Since devolution there has been a wealth of stimulating and exciting literary works by Welsh and Scottish women writers, produced as the boundaries of nationality were being dismantled and ideas of nationhood transformed. This comparative study brings together, for the first time, Scottish and Welsh women writers’ literary responses to these historic political and cultural developments. Chapter one situates the thesis in a historical context and discusses some of the connections between Wales and Scotland in terms of their relationship with ‘Britain’ and England. Chapter two focuses on the theoretical context and argues that postcolonial and feminist theories are the most appropriate frameworks in which to understand both Welsh and Scottish women’s writing in English, and their preoccupations with gendered inequalities and language during the pre- and post-devolutionary period. The third chapter examines Welsh and Scottish women’s writing from the first failed referendum (1979) to the second successful one (1997) to provide a sense of progression towards devolution. Since the process of devolution began there has been an important repositioning of Scottish and Welsh people’s perception of their culture and their place within it; the subsequent chapters – four, five, six and seven – analyse a diverse body of work from the symbolic transference of powers in 1999 to 2008. The writers discussed range from established authors such as Stevie Davies to first-time novelists such as Leela Soma. Through close comparative readings focusing on a range of issues such as marginalised identities and the politics of home and belonging, these chapters uncover and assess Welsh and Scottish women writers’ shared literary assertions, strategies and concerns as well as local and national differences. The conclusions drawn from this thesis suggest that, as a consequence of a history of sustained internal and external marginalization, post-devolution Welsh and Scottish women’s writing share important similarities regarding the politics of representation. The authors discussed in this study are resisting writers who textually illustrate the necessity of constantly rewriting national narratives and in so doing enable their audience to read the two nations and their peoples in fresh, innovative and divergent ways.

The very mention of the genre of the 'girls' school story' tends to provoke sniggers. Critics, teachers and librarians have combined throughout the century to attack a genre which encourages loyalty, hard work, team spirit, cleanliness and godliness. This dissertation asks why this attack took place and suggests one possible answer - the girls' school story was a radical and therefore feared genre. The thesis provides a brief history of the genre with reference to its connections with the Victorian novel and its peculiarly British status. Through examination of reading surveys, newspapers and early critical works it establishes both the popularity of the genre amongst its intended audience and the vitriolic nature of the attack against it. Biographical information about the writers of the school story begins to answer why the establishment may have been afraid of the influence of the purveyors of girls' school stories. By discussing their depiction of education, religion, women's roles and war the dissertation shows in what respects the genre can be seen as radical and shows how the increasing conventionality of the genre coincided with its decline in vigour and popularity. The influence of the oeuvre is then revealed in the discussion of its effects on adult literature.

Orientador: Luiz Gonzaga Marchezan / Banca: Sérgio Vicente Motta / Banca: Márcio Natalino Thamos / Resumo: O presente trabalho tem como escopo uma análise do conto contemporâneo de Angela Carter. Como ponto de partida, fizemos uma abordagem sobre algumas noções que permeiam a produção artística a partir da década de 60, do século passado, para, então, no capítulo primeiro, traçarmos alguns lineamentos sobre o conto como forma literária, observando os contextos em que Charles Perrault e Angela Carter produziram seus textos. Procuramos demonstrar características fundamentais não apenas destes autores, mas como a tipologia do conto, historicamente, pouco a pouco contribuiu para especificidade e sedimentação do gênero tal como o conhecemos hoje. Assim, classificações e formas de analisar seus procedimentos narrativos e discursivos permearam essa primeira parte de nosso estudo, quando nos deparamos com autores como Poe, Tchekhov, Maupassant, Joyce, Borges, Cortázar e Barth, entre outros. O segundo capítulo pretende melhor descrever uma nova abordagem da produção artística, pelo viés da pós-modernidade, quando elementos como saturação cultural, decadência, perda da energia, secundariedade e posterioridade, entre outros, canalizam para um novo ânimo produtivo, como observam teóricos como Moser, Jameson ou Lyotard, a quem recorremos, entre outros. A análise dessa descrição social permitiu-nos, como desdobramento do mesmo capítulo, chegar a algumas formas de arte que se sedimentam nesse novo contexto, fortalecendo tendências e vanguardas, tal como o feminismo, movimento a que se liga nossa autora. Interessa-nos, em particular, o atual conceito de paródia, conforme Linda Hutcheon, cujo texto, Uma teoria da paródia (1985), tornase arcabouço fundamental em nosso trabalho. Tendo definido estes conceitos, destacando a relevância do uso da ironia para o trabalho da reescrita, partimos para o capítulo fundamental, em que o texto paradigmático de Charles Perrault, O Barba-Azul é compara ... / Abstract: Our goal with this research was constructed on an analysis of Angela Carter's contemporary tales. From the bottom line we introduced an approach about some notions of her artistic productions-starting from the 60s of last century-for us to be able, in the first chapter, to start speculating about those tales, based on their literary forms, observing the contexts in which Charles Perrault and Angela Carter produced their texts. We expected to demonstrate fundamental characteristics, not only about these writers, but according to those tales' typology, constructed historically, step by step that contributed to gender's specificity and fragmentation as we may live it, nowadays. This way, categorizations and forms to analyse some procedures used in narrative and discursive composition, surrounds this first part of our work, just when it allows us to mention Poe, Tchekhov, Maupassant, Joyce, Borges, Cortázar and Barth, among many others. The second chapter, intended to describe a new approach to the artistic production from a postmodern perspective when some elements as cultural satiety; decadence; loss of energy; secondariness and posteriority (surrounded by other possibilities), can point us to a new productive direction, as some researchers as Moser; Jameson and Lyotard (that represent a source for us) could have observed. The analysis of this social description allowed us in the development to reach some other forms of art, that compose all this new environment, reinforcing some tendencies and vanguards as feministic movement linked to the author. We were interested, particularly, in current parody's concept, according to Linda Hutcheon, whose text: Uma teoria da paródia (1985), turned to a bases to this research. Due to these concepts, focusing to the relevance of irony, used to rewrite jobs, we keep on to reach our goal in the fundamental chapter, in which paradigmatic text is Charles Perrault's: O Barba-Azul is compared ... / Mestre

M.A. (English) / This dissertation hinges on the exploration of three contemporary Irish novels, namely The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, The Gathering by Anne Enright, and The Sea by John Banville. What the three works have in common, besides their nationality, is a preoccupation with what exceeds their grasp: that is, their inspiration is also their limitation. All three set themselves the task of capturing and representing a past. The first two position themselves as rehabilitators of portions of Ireland’s history that have been occluded from official versions thereof. (Banville’s novel attempts to skirt as many limitations as possible, including a national one, in order to grapple, as unhindered as possible, with what narrative can achieve). Fictional rehabilitations of what occurred in a phenomenal reality are inevitably fraught because of their form’s limited grasp. However, this study seeks to trace each work’s fitful engagement with what it cannot encapsulate in order to ascertain the capabilities of narrative, in spite of its inherent limitations. I employ a broadly post-structuralist theoretical framework in order to engage with novels that incorporate into their content an awareness of the parameters within which they are obliged to function. Ultimately, I draw conclusions (which are necessarily limited themselves) as to the gesture each novel attempts to make beyond its bounds.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / This dissertation examines different modes of female subversion in the novel, The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) by Zakes Mda. Using feminist theory, the study explores how women in the novel transgress apartheid laws and how they use existing discriminatory laws to their own advantage. In addition, it illustrates how these women rise above those existing laws to establish their own subjectivity and independence. The Madonna of Excelsior is a novel set in apartheid South Africa where laws prohibiting sexual relationships between whites and blacks were in effect. Niki, the main character in the novel, transgresses these laws by having sexual intercourse with white men, one of whom eventually fathers her baby. Niki gives birth to Popi who is ostracised by the Mahlatswetsa community because of her mixed racial identity. In spite of growing up in a prejudiced community, Popi works hard and becomes an important member of the town council later on when apartheid gives way to black rule. Popi subverts apartheid and the prejudice of her community by accepting herself as a coloured person, by being active in the political affairs of the Mahlatswetsa community, by engaging with the community through her service at the library and during funerals, and by reconciling with Tjaart Cronje, her half-brother. Popi’s mother, Niki, also subverts apartheid’s discriminatory laws by having sexual relationships with Afrikaner men such as Johannes Smit and Stephanus Cronje. Through these affairs, she exposes the hypocrisy of the Afrikaners and the unfairness of their laws. However, Niki’s subversion goes beyond the use of sex and the body. In her marriage with Pule, she suffers wife battering and marital infidelity. In this instance, Niki subverts traditional expectations of women by leaving Pule and establishing an independent life for herself and her children. In giving birth to Popi and raising her as a coloured child, Niki exposes the double standards of Afrikaner morality. She subverts viii the judgmental attitude of the Mahlatswetsa community by withdrawing from the community and resorting to bee-keeping. In this isolated space, she finds healing. Other female characters in the novel, such as Maria, Mampe and The Seller of Songs, also subvert the apartheid system and their communities through their sexual escapades with white men and their service to the community. On her part, Cecilia Mapeta subverts apartheid by her direct rejection of illicit sex with white men and her pursuit of education. In contrast to her, Maria and Mampe use mainly sex and the body to ensure their survival in a racist South Africa. The Seller of Songs, like Popi, uses her service to the community to subvert its prejudice. In their different circumstances, the women characters in this novel employ different subversive strategies, all of which work ultimately to their advantage. On the whole, this study argues that female subversion in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior is effected through various media, including sex and the body, racial differentiation, education, silence, community engagement, political activity, and family reconciliation.

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Each of these novelists, in her own way, presents a critique of the idealised woman of the nineteenth-century. My aim in this dissertation is to reveal the degree to which each is successful in her mission to 'explode the lie' of angelic womanhood, and, in so doing, free her long-incarcerated Victorian sisters. It took great courage and fortitude to utter at times a lone dissenting voice; and female writers of the present owe a great debt of gratitude to their pioneering Victorian counterparts, who cleared the way for them to take up the banner and continue the march towards female liberation from a stifling ideology. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Marie Corelli was arguably the most popular British novelist of the early 1900s, yet few today even know her name. Though she is not the only author to lose popularity, her enormous influence during her lifetime deserves consideration. What people liked about Marie Corelli can shed light on why the rise of modernism is seen as such a break from the popular in literature. This paper examines two of her bestsellers, A Romance of Two Worlds and The Sorrows of Satan, in light of the fin de siáecle, as well as the critical response to her work from both modernist and postmodern perspectives. Corelli is of interest today because her popular female characters are women who affirm traditional femininity yet also pursue and wield great power. The question I raise is whether Corelli's work is best seen as illustrative of theories about popular literature or as contradictory to them. / by Doris Moss. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

While literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the heroines of Lady Audley's Secret and No Name attempt to improve their social positions in a society that is economically dependent upon men. Braddon's Lady Audley and Collins's Magdalen Vanstone are fictional representations of women who internalize the inequality of patriarchy and strive to contest male domination. By centering their novels on heroines who endeavor to defy Victorian social norms, Braddon and Collins highlight the problem of the female in a male-dominated society. / by Rebecca Ann Smith. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.