No description available.

This thesis considers the representation of women and the gender principles in the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins and situates his perceptions of "masculinity" and "femininity" within a cultural, historical and literary context. A selection of his less canonical poems and prose is discussed and re-evaluated in the light of feminist and psychoanalytieal theory. In particular, the binarisms that fracture the representation of woman in Victorian art and literature and the issue of woman's alterity and subsequent association with death are identified and analysed. The thesis is organized into a tripartite introductory section, ten chapters and a conclusion. The first section of the introduction offers a broadly-based sociohistorical and theoretical examination of the gender principles and their origin. Part 11 of the introduction focuýSp s on Hopkins and his society, examining Victorian cultural views of gender diff6rence and the construction of masculinity. The third introductory section gives specific attention to Hopkins's theory of creativity and its relation to the gcndering of genius and aesthetic production. Chapters 1,2, and 3, offer detailed critical consideration of the deep psychosexual ambivalence towards woman, and the carnal materiality she embodies, in Hopkins's early poems: "ll Mystico", "A Voice from the World", "Hcaven-Havcn", "I must hunt down the prize", and "A Vision of the Mermaids". Chapter 4 gives a contextualized consideration of asceticism as an expression of the masculine will-to-power, and examines Hopkins's attraction to violence and the suffering of martyrs. The following three chapters explore the themes of death, violence and martyrdom, with particular emphasis on the issues of female sexual purity and masculine aesthetic vifility in Hopkins's verse drama on the murder of St. Winefred, St. Winefred's Well, and its accompanying chorus: "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo". The final three chapters of the thesis elucidate Hopkins's aesthetic and personal response to the Virgin Mary and the "feminine" pyschological characteristics and virtues she represents. Chapter 8 assesses the status of the Roman Catholic Church and the Virgin Mary in nineteenth century England, and also suggests that the image of the Madonna and the fictive "angel in the house" arc symbolically conjoined in opposition to the Tennysonian view of "Mother Nature" as a monstrous destroyer. This is followed, in Chapter 9, by a consideration of the view of Mary presented in Hopkins's prose. Chapter 10, the final chapter, presents a detailed analysis of Hopkins's Marian poem, "The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air we Breathe", in which the ambivalence and anxiety that surround his concepts of selfhood, masculinity and the body of the mother arc examined. In conclusion, I argue that Hopkins's aesthetic and spiritual vocations are intimately linked with his notion of actual selfhood and are subject to the profoundly damaging influence of conflicting role expectations and mythic paradigms of masculinity and femininity which cannot be reconciled, either within the individual psyche, or in the society in which they are nurtured.

This dissertation studies the concept of “love” in Algernon Charles Swinburne’s "Poems and Ballads" [1866]. As I argue in Chapter One, there has been surprisingly little critical discussion of the concept of love in "Poems and Ballads," and what there has been is flawed in that it inadvertently reinforces the longstanding charge of Swinburne’s “meaninglessness,” obscures the ways in which the love of "Poems and Ballads" is an informed critical response to the culture of the time, and tends to render the poems and their dramatic speakers interchangeable. In Chapter Two, I attempt to redress the ahistoricism that has dominated these discussions by explaining how the love of "Poems and Ballads" arose in response to the “cult of love” of Swinburne’s contemporaries, which he, informed by ideas that he inherited from his Romantic forbearers, viewed as an impoverishment of sensual experience, and consequently of humankind’s creative capacities—as dramatized through his speakers’ “refusals” of love and its imaginative possibilities. In Chapter Three, I explore two such “refusals,” expressed through the voices of the very different speakers of the “Hymn to Proserpine” and “The Triumph of Time.” After clarifying some sources of confusion, I trace how both of these characters, by means of different philosophical and psychological pathways, come to turn away from love and (in doing so) their own poetic potential. In Chapter Four, I turn to “Dolores,” in which the speaker’s rejection of love drives him to the “perverse spiritualism” that Swinburne identifies with the Marquis de Sade. Although the speaker succumbs to creative impotence, I argue that he is capable of recognizing his own inadequacies, and to welcome a poet who can “kiss” and “sing” like Catullus once did (340-42). Finally, in Chapter Five, I argue that, in the Sappho of “Anactoria,” Swinburne provides a dramatic model of (the development of) the kind of poet who could “see love,” in all of its volatility and violence, and still “choose him.” In concluding the chapter, I also claim that Swinburne suggests, in Sappho’s relation to her future readers, how such a poet might inspire others to “choose” love. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-23 10:34:46.253

This thesis focuses primarily upon three areas: a comparative analysis of those prosodic theories which form the historical context of the years 1908 - 1915; the ways in which Eliot and Pound came into contact with this discussion and the extent to which it contributes to their own criticism; and finally an analysis of how Pound and Eliot's poems from this period are conditioned by their authors' relationship to the then concurrent debates surrounding metrical form. Chapter One seeks to establish something of the origins of the core debate over metrical format, demonstrating the contrasting views upon the precise locus of 'form, ' as well as its continuance, and how these views affected poets writing in England to whom Pound and Eliot were later drawn. Chapter Two compares and contrasts the views of American authors on these subjects, suggesting how through an alternative relationship to "tradition, " American poets and pro sodists developed a more self-consciously radical approach. In Chapter Three, the focus is upon how Pound and Eliot came into contact with these attitudes and, based upon their own criticism, what their individual responses were. Chapter Four analyses the practical results these matters had for Eliot's early poetry, while Chapter Five offers a comparable analysis of Pound's early style(s).

The aim of this thesis on the Victorian poet/novelist George Meredith is to analyse the philosophical and psychological aspects of some of his poetry in relation to his reputation as a ‘difficult’ author. The study attempts to create a working definition of poetic difficulty by referring to George Steiner’s influential work in this regard, while also discussing some of the limitations of Steiner’s theory. A consideration of Rita Felski’s examination of critique in the field of literary studies is used to frame the debate around formalist versus ideological criticism and to introduce the conciliatory and reparative approach aimed at in this study, which, though mostly focusing on formalist close readings, also acknowledges the importance of context. The introduction includes a discussion of Meredith’s reputation as a difficult author, and argues that this is one of the main reasons for his critical and popular neglect, with his poetry being seen as particularly obscure. In the first chapter I look at Meredith’s response to the mythological past, elements of which are evident throughout his writing. I suggest that a lack of familiarity with Meredith’s sources can lead to misreadings of his poems, and look at two longer narrative poems, ‘Cassandra’ and ‘The Day of the Daughter of Hades’, to illustrate these claims. The second chapter focuses on Meredith’s Modern Love sequence, and includes detailed analyses of a large selection of the sequence’s 16-line sonnets to show how Meredith makes use of indeterminate narration and other ambiguities to create a complex depiction of mid-Victorian married life. The last chapter is concerned with Meredith’s philosophy of nature, an aspect of his thought which received a great deal of critical attention in the early and mid-twentieth century, though not as much in terms of Meredith’s obscurity. I provide a detailed close reading of his long poem ‘Earth and Man’ to illustrate some of the philosophical underpinnings of his poetry, while also suggesting that his was not a rigorous or fully thought-through system, but rather a lyrical exploration of the implications of evolutionary theory for nature-poetry. I conclude my study by considering how the Modernists T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound responded to the troubling question of poetic influence from their Victorian predecessors. By referring to Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’, I suggest how Meredith’s difficult legacy — and legacy of difficulty — continues to reverberate even in the work of poets who attempted to reject Meredith and his Victorian contemporaries. / Thesis (PhD (English))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / English / PhD (English) / Restricted

No description available.

The scarcity of speech in George Meredith’s Modern Love creates a deeply psychological narrative, reflecting a distrust of speech and the effectiveness of language in general. The narrator of the poem exists in a space of ambiguity, both blaming and yearning for speech; in his confusion, he remains largely silent. His silence does not only emphasize the distance between husband and wife but also between language and meaning. Furthermore, the narrator’s distrust of language ultimately exposes a breakdown in his certainty of self and truth.

No description available.

The poetry of T. S. Eliot represents intense yet discriminate expressions of desire. His poetry is a poetry of desire that extenuates the long tradition of love poetry in Occidental culture. The unique and paradoxical element of love in Occidental culture is that it is based on an ideal of the unconsummated love relationship between man and woman. The struggle to express desire, yet remain true to ideals that have deep sacred and secular significance is the key animating factor of Eliot's poetry. To conceal and reveal desire, Eliot made use of four core elements of modernism: the apocalyptic vision, Pound's Imagism, the conflict between organic and mechanic sources of sublimity, and precisionism. Together, all four elements form a critical and philosophical matrix that allows for the discreet expression of desire in what Foucault calls the silences of Victorianism, yet Eliot still manages to reveal it in his major poetry. In Prufrock, Eliot uses precisionism to conceal and reveal desire with conflicting patterns of sound, syntax, and image. In The Waste Land, desire is expressed as negation, primarily as shame, sadness, and violence. The negation of desire occurred only after Pound had excised explicit references to desire, indicating Eliot's struggle to find an acceptable form of expression. At the end of The Waste Land, Eliot reveals a new method of expressing desire in the water-dripping song of the hermithrush and in the final prayer of Shatih. Continuing to refine his expressions of desire, Eliot makes use of nonsense and prayer in Ash Wednesday. In Ash Wednesday, language without reference to the world of objects and directed towards the semi-divine figure represents another concealment and revelation of desire. The final step in Eliot's continuing refinement of his expressions of desire occurs in Four Quartets. Inn Four Quartets, the speaker no longer carries the burden of desire, but language at its every evocation carries the cruel burden of ideal love.

This thesis explores the ways in which Lady Jane Wilde, writing under the pen name of Speranza, established ethos among a poor, uneducated, Catholic populace from whom she was socially and religiously disconnected. Additionally, it raises questions as to Lady Wilde's exclusion from the roster of Irish literary voices who are commonly associated with the Irish Literary Revival, inasmuch as Lady Wilde played a critical, inceptive role in that movement. Lady Jane Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde, was an ardent nationalist who lived in Victorian Ireland. She contributed thirty-nine poems and several essays to the Nation newspaper—a nationalist publication—under the nom de plume of Speranza, which is Italian for "hope." However, her audience consisted largely of the Irish peasantry, who were for the most part poor, uneducated, and Catholic. The peasantry had little tolerance generally for members of the Protestant ascendancy who had held them in subjugation under the Penal Laws for so long. Lady Wilde, however, was wealthy, educated, and Protestant. Nevertheless, she claimed that she represented the "voice" of the Irish people. This thesis explores the notion that Lady Wilde gained popularity and trustworthiness among Irish commoners by fashioning herself after the Celtic Sovereignty goddesses in her dress, her motto and pen name, and her poetry. Also, by connecting herself with Irish folklore, Lady Wilde played an unsung role in the development of the Irish Literary Revival—a late nineteenth and early twentieth century movement that sought cultural sovereignty for Ireland in the face of English political rule. Despite her central role in the nationalist movement and her inceptive place in the Irish Literary Revival, though, Lady Wilde has been largely excluded from twentieth century historical texts and anthologies. Possible reasons for this exclusion are raised in this thesis, as well as a call for current and future critics to restore Lady Wilde to her rightful place as an important voice in Irish national and literary history. The first appendix of this thesis include selections from among Lady Wilde's poetry as they first appeared in the Nation newspaper and were later published in a compilation titled Poems, by Speranza. The second appendix contains the full text of a discourse analysis conducted on Lady Wilde's poetry in an effort to further strengthen the argument that she mimicked the role of the Celtic Sovereignty in her poetry.