Thesis--University of Chicago. / Bibliography: p. x. Also available on the Internet.

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Jerome McGann observes that 'Deceptive apparitions haunt romantic writing'. This thesis investigates one such haunting apparition; it analyses the ways in which selected eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century poets engage with the poetry of Alexander Pope. The received view of "Romantic" anti-Popeanism is expressed in comments such as that of William Hazlitt's 'I do not think there is any point of sympathy between Pope and the Lake School: on the contrary, I know there is an antipathy between them'. There is plenty of evidence to suggest some Romantic writers had an aversion to the previous literary age. In a letter to his brother and sister-in-law in March 1819, for example, Keats reviews a play by mocking that it 'was bad even in comparison with ... the Augustan age'. Pope had been the pre-eminent figure of Augustan poetry. Hence, the argument runs, Pope was rejected wholesale by Romantic poets. Such an understanding of literary history is, however, too dogmatic. Rather than accepting the view that the progression from Pope's era to the Romantic period involved a sudden pivot in taste, I explore how Popean poetic principles filtered into the development of his successors' literary aesthetics and ideas about poetry. The central questions I ask are how, and in what ways, Pope's successors used Pope's poetry to formulate their own poetic visions. I address these questions in four main chapters. In the first, I analyse Joseph Warton's An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope. I show that Warton's Essay on Pope should not be taken as a denigration of Pope's poetic achievement, and suggest ways in which Pope's work permeates his, and his brother Thomas', poetry. In the second, I examine the response to Pope's Iliad, a text which prompted conflicting reactions among his successors. In particular, I appraise William Cowper's response to Pope's translation, not only as contained in his prose discussion of it, but also as revealed by his own translation. My third chapter considers ways in which Wordsworth plays with Pope's poetic legacy, and acknowledges Pope's contribution to the formulation of his own ideas of what constitutes good poetry. In the final chapter, I illustrate that even in the poetry of Keats - who, at times, vociferously rejects Pope as a mere handicraftsman - there is a sympathy in song between brother-poets. Literary criticism has often stressed the prominence of authors such as Lord Byron, Erasmus Darwin and George Crabbe in Pope's poetic reception and legacy. Yet Pope haunts other writers in subtler, but no less compelling, ways. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge observes, in Biographia Literaria, 'many ... formed ... their notions of poetry, from the writings of Mr. Pope'. What I try to give colour to here are some of the ways in which subsequent 'notions of poetry' were 'formed' from 'the writings of Mr. Pope'.

Without seeking to reify a category of 'political romances', this study explores the participation of five Middle English poems (Havelok, The Tale of Gamelyn, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gowther, Robert of cisyle), normally classed among the romances, in the cultural process of constructing and regulating contemporary understandings of good kingship, tyranny, and community. In their participation in this discourse these romances cross generic boundaries, interacting with textual traditions (including historiography, hagiography, folk tale, and the literature of complaint), inscribing ideologies contesting romance's world-view. This study attempts to trace the ideological impact of these generic interactions on romance models of rule, investigating whether these romances cross generic boundaries in search of an idiom in which to critique dominant models of power relations, or whether, in attempting to appropriate the discourse of other genres, they seek to bolster dominant ideology by containing the subversive energies of its textual opponents. If these romances are identified as cultural products of a dominant ideology striving to perpetuate its own ascendancy, then it is a dominant ideology in the process of adapting itself in response to changing pressures, the nature of which I attempt to recover by attending to these texts' constructions and reconstructions of the hero's identity. I approach these romances not so much as the expression of the ideology of the dominant stratum, but part of the production of that ideology, called forth in a continuing dynamic response to contending discourses. I conclude that the energies of the genres with which these romances interact refuse appropriation, challenging the monologism of romance and continuing in their new narrative environment to propose their own political solutions. The resulting dialogization of romance indicates romance's diminishing ability to provide convincing resolutions to the contradictions of a changing society and to address the aspirations of a changing audience, In the ideological adjustments made by these romances in the process of interacting with other genres can be glimpsed the end of romance's insistence on heroic, and hence kingly, autonomy, and the replacement of heroic autonomy by community as the subject of romance.

The work is a study of poetry in Scotland and Canada in the period 1860-1930, with a special emphasis on the influence of nationalism. A discussion of the problems of literary nationalism in both countries is followed by a survey of national verse anthologies which illustrates the extent to which editors allowed their critical judgment to be coloured by the popular image of the national character. The importance of the Scottish vernacular and the Canadian wilderness to the establishment of a sense of national identity are considered in relation to a general discussion of language and nationalism. Two important elements in this discussion are the role of the untutored poet as a natural spokesman for his country and the swing from conservative poetic diction to a freer use of colloquial language during this period, and this portion of the thesis contains a survey of representative Scottish and Canadian poets. There is also a comparison of the difficulty of establishing an appropriate mode of expression in a new country with the problems encountered by Scots whose traditional way of life was being disrupted by the industrialization and urbanization of their society. The study concludes with a comparison of the two poets, E.J. Pratt and Hugh MacDiarmid, whose work marks a transition from poetic conservatism to the experimentation characteristic of many twentieth century writers. Finally, it is argued that although poets and critics lamented the failures of publishers and readers to support national poetry, there was considerable enthusiasm for local poetry in Scotland and Canada. It is maintained, however, that there was too clear a popular image of the Canadian or Scottish character, and that this prevented many poets from rising above mediocrity.

While the political and social spaces of Old English literature are fairly well understood, this project examines the conceptual spaces in Old English poetry. The Anglo-Saxons possessed a richly metaphorical understanding of the world, not merely in the sense of artistically ornamental metaphor, but in Lakoff and Johnson's sense of conceptual metaphor, which reflects the structures of thought through which a culture understands their world. Three domains exhibit developed systems of conceptual metaphor for the Anglo-Saxons: the self, death, and the world. First, the Anglo-Saxon self is composed of four distinct entities--body, mind, soul, and a life-force--which each behave independently as they compete for control in poems like The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Soul and Body. Second, death for the Anglo-Saxon is expressed through a number of metaphors involving the status or placement of the body: removal to a distant place; separation of the body and the soul; location down on or within the earth; and the loss of life as a possession. Predominance of a particular metaphor contributes to the effects of individual poems, from The Fates of the Apostles and Beowulf to The Battle of Maldon and The Wife's Lament. Third, the Anglo-Saxon world is a large structure like a building, with its three primary components--heaven, hell, and earth--each themselves presented as building-like structures. Old English poetry, including native versions of Genesis, reveal heaven to be a protective Anglo-Saxon hall, while hell is a cold prison. The earth, in poems like Christ II and Guthlac B, is either a wide plain or a comforting house. Christ I connects these worlds through gates, including Mary, characterized as a wall-door. Finally, the apocalyptic Christ III employs metaphorical spaces for all three conceptual domains treated in this study but dramatizes their breakdown even as it reveals spatial enclosure the overarching structure of metaphorical concepts in Old English poetry.

The Land of Cokaygne may be interpreted as a burlesque of the paradise legend of the saints’ abode in the Eden of the blessed. Or it may be taken as a poor folk's Utopia, expressing the desire of the common people for a life of abundance and ease. The essay is therefore divided into two parts. The first concerns the poem as burlesque. What beliefs and conventions are being parodied and what can be learned of the satirist? To answer the first question I offer as a frame of reference a resume of conventional paradise motifs as illustrated in certain paradise legends which were widely known in medieval England. To answer the second question I find analogies to the poem in Greek and Celtic literature and discover the sceptical and satirical spirit in which they were written. The Celtic analogue invites comparison of the Cokaygne poet with the wandering scholar of the Middle Ages. It is possible that the Cokaygne poet with his sceptical spirit and delight in the sensual pleasures was a goliardic clerk. Turning to the poem itself, I set forth those passages of the poem which burlesque the conventional paradise motifs--the list of negative joys, the rivers, the abode of holy men, the garden, well and tree, the catalogue of precious stones and, finally, the barrier. The poet's method is to improvise freely, introducing foreign elements into a familiar series and thus making an exalted theme ludicrous. The Cokaygne motifs--the cloister roofed with cakes, the roast goose, the well-seasoned larks--are used in this way. But the poem may be taken out of its Middle English context and given a larger literary relationship. Structurally, it may be classed as a satiric utopia, for in his burlesque the poet has created a topsy-turvy land as a vehicle for breaking down existing ideas about paradise and for criticizing the religious orders for their immorality. The second part of the essay concerns the poem as a utopia. The Cokaygne fantasy has its origins in primitive agrarian rites and its themes are abundance without toil, general license and inversion of status. The acting out by the folk of these themes in the medieval folk festivals may be taken as a projection of the world as they would like it to be. Around the Cokaygne fantasy the utopia of the folk takes shape. The poet uses the roast goose motif to burlesque the saints’ paradise. But he also uses it as a symbol of the good life without fear of want. His poem takes up the Cokaygne theme of abundance without toil, and communicates as well a sense of the injustice suffered by the poor. Two hundred years later, Thomas More also speaks for the poor and oppressed in his Utopia, and it is his conviction of social injustice which gives emotional force to the theme he shares with the Cokaygne poet of abundance without toil. Other Utopians have in some way given expression to this theme, but only William Morris in News from Nowhere has captured that sense of freedom and of delight in the abundant earth which pervades the Middle English poem. The Utopian element in the poem may also be measured by contrasting it with the anti-utopia. Swift, Huxley and Orwell create wonderlands in the spirit of anti-Cokaygne. They mistrust the idea of abundance without toil and take a gloomy view of the perfectibility of man. They have never been inspired by the vision of the wonderful tree, symbolic of Utopian dreams, or else they have rejected it out of concern for our minds and spirits. The burlesque utopia of the Cokaygne poet lives on in North American folk literature of the twentieth century. It is best known in that well-loved Cokaygne song. The Big Rock Candy Mountains. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis must be regarded as an outline, rather than an exhaustive study, of the inter-relationship of music and poetry during the Middle Ages (that is, from the middle of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century). It is always difficult to set limits for creative movements and, when they have been set, to justify them and to work consistently within them, for one cannot make definite divisions between movements, nor confine trends of thought and creative impulse within the boundaries of a definite space of time. The year 1150 was chosen as the first limit of this essay because little in English has come down to us from the first half of the century, and the small amount that has, belongs to the Old English rather than the Middle English tradition. Since medieval and renaissance trends overlapped each other throughout the entire fifteenth century the terminal limit (1500) had to be chosen arbitrarily. The adoption of 1500 has more than the convenience of a round number to recommend it, however, for most of the literature of the fifteenth century belongs to the Middle English tradition; even those developments at the end of the century which look forward to the renaissance are not of such a revolutionary character that they cannot he considered as still part of medieval literature. While music shows some analogies with all its sister arts, it is the art of poetry that it resembles most. The present work, therefore, deals primarily with the characteristics of the form and style of medieval music (special emphasis being given to the music of the church) and its influence on poetic forms like the lyric and liturgical drama. The main contention of the thesis is that, during the monodic period of music, the two arts were completely dependent on one another. With the development of polyphony, however, music became so intricate that it could no longer be used as a vehicle for words. The old union of poetry and music was gone, never to return in quite the same way again. Although it is true that music and poetry came together for a brief period in the Elizabethan Age it was not the same kind of unity. In the renaissance, music and poetry were two mature arts that enhanced one another; either one could be enjoyed without the other, but, in the Middle Ages, (that is, the period in which monodic music flourished) neither the music nor the poetry was complete in itself — they were created for one another. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The thesis undertakes to examine the dimensions of involvement that may exist between the reader and the Romantic poem. The introductory chapter briefly explores some of the grounds for the mis-conception and denigration of Romantic poetry. Some of the problems in differentiating between Romantic modes of conception and the "normal" results of discursive reasoning as applied to Romantic poetry are introduced. Romantic conception points to an order of interaction with the world that is beyond the capacity of ordinary linear thinking. This chapter suggests the primary significance of the experience of Romantic poets as informing their thought. It also stresses the relation that exists between the "subject" matter of Romantic poems and metaphysical doctrines not usually connected with "historical" Romanticism. The active principles that initiate both Romantic poems and Romantic thought are the same principles that inform the reading experience. The introduction concludes by suggesting the "formal" similarity between the original experience of the poet and the response which a reader may have in any given poem. The reader is often carried beyond what a linear conception of the poem would indicate. The second chapter picks up the theme of detachment from normal, pre-defined codes of awareness, as this occurs in the historical context of the Romantic movement. Mainly, the chapter explores the existential implications of the Romantic withdrawal from the Enlightenment cultural and intellectual milieu. The condition of vulnerability, which disorientation from conventional values engendered in the poets, becomes the central construct for the ensuing pages. For it is believed that vulnerability initiates the possibility of openness, and that it is from this ground of receptivity that the poets emerge as discoverers. The real dynamics of human life and awareness are not to be found in the world of conceptual thinking, but in the immediate relations a man has with the concrete things in the environment. The discovery of things, in a state of total receptivity, leads to a dramatic new conception of being, as well as to a new poetic presentation of those dynamics. But it is in a particular culture that these trans-cultural ideas are fostered. It is the impetus of an entire cultural milieu which compels the re-valuation of conceptual and non-conceptual experience that we know as Romanticism. Chapter Three contains a discussion of the theoretical relation of a reader to Blake's THE SICK ROSE, in order to illustrate the requirement of a suspension of disbelief. The central idea here is that the search for the "meaning"of a poem must begin, and does begin, in the very experience a reader "has" while he is engaged in the poem. The principles of the reader's engagement in the activity of the poem are paralleled with the principles of the poet's original discovery of certain energies. The reader actually repeats the Romantic disorientation, and thus comes to make the Romantic discovery. The chapter stresses the necessity of a high degree of involvement with any Romantic poem before the full dimensions of the poem's meaning can be truly comprehended. The reader's involvement is fundamentally characterized by a disruption of one's ordinary anticipation of both language and experience. The fourth chapter is an illustration of the physical aspects of disorientation, mainly in terms of the reader. Using the analogy of music, the chapter argues the concept of "surprise" as a signal of engagement in the stimulus, be it poem or drums. The fact that physical involvement in the new stimulus can be demonstrated to precede conceptualizing indicates that sense perception actuates new physical orientations even without consultation with logical reflection. This brief interlude prepares for the following chapters by pointing to the fact of physical immediacy in the act of dislocation from a conventional context of response and entrance into the world dictated by the energies of the present stimulus. The next chapter deals with the "ideas" of some Romantic poets in terms of the ground from which they emerge, The emphasishere is on the fact that a certain order of non-conceptual experience is necessary before linear conception is capable of entertaining ideas such as those found throughout Romantic writing. Perception precedes conception. But perception— powerful, direct—also stops conception. In Romantic poetry and prose we find that a process of "negative capability" is pre-requisite to any direct perception. Negative capability is a conceptual construct for the process through which the poet gradually, sometimes swiftly, is opened to the things in his immediate environment. Whether that environment be the life of external or internal phenomena does not alter the process, however much the resultant poem may be influenced. The stress which most Romantics give to negative capability and its resulting theodicy, justifies critical attention upon the experiences realized in "spots of time." These experiences are a major source of Romantic concepts of the mind. At the same time, the inherent form of these experiences gives rise to the mythic, multi-dimensional ideas of Romantic thought. Chapters Six and Seven deal with the formal principles of some Romantic poetry—that poetry in which the full dimensions implicit in a spot of time are expressed. Chapter Six employs Charles Olson's theory of "projective" verse in order to grasp the formal dynamics of Romantic verse. Olson's work is used because his conception of the "projective" act issues from the same ground that gives birth to the most comprehensive vision of Romanticism—the synthesis of the contraries in a direct apprehension of unity. The last chapter demonstrates some precise ways in which the formal properties of certain Romantic poems compel the reader to act in certain ways. Here, the concern is primarily with the dimensions of experience that the unfolding poem is capable of initiating in the 'negatively capable' reader. In conclusion, the formal activity of certain Romantic poems can be shown to have emerged from a complex experiential matrix, and to have rendered the energies of that matrix to a receptive reader. This transference is the prime "legislative" act of Romantic poetry. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The object of this thesis is to contribute to the appreciation of five selected Anglo-Saxon poems - The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Exodus, Andreas, and Beowulf - by analysing their metaphoric use of the sea. Metaphor is an essential and distinctive element of all poetry and, to be genuine, to be alive, and to be ever-interesting, a poem must achieve itself through metaphor. A poem's unique mode of vision is metaphoric, and whatever it communicates we perceive in and through metaphor. This is an axiomatic tenet of the criticism of modern poetry. But criticism of Anglo-Saxon poetry, if it bases its insights on a detailed reference to metaphor, must justify itself on theoretical grounds.