The problem of sexual difference remains a priority for feminists working within the continental tradition, with Luce Irigaray leading among those who affirm fundamental differences between masculine and feminine forms of subjectivity. I take up the problem of feminine subjectivity, but my approach is distinct from that of Irigaray in terms of method and focus. Irigaray primarily works to uncover the absence of a place for the expression of feminine subjectivity within Western discourse. Accordingly, she focuses on the critical analysis of major texts in the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis. By contrast, I construct a critique that operates as a positive account of feminine selfhood through a process of historical reflection anchored by an ontological and phenomenological orientation toward the development of culture. I build my critique of spirit through the philosophies of Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Johann Bachofen and especially the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison. With the exception of Bergson, these philosophers of culture are united by a phenomenological attendance to the domains of art, mythology and ritual. Bergson‟s philosophy, which deals more closely with nature than culture, supplies ontological insights which can be used to organize and deepen the phenomenological content available in the thought of the other figures. The dissertation synthesizes and critically expands the work of these individuals in order to produce a critique of spirit and the work of spirit in the genesis of Western patriarchy. I argue that this critique of spirit is the philosophical account of "soul." I argue that soul is a form of order constitutive of the feminine self, which is obscured by the dominance of spirit from classical antiquity forward.

"Sounds of Terror" explores the interrelations between discourses of sound and the ghostly in Victorian novels and short stories. Narrative techniques used by Charles, Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, and Charlotte Mew are historically and culturally situated through their use of or reactions against acoustic technology. Since ghost stories and nvoels with gothic elements rely for the terrifying effects on tropes of liminality, my study consists of an analysis of an important yet largely unacknowledged species of these tropes: auditory metaphors. Many critics have examined the visual metaphors that appear in nineteenth-century fiction, but, until recently, aural representations have remain critically ignored. The aural itself represents the liminal or the numinous since sounds are less identifiable than visuals because of their ephemeral nature. My study shows the the significance of auditory symbols becomes increasingly intensified as the century progresses. Through analyses of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, and short stories by Henry James ("The Altar of the Dead" and "In the Cage")and Charlotte Mew ("Passed" and "A White Night"), I argue that Victorian writers using gothic modes employ metaphors and symbolism as an alternative to frightening visual images--what could be heard or not heard proved terrifying and dreadful.