This thesis examines modernist short fiction in English from the 1890s to the 1980s, with particular reference to works by James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett and Donald Barthelme. The term 'interrogative' is evolved in the course of the study to describe the relationship of the reader and of interpretative discourse to the form. It is argued that the modernist story is marked by indeterminacy and a resistance to teleological structuration as a result of its narrative strategies of ellipsis, reticence and interdiction. Unlike those existing theories which emphasize 'unity' or 'ambiguity' in the short story, the interrogative approach takes as its starting point a post-Saussurean definition of language as differential and plurisignificant and uses this to demonstrate the form's constitutional resistance to determine critical exegesis.

With the publication of Jude the Obscure (1985) Hardy had finished his work with the novel. Just five years later Dreiser published Sister Carrie (1900), thus making it possible that he could have found in Hardy a model. The resemblances to the Hardyan novel in both the early and later works of Dreiser are striking and varied enough to give encouragement to a hypothesis of direct influence. The evidence in support of this hypothesis we propose to take note of carefully in this study. The study is divided into six chapters. Chapter One focusses on the broadly pessimistic and deterministic philosophy that runs throughout the novels of both authors in the sense that both were `blown to bits' by reading evolutionary theories that attacked accepted views of man, God, and the universe. Thus, both found in the works of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer evidence that man is not the creation of a benevolent deity, but rather of the interaction of unknowable forces existing in a world of struggle where survival of the fittest is the basic law. Accordingly, both concluded that man is basically determined by the natural and social forces operating from within and without to ensure man's unhappiness. In Chapter Two the protagonist of Sister Carrie is discussed in relation to the more deeply tragic heroes and heroines of Thomas Hardy, particularly Tess Durbeyfield. Carrie has the dreaminess of Jude and the natural vitality of Tess, and like Tess she is a child of nature. The chapter goes on to trace the Hardysque and Dreiserian theme of the fallen woman whose natural goodness and self-sacrifice for others keep her `Pure'. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1981), and Jennie Gerhardt (1911), are the novels discussed in relation to this common theme. Chapter Three takes for its subject-matter the novelists' portrayal of society in the context of Herbert Spencer's application of the theory of `the survival of the fittest' to social behaviour. Donald Farfrae in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and Frank Cowperwood in Freiser's The Financier (1912), and The Titan (1914), are discussed as aggressive exponents of the Nietzschean superman figure, committing themselves to the values of materialism. Although both men win in the battle of life and survive, nevertheless, they undergo an inner spiritual defeat. Chapter Four probes the depth of the conflict between flesh and spirit, body and soul, vice and virtue in Hardy's Jude the Obscure and Freiser's The `Genius' (1915). Both heroes, Jude and Eugene, are sexually driven and in bondage to desire, but at the same time possess transcendental traits. In Jude's case, this contest between the spiritual and the sensual culminates inevitably in his death; Eugene, less convincingly perhaps, eventually finds temporary ease for his divided being and restless soul in the religious doctrines of Christian Science. Chapter Five examines Jude the Obscure and Dreiser's An American Tragedy (1925) as tragedies of `unfulfilled aims and aspirations'. Initially, attention is focussed upon the tragic aspect of both stories and the question of whether or not the two novels are in fact tragedies is discussed. Jude Fawley and Clyde Griffiths have opposite aims and ambitions. Jude's intellectual aspirations are contrasted with Clyde's materialistic desires. The ambition of each hero, however, is marked by failure, and the destiny of both is the same. Each is finally frustrated by forces in his nature, his society, and his circumstances. This study concludes, in Chapter Six, by noting that characters in the novels of Hardy and Dreiser rarely come to a satisfactory accommodation with life. The novels' tragic conclusions are due, in large part, to social, cultural, and universal influences which make any sense of personal fulfilment difficult, if not impossible to achieve.

This study of James Baldwin's short stories focuses on the inter-play of reason and intuition within the process of interpretation. It draws on the protest of theological criticism against a narrow understanding of critical theory fostered by the thinking that literature is "autonomous" and that objectivity implies that the critic has to approach texts as an emotional blank slate. The study demonstrates the capacity of literature to elicit specific ethical and theological responses. It argues that even where a literary work does not seem to exhibit themes immediately relevant to theological inquiry, it remains doubtful whether an analysis of such a text can be effective if it is left neutral or purely descriptive. The underlying assumption is that the power of language constantly stimulates the development of sensibilities and reflections on texts-be they "sacred" or "secular." Hence, it is contended that interpretation necessarily demands the making of choices or the preference of one system of value over another. More specifically, and against the background of the mind-set engendered in James Baldwin by his encounter with religion and subsequent experience as a child-preacher, this study examines the range of issues that echo in his collection of short stories. The claim is that the stories are autobiographically driven. To argue this thesis and the related proposition that the stories feed into theological themes relevant to self-knowledge, vicarious suffering, love and forgiveness, their effectiveness as transformative and revelatory texts is highlighted. By drawing on short story theories and challenging the view that short stories are no more than miniature pieces merely echoing "major" works of their authors, it is further argued that the genre can be profoundly forceful and effective in the articulation of complex human issues.

"The invention of Scottish Literature During the Long Eighteenth Century" examines the limited place in the canon traditionally allowed to creative writing in Scotland during this period and the overarching reading of creative impediment applied to it in the light of Scotland's fraught and not easily to be homogenised national history and identity. It interrogates the dominant mode of what it terms the Scottish literary critical tradition and funds this tradition to have many shortcomings as a result of its prioritising of literary and cultural holism. In examining the Scots poetry revival of the eighteenth century the thesis challenges the traditional identification of a populist and beset mode, and finds eighteenth-century poetry in Scots to be actually much more catholic in its literary connections. These more catholic "British" connections are reappraised alongside the distinctively Scottish accents of the poets Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. The poetry of James Thomson, it is also argued, fits more easily into a heterogeneous Scottish identity than is sometimes thought and the work of Thomson is connected with the poets in Scots to show a network of influence and allegiance which is more coherent than has been traditionally allowed. Similarly, the primitivist agenda of the Scottish Enlightenment in creative literature is examined to demonstrate the way in which this provides license for reclaiming elements of the historically fraught or "backward" Scottish identity (thus an essentially conservative, patriotic element within the Scottish Enlightenment cultural voice is emphasised.). Also, with the writers of poetry in Scots, as well as with Thomson, and with those whose work comes under the intellectual sponsorship of Enlightenment primitivism such as Tobias Smollett, James Macpherson, James Beattie and others we chart a movement from the age of Augustanism and neoclassicism to that of sensibility and proto-Romanticism. From Burns' work to that of Walter Scott, John Galt and James Hogg we highlight Scottish writers making creative capital from the difficult and fractured Scottish identity and seeing this identity, as, in part, reflecting cultural tensions and fractures which are more widely coined furth of their own country. The connecting threads of the thesis are those narratives in Scottish literature of the period which show the retrieval and analysis of seemingly lost or receding elements of Scottish identity. Creative innovation and re-energisation rather than surrender and loss are what the thesis finally diagnoses in Scottish literature of the long eighteenth century.

The objective of the following thesis is to demonstrate the conceivability that the various romances relating to King Arthur may be used to reconstruct some of the many Welsh literary sources that have been lost to us over the past fifteen centuries. To do this, I will examine two stories written by one of the earliest and the most influential of all the Arthurian romance writers, Chrétien de Troyes. These are the abduction of Guinièvre and the grail. The Preface and Introduction will explain the broad assumptions upon which I base my present volume. First, that there was a British Heroic Age between the fifth and early seventh centuries. Second, that it did produce several literary works of historical value. My theory is that some of these literary sources were at one point written and, though badly marred by progressive influences, have survived in the form of romances. If this theory is correct, the study of all extant early variations of what is essentially one story should reveal a series of independent connections to the Dark Age British. In addition, there is a high probability that this story will be able to be seen in the context of fifth or sixth-century British culture. This is what will be attempted with the abduction and grail narratives. In the second chapter I will summarize the influences of the known sources of Chrétien de Troyes in writing Le Chevalier de la Charrette. This will have two purposes. First, it will serve to point out the degree of influence Chrétien's patron had on him. Second and what is more important, this will lead to the conclusion that Chrétien's primary importance to the stories is his creative manipulation of his knowledge and sources around his patrons' desires; he has not simply invented any aspect of the Matter of Britain.

Shakespeare's presence in Blake's poetry has been virtually unrecognised by scholarly criticism except, of course, for Jonathan Bate's groundbreaking work of 1986. Bate has had no major successors, so this thesis is, then, an attempt to close to lacuna, to restore Shakespeare to the place that was recognized by Blake himself, as a major influence on his work. In my introductory chapter, I offer a brief sketch of the manner in which Shakespeare informed the culture of the later eighteenth century of which Blake was a product. I survey Shakespearean production, staging and acting techniques, and the history of textual reproduction, before turning to an aspect of the Shakespearean tradition of particular importance to Blake, the production of illustrated editions of Shakespeare's work, and the recourse to Shakespearean subject matter of the painters of the later eighteenth century. I end this chapter with an account of Blake's own Shakespearean illustrations. In Chapter 2, I focus on the earliest of Blake's poems to show a clear Shakespearean influence, the dramatic fragments: "Prologue to King John", Edward the Third, and "Prologue to Edward the Fourth". The major model for these early poetic experiments is, of course, the Shakespearean history or chronicle play, but I argue that even in these apprentice works Blake's appropriation of the Shakespearean model is complex. Shakespeare's history plays celebrate the emergence of an England that, as the defeat of the Spanish Armada demonstrated, had emerged as one of Europe's most powerful nation states. The most pressing political context for Blake's dramatic fragments is England's loss of America, its greatest overseas colony. The fragments are addressed, then, not to a confident nation, proud of its newfound position in the world, but to a nation that had very recently suffered a major blow to its confidence. Already evident, too in these early fragments is Blake's distrust of the Shakespearean notion, flamboyantly expressed in a play such as Henry V, that a nation's greatness might appropriately be measured by its military successes, particularly in war against another state.

Chapter One: (pp. 1 -87) Landscape, Society and the Individual in Cormac McCarthy's Novels This chapter considers the incursion of a form of Emersonian transcendentalism in the earlier Southern novels. The second part focuses on the Western novels and includes discussion of the relationship between man and nature and the influence of the ideologies which underpin both nationalism and Manifest Destiny. The gradual conflation of landscape and text in the western novels, the increasing internalisation of landscape and the tendency towards erasure that threatens to subsume/ absorb the traveller/ narrator, are also addressed. Chapter Two: (pp. 88 - 147) A Consideration of Corpses: Literary and Cinematic Autopsy in Cormac McCarthy's Prose The second chapter examines the various narratorial strategies employed by McCarthy, focusing on the image of the corpse in his first three novels. The influence of Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Joyce on McCarthy's narrative strategy and the role of the 'author' in his work are considered in the introduction. In The Orchard Keeper, the position of the reader as 'spectator' is examined and finds that the anamorphosis of the narrative style mimics cinematographic changes in perspective and point of view. The voice of a sadistic and misogynist narrator is addressed with reference to Child of God, which also draws on feminist theories of voyeurism and scopophilia. The relationship between the author and the 'spectator/ reader' is related to classic films (Hitchcock's Psycho and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, for example) and issue of identification practices and specular relations are discussed with reference to film theory. The depiction of 'death hilarious' in Outer Dark compares McCarthy's conflation of horror and humour with both the earlier prose of Flannery O'Connor and contemporary cinema.

This thesis deals primarily with Renaissance tragedy and with Milton's Paradise Lost. It is structured around three main Sections each of which identifies a dominant theme in the drama/poetry of the period 1580-1670 and considers the way in which it is utilised in order to express or represent what was arguably the most pressing concern of the age - the concept of individual identity, or 'selfhood'. Section One takes as its theme 'death', or more specifically 'death scenes'. It considers the way in which the battle for what I have chosen to term 'directional control' in the death scenes of both playhouse and scaffold shapes the symbiotic relationship between the two, and can be viewed as a vital component in the rhetoric of identity which emerges from plays such as Shakespeare's Macbeth, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Webster's Duchess of Malfi, and scaffold texts of the period. Section Two deals with the remaining Shakespearean mature tragedies - Hamlet and King Lear - as well as with Marlowe's Dr Faustus. It takes as its focal point the viability - or otherwise - of the 'interiorised contexts' which such plays construct. This Section contends that these (relative) microcosmic interiors are, in fact, limited by the 'absolute' of death. The third and final Section of the thesis consequently addresses the implications, for the contextualised self, of removing this limiting factor. The text which lends itself most naturally to this is Paradise Lost, and Section Three concludes by placing Milton's epic alongside a small selection of contemporaneous poetry by Traherne.

The task has been to show that Spenser imagined Faeryland according to his own travel experience in England. The geography of The Faerie Queene 1 - the only book of the poem not set in the South, and the only book without coastlines - reveals Spenser's experience and interest in the North and the Northern Rebellion of 1569. We explore The Faerie Queene 1 (possibly quite extensively planned and drafted before the poet set sail for Ireland in August 1580) as a discrete geography, finding it quite unlike the terrains of the books which follow. This is so because Spenser almost certainly had never gained any substantive travel experience in the South West, where are found the coastlines he came to know during his brief and prolonged returns to England during 1580-96. Written during Spenser's life in Ireland, The Faerie Queene 2-6 is enacted on English soil where, I argue, Spenser's journeys to and from the South West - the coastlines, forestry, settlements and towns - can often be traced and mapped in the journeys of the poem's travellers. The travels of Artegall, Britomart, Guyon and Calidore establish the western terrain and the western and southern coasts of the poem. Such is the importance of the travels of these knights to the poem's geography, that we can establish Artegall's journey to the West Coast, and Britomart's journey to the same place. Britomart knows the coast to which Artegall is bound is the place where she will find him. Distractions during the journey keep him from the 'appointed tide' and Britomart having arrived at Artegall's intended coast, journeys inland from the Rich Strond (Plymouth) to find him - somewhere along the western route between London and Plymouth.

The key to Shelley's thought system lies in understanding that the thing and its opposite, the idea and its contrary, are brought together simultaneously. Shelley tries to resolve in one way or another the contradiction between transcendentalism and immanence, essentialism and socialism, and finally thought and object. He makes the unity of life his manifesto and yet does not deny the diversity of beings. The ontological clearly has a place within his system and nonetheless the phenomena are considered epistemological divisions, non-essential and insubstantial. He believes in the existence of a comprehensive sign system with no transcendent meaning and yet speaks of an absolute incomprehensibility of a transcendent being which defies words and signs. In short, beings for him are only relationships with no essence, and existence is still one essence in which none of these relations holds true. In harnessing the contraries Shelley's thought cannot be categorised as reductionist, dialectical, or deconstructionist. The logic he follows denies neither of the two opposites nor does it link them dialectically through accepting a third element, but resolves the opposition through a shift of perspective. Existence is both transcendent and immanent, essential and relational, and comprehensive and ineffable. This dissertation attempts to show that from such a perspective the rhetorical or deconstructive coincides with the grammatical or the metaphysical. Although the opposition set by the deconstructionists between the rhetorical and the grammatical readings is assumed by Shelley to exist between the metaphorical and the literal, nevertheless he accepts them as two epistemes; the ontological remains existing but unreadable, and the text is only its expression.