Abstract: This thesis investigates the origins of contemporary fictional constructions of childhood by examining the extent to which current literary representations of children and childhood have departed from their Victorian origins. I set out to test my intuition that many contemporary young adult novels perpetuate Victorian ideals and values in their constructions of childhood, despite the overt circumstantial modernity of the childhoods they represent. The question this thesis hopes to answer therefore is, how Victorian is contemporary young adult fiction? To gauge the degree of change that has taken place since the Victorian period, differences and points of continuity between representations of nineteenth century childhood and twentieth century childhood will be sought and examined in texts from both eras. The five aspects of fictional representation that I focus on are: notions of innocence; sexuality; the child as saviour; the use of discipline and punishment to create the ideal child; and the depiction of childhood and adulthood as separate worlds. The primary theoretical framework used derives from Michel Foucault’s concepts of the construction of subjectivity through discourse, discipline and punishment, and his treatment of repression and power, drawn mainly from The History of Sexuality vol. 1 (1976) and Discipline and Punish; the Birth of the Prison (1977). I have chosen to use Foucault primarily because of the affinity between his work on the social construction of knowledge and the argument that childhood is a constructed rather than essential category; and because Foucault’s work on Victorian sexuality exposes links with current thinking rather than perpetuating assumptions about sexual repression in this period.

<p>At first glance Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is merely a story about a horse’s life, adventures and destiny. However, a parallel feminist reading reveals and foregrounds the living conditions for women in Victorian England but since this was a highly controversial issue, she was forced to disguise her true intentions. I support my thesis that Sewell is really dealing with the female body as abused, violently disciplined and prostituted by drawing on a wide range of secondary material such as legal acts and women’s fashion.</p>

This dissertation presents the character of the English Sabbath within Nonconformity from 1830-1860. The project argues that Nonconformists believed every Christian was required to practice a proper Sabbath. This study examines every available sermon and treatise produced by a Nonconformist during this era. The Biblical warrant for a proper Sabbath is examined in chapter two, a model Sabbath is described in chapter three, the blessings and curses associated with Sabbath observance is the subject of chapter four, and the enforcement of the Sabbath through legislation is the focus of chapter five.

At first glance Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is merely a story about a horse’s life, adventures and destiny. However, a parallel feminist reading reveals and foregrounds the living conditions for women in Victorian England but since this was a highly controversial issue, she was forced to disguise her true intentions. I support my thesis that Sewell is really dealing with the female body as abused, violently disciplined and prostituted by drawing on a wide range of secondary material such as legal acts and women’s fashion.

In this thesis, I examine the domestication of the Gothic hero-villain in Charlotte Brontës Jane Eyre, Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights, and Anne Brontës The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Each of these novels features a powerful Gothic figure who finds himself physically and emotionally subject to the heroine. This subjection is closely linked to the passing away of that hero-villains Gothic masculinity and his conversion to or replacement by domestic, middle-class masculinity. I argue that the larger social shift from gentry and aristocratic authority in eighteenth-century British society to the entrenchment of domestic, middle-class ideology in the Victorian period and the accompanying shift from an elite to a bourgeois model of masculinity are largely responsible for the subjection, and conversion or supplanting, of these Gothic hero-villains. <p>This social-historical framework also allows me to examine these male characters from a masculinist perspective. Much recent Brontë criticism has been feminist in nature, and these analyses fail to do justice to the novels male characters, usually examining them only in relation to the heroine or indeed casting them as feminized figures, especially when their masculinity is perceived to be unconventional. By looking at effects of the shift from elite to domestic masculinity, I offer a more nuanced analysis of these male characters and how they navigate changing expectations of masculinity. <p>I conclude that though these novels follow a similar pattern, which seems to reify domestic ideology, each Brontë supports this ideology to a different degree. This problematization of ideology has a long tradition in the Gothic novel, which is frequently ambivalent and can be used for either revolutionary or reactionary ends. Charlotte and Anne Brontë defeat the Gothic and gentry masculinity of their hero-villains, making way for the domestic man. Along the way, Charlotte Brontë creates a marriage that is both domestic and radically equal; Anne Brontë critiques the dictates of domestic ideology before finally reifying it. Most interestingly, Emily Brontë allows Heathcliff to die unrepentant and haunt the closing pages of Wuthering Heights. Of the three sisters, Emily Brontë most strongly resists domestic ideology and masculinity in her treatment of the Gothic hero-villain.

The implication of belief, that association between the veridical ghost tale and the fictional ghost tale—an association resulting from the onslaught of reason and science, and consequently spiritual doubt—remains largely responsible for the fictional ghost tale’s critical demise. A rise in the spiritualist movement produces a specific literature that coincides with the rise in interest in its fictional counterpart. Both the veridical ghost tale and the fictional ghost tale reach their heights in popularity at precisely the same time; not coincidental, but well planned by talented writers who viewed the preoccupation with ghosts as a platform from which a variety of contemporary issues could be candidly dealt. The Victorian literary ghost figure simultaneously, and ingeniously, fills a spiritual void, satisfies a consumer need for entertainment, and provides an opportunity for cultural commentary. The voice of the Victorian ghost, and the subsequent understanding of its haunted are of distinct cultural significance. / October 2004

Appendix B comprises an anthology of the poems discussed in this dissertation. / My dissertation examines the political and formal aspects of poetry written by working-class women in England and Scotland between 1830 and 1880. I analyse a poetic corpus that I have gathered from existing publications and new archival sources to assess what I call the literary labour politics of women whose poetry encounters, represents, and reacts to socio-historic change. The poetry of working-class women sheds light on the multidimensional intersections between poetry about labour and poetry as labour. I show that British working-class women writers were essential in the development of a working-class poetic aesthetic and political agenda by examining how their poetry engaged with European politics, slavery, gender inequality, child labour, education, industrialism, and poverty. The first section surveys the political and formal nature of the poetry written by working-class women immediately before and during the Chartist era to argue that gender complicates the political rubric of the working class during a period of intense social upheaval. I discuss the poetry of women who were published in James Morrisons The Pioneer, as well as E.H., F. Saunderson, Eliza Cook, Marie, and Mary Hutton. I read their poems against those written both by eighteenth-century working-class women writers and male Chartists to illuminate the intervention of nineteenth-century women in these literary and cultural contexts. The second section interrogates the politics of working-class womens poetry published after the dissolution of the Chartists in 1848 through a discussion of two pseudonymous factory girl poets, Fanny Forrester, and Ellen Johnston. I argue that even as working-class womens poetry increasingly engaged with broad social issues, it also reflected the continuing importance of poetry itself as a means of individual empowerment and worked against the prose tradition to argue for the unique possibilities of poetic expression. The thematic and formal complexity of the poetry of these working-class women allows us to assess the various poetic strategies they developed to respond to the urgent and vexed issues of social reform and personal and national relationships, as they articulated poetic and personal identities as women labouring poets against a society not attuned to their voices.

This dissertation examines Matthew Arnold's belief in the role the State must play in actualizing the ideals of the French Revolution in Victorian England by exploring parallels between Arnold's development and implementation of this belief and similar elements present in G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy. Beginning with Arnold's early engagement with the Bhagavad-Gita, moving into the preface to his 1853 volume of poems, and finally ending with his more mature religious, political, and social works, this dissertation traces the sources and development of Arnold's criticism of what he perceives as a widely held and dangerous antipathy towards State interference in the civil sphere in Victorian England. Believing this trajectory wrongheaded, Arnold asserts his belief in the connection between a strong State power and the emergence of true subjective freedom within a polity. By placing Arnold's texts and ideas alongside selections from Hegel's work, including On the Episode of the Mahabharata Known as the Bhagavad-Gita by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the preface to The Philosophy of Right, and some of Hegel's early theological writings, one realizes that Arnold's belief in both subjective freedom and a strong State power demonstrates a sustained and parallel engagement with Hegel's own commitment to both the ideals of the French Revolution and the role that a strong State power plays in actualizing those ideals.

In this thesis, I examine the domestication of the Gothic hero-villain in Charlotte Brontës Jane Eyre, Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights, and Anne Brontës The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Each of these novels features a powerful Gothic figure who finds himself physically and emotionally subject to the heroine. This subjection is closely linked to the passing away of that hero-villains Gothic masculinity and his conversion to or replacement by domestic, middle-class masculinity. I argue that the larger social shift from gentry and aristocratic authority in eighteenth-century British society to the entrenchment of domestic, middle-class ideology in the Victorian period and the accompanying shift from an elite to a bourgeois model of masculinity are largely responsible for the subjection, and conversion or supplanting, of these Gothic hero-villains. <p>This social-historical framework also allows me to examine these male characters from a masculinist perspective. Much recent Brontë criticism has been feminist in nature, and these analyses fail to do justice to the novels male characters, usually examining them only in relation to the heroine or indeed casting them as feminized figures, especially when their masculinity is perceived to be unconventional. By looking at effects of the shift from elite to domestic masculinity, I offer a more nuanced analysis of these male characters and how they navigate changing expectations of masculinity. <p>I conclude that though these novels follow a similar pattern, which seems to reify domestic ideology, each Brontë supports this ideology to a different degree. This problematization of ideology has a long tradition in the Gothic novel, which is frequently ambivalent and can be used for either revolutionary or reactionary ends. Charlotte and Anne Brontë defeat the Gothic and gentry masculinity of their hero-villains, making way for the domestic man. Along the way, Charlotte Brontë creates a marriage that is both domestic and radically equal; Anne Brontë critiques the dictates of domestic ideology before finally reifying it. Most interestingly, Emily Brontë allows Heathcliff to die unrepentant and haunt the closing pages of Wuthering Heights. Of the three sisters, Emily Brontë most strongly resists domestic ideology and masculinity in her treatment of the Gothic hero-villain.

Most people consider George Eliot a great Victorian novelist but neglect her role as a poetess. In fact, it is essential to read her poetry as well in order to grasp her thoughts. Her poems come mostly from her personal feelings, her observation of society, and her love of nature. This present thesis is a study of her poems and poetics, her poetic creativity, and her achievement in writing poetry. In the thesis, the introductory chapter has an overall look on George Eliot¡¦s poetic career. Chapter One examines her creative progress of composing poetry and her poetics. Chapter Two discusses her poetic experiment on dramatic poems in her times. The final chapter probes into the poetic mottoes applied to her last three novels. Most important of all, this thesis discovers George Eliot¡¦s identification as a poetess because she is conscious of what poetry offers and stimulates. This thesis, therefore, intends to show a new dimension of George Eliot as a poetess.