This thesis examines the use and representation of letters (and other written messages) in Thomas Hardy's novels, and it considers how Hardy's writing engages with Victorian communication technologies. The 1895 Preface to Far from the Madding Crowd describes Hardy's fictional setting as a ‘a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National school children'. The penny post, a communication revolution with an enormous social, economic, and cultural impact, was introduced on 10 January 1840, just a few months before Hardy was born. This thesis aims to demonstrate how a consideration of the material, technological and cultural conditions of communication in Victorian England might reshape our understanding of Hardy's novels, especially of the countless letters, notes, and telegrams which permeate his texts. The written messages in Hardy's novels serve as a means for exploring the process of human communication, and the way this process shapes individual identity, interpersonal relationships, and social interactions alike. Chapter I of this thesis relates Hardy's portrayal of letters to the historical transition from oral tradition to written culture. Chapter II enquires into the relationship between letter writing and notions of privacy and publicity in Hardy's novels. Chapters III and IV argue that Hardy uses letters so as to give a strikingly modern complexity to his representation of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity. The two final chapters investigate how the modalities and technological conditions of written communication influence the construction of Hardy's narratives, the design of his plots. Taken together, the six chapters examine Hardy's perception of one of the most fundamental human activities: communication.

This essay is a study of Yinka Shonibare MBE, London-born and Nigerian-raised contemporary artist, and his recent photographic practice that includes three series: Fake Death Pictures, William Morris Family Album, and Medusa. Exploration of the series reveals insight into Shonibare’s unique relationship to photography, in which he employs the hyper-realism and theatricality of the medium to interact with individuals from British history and reveal contemporary social and political injustices.

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In February 1877, publisher Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington began release of a monthly serial called Street Life in London, by journalist Adolphe Smith and photographer John Thomson. The work aimed to reveal to readers, through novel use of photographic illustrations combined with essays, the conditions of a life of poverty in London. Appearing also as a book in late 1877, Street Life in London did not achieve commercial success in either format and was cancelled after just one year's run. This dissertation aims to demonstrate how Street Life in London was subject to and shaped by a variety of interests and forces, to understand why it failed, and to place it within the overarching contexts of Victorian social exploration and street typology. Historians of photography have justifiably praised Street Life in London as a foundational work of socially-conscious photography, John Thomson's images breaking--sometimes radically--with prior models for depiction of the poor. But they have tended to regard it primarily as a book rather than a serial, and primarily as a book of photographs, not a publication in which text and image work in concert. This dissertation examines the vital contributions of both Adolphe Smith and John Thomson, combining close reading of images, text and sequencing throughout the serial publication to treat the work as a photo-text. It reinscribes the work within the contexts of both authors' overall careers, relates it to prior pictorial and literary models for representation of poverty, and demonstrates the roles of other players such as the publisher and critics in shaping the publication. Ultimately this study places Street Life in London within a matrix of Victorian discourses on poverty, photography, and typology, among others, demonstrating that it was contingent, conflicted, and ultimately incomplete: a flawed but fascinating commentary on the complex and multifarious Victorian era from which it emerged.

The thesis discusses the development of nineteenth century responses to the United States. It hinges upon the premise that travel writing is narrative and that the travelling itself must therefore be constructed (or reconstructed) as narrative in order to make it available for writing. By applying narratology to the work of literary travel writers from Frances Trollope to Henry James I show the influence of travelling point of view and writing point of view on the narrative. Where these two points of view are in conflict I suggest reasons for this and identify signs in the narrative which display the disparity. There are several influences on point of view which are discussed in the thesis. The first is mode of travel: the development of steamboats and later locomotives increasingly divested travellers from the landscape through which they were travelling. I concentrate on Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain travelling by boat, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James travelling by rail to examine how mode of travel alters travelling point of view and influences the form of travel writing. The second is the frontier: writing from a liminal space creates a certain point of view and makes travel not only a passage but a rite of passage. I examine travel texts which discuss the Western frontier as well as the transatlantic frontier. As the opportunity for these frontier experiences diminished through the spread of American culture and developments in travel technology, so the point of view of the traveller changes. A third point of view is provided by European ideas of nature and beauty in nature. The failure of these when put against American landscapes such as the Mississippi, prairies, and Niagara forms a significant part of the thesis, the fourth chapter of which examines writing on Niagara Falls in guidebooks and the travel texts of Frances Trollope, Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Anthony Trollope, Twain and James. Other points of view include seeing the United States through earlier travel texts and adopting a more autobiographical interest in travelogues. In the final chapter the thesis contains a discussion of the nature of truth in travel writing and the tendency towards fictionalisation. The thesis concludes by considering the implications for truth of having various travelling and writing points of view impact upon constructing narrative out of travel.

The δδ¹³C and δ¹⁵N composition of incremental segments of tooth dentine was used to infer infant and childhood diet in a post-medieval London population, and a hunting and gathering Mesolithic/Neolithic group from Latvia. Health was analysed using defects on the tooth enamel caused by stress, termed enamel hypoplasia. The populations, which differ markedly in their economy, diet and health, were selected because of the difference in childhood experiences between the two groups. The results were used to consider questions about childhood, including how early diet may have been influenced by social factors such as class or status, the effect this could have on population dynamics and how childhood diet and health are related. The results show that the London individuals were rarely breastfed beyond 6 months and in some instances not at all. A small isotopic difference between males and females was observed which could be caused by dietary or physiological differences. The peak incidence of hypoplasia may be related to developmental patterns, rather than stress caused by weaning. The Zvejnieki individuals had a slightly longer breastfeeding duration. Those buried with pendants consumed a different diet in childhood to those without pendants, suggesting a complex social system, possibly indicating that diet was related to the role a person had within the community. There is a suggestion diet may have shifted between the Middle Mesolithic and Late Neolithic, although not dramatically. Neither population have elevated δ¹³C often associated with breastfeeding. The early life histories of the groups are not compared directly, but general observations concerning the children’s lives are considered. It is concluded that economy is not a reliable predictor of infant feeding strategies, as hunter-gatherers provide children with solid foods at a similar time to industrial groups. Intra-population variability was found to be a feature of all socio-economic groups.

<p>Predmet istraţivanja ove doktorske disertacije jesu metafore tela i prostora u stvarala&scaron;tvu savremene vel&scaron;ke spisateljice Sare Voters. Istraţivanje se usredsreĊuje na prvih pet romana iz njenog opusa, objavljenih u periodu od 1998. do 2009. godine. Romani Usne od somota, Srodne du&scaron;e i Dţeparo&scaron; spadaju u neoviktorijansku prozu, dok su romani Noćna straţa i Mali stranac sme&scaron;teni u period za vreme i nakon Drugog svetskog rata. Uloga protagoniste u njenim romanima najĉe&scaron;će se dodeljuje lezbejskim likovima, pa se njeno stvarala&scaron;tvo moţe shvatiti kao poku&scaron;aj da se navedene istorijske epohe rekonstrui&scaron;u tako da se omogući predstavljanje lezbejskih likova i lezbejske seksualnosti. Istovremeno, njeni romani doprinose &scaron;irem predstavljanju lezbejske tematike u savremenoj knjiţevnoj produkciji. Osnovni cilj istraţivanja jeste da se ispita uloga telesnih i prostornih metafora u obradi teme istopolne ljubavi, ali i znaĉaj ovih metafora za ĉitav niz drugih tema.<br />Istraţivanja tela i prostora predstavljaju izuzetno plodnu i dinamiĉnu oblast savremene kritiĉke teorije. Ovi pojmovi dospevaju u ţiţu kritiĉkog interesovanja u drugoj polovini dvadesetog veka, mada je njihovo prisustvo u oblastima nauĉnih istraţivanja znatno duţe, pa rasprave o telu i telesnosti nalazimo jo&scaron; u klasiĉnoj filozofiji. Prostor je pak sve do druge polovine dvadesetog veka prevashodno bio predmet matematiĉkih i geografskih istraţivanja, dok je u humanistiĉkoj tradiciji bio shvaćen tek kao pasivna i statiĉna pozadina istorijskih dogaĊaja. Istraţivanje polazi od istorijskog pregleda kljuĉnih teorijskih pristupa telu, poĉev od platonistiĉke dualistiĉke tradicije,&nbsp;preko kartezijanskog dualizma, sve do savremenih poststrukturalistiĉkih teorija, a teorijsko upori&scaron;te analize telesnih metafora ĉine teorije Mi&scaron;ela Fukoa i Dţudit Batler. Analiza romana se usredsreĊuje na motiv transodevanja, metaforu duha, ali i na skup konkretnih telesnih slika kojima se spisateljica iznova vraća. Potom se razmatraju savremena teorijska poimanja prostora, pri ĉemu se istraţivanje oslanja i na relevantna istorijska, knjiţevnoistorijska i sociolo&scaron;ka istraţivanja. Ovaj teorijski okvir sluţi da se ispitaju predstave kuće, zatvora, ludnice i britanske prestonice, te interakcija lezbejskih likova s ovim lokalitetima<br />&nbsp;</p> / <p>The aim of this doctoral thesis is to explore the corporeal and spatial metaphors in the fiction of Sarah Waters, a contemporary Welsh novelist. The critical focus of the thesis is on Waters‟s first five novels, published between 1998 and 2009. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith belong to the neo-Victorian genre, while Night Watch and The Little Stranger are set in the period during and after the Second World War. In Waters‟s fiction, the role of protagonist is mostly reserved for lesbian characters and her oeuvre can be perceived as an attempt to rewrite the chosen historical periods in ways which provide for the representation of lesbian characters and lesbian sexuality. In addition, her novels make a significant contribution towards wider literary representation of lesbian issues in the contemporary context. The main goal of this research is to analyze the role of corporeal and spatial metaphors in the portrayal of same-sex relationships, class tensions and other relevant themes in Waters‟s work.<br />The issues of body and space are undoubtedly at the centre of contemporary critical interest and theoretical debates that surround them are diverse and wide-ranging. However, while the history of theoretical interest in the body dates back to the classical tradition, spatiality only came to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, when a surge of critical interest can be observed marking the beginning of the so-called spatial turn. The thesis therefore&nbsp;starts by providing a brief historical overview of the key theoretical approaches to the body, including the mind/body debate in the classical Platonic tradition, Cartesian dualism and contemporary poststructuralist theory. The theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler are then used as the main theoretical framework for the analysis of corporeal metaphors, which focuses on the motif of cross-dressing, the spectral metaphor, as well as a range of recurrent corporeal images in Waters‟s writing. In the following chapters, the focus shifts to contemporary theoretical approaches to spatiality and relevant sociological, cultural and historical research, which are used to explore the representations of home, prison, asylum and urban space, as well as the interaction between the lesbian protagonists and their surroundings.</p>

This dissertation examines the central use of implicature within the Victorian novel. 'Implicature' denotes a communicative strategy in which a reader must infer the primary meaning of an utterance from that utterance's relationship to its context, rather than 'decode' explicitly presented information. While all communications rely on implicature to an extent, the novels examined in this thesis contain large gaps in their explicit narration and rely primarily on implicature to communicate central elements of their plots. If readers do not recognise these texts' implicatures, the texts will often appear incoherent: their implicatures must be acknowledged in order for the text to be understood. Because little has been said about the central role implicature can play in fictional narration, this thesis contributes to interpretations of these novels that are currently being discussed in Victorian literary scholarship, as well as literary pragmatic debates about the use of implicature within fictional texts. The dissertation's secondary aim is to examine the implicatures which may be generated by the author's exploitation of certain reader assumptions. It focuses on the reader's potential assumption of narratorial omniscience, and relates it to the reader assumption of the narrative's fictionality. This secondary emphasis contributes to literary pragmatic conceptions of fictionality, and contributes to narratological discussions of narratorial omniscience. Chapter One examines represented illegitimate pregnancies in Victorian novels, and illustrates implicature's use as a politeness strategy. It explains how this use of implicature is called for by the novels' fictional and Victorian contexts. Chapter Two discusses implicatures which communicate characters' semiconscious romantic desires, and relates these representations to Victorian discourses on the unconscious and narratological scholarship on consciousness representation. Chapter Three discusses the central use of implicature in sensation fiction to create narrative 'puzzles', and connects the ensuing playful, sometimes offensive tone to these implicatures' satire of the realist mode.

This thesis considers some of the ways in which the sea was written about and written with in English nineteenth-century prose fiction. It has become a commonplace of literary criticism that, in the century preceding modernism, prose fiction about the sea was unthinking and uninteresting: indentured to outworn generic codes, tied to certain clichés of national identity, Empire, or slipshod sublimity, and vaguely evoking some or all of them. This thesis does not attempt a general contradiction of this view. What this thesis does suggest is that Victorian fiction is not always naïve about its subject and, at times, displays an awareness of the generic and stylistic hazards attendant upon writing about the sea. To write about the sea was to risk writing vaguely. However, to Victorian novelists who wished to draw on vagueness, the sea offered a subject and a style that could be put to use. The introduction sets out the terms of my discussion both of vagueness, and of the attitudes of Victorian writers and readers to the sea as a setting and theme for fiction. The terms of philosophical vagueness are compared with the nineteenth century’s most influential aesthetics of obscurity: the sublime. The purchase of these theories is then tested, first in relation to Ruskin’s lifelong interest in representing the sea in painting and prose, and second with reference to novels by George Eliot, Thackeray, and Gaskell. Prior critical approaches are also considered, as is the topic of empire, which I explain is not my primary focus. The body of the thesis is devoted primarily to three author studies: Frederick Marryat, Charles Dickens, and Joseph Conrad. Each author wrote vaguely about the sea, though vagueness is shown to be, in all three cases, a resource that can be drawn upon with degrees of self-consciousness; if, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, vague language was considered appropriate to the sea, the linguistic resources that the sea in turn offered began to seem increasingly applicable to experiences characterised by uncertainty. I suggest that the sea establishes conditions that invite a rereading of the many repetitions in Marryat’s novels. These repetitions can be viewed, I argue, as traces of Marryat’s struggle to find a language appropriate to the ocean. In Dickens’s writing, the sea is often present as a source both of metaphor and of experience. I suggest that the slippery doubleness of the literary sea is a means by which both Dickens’s characters, and the individuals he encounters as a journalist, can be made to coexist with their ideal or literary doubles. In my chapter on Conrad, I argue that the sea forms a crucial element of the kind of literary impressionism Conrad recommends in his preface to The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897) and elsewhere. Vagueness arises when the border between linguistic concepts becomes blurred. Two short interludes, on the subject of shores and depths respectively, consider such permeable thresholds. These interludes also provide a means of charting changes that occurred across the period, a counterpoint to the more temporally specific focus of the author studies. I conclude with a brief discussion of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (1931). Critics have distinguished the high modernist sea from what came before; this coda insists that the sort of vagueness valued by Woolf has an earlier origin.

In early Victorian England, a coalition of men of Government and the local community established a centralized and uniform policy toward public health. The long and arduous campaign (1831-1875) for public health impelled the need to solve the serious social, political and economic problems spawned by the Industrial Revolution. This study concludes that Britain's leaders came to believe that Government indeed had an obligation to redress grievances created by injustice, a decision which meant the rejection of laissez-faire. Through legislation based on long study, Parliament consolidated the work of sanitation authorities, trained medical officers, and essential environmental improvements. The public sanitation program soon decreased the mortality rate by breaking the frequent cycle of cholera, typhoid, typhus, and dysentery plagues, all this notwithstanding that no doctor of that age knew that bacteria and viruses caused disease.