Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1996. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-189).

Although Anthony Trollope has traditionally been considered an anti-feminist author, studies within the past decade have shown that Trollope's later novels show support for female power and sympathy for Victorian women who were dissatisfied with their narrow roles in society. A feminist reading of two of his earliest novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers, shows that Trollope's feminism is not limited to his later works. In The Warden, Trollope acclaims female power and "woman's logic" through female characters and the womanly warden, Septimus Harding. In Barchester Towers, Trollope continues to support feminism through his positive portrayals of strong, independent women and the androgynous Harding. In Barchester Towers, the battle of the sexes ends in a balance of power.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-75). Also available via the World Wide Web.

'Women and independence in the nineteenth century novel : a study of Austen, Trollope and James', begins with the concept of independence and works through the three most common usages of the word. The first, financial independence (not needing to earn one's livelihood) appears to be a necessary prerequisite for the second and third forms of independence, although it is by no means an unequivocal good in any of the novels. The second, intellectual independence (not depending on others for one's opinion or conduct; unwilling to be under obligation to others), is a matter of asserting independence while employing terms which society recognizes. The third, of being independent, is exemplified by an inward struggle for a knowledge of self. In order to trace the development of the idea of self during the nineteenth century, I have chosen a group of novels which seem to be representative of the beginning, the middle, and the end of the period. Particular attention is given to the characterizations of Emma Woodhouse, Glencora Palliser, Isabel Archer, Milly Theale and Maggie Verver. Whereas in Jane Austen's novels the self has a definite shape which the heroine must discover, and in Anthony Trollope's novels the self (reflecting the idea of socially-determined man) must learn to accommodate social and political changes, in Henry James's novels the self determined by external manifestations (hollow man) is posed against the exercise of the free spirit or soul. Jane Austen's novels look backward, as she reacts against late eighteenth century romanticism, and forward, with the development of the heroine who exemplifies intellectual independence. Anthony Trollope's women characters are creatures of social and political adaptation; although they do not derive their reason for being from men, they must accommodate themselves to men's wishes. And Henry James looks backward, wistfully, at Austen's solid, comforting, innocent self and forward, despairingly, to the dark, unknowable self of the twentieth century.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

In the year 1877, during a lull in the Eastern Question, the English newspapers discovered South Africa. There a Dutch republic, the Transvaal, had all but succumbed to the onslaughts of a native chief - or so it seemed; and now it was annexed to the British Crown. Clearly, this was a corner of the world of which, as its colonists boasted, England would hear much more; and Parliament was shortly to set its seal of approval upon Lord Carnarvon’s essay in imperial architecture, South African Confederation. Intro., p. 1.

Postcolonial theory teaches us that the Empire was as much a textual as a physical undertaking: the Empire was (and is) experienced through its texts. Anthony Trollope was an enthusiastic traveller and helped to "write the Empire" in both his travel narratives and in his novels. This study examines his travel narrative South Africa, and explores how the colony is depicted in this work and in Trollope's "colonial" novels: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, John Caldigate, An Old Man's Love and The Fixed Period. Trollope's colonies are places of moral danger where the value systems instilled by English society provide the only means for overcoming the corrupting influences of the colonial space. He writes the colonies as images of Britain, but these images are never true reflections of the homeland: there is always an element of distortion present, which serves to subvert the "Englishness" of his colonial landscapes. / English Studies / MA (ENGLISH)

This dissertation makes two arguments: First, it elaborates a depressive genealogy of the Victorian novel that asserts a category of realism rooted in affect rather than period or place. Second, it argues for a critical strategy called "depressive reading" that has unique purchase on this literary history. Drawing on Melanie Klein's "depressive position," the project asserts an alternative to novel theories that are rooted in sympathy and desire. By being attentive to mood and critical disposition, depressive reading homes in on the barely-contained negativities of realism. Through readings of novels by William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and Charlotte Brontë, it explores feelings of ambivalence, soreness, and dislike as aesthetic responses and interpretations, as well as prompts to varieties of non-instrumentalist ethics. In the final chapter, the psychological and literary strategy of play emerges as a creative and scholarly possibility.

Postcolonial theory teaches us that the Empire was as much a textual as a physical undertaking: the Empire was (and is) experienced through its texts. Anthony Trollope was an enthusiastic traveller and helped to "write the Empire" in both his travel narratives and in his novels. This study examines his travel narrative South Africa, and explores how the colony is depicted in this work and in Trollope's "colonial" novels: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, John Caldigate, An Old Man's Love and The Fixed Period. Trollope's colonies are places of moral danger where the value systems instilled by English society provide the only means for overcoming the corrupting influences of the colonial space. He writes the colonies as images of Britain, but these images are never true reflections of the homeland: there is always an element of distortion present, which serves to subvert the "Englishness" of his colonial landscapes. / English Studies / MA (ENGLISH)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2010 Aug 17.