This thesis is a creative and critical examination of transposing corporeal imagery from quotidian sources such as women’s beauty and fashion magazines into poetic form and engaging with the Fourth Wave of Feminism and the material conditions of women. As such, it contains a creative element, which is a collection of poetry entitled Woman, Tagged. The creative element is accompanied by a reflective critical commentary examining the methodology and creative process of writing Woman, Tagged, research and observations into corporeal imagery as it is presented in women’s poetry and the waves of feminism with emphasis on the Fourth Wave and materialist feminism. Moreover, as the poetry collection is the original contribution to knowledge, the critical aspect exists not to critique the Fourth Wave, but to contextualise Woman, Tagged as a poetic response to the Fourth Wave. This thesis deploys a methodology of close reading and critical engagement with women’s poetry, women’s magazines, and the online strategies and campaigns of the Fourth Wave of feminism.

Research through practice into the actual process of composing, such as William James on automatic writing and thought processes, or Sigmund Freud on creative writing and the unconscious, is rare, and needs extension and updating. This study builds a new theoretical framework for critical and practical work on imaginative composition by investigation of Edward Thomas's composing processes and complementary analysis of the processes of writing my own poetry collection. Thomas's emphasis on fragmentation of thought, hesitancy and silence in the content and form of his poetry, positioning him on the borders of Modernism, reflects essential aspects of his composing processes, as documented in his notes, letters, prose and poetry. The creating and revisiting of my own works-in-progress and final collection, in the light of the study of Thomas and in dialogue with readers, reveals further insights into poetic composition. Chapter One examines the point at which poems emerge and the influence of external writing conditions. Chapters Two and Three look at absence in the composing process in ellipses, aporia, gaps and unfinishedness, and in the art of submission as it is used in composing. Chapter Four investigates distraction, non-logical connections and physical and temporal disturbances in composing. Chapter Five shows the importance when composing of sustaining a flexible and exact attention to immediate perceptions and thoughts. The thesis concludes with an original poetry collection resulting from the documentation of my composing processes during the research period. These poems reflect and refract many points made in previous chapters, offering practical evidence of them. The principles of poetic composition established in this thesis are also more generally applicable to the composing of poetry. Similarities observed in composition processes in other art forms and in the writing of this thesis indicate that these principles also apply to other creative and academic disciplines, providing areas for further research.

The thesis attempts to revise our view of Georgian poetry, and thus to rescue it from the critical disregard and disdain it has suffered since the 1930s. Georgian poetry will be redefined as a strong traditional poetry contemporaneous with, and yet different from, literary Modernism. An historical overview of the critical literature from the 1920s onwards will reveal the original co-existence of those now known as 'Georgians' and 'Modernists', stress their mutual break with Edwardian conventions, and will sketch the process by which Georgianism and Modernism became oppositional. Georgianism will be re-evaluated as a brave and creditable attempt to continue the Romantic and humanistic impulse in poetry at a time when younger and ostensibly more radical writers were forsaking it for the values of Modernism. The thesis will further suggest that the Georgian poets had a rather more socially aware and progressive agenda than many of the fledgling Modernists. Georgian poetry is reread, therefore, in order to bring out, as major themes, its concern with the poor and with work, with the changing environment of the nation, with the position of women in Georgian society, and with its response to the First World War. This reappraisal will lead to the contention that Georgianism should not be viewed as a low point in British poetry, but instead as supplying the formal foundations and political sensibility which mark the achievement of Great War poetry. While the thesis is careful not to overbid its claims for reviewing the Georgians' own achievement (especially in respect of their relative lack of formal experimentation compared to the Modernists), it hopes nevertheless to persuade its readers that the poets of 'Liberal England' had a more humane and realistic vision of their world than they have hitherto been credited with.

This thesis, titled ‘Hide: A 21st century woman’s response to the first person in poetry’ is a creative and critical examination of the challenges and benefits of the first-person approach in poetry. It is in two parts, consisting of a collection of sixty poems and a critical investigation into the research leading to, and engendered by, the poems. Hide is a place from which to observe, hide is skin, hide is deliberate concealment; all of these meanings can be seen to reflect some of the concerns examined in both the creative and critical parts of the thesis. ‘Hide’s’ layers of meaning directly engage with what 'I' we choose to conceal and what 'I' we choose to show, as well as residing on the boundaries between privacy and exposure. The poems spring from investigations of my central concerns of autobiography, family history, the workings of memory, and ancestral knowledge in the form of ‘cunning’. The poems are an active investigation into the challenges and benefits of the ‘I’; the approaches and techniques for using it as well as the reasons for, and strategies involved in, avoiding the ‘I’. The critical part of the thesis is an auto-ethnographic study of the poems in the collection, together with examination of the difficulties faced by women writing in the first-person. The research includes thematic analysis of published reviews, and examination of the critical landscape within which women are writing.

Erika Duncan has commented that ‘because of the intangible sentimental quality of Mary Webb’s special genius, there has been a general reluctance to acknowledge her as a major writer.’ This thesis argues against such dismissive approaches to Webb and makes a case for a re-evaluation of Webb as an unusual writer of pantheist spirituality and nature mysticism and one who can now be appreciated for the ecopoetics of her work. Within this framework the study charts the stylistic qualities of her writing and its mutative shifts through a chronological examination of her work which also includes a biographical account of her life and the major influences which shaped her ideas and writing. Aspects of inter-textuality with other writers will be considered throughout and will underscore the value of Webb’s work whilst emphasising the unique and beautiful quality of her voice. The first chapter, ‘Early Responses’, considers her formative experiences and her earliest essays and poems. ‘Mythological Motifs’ then reviews the mythopoeic nature of Webb’s first two novels and her use of myth in furthering her themes. The ensuing chapter, ‘Preceptive Perception’, evaluates both the didacticism in authorial style and the pertinence of Webb’s vision which are features of her third book. Chapter Four discusses her final two completed volumes as ‘A Dyad’ for they represent, respectively, her weakest and her finest writing. The final chapter, ‘A Medieval Message’, focuses on Webb’s last, incomplete, work, analysing its experimental qualities and its potential to reveal Webb’s last efforts to leave a parting missive for her readers before her death. Central critical concepts are that: in the development of Webb’s religious views from conventional Christianity to pantheism she anticipated modern feminist spirituality; and, in her insistence upon the supreme value of nature and its continual risk from human exploitation in connection with the oppression of women and their need for spiritual freedom, Webb is an unrecognised ecofeminist who was reflecting early twentieth-century issues. In addition, I attempt to discover reasons for Webb’s neglect and positively propose a place for her in literary studies. A Conclusion will summarise the main arguments and indicate possible further avenues of research.