Cheung Fung-Ling. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-112). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Passionate Impulses in Childhood and Adolescence --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Moral Dilemmas in Love --- p.52 / Chapter Chapter Four --- The Ultimate Return --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter Five --- Conclusion --- p.99 / Notes --- p.104 / Bibliography --- p.106

Thesis (Ph.D. (English)) - Rhodes University, 2008

Focusing on four early works, then three from his middle period and three from the 1890s, this dissertation explores Meredith’s role as a novelist in the unfolding of a social and literary paradox, namely, that with the death of George Eliot in 1880, the dominant writers of fiction were male, and this remained the case until the advent of Virginia Woolf, while at the same time the woman’s movement for emancipation in all spheres of life—domestic, commercial, professional and political—was gathering in strength and conviction. None of the late nineteenth-century male novelists—James, Hardy, Moore and Gissing, as well as Meredith—was ideologically committed to the feminist cause; in fact the very term ‘feminist’ did not begin to become current in England until the mid-1890s. But they were all interested in one aspect or another of the ‘Woman Question’, even if James was ambivalent about female emancipation, and Gissing, on the whole, was somewhat hostile. Of all these novelists, it was Meredith whose work, especially in its last two decades, most copiously reveals a profound sympathy for women and their struggles to realize their desires and ambitions, both inside and outside the home, in a patriarchal world. The dissertation therefore concentrates on his presentation of his heroines in their relationships with the men who, in one way or another, dominate them, and with whom they must negotiate, within the social and sexual conventions of the time, a modus vivendi—a procedure that will entail, especially in the later work, some transgression of those conventions. Chapter 1 sketches more than two centuries of development in female consciousness of severe social disadvantage, from literary observations in the mid-seventeenth century to the intensifying of political representations in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the rise of the woman’s movement in the course of the Victorian century. The chapter includes an account of the impact on Meredith of John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869), and an examination of some of his female friendships by way of illuminating the experiential component of his insights into the ‘Woman Question’ as reflected in his fiction and letters. His unhappy first marriage is reserved for consideration in Chapter 2, as background to the discussion of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859). This early novel, Meredith’s first in the realist mode, is widely accepted as being of high quality, and is given extended treatment, together with briefer accounts of three other early works, The Shaving of Shagpat (1855), Evan Harrington (1861), and Rhoda Fleming (1865), and one from Meredith’s middle period, Beauchamp’s Career (1876). Two more novels of this period, The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885), are generally considered to be among his best works, and their heroines are given chapters to themselves (3 and 4). Chapter 5 provides further contextualization for the changing socio-political circumstances of the 1880s and 1890s, with particular reference to that heightening of feminist consciousness represented by the short-lived ‘New Woman’ phenomenon, to which Diana of the Crossways had been considered by some to be a contribution. Brief discussion of some other ‘New Woman’ novels of the 80s and 90s follows, giving literary context to the heroines of Meredith’s three late candidates in the genre, One of Our Conquerors (1891), Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894), and The Amazing Marriage (1895). The dissertation concludes with a glance at Meredith’s influence on a few early twentieth-century novelists.

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)

Romantic heroes are questers, according to Harold Bloom and Northrop Frye. Whether employing physical strength or relying on the power of the mind, the traditional Romantic hero invokes questing for some sense of self. Chapter 1 considers this hero-type, but is concerned with defining a non-questing British Romantic hero. The Romantic hero's identity is problematic and established through contrasting narrative versions of the hero. This paper's argument lies in the "inconclusiveness" of the Romantic experience perceived in writings throughout the Romantic period. Romantic inconclusiveness can be found not only in the structure and syntax of the works but in the person with whom the reader is meant to identify or sympathize, the hero(ine). Chapter 2 explores Byron's aesthetics of literature equivocation in The Giaour. This tale is a consciously imbricated text, and Byron's letters show a purposeful complication of the poet's authority concerning the origins of this Turkish Tale. The traditional "Byronic hero," a gloomy, guilt-ridden protagonist, is considered in Chapter 3. Byron's contemporary readers and reviewers were quick to pick up on this aspect of his verse tales, finding in the Giaour, Selim, Conrad, and Lara characteristics of Childe Harold. Yet, Byron's Turkish Tales also reveal a very different and more sentimental hero. Byron seems to play off the reader's expectations of the "Byronic hero" with an ambiguous hero whose character reflects the Romantic aesthetic of indeterminacy. Through the accretive structure of The Giaour, Byron creates a hero of competing component characteristics, a focus he also gives to his heroines. Chapters 4 and 5 address works that are traditionally considered eighteenth-century sentimental novels. Mathilda and Evelina, both epistolary works, present their heroines as worldly innocents who are beset by aggressive males. Yet their subtext suggests that these girls aggressively maneuver the men in their lives. Mathilda and Evelina create a tension between the expected and the radical to energize the reader's imagination.

This thesis explores the construction of masculinity in novels written by New Women authors between the years 1881-1899. The fin de siècle was a period during which gender roles were renegotiated with fervour by both male and female authors, but it was the so-called New Woman in particular who was trying to transform the Victorian notion of femininity to incorporate the demands of the burgeoning women's movement. This thesis argues that in their fiction, New Women authors often tried to achieve this transformation by creating male characters who were designed to justify and to mitigate the New Woman protagonist's departure from traditional structures of heterosexual relationships. The methodology underlying this thesis is the notion that men and women were perceived as binary opposites during the Victorian period. I refer to this as the binary code of the sexes. This code assumes that men and women naturally possess diametrically opposed character attributes, and also that “masculine” attributes are perforce better than “feminine” ones. In the body of this work, I argue that New Women authors attempted to contest both of these assumptions by creating, on the one hand, traditional male characters whose masculinity is corrupted in crucial and recurring ways, and on the other, impaired male characters who cannot assume the traditional role of man. The comparison of the New Woman protagonist with the corrupt traditional man elevates her feminine attributes, while the impaired man's dependency legitimises her acquisition of what were otherwise considered “masculine” attributes and privileges, thereby contesting the notion that men and women possess sex-specific attributes at all. The second part of my thesis examines contrasting examples, in which this way of characterising masculinity – as traditional or impaired – is questioned and manipulated. It examines the limitations of the New Women authors' specific approach to reconstructing the binary code.

This thesis offers a re-evaluation of the fiction of George MacDonald (1824-1905), both fantasy and non-fantasy. The general trend in MacDonald studies is to focus primarily on his works of fantasy, either ignoring the rest (which includes non-fantasy fiction, sermons, poetry, and criticism) or using them to illuminate the fantasies. The overall critical consensus is that these works, particularly MacDonald’s non-fantasy fiction, possess little inherent value. Though many critics acknowledge similarities between MacDonald’s fantasy fiction and his non-fantasy fiction, MacDonald has been the victim of a critical double standard that treats fantasy and realism as completely irreconcilable, and allows certain features to be acceptable, even desirable, in one form that are completely unacceptable in the other. The thesis begins by looking at MacDonald’s writings about the imagination and about literature, from which a clear theory of literature emerges, one with strong opinions about the function and purpose of literature, as well as about what makes good literature. By re-examining MacDonald’s fiction, its plots, characterization and narration, in the light of his own theories, the reasons underlying the artistic choices made throughout his fiction take on a more deliberate and calculated appearance. Furthermore, by placing MacDonald in his proper context, and looking at the diversity of generic options available to the Victorian writer, the critical double standard underlying much MacDonald scholarship, based on a strict fantasy/realism separation, crumbles. What emerges from this analysis is a different MacDonald—a careful craftsman who consciously and skillfully uses the tools of his trade to produce a unique and specific reading experience.

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / "Why do women read the romance?" cannot be answered by Anglo-American feminist literary criticism; a critique is brought against feminist definitions of gender and genre, and the question, "Why did women begin to write (novels)?" Gender definition and genre formation are integrally interrelated in the modern period; this can be traced through textual analyses of textual practices in early nineteenth century texts. Analyses of Wuthering Heights, Emma, and Madame Bovary enable critique to be brought against tenets central to feminist criticism: the figure and function of the female author; the definitions of gender, desire and sexuality; the social and the sexual contracts; and the role of Oedipus in feminist-psychoanalytical debates. Moi's Sexual/Textual Politics provides a. critique of feminism, Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction a feminist history of the novel, and Radway's Reading the Romance a feminist account of romance fiction. / Andrew Chakane 2018

Lo Man-wa. / "December 2000." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-253). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Thesis (M. A. (English)) --University of the North, 1989 / Refer to the document