270 research outputs found
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A study of John Clare in his historical and political context
No full textAs the title indicates, the basis of the thesis is to set John Clare’s life and work within the context of the social and political history of his time. It is a study that is long overdue. The manner in which topical and political matters were mediated to him and were reflected in his work are analysed. His introduction to the literary and social worlds of Stamford and London is evaluated, and the advantages and disadvantages of patronage assessed. The active and complex political culture of Stamford has been taken into account as this may have affected his later political statements and a growing awareness of his audience. His antagonism to enclosure and the social changes that it engendered are considered. Three major questions that arise from this are addressed. The two local newspapers that Clare is known to have read are used throughout. His correspondence with friends, colleagues and casual correspondents has provided valuable insights as have his poetry and prose writings. Research in the Northamptonshire Record Office has revealed important new information in the form of one book of Enclosure Commissioners’ Minutes dated 1809-14, the first five years of the enclosure of Helpstone, Clare’s native village
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The electric shepherd and the marvellous boy: literary evocations of Thomas Chatterton's 'suicide' in Philip K. Dick's 'A scanner darkly' and elsewhere
No full textBlurring representation : the writings of Thomas King and Mudrooroo
No full textThis thesis explores the issues of representation and identity through an examination of the writings of Thomas King and Mudrooroo. The particular focus of the dissertation is on the similar yet distinctive ways these authors explore past and present possibilities for representing Indigenous peoples in fiction. This discussion has a largely Canadian-Australian cross-cultural comparison because of the national milieux in which each author writes. The research question, then, addresses the authors' common approaches to Indigenous, colonial and postcolonial themes and the similar textual attitudes to the act of representation of identity in writing. In order to explore these ideas the chapters in the thesis do not each focus on a particular author or even on a specific text. Each chapter examines the writings of both authors comparatively, and reads the novels of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo thematically. The themes unifying each chapter occur in four major movements. Firstly, the Preface and Chapter One are primarily concerned with the methodology of the thesis. This methodology can be summarised as a combination of general postcolonial assumptions about the impact of colonial texts on representations of Indigenous peoples; ideas of reading practice coming from North American and Australian Indigenous writing communities and cultural studies theories on race. A movement in argument then occurs in Chapters Two and Three, which focus upon how the authors interact with colonising narratives from the past. Chapter Four shifts from this focus on past images and explores how the authors commonly re-imagine the present. In Chapters Five and Six the dissertation progresses from charting the authors' common responses to colonising narratives -- past and present -- and engages in the writings in terms of the authors' explications of Indigenous themes and their celebrations of Indigenous presence. These chapters analyse the ways in which King and Mudrooroo similarly re-envisage narrative process, time and space. Overall, the thesis is not interested in authorisations of Thomas King and Mudrooroo as 'Indigenous writers'. Rather, it argues that these authors on either side of the world use very similar techniques to reject previous representations of Indigenous people, and, importantly, attempt to change the meaning of and approach to representation. In so doing this thesis finds that the novels of both authors respond to colonising semiotic fields, as well as reducing the importance of such fields by incorporating them within a larger framework of repeated and multiple evocations of Indigenous identity. The writings of both Thomas King and Mudrooroo share a selfconscious textuality. The same tales and emblems are repeated within each author's entire oeuvre in order to reinforce their thematic trope of re-presentation as a constantly evolving process. Finally, the thesis concludes that a significant common effect of this similar approach to re-presentation is an emphasis on the community over the individual, and a community that can be best described as pan-Indigenous rather than specific
The life and works of Osbert of Clare
No full textOsbert of Clare was an English monastic writer, whose works extended from
the mid-1120s to the mid-1150s. His Latin hagiography reflects a deep admiration for
Anglo-Saxon saints and spirituality, while his letters provide a personal perspective
on his turbulent career. As prior of Westminster Abbey, Osbert of Clare worked to
strengthen the rights and prestige of his monastery. His production of forged or
altered charters makes him one of England's most prolific medieval forgers. At times
his passion for reform put him at odds with his abbots, and he was sent into exile
under both Abbot Herbert (1121-c.1136) and Abbot Gervase (1138-c.1157). Also
Osbert, as one of the first proponents of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, wrote
about the feast, worked to legitimize its celebration, and provided us with the only
significant narration of its introduction to England.
This thesis is divided into two sections. The first section is principally
historical and the second is principally literary. In the first section, I provide an
overview of Osbert of Clare's career and examine in greater detail two of his most
significant undertaking: his promotion of Westminster Abbey and his attempted
canonization of Edward the Confessor. In the second section, I give a philological
study of Osbert Latin style and examine themes that nm throughout his writings, such
as virginity, exile and kingship. Osbert's promotion of the feast of the Immaculate
Conception is included in the second section of the thesis because of its ties to the
themes of virginity and femininity within his writings. There are also two appendices:
the first is a survey of the extant manuscripts of Osbert's writings, and the second is
an edition of Osbert's unpublished Life of St Ethelbert from Gotha,
Forschungsbibliothek MS Memb. i. 8l
An ethnography of tourism and traditional Irish music in Doolin, Ireland
No full textThis thesis is an ethnographic study of the complex interplay between tourism and traditional Irish music based on fourteen months of fieldwork in Doolin, County Clare, Ireland between June 2002 and August 2003. The historical development of traditional Irish music and the localised tourist industry have become conjoined during the last three decades, and as a result the music and the idea of Doolin as a 'place' have become institutionalised and consolidated. This has further led to the development of a complex socioeconomic structure surrounding the music, its performance, and its commercialisation and consumption. The local social structure has also become complicated and internationalised. Specifically, the locale has seen a significant growth in the 'incomer' population, called 'blow-ins'. Blow-ins in this case have in fact become the inheritors and propagators of the local music scene, but this causes surprisingly little cognitive dissonance or tension between locals and incomers. This is despite the fact that the music is the raison d'etre of the local tourism industry. I propose that those incomers who successfully inherit and propagate the local music become assets to the cultural capital of the village, not a drain on it. Moreover, I suggest that the 'authenticity' of the music is not an ascribed quality but interdependently related to social status, seasonality, one’s relationship with the music, context, and phenomenologically inter subjective relations. By means of holistic anthropological research, this thesis attempts to refine our understanding of complex social relations in touristed destinations, the appropriation of musical 'traditions', and sharpen current anthropological theories surrounding the issues of 'authenticity' and globalisation
(Recensione a) Marco Guida, Una leggenda in cerca d'autore: la Vita di santa Chiara d'Assisi. Studio delle fonti e sinossi intertestuale, Préface de Jacques Dalarun, Bruxelles, Société des Bollandistes, 2010 (Subsidia hagiographica 90)
No full textLa recensione analizza lo studio di Marco Guida e soprattutto le conclusioni che individuano definitivamente l'autore della Vita di Chiara d'Assisi in Tommaso da CelanoThe reviewer examines the study of Marco Guida and especially his conclusions, that definitively identify Thomas of Celano as the author of the Life of Clare of Assisi
Trapped Inside The Man Box : The Victorian Med of Gustave Flaubert and Thomas Hardy
No full textCritics of the renowned Victorian novels, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Tess of the d\u27Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, consistently posit that each author is particularly accurate at capturingthe complexityof the femalemind and their uniquepsychologicalexperiencesas women in the respective French and British cultures. Both title characters, Emma and Tess respectively, are victimized in some way by the impossibly set gender expectations of their societies,ultimately dying tragically as an indirect result of disobeying those feminine standards. While not in disagreement,this thesis will propose the male characters,specifically Hardy’s Angel Clare and Flaubert\u27s Charles Bovary, also suffer tragically in a subtler way, finding themselves crushed by the masculine requirements set forth by their cultures. Though not to weigh one victimhood againstthe other, both lgth Centurynovelists createddistinctly complex male charactersin order to articulate the specific problem that the unreachableand unrealistic Victorian genderroles strip both men and women of their power to be individuals,and effectively dehumanizethem
Trapped Inside The Man Box : The Victorian Med of Gustave Flaubert and Thomas Hardy
No full textCritics of the renowned Victorian novels, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Tess of the d\u27Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, consistently posit that each author is particularly accurate at capturingthe complexityof the femalemind and their uniquepsychologicalexperiencesas women in the respective French and British cultures. Both title characters, Emma and Tess respectively, are victimized in some way by the impossibly set gender expectations of their societies,ultimately dying tragically as an indirect result of disobeying those feminine standards. While not in disagreement,this thesis will propose the male characters,specifically Hardy’s Angel Clare and Flaubert\u27s Charles Bovary, also suffer tragically in a subtler way, finding themselves crushed by the masculine requirements set forth by their cultures. Though not to weigh one victimhood againstthe other, both lgth Centurynovelists createddistinctly complex male charactersin order to articulate the specific problem that the unreachableand unrealistic Victorian genderroles strip both men and women of their power to be individuals,and effectively dehumanizethem
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Rural life in English poetry of the mid-eighteenth century
No full textThis thesis examines several mid-eighteenth century poems, assessing their portrayal of rural life, its literary and historical significance, and the aesthetic and ideological issues it presents. An introductory essay on developments in rural poetry sets the scene for two extended essays. The first essay is a comparative reading of the subject of rural labour in three poems: James Thomson’s The Seasons (1726-44), Stephen Duck’s The Thresher’s Labour (1730, 1736) and Mary Collier’s The Woman’s Labour (1739). The viewpoints of a professional poet (Thomson), a farm labourer (Duck), and a working woman (Collier) are compared in relation to kinds of work all three address as well as to individual labouring subjects. The responses of the three poets to such related issues as folk traditions, forms of charity and other ‘compensations’, are also compared. Some surprising similarities as well as instructive differences are located; and an interesting picture of idealistic and realistic, male-oriented and female-oriented attitudes to labour and labour-related themes emerges
The works of Mary Birkett Card 1774-1817 originally collected by her son Nathaniel Card in 1834: an edited transcription with an introduction to her life and works in two volumes
No full textThis thesis makes available the writings of Mary Birkett Card, a Dublin Quaker,
as collected by her son Nathaniel Card in 1834. It provides an annotated
transcription of the manuscript collection, with textual and editorial notes, and
an introduction recovering her life within her cultural community. The writings
consist of a spiritual autobiography, 43 religious letters, other prose pieces and
over 220 poems. Two poems were published in her lifetime: A Poem on the
African Slave Trade (1792) and Lines to the Memory of our Late Esteemed and
Justly Valued Friend Joseph Williams (1807).
The introduction is in three parts. Part 1 offers a biographical outline and sets
Mary Birkett Card's childhood poems in the context of the Quaker community in
which she grew up. Part 2 explores her autobiography, questioning concepts
of a separate female autobiographical tradition. It then investigates her
encounter with 'deist' thought, and later conflicts, after her marriage. These
concern money (seeking to reconcile the spiritual and material) and issues of
language and gender (a desire for'a pure language', linked to constraints upon
women's speech). Part 3 contrasts her 1790s verse with her later poems, and
epistles, arguing that embedded within these works as a whole lies a struggle
with her literary imagination.
Throughout, the writings are set within the context of contemporary literary
forms in poetry, Quaker writing and women's writing. They are considered in
relation to now current critical debates - on public and private spheres,
autobiography, abolitionist verse, women's intimate friendships, domesticity,
philanthropy and sensibility. It is shown that Mary Birkett Card's literary
creativity was intimately connected with her Quakerism, and, moreover, with
attempts to negotiate an ideal of Quaker womanhood. One important aspect is
the challenge her work poses to assumptions, still generally prevalent, about
Quaker women's far greater autonomy within marriage in comparison to
women in society at large
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