Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Dec. 20, 2005). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-170). Also issued as print manuscript.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-64). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2005. / Vita. Thesis advisor: Nancy Armstrong. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-190). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

This is a study of what I argue is a neglected side of Aestheticism. A standard definition of Aestheticism is that its practitioners turn away from the general current of modernity to protest its utilitarian and materialistic values, but this generalization ignores the profound influence of contemporary philosophical and scientific thought on such major figures of British Aestheticism as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. This study focuses on Aesthetes who are not in flight from modernity. I call their type of Aestheticism "Epicurean Aestheticism" and argue that since this temperament is characterized by a willingness to engage with the flux of modern times it must be distinguished from the more familiar, escapist form of Aestheticism I call "Platonic Aestheticism." I propose that Aestheticism be viewed as a spectrum with Epicurean Aestheticism on one side and the Platonic variety on the other. While Platonic Aesthetes like W. B . Yeats and Stephane Mallarme continue the Romantic project of trying to counter modernity with various idealist and absolutist philosophies, Epicurean Aesthetes adopt materialist and relativistic strategies in their desire to make the most of modern life. I argue that the first unmistakable signs of Epicurean Aestheticism are to be found in Thomas De Quincey, that the sensibility is fully formulated be Pater, continued by Wilde, and finds a current representative in Tom Stoppard. All Aesthetes are dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, but Platonic Aesthetes seek beauty in an eternal and transcendent realm, while Epicurean Aesthetes have given up such absolutist habits of thought. Pater writes: "Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the "absolute." Epicurean Aesthetes want a new aesthetic that will parallel the paradigm shift from absolutism to relativism. While a nostalgic, quasi-religious longing for a purely ideal realm characterizes Platonic Aesthetes, Epicurean Aesthetes accept that the high, idealistic road to eternal beauty is closed. Instead of lamenting this fact, they start looking for beauty among the uncertainties of the phenomenal world: by viewing life as an aesthetic spectacle to be observed and experimented on with playful detachment they become Epicureans of the flux of modernity. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

Victorian society had strict written and unwritten laws about what was permissible in terms of personal relationships. Anglican patriarchal church values governed behaviour between the classes and enforced codes of conduct on gender related boundaries of private individuals. Society subscribed to the traditional family of man, woman and children in the context of marriage. Homosexuality amongst men was punishable by prison. Government and religion preached Christian morality, yet the number of prostitutes had never been greater. This dissertation explores the problems of a pro-homosexual and anti-establishment Victorian author writing about human relationships forbidden by society. It exposes the consequences suffered by Oscar Wilde due to his investigative insights into the `Other' in the context of individual rights of preference in regard to sexual orientation, as expressed in selected texts, and his resolution of conflict, in De Profundis. / English Studies / MA (English)

Critics and audiences alike have neglected the idea of Wilde as a precursor to Beckett. But I contend that a closer look at each writer's aesthetic and philosophic tendencies-for instance, their interest in the fluid nature of self, their understanding of identity as a performance, and their belief in language as both a way in and a way out of stagnancy -will connect them in surprising and highly significant ways. This thesis will focus on the ways in which Wilde prefigures Beckett as a dramatist. Indeed, many of the themes that Beckett, free from the constraints of a censor and from the societal restrictions of Victorian England, unabashedly details in his drama are to be found residing obscurely in Wilde. Understanding Beckett's major dramatic themes and motifs therefore yields new strategies for reading Wilde.