotions associated with experiencing narrative worlds generally. When presented simultaneously, those cues can trigger complex humorous responses in which amusement is experienced alongside other, often negative, emotions. In order to investigate how textual elements can influence our emotional experience of humorous narratives, this thesis examines the ways in which stylistic cues affect some of the main experiential features of the narrative worlds of comedy: the moods evoked by the world, our relationships with characters, and our reactions to plot events. Following on from the Introduction and the Literature Review (Chapters 1 and 2), Chapter 3 explores the ways in which stylistic cues may evoke various moods by establishing, reinforcing and disrupting our expectations. Chapter 4 focuses on the role of characterisation in humorous narratives, concentrating on those cues which encourage us to laugh at narrative characters, and those which evoke other, non-humorous responses to them. In Chapter 5, I consider how the presentation of story events affects our experience of humorous plots. I discuss the cues which add humour to the presentation of otherwise problematic events, as well as those which combine humour with more uncomfortable emotions that stem from our reactions to story structures. Chapter 6, finally, provides a summary of the argument and of the contribution to knowledge made by this thesis. My exploration of the non-humorous side of experiencing narrative comedy offers a key contribution to the study of humorous narratives. By investigating humour as part of a wider narrative world, this thesis moves beyond the analysis of amusing language and towards addressing the complexity of the creation and experience of humour in a narrative world. The interdisciplinary, stylistic-psychological approach adopted here allows for hypotheses to be made not only about the emotional experience of humour in comic novels and short stories, but also about the affective side of narrative comprehension more generally.

This thesis is comprised of two components: a creative work of fiction and a critical analysis of the fiction through a discussion of craft and creative influence. The creative section, the novel The Gospel of Something or Other, is a formally experimental work that explores authenticity - of both narrative and voice - authorial identity, the performativity of grief and sincerity, and the aesthetic function of narratalogical failure. The critical section of the thesis, Critical Mass, analyses the work of David Foster Wallace and James Wood in relation to the aforementioned fiction, discussing aspects of craft most relevant to the novel: the function of comedy and the function of manipulation. The critical piece investigates the extent to which influence can be identified in the creative process and the unstable relationship between critical interpretation and authorial intent.

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The present dissertation investigates the process of transmission of hieroglyphs from Egypt to Early-Modern Europe. This phenomenon has been studied by Egyptologists and Art Historians, mostly from a historical and descriptive standpoint, but here an original theoretical perspective was adopted: Grammatology or the study of writing. In order to understand this process of stimuli diffusion, and its outcome, it was deemed necessary to delve into both the Egyptian writing-system and the hieroglyphic phenomenon in the Renaissance, which led the dissertation to be divided into two parts. The First Part is devoted to The Ancient Hieroglyph: Chapter One addresses the mechanics of Egyptian hieroglyphs, their grammatological functions and the outline of a theory for the text-image dynamics in this context; Chapter Two examines the terminology of “hieroglyph” in Egypt, and its conceptual difference from the Greek and Contemporary views on the matter; Chapter Three describes the historical development of the Egyptian writing and a hypothesis for the emergence of a “hieroglyphic hermeneutics”; Chapter Four is dedicated to Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica, which is regarded as the main vector of diffusion between Ancient and Modern hieroglyphic traditions. The Second Part focuses on The Early-Modern Hieroglyph: Chapter Five outlines the early process of diffusion and the first ideas of hieroglyph in the Renaissance; Chapter Six discusses the creation of new hieroglyphic codes; Chapter Seven tackles the role of hieroglyphs in the birth of the emblematic tradition and its continuous relationship on different culture levels; Chapter Eight look into the Spanish jeroglificos, regarding it as a hybrid genre of hieroglyphs and emblems; Chapter Nine explores the impact of Renaissance hieroglyphs on the cultural perception of writing; and finally, in Chapter Ten, the process of convergence between hieroglyphs, alchemical iconography and emblems is analysed in the light of the previous chapters. It was found that there is an objective relationship between Ancient and Modern hieroglyphs, not easily perceptible and often downplayed as a result of a certain logocentrism, but of great importance – especially in terms of its impact on the establishment of a European text-image tradition. Another conclusion is that, if Renaissance scholars, artists and poets thought it possible to write through images, and in fact created speaking pictures, visual compositions can be considered as a form of writing - being therefore a potential subject of Grammatology. This finding does not exclude other instruments of analysis, but creates a number of theoretical solutions in the field of text-image studies that have been employed in the present study.