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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'English Literature'
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Abdul, Rahman Ramakrishna Rita. "New varieties of English in postcolonial literatures: Malaysian English in Malaysian literature in English." Thesis, Curtin University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/553.
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This study investigates language choice in Malaysian literature written in English in three different phases of Malaysian sociopolitical development: the Immediate Post Independence Era (1957–1980), the Mahathir Era (1981–2002) and the Current Era (2003–2006).The study is organised around three major objectives. The first examines the development and the use of Malaysian English (MalE) by Malaysian writers; the second examines the extent to which the use of MalE relates to the sociocultural development in Malaysia; and the third explores the significance of shifts in writing style involving the use of localised English. The study identifies, categorises, and analyses instances of MalE in Malaysian literature in English in terms of these three overarching objectives.The outcomes of this study suggest that the use of a nativised endonormative variety of English in Malaysian postcolonial writings is becoming more prevalent, and that such a harnessing of linguistic resources by Malaysian writers has important ramifications in terms of the construction and maintenance of a shared Malaysian national identity.
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Hanley, Jennifer. "English courtesy literature, 1425-1475." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/5661.
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Rooney, A. "Hunting in Middle English literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.373693.
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Malo, Roberta. "Saints' relics in medieval English literature." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1186329116.
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Yandell, John. "Reading literature in urban English classrooms." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2012. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10020708/.
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This thesis presents an argument for a reconceptualisation of how literature is read in secondary urban English classrooms and of what is accomplished through the activities of reading. In the discourse of policy and in theorised accounts of practice, the reading that is undertaken in classrooms has tended to be construed as either a poor substitute or merely a preparation for other reading, particularly for that paradigmatic literacy event, the absorbed and simultaneously discriminating consumption of the literary text by the independent, private reader. This thesis argues for a broader - historically, ethnographically, psychologically and theoretically informed - understanding of what constitutes reading, for a fully social conception of the sign and of sign-making and for a social model of learning. It draws on data gathered through classroom observation and digital videotape of English lessons taught over the course of a year by two teachers in a secondary comprehensive school in East London. It situates such data, and the interpretation of such data, in culture and history, in the culture and history of the researcher as well as of the participants in the research, school students and their teachers. Attention is paid to the pedagogy of the two teachers, to the constraints that operate on them and to the choices that they make. The thesis presents an interpretation of school students' engagement with literary texts as an active, collaborative process of meaning-making. Literature, instantiated in multiple forms in these classrooms, functions not as a valorised heritage to be transmitted so much as a resource for the students' work of cultural production and contestation.
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Wolfe, Catherine Ann. "The audience of Old English literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1994. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/270452.
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Citrome, Jeremy J. "The surgeon in medieval English literature /." New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb41014151z.
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Brannigan, John Gerard. "Literature's poor relation : history and identity in the writing and criticism of nineteen-fifties literature." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/620747.
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All the major critics of postwar literature regard the fifties as a period in which literature was inept, conservative and conformist. This thesis argues that fifties literature was instead an active and successful agent in problematising conservative political orthodoxies, and in articulating alternative identities and politics. The study is concerned with two major themes: the relationship between literature and history, and the critical reputation and location of literature in nineteen-fifties Britain. It begins from positions that are already evident in postwar literary criticism towards both of these themes. Literature is understood in much of the critical writing of postwar Britain to be representative of social trends and attitudes, and its meaning is determined largely according to particular understandings of postwar British history and society. The literary text, if understood as 'representative', is capable of offering the reader direct access to the society of its production, and of reflecting the dominant trends and attitudes in a given period. Because it is the most recent period of realism in the history of English literature, the fifties seem to be particularly susceptible to this view. Reading fifties literature in the light of poststructuralist thinking on textuality and representation, this study argues that literature is not representative bu negotiates identities and social experiences of the fifties in a much more diverse way. These negotiations are demonstrated in readings of the work of John Osborne, Brendan Behan and Sam Selvon, and elaborated theoretically in the concluding chapters of the study. Literature's Poor Relation demonstrates that fifties literature is able to manoeuvre into a space wherein it can articulate oppositional and critical stances towards power, by firstly, imitating social detail and literary traditions, and secondly, reading these details and traditions in such was as to deconstruct them. The appearance of representativeness serves to seduce the reader into desiring the text (the idea that Look Back in Anger was representative attracted many of its original audiences to see it), and its readings and interpretations of history and identity deflect the reader's desire towards oppositional and critical moments in the text.
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Doubler, Janet M. Fortune Ron. "Literature and composition a problem-solving approach to a thematic literature course /." Normal, Ill. Illinois State University, 1987. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ilstu/fullcit?p8713214.
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Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1987.<br>Title from title page screen, viewed July 26, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Ronald J. Fortune (chair), Glenn A. Grever, Elizabeth E. McMahan, Patricia A. Chesebro, Janice Neuleib. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-177) and abstract. Also available in print.
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Baton, Hannah Rachel. "Cultivation and wildness in middle English literature." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.497224.
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Bradley, James Lyons. "Legendary metal smiths and early English literature." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1987. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/615/.
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'Legendary Metal Smiths and Early English Literature' is a study of Christian religious influence on the portrayal of a powerful technology, metallurgy, in Old English verse. Starting from the controversy over the supernatural role of metal smiths in a metrical Anglo-Saxon charm, it proceeds to explore the impact of Christian thought on attitudes to the metal-worker in late antiquity and early medieval Europe. Significant and contentious characterizations of the smith in the Cain legend, the lives of the saints, and legends of Christ are discussed in turn. A chapter on heroic verse and another on wonder-working discuss, among other topics, the theory that Anglo-Saxon metal smiths were regarded with fear and superstition. The thesis put forth by the author in the course of this survey is that the critical approach which explains the concern of Anglo-Saxon literature with smithcraft as little more than an irrational primitivism finds little support in the religious writing of the period. What requires explanation is not the view that metallurgy was a matter of Christian concern, but the assumption that it was not. While this study is primarily concerned with mapping literary themes, it is not confined to the world of the imagination. Holding that themes, in order to be appreciated, must be perceived, where possible, in the light of the historical conditions in which they flourished, it devotes part of its space to a consideration of the latter. It examines the role of the monastic movement in disseminating an idealistic view of industry; describes the achievements of Anglo-Saxon metal-working; and attempts to appreciate some of the real hardships faced by workers in the Anglo-Saxon forge. The insights gained from this approach lead ultimately to a new reading of the metrical Anglo-Saxon charm with which the study began, a reading which, rather than peering backwards into the pagan past, looks forward to subsequent and more familiar examples of the forge in literature.
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Schmitt, Franziska. ""Method in the fragments" fragmentarische Strategien in der englischen und deutschen Romantik." Trier WVT, Wiss. Verl. Trier, 2005. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2663927&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
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Fisher, Marianne. "Nobility in Middle English romance." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2013. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54052/.
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Medieval nobility was a compound and fluid concept, the complexity of which is clearly reflected in the Middle English romances. This dissertation examines fourteen short verse romances, grouped by story-type into three categories. They are: type 1: romance and lost heirs (Degaré Chevelere Assigne, Sir Perceval of Galles, Lybeaus Desconus, and Octvian); type 2: romances about winning a bride (Floris and Blancheflour, The Erle of Tolous, Sir Eglamour of Artois, Sir Degrevant, and the Amis-Belisaunt plot from Amis and Amiloun); type 3: romances of improversihed knights (Amiloun's story from Amis and Amiloun, Sir Isumbras, Sir Amadace, Sir Cleges, and Sir Launfal). The analysis is based on contextualized close reading, drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu. The results show that Middle English romance has no standard criteria for defining nobillity, but draws on the full range of contemporary opinion; understandings of nobility conflict both between and within texts. Ideological consistence is seldom a priority, and the genre apparently serves neither a single socio-political agenda, nor a single socio-political group. The dominant conception of nobility in each romance is determined by the story-type. Romance type 1 presents nobility as inherent in the blood, type 2 emphasizes prowess and force of will, and type 3 concentrates on virtue. However, no romance text offers just one definition; implicitly or explicitly, there are always alternatives. This internal variety indicates tha the romances imagine nobility scene-by-scene; even a text seemingly committed to one perspective is liable to abandon it temporarily if there is another better suited to the narrative moment. Ideological expression always comes second to effective story-telling. This means the texts are frequently inconsistent and sometimes illogical, but that multiplicity is of their very essence.
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Wragg, Stefany J. "Vernacular literature in eighth- and ninth-century Mercia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:32fa907f-158e-4dd6-ab1b-05c7689b6e79.
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This dissertation reads a group of Old English prose and verse texts that linguistic evidence suggests probably originated in Mercia, within the context of eighth- and ninth-century Mercian cultural and political history. This approach complements and supplements existing scholarship, offering evidence that the theory that a culture of vernacular translation and composition thrived in Mercia has fruitful explanatory powers. It articulates a theoretical narrative of the early period of Old English literature, and identifies two major trends that can be linked to the political and material culture of Mercia in the eighth and ninth centuries. The first is the proliferation of vernacular hagiography, both in prose and verse. In the first chapter, I offer an overview of Anglo-Saxon texts connected with the cult of Guthlac, a saint closely connected to the Mercian dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries. This chapter offers an interpretation of Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci as an iteration of Mercian identity, and highlights the way in which Guthlac A asserts and emphasizes the saintâs Mercian identity. I then propose a revival of the cult of Guthlac linked to a crisis in the Mercian succession in the ninth century, to which the possibly Cynewulfian account of Guthlac's death in Guthlac B, the Old English prose translation of Felix's life, and the entries in the Old English Martyrology, may be connected. In Chapter 2, I offer a reading of the hagiographical poetry of Cynewulf, namely Juliana and Elene, in light of the remarkably â and arguably uniquely â powerful position of women in Mercia from the reign of Offa onwards. The early cult of Juliana appears to have a Mercian bias, and the empowered female saints in Cynewulf's works may also be connected to evidence for female literacy in the Tiberius-group manuscripts, all of which originate in eighth- and ninth-century Southumbria. In Chapter 3, I read the Old English translation of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, a major though until recently little-studied prose work, in relation to other texts with a literal style of translation and a hagiographical focus, and its apparent interest in Mercian conciliar culture. I also propose that the style of illumination of the earliest extant copies of the Old English Historia ecclesiastica may be influenced by Mercian, Tiberius style. The second major trend which the material and literary culture of Mercia manifests in this period is an early Orientalism, imitating and appropriating Eastern models as signs of power and sophistication. Sculptures such as those at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire, in which Mary is modelled on Byzantine sculpture, or the dinar of Caliph al-Mansur (773-4), reminted as coinage for Offa, demonstrate a deep engagement with Oriental culture prevalent in Mercia during this period. Several decorative elements in the eighth- and ninth-century Tiberius group manuscripts, which have stylistic affinities and are often associated with Mercia, also have Oriental origins. This same phenomenon is traceable in the literary record. For example, Cynewulf's works engage in various ways with different regions of the Orient, including the Mediterranean, Africa, Rome, Jerusalem and India. The Old English Martyrology combines Insular and continental saints with Eastern saints. The Oriental character of two of the prose texts of BL Cotton Vitellius A. xv., The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle and The Wonders of the East, both usually considered Mercian on linguistic grounds, has been long noted. Together with its manuscript neighbours, Wonders and Beowulf, I consider the Letter's interest in the wider world, as well as its theorization of kingship, by which it might be considered a speculum regum. This thesis reads these texts in the light of various forms of evidence for Mercian literary culture, including linguistic characteristics and preexisting scholarship. In so doing, it fleshes out a theoretical narrative of vernacular literature prior to the late ninth-century Alfredian renaissance.
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Allen, Lea Knudsen. "Cosmopolite subjectivities and the Mediterranean in early modern England." View abstract/electronic edition; access limited to Brown University users, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3318286.
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Mattsson, Kershaw Anneli. "Teaching Academic English to English Learners : A literature Review on Classroom Practice." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Engelska, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-25394.
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The level of fluency in the genre specific language of schooling, also known as Academic English (AE), determines students’ success in school. Government agencies that legislate school policies therefore give teachers the directive to conduct education in ways that promote communicative abilities in academic English across all curricula. While the acquisition of an AE register entails hard work for native English-speaking students it presents an enormous challenge for English language learners (ELLs) who are faced with the triple burden of leaning basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) in addition to content knowledge and academic English. Classroom practices, teachers’ training, and students’ cognitive abilities are predictive factors in the successful acquisition of academic English by ELLs. This literature review, which draws on cognitive theory in addition to systemic functional linguistics theory, contributes to the topic of how to most effectively teach AE to ELLs in English speaking classrooms. The results from seven peer reviewed research sources indicate that teaching practices differ depending on the nature of the subject, but that systemic learning theory, scaffolding, and contextual awareness are reoccurring elements. Furthermore, the results imply that there are challenges including that ELLs constitute a very heterogeneous student body with varying cognitive abilities that require a variety of teaching approaches. In addition educators’ attitudes, competences and training in teaching AE across all curricula pose a challenge to the quality of instruction. Further research on the topic could involve making actual classroom observations in addition to conducting teacher interviews in schools that have content and language integrated learning in Sweden to explore what instructional methods are used to teach AE in CLIL- education.
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Hardman, Frank Christopher. "A-level English language and English literature : contrasts in teaching and learning." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/604.
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This study is an investigation of methods of teaching and learning in the A-level English curriculum consisting both of the traditional A-level English literature and the more recent arrival of A-level English language. It is generally assumed in commentaries on A-level English teaching that language is taught differently from literature because of differences in aims, content and ideology. English language is seen as a deliberate move away from the more 'pure' academic study of literary texts and towards more 'applied' and even partly 'vocational' study in which independent and collaborative forms of learning are strongly encouraged. There is, however, little empirical evidence about how students are taught and how they learn in these different courses. The study addresses these limitations by carrying out an intensive, qualitative study of the teaching styles of ten teachers who teach across the two A-level English subjects. Video recordings of twenty complete lessons (i. e. 10 English language and 10 English literature) were analysed using a formal framework of analysis adapted from the study of discourse analysis. This system identifies the organisation of the classroom discourse so as to allow for a comparison of the patterning of teaching exchanges across the two subjects. The study also investigates, using semi-structured interviews, how the teachers perceive the learning objectives of the two subjects, and the match between those objectives and the teaching and learning methods used to achieve them. The findings suggest that teachers do not vary their teaching style when teaching across the two English subjects at A-levels supporting an extensive statistical study of students' perceptions of the instructional practices employed by teachers which also found a lack of pedagogic distinctiveness between the two subjects. The analysis revealed that teacher-led recitation is a prominent feature of the discourse in both A-level English language and literature.
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Mattson, Christina Phillips. "Children's Literature Grows Up." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467335.
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Children’s Literature Grows Up proposes that there is a revolution occurring in contemporary children’s fiction that challenges the divide that has long existed between literature for children and literature for adults. Children’s literature, though it has long been considered worthy of critical inquiry, has never enjoyed the same kind of extensive intellectual attention as adult literature because children’s literature has not been considered to be serious literature or “high art.” Children’s Literature Grows Up draws upon recent scholarship about the thematic transformations occurring in the category, but demonstrates that there is also an emerging aesthetic and stylistic sophistication in recent works for children that confirms the existence of children’s narratives that are equally complex, multifaceted, and worthy of the same kind of academic inquiry that is afforded to adult literature.
This project investigates the history of children’s literature in order to demonstrate the way that children’s literature and adult literature have, at different points in history, grown closer or farther apart, explores the reasons for this ebb and flow, and explains why contemporary children’s literature marks a reunification of the two categories. Employing J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels as a its primary example, Children’s Literature Grows Up demonstrates that this new kind of contemporary children’s fiction is a culmination of two traditions: the tradition of the readerly children’s book and the tradition of the writerly adult novel. With the fairy tales, mythologies, legends, and histories that contemporary writers weave into their texts, contemporary fictions for children incorporate previous defining characteristics of children’s fantasy literature and tap into our cultural memory; with their sophisticated style, complex narrative strategies, and focus on characterization, these new fictions display the realism and seriousness of purpose which have become the adult novel’s defining features.
Children’s Literature Grows Up thus concludes that contemporary children’s fiction’s power comes from the way in which it combines story and art by bringing together both the children’s literature tradition and the tradition of the adult novel, as well as the values to which they are allied. Contemporary writers for children therefore raise the stakes of their narratives and change the tradition by moving beyond the expected conventions of their category.<br>Comparative Literature
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Gordon, Sharon Rosamunde. "Representations of feminist and lesbian consciousness and the use of subversive strategies in selected poetry of Isabella Jane Blagden (1817-1873)." Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University, 2016. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/453489.
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The purpose of this study is to recover and revise the contribution made to women's writing by the English minor novelist and poet, Isabella Jane Blagden (1817-1873), who was the centrifugal force of an influential literary and artistic milieu in Italy, in the mid-nineteenth-century. Key figures in the group were the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning and the American writer, Henry James. This study is a revisionist critique which questions the prevailing masculine discourse and conventions which oppressed women in terms of their sexual, political and economicfreedom. This, therefore, fits into the Victorian phenomenon of women poets finding their own space and expression against patriarchal norms. My focus on Blagden's poetry, with its scope for liminal/subliminal suggestiveness, enables an explorationof her subversive and transgressive feminist-lesbian poetics. Recent contributions from feminist and lesbian theorists and critics, are examined in order to establish a feminist-lesbian interpretation of gender, sexuality, subversion and transgression. A secondary consideration is Blagden's role in the aesthetic consciousness of others and her apparent inspirational position at the centre of the creative groups of intellectual emigrės in her circle. While most of her friends and acquaintances had a public persona, Blagden did not, and her work has received little discussion anddebate. In order to ensure her significance as a feminist-lesbian poet and Muse, this study will focus on her contribution to nineteenth-century women's poetry. As a contribution to literary scholarship my aim is to bring Blagden in from the margins asa poet of non-canonical status, to one whose status is placed firmly within the continuous literary tradition of radical feminist-lesbian women writers in the nineteenth century.
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Correia, Sandra Miriam Rodrigues. "The role of literature: english textbooks and literature in secondary teaching in Portugal." Master's thesis, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/8105.
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Trabalho de Projecto apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção
do grau de Mestre em Ensino de Inglês<br>The purpose of this Project Work is to assess how English textbooks present an approach
to the literary text in secondary schools in Portugal. Whilst textbooks are not the only
resource teachers use in their teaching practice, in the last years they have gained a
significant place, being now the main tool in any classroom. Acknowledging its importance
means textbooks have become legitimizing tools for the contents they promote. On the
other hand, there has been a regression in textbooks due to several policies, political and
educational, that have affected their role as sources of meaningful learning. In fact, being
textbooks a reading of the syllabus and frequently their substitutes, it will be shown that
there are flaws in the syllabus that are replicated in textbooks, affecting its content. In
educational terms, the literary texts as valuable and valid learning material have been cause
of debate throughout years, although the English syllabus in Portugal promotes its use.
Bearing this in mind, the emphasis will be placed in the use of literary texts as a way of
achieving meaningful learning and enhancing students’ knowledge of English as a foreign
language and on how textbooks do not support this perspective nor recognize its
importance, because they follow a communicative perspective of learning a language.
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Kugler, Emily Meri Nitta. "Representations of race and romance in eighteenth-century English novels." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2007. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3258372.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007.<br>Title from first page of PDF file (viewed May 29, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 264-272).
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Liau, Agnes Wei Lin. "Exploring literature anxiety among students studying literature in English at Universiti Sains Malaysia." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.612210.
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Morgan, David Ellis. "Pulp literature a re-evalutation [sic] /." Connect to this title online, 2002. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20040820.122551.
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Hall, Simon W. "The history of Orkney literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2365/.
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The history of Orkney literature is the first full survey of the literature of the Orkney Islands. It examines fiction, non-fiction and poetry that is uncomplicatedly Orcadian, as well as that which has been written about Orkney by authors from outside the islands. Necessarily, the work begins with the great Icelandic chronicle Orkneyinga Saga. Literary aspects of the saga are examined, as well as its place within the wider sphere of saga writing. Most significantly, this study examines how the saga imposes itself on the work of subsequent writers. The book goes on to focua on the significance of Orkney and Orkney history in the work of a number of key nineteenth- and twentieth-century figures, including Sir Walter Scott, Edwin Muir, Eric Linklater, Robert Rendall and George Mackay Brown. The Victorian folklorist and short story writer Walter Traill Dennison is re-evaluated: The History of Orkney Literature demonstrates his central significance to the Orcadian tradition and argues for the relevance of his work to the wider Scottish canon. A fixation with Orkney history is common to all the writers considered herein. This preoccupation necessitates a detailed consideration of the core historiography of J. Storer Clouston. Other non-fiction works which are significant in the creation of this distinctly Orcadian literary identity include Samuel Laing's translation of Heimskringla; the polemical writings of David Balfour; and the historical and folklore studies of Ernest Walker Marwick. The study welcomes many writers into the fold, seeking to map and define a distinctly Orcadian tradition. This tradition can be considered a cousin of Scottish Literature. Although the writing of Orkney is a significant component of Scottish Literature at various historical stages, it nevertheless follows a divergent course. Both the eighteenth century Vernacular Revival and the twentieth century Literary Renaissance facilitate literary work in the islands which nevertheless remains distinctly independent in character. Indigenous Orcadian writers consider themselves to be Orcadians first and Scots or Britons second. Regardless of what they view as their national or political identity, their sense of insular cultural belonging is uniformly and pervasively Orcadian. What emerges is a robust, distinctive and very tight-knit minor literature.
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Forsberg, Laura. "The Miniature and Victorian Literature." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845467.
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The Victorian period is famously characterized by its massiveness, with the vast extent of the British Empire, the enormous size of the nineteenth-century city and the massive scale of the three-volume novel. Yet the Victorians were fascinated with miniature objects, which seemed in their small scale to belong to another world. Each miniature object prompted a unique imaginative fantasy of intimacy (the miniature painting), control (the toy), wonder (the microscope and the fairy) or knowledge (the miniature book). In each case, the miniature posited the possibility of reality with a difference, posing the implicit question: What if? This dissertation traces the miniature across a range of disciplines, from aesthetics and art history to science and technology, and from children’s culture to book history. In so doing, it shows how the miniature points beyond the limits of scientific knowledge and technical capabilities to the outer limits of the visual and speculative imagination. In novels, the miniature introduces elements of fantasy into the framework of realism, puncturing the fabric of the narrative with the internal reveries and longings of often-silent women and children. Miniature objects thus function less as realist details than as challenges to realism. In charting the effect of the miniature, both as a portal into the Victorian imagination and as a challenge to narrative realism, this dissertation puts the techniques of material history to new use. It aims not to describe the world of the Victorians but to show how the Victorians imagined other worlds.<br>English
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Ritscher, Lee Ann. "The semiotics of rape in Renaissance English literature /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2005. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.
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Martin, Stewart. "Multimedia and individualised learning in GCSE English Literature." Thesis, Durham University, 2012. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4442/.
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This research aimed to provide insight into the use and possible value of purpose built multimedia computer software for the study of English Literature. The software in question was developed in light of many years practical experience of teaching English Literature to secondary school students preparing for external examinations and was designed with the aim of improving their knowledge and understanding of particular works of literature. Informed by a critique of the main research findings about ICT use in learning and teaching since the period when computers were introduced into mainstream schools from the 1980s, the empirical research investigated two of the most prominent theoretical and practical perspectives that have been applied to understanding the relationship between educational resources and learning: Learning Styles Theory and Cognitive Load Theory. These two approaches and their associated instrumentation were applied in a quasi-experimental controlled empirical study in four schools in the north-east of England where the multimedia software was used with groups of students embarking on a study of Shakespeare's Macbeth for GCSE examination. Learning Styles theory and the instrumentation used (Kolb's LSI and Honey & Mumford's LSQ) proved less successful than Cognitive Load Theory in demonstrating reliability and validity and therefore in explaining the relationship between different instructional resources and individual learning. The theoretical integrity and usefulness of these two approaches is discussed and, in particular, the rationale behind the continued use of Learning Styles was explored via interview with school faculty who gave reasons of face validity; the pressure from external inspection; the mechanisms through which they were held professionally accountable; senior management and institutional policy; the legacy of initial teacher training; and established classroom practice. Students using the multimedia software demonstrated improvements in their knowledge and understanding of Macbeth equivalent on average to one GCSE grade above those not using the multimedia resource and Cognitive Load Theory was found to be successful in explaining this and in predicting the relationship between instructional resource and the learning gains of individuals. Limitations of the study are drawn along with conclusions for further research and for enhancing teaching and learning with multimedia resources.
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Hyer, Maren Clegg. "Textiles and textile imagery in Old English literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0013/NQ41444.pdf.
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Libin, Mark. "Commencement exercises, toward beginnings in English-Canadian literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0017/NQ45010.pdf.
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Rushton, Cory James. "The character of Gawain in Middle English literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ52807.pdf.
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Durnin, Katherine Joanne. "Métis representations in English and French-Canadian literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/MQ65030.pdf.
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Brearey, Oliver James. "Peripheral subjectivity and English-language Hong Kong literature." online access from Digital Dissertation Consortium, 2007. http://libweb.cityu.edu.hk/cgi-bin/er/db/ddcdiss.pl?1451242.
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Stacey, Robert David. "The transformed pastoral in recent English-Canadian literature." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=23359.
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This thesis examines the use of the pastoral form in recent Canadian literature. As the pastoral constitutes a literary site where a concern for landscape converges with a search for community, it has been employed as a myth in nationalist discourses whose functioning depend heavily on symbolized landscapes and idealized social types. The philosophical basis of the pastoral is the classical opposition between nature and culture. For this reason, its representations are often coded as 'natural'. To this extent, the pastoral participates in a hegemonic myth-making system, constituting a limited semiotic field in which certain representations are privileged while others are negated. Following Marx and Barthes, the thesis contends that an attack the nature/culture opposition is essential to undermining the hegemony of the myth-making process. In the context of nationalism, a pastoral can articulate a critique of dominant a 'naturalized' representations when it questions its own use of the nature/culture opposition.
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Forey, Madeleine. "Language and revelation : English apocalyptic literature 1500-1660." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.241302.
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Jose, Laura. "Madness and gender in late-medieval English literature." Thesis, Durham University, 2010. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/217/.
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This thesis discusses presentations of madness in medieval literature, and the ways in which these presentations are affected by (and effect) ideas of gender. It includes a discussion of madness as it is commonly presented in classical literature and medical texts, as well as an examination of demonic possession (which shares many of the same characteristics of madness) in medieval exempla. These chapters are followed by a detailed look at the uses of madness in Malory’s Morte Darthur, Gower’s Confessio Amantis, and in two autobiographical accounts of madness, the Book of Margery Kempe and Hoccleve’s Series. The experience of madness can both subvert and reinforce gender roles. Madness is commonly seen as an invasion of the self, which, in a culture which commonly identifies masculinity with bodily intactness, can prove problematic for male sufferers. Equally, madness, in prompting violent, ungoverned behaviour, can undermine traditional definitions of femininity. These rules can, however, be reversed. Malory’s Morte Darthur presents a version of masculinity which is actually enhanced by madness; equally divergent is Margery Kempe’s largely positive account of madness as a catalyst for personal transformation. While there is a certain consistency in the literary treatment of madness – motifs and images are repeated across genres – the way in which these images are used can alter radically. There is no single model of madness in medieval literature: rather, it is always fluid. Madness, like gender, remains open to interpretation.
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Barbosa, Heloísa Gonçalves. "The virtual image : Brazilian literature in English translation." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1994. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/56829/.
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The aim of this thesis is to examine how the virtual image of Brazil and its literature is constructed in the Anglo-American world. To this end, a survey of Brazilian literary works in English translation was carried out. Having gathered this data, it became possible to establish correlations between the historical moments when such translations were made, when their number increased, and the events occurring at those times in the international panorama, as well as to look into the role of sponsors, publishers and translators in the selection and production of such translations. The data also allowed a profile of Brazilian literary works in English translation to be drawn. It became possible to suggest that such works fall into four main categories: `authorial works', 'topical works', `ambassadorial works' and `consumer-oriented works'. In order to look more closely into how the translation process has helped to shape the virtual image of Brazilian literary works in the Anglo-American world, an analysis of a sample of translations of such works was made. Included in this sample were the translations of works by Machado de Asis, by Indianist and Regionalist wirters, culminating in an examination of translations of GuimarAes Rosa's works. Having looked at these aspects of the translation process, what remained to be done was to investigate to what extent Brazilian literary works in English translation are read by the English- speaking public. To this end, a survey of availability and library readership was undertaken. Finally, a reading experiment was carried out in which native speakers of English were asked to read the short story 'A terceira margem do rio', by GuimarAes Rosa. The conclusion attempts to pull all these threads together and to indicate directions for further research.
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Bingham, Sarah. "Colour in early modern English literature and culture." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2018. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.766284.
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In early modern England, colour was both a material and a textual preoccupation. However, the polychromatic palette that surrounded English men and women, and the particoloured palette of early modern writers, has thus far received little scholarly attention. This thesis rethinks the culture of colour in England between c. 1580 and c. 1660 to stimulate and enhance critical appreciation of colour in early modern literature. In contradistinction to the monochromatic trend of current cultural histories and early modern research, in this thesis I analyse all colours, situating these within their original socio-cultural contexts to substantiate the significance of colour in a literary text. My contextualised and polychromatic colour-concern offers an alternative method to traditional quantitative or symbolic approaches to colour in literature, as it takes into consideration how colour was experienced during an era that was attentive both to the material qualities and textual existence of colour. This thesis explores five "colourscapes," which include the workplace, household, Church, New World, and theatre, in order to finesse connections between colourful environs and attendant colour-configurations in early modern English literature. Attending to rhetorical instantiations of colour, and to the lived experience of colour as manifested in literature, this thesis offers an analytical lens through which early modern scholars, and literary scholars alike, can approach colour in literature.
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Graham, Elyse (Jean Elyse). "Remaking English literature : editors at work between media." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81133.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2013.<br>"June 2013." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-70).<br>by Elyse Graham.<br>S.M.
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James, Ryan. "New media English literature : a product re-launch." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/71837.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the recent past, the large-scale production and marketing of e-reading devices, such as Amazon’s Kindle, and tablet computers, such as Apple’s iPad, have allowed literary works to be presented in a digital reading space, both in the form of standard e-books and, more recently, as enhanced or “amplified” e-books. Much of the position-taking on the matter is polarised: technologists continue to imagine the myriad possibilities of multimodal online “stories”, focusing on opportunities for interactive engagement, while the guardians of literary tradition fear the digital reading space might well cause fluency disruptions and break the hermeneutic immersion necessary for strong reading, irrevocably altering a traditional, paper-based reading experience known to promote a state of deep attention and imaginatively engaged reading. This thesis looks realistically at the current literary climate in which the so-called “digital native” operates, scrutinises the “print” versus “electronic” debate, paying careful attention to how an online environment may well prevent hermeneutic immersion, and then discusses recent enhanced literary products, such as the transmedia fiction title, Chopsticks (Penguin Group USA 2012), and the nonfiction titles released by online publisher Atavist. Then, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the technologists and the print-book purists, and based on what might be considered to be literature’s original value, the thesis proposes a digital reading product in which a formalised set of conventions and a strategic instructional design, or interface, attempts to protect the qualities of traditional, paper-based reading, while at the same time taking advantage of on-screen, online environments to reconnect digital natives with the relevance of past literatures. More specifically, the product presented herein is an attempt to demonstrate 1) how a new aesthetic of literary presentation might stimulate renewed interest in the humanities and liberal arts; 2) how fiction might be reinstated as one of the central components in the education process; 3) how works of fiction that have become increasingly obscure over time or inaccessible to young people might be re-energised; and 4) how what one might call “local” literatures might be “de-parochialised” within an increasingly globalised reading environment.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die produksie en bemarking op groot skaal van e-lesers soos Amazon se Kindle en tabletvormige rekenaars soos Apple se iPad het dit moontlik gemaak om letterkunde in ’n digitale ruimte aan te bied, hetsy in die vorm van e-boeke, of (meer onlangs) in versterkte en “aangevulde” e-boek vorm. Meningsvorming rondom die letterkundige toepaslikheid van e-boeke is sterk gepolariseerd: tegnoloë sien net die magdom moontlikhede raak wat multi-modale aanlyn stories en interaktiewe betrokkenheid inhou, terwyl tradisionele literêre kurators vrese koester oor hoe die digitale leesruimte inbreuk sal maak op die vloei en hermeneutiese onderdompeling nodig vir ’n grondige leeservaring; dit, meen hulle, sal dan ook lei tot die onherroeplike verlies van diep en verbeeldingryke aandag, eienskappe wat lees op papier veronderstel is om mee te bring. Hierdie proefskrif werp ’n realistiese blik op die huidige literêre klimaat, veral die omstandighede waarin die sogenaamde “digital native” deesdae funksioneer. Die debat rondom gedrukte teenoor elektroniese boeke word noukeurig ondersoek, veral met betrekking tot die mate waarin aanlyn lees dalk wel hermeneutiese onderdompeling onderdruk. Verder word versterkte literêre produkte soos die transmedia fiksie titel, Chopsticks (Penguin Group USA 2012), en nie-fiksie titels deur aanlyn-uitgewer Atavist, noukeurig bekyk. Voorts, in ’n poging om die gaping tussen tegnoloë en gedrukte-boek puriste te oorbrug, en op grond van wat mens die oer-waarde van letterkunde dalk kan noem, stel hierdie proefskrif ’n digitale leesproduk voor met ’n geformaliseerde stel konvensies en ’n strategiese instruksionele ontwerp, of koppelvlak (‘interface’). Dit word gedoen in ’n poging om die eienskappe van tradisionele, ‘papier’ lees te behou, maar terselfdetyd voordeel te trek uit die aanlyn-omgewing, en om sodoende die ‘digitale inboorling’ te herenig met die relevansie van vervloë letterkunde. Hierdie voorgestelde produk, dan, is meer spesifiek ’n poging om te wys 1) hoe ’n nuwe literêr-digitale aanbiedingsestetika hernieude belangstelling in die geesteswetenskappe en liberale kunste kan werk; 2) hoe fiksie weer ingestel kan word as kern-komponent in die opvoedingsproses; 3) hoe nuwe energie verleen kan word aan fiksie wat toenemend onbekend of ontoeganklik vir jongmense word; en 4) hoe die Suid-Afrikaanse letterkunde opgehef kan word binne die opset van ’n toenemend-globale leesomgewing.
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McLennan, Alistair. "Monstrosity in Old English and Old Icelandic literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2287/.
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Thesis Abstract. The purpose of this thesis is to examine Old English and Old Icelandic literary examples of monstrosity from a modern theoretical perspective. I examine the processes of monstrous change by which humans can become identified as monsters, focusing on the role played by social and religious pressures. In the first chapter, I outline the aspects of monster theory and medieval thought relevant to the role of society in shaping identity, and the ways in which anti-societal behaviour is identified with monsters and with monstrous change. Chapter two deals more specifically with Old English and Old Icelandic social and religious beliefs as they relate to human and monstrous identity. I also consider the application of generic monster terms in Old English and Old Icelandic. Chapters three to six offer readings of humans and monsters in Old English and Old Icelandic literary texts in cases where a transformation from human to monster occurs or is blocked. Chapter three focuses on Grendel and Heremod in Beowulf and the ways in which extreme forms of anti-societal behaviour are associated with monsters. In chapter four I discuss the influence of religious beliefs and secular behaviour in the context of the transformation of humans into the undead in the Íslendingasögur. In chapter five I consider outlaws and the extent to which criminality can result in monstrous change. I demonstrate that only in the most extreme instances is any question of an outlaw’s humanity raised. Even then, the degree of sympathy or admiration evoked by such legendary outlaws as Grettir, Gísli and Hörðr means that though they are ambiguous in life, they may be redeemed in death. The final chapter explores the threats to human identity represented by the wilderness, with specific references to Guthlac A, Andreas and Bárðar saga and the impact of Christianity on the identity of humans and monsters. I demonstrate that analysis of the social and religious issues in Old English and Old Icelandic literary sources permits nuanced readings of monsters and monstrosity which in turn enriches understanding of the texts in their entirety.
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Fleming, Carolyn Evine Mary Elizabeth. "Ideas of the self in Medieval English literature." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328079.
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Regetz, Timothy. "Lollardy and Eschatology: English Literature c. 1380-1430." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1404582/.
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In this dissertation, I examine the various ways in which medieval authors used the term "lollard" to mean something other than "Wycliffite." In the case of William Langland's Piers Plowman, I trace the usage of the lollard-trope through the C-text and link it to Langland's dependence on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Regarding Chaucer's Parson's Tale, I establish the orthodoxy of the tale's speaker by comparing his tale to contemporaneous texts of varying orthodoxy, and I link the Parson's being referred to as a "lollard" to the eschatological message of his tale. In the chapter on The Book of Margery Kempe, I examine that the overemphasis on Margery's potential Wycliffism causes everyone in The Book to overlook her heretical views on universal salvation. Finally, in comparing some of John Lydgate's minor poems with the macaronic sermons of Oxford, MS Bodley 649, I establish the orthodox character of late-medieval English anti-Wycliffism that these disparate works share. In all, this dissertation points up the eschatological character of the lollard-trope and looks at the various ends to which medieval authors deployed it.
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Monteverde, Margaret Pyne. "The patterning of history in Old English literature." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1241188005.
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Clark, Douglas Iain. "Theorising the will in early modern English literature." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2015. http://digitool.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26032.
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This thesis examines how the faculty of the will was conceptualised in early modern English literature. The attempt to understand its function and purpose was a crucial concern for a vast range of Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, largely because of the important role the notion of the will played in the development of classical philosophy and the reformation of Christian theology. Providing a coherent definition of the will, its powers and associated functions in the human subject did, nonetheless, pose a significant problem for many early modern writers. Although scholars have documented the impact that notions of will had in the theology of the period, an analysis of the way in which the will was represented in the drama of Elizabethan and Jacobean England is missing from current academic criticism. This thesis seeks to remedy this gap in scholarship by clarifying the conceptual difficulties involved in theorising the powers of the will in the philosophy of the age, and by demonstrating how these difficulties are represented and played with in the period's drama. This thesis contributes original knowledge to the field of early modern studies by illustrating: the role that notions of will take in shaping the didactic framework of the morality tradition in late sixteenth-century drama; how the will was used to establish and explore notions of malevolence and acts of moral transgression in early modern plays; the part theories of the will played in shaping how notions of death and human fate were signified in early modern texts. Ultimately, this thesis suggests that the literary representation of the faculty of the will should be understood to be a vital and essential part of early modern intellectual culture.
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Öllerer-Einböck, Birgit. "The English picaresque tradition beginnings to the eighteenth century." Saarbrücken VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2005. http://d-nb.info/989022080/04.
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Welch, Mary T. "Early English religious literature : the development of the genres of poetry, narrative, and homily /." Read thesis online, 2009. http://library.uco.edu/UCOthesis/WelchMT2009.pdf.
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Vivian, Steven D. Scharton Maurice. "English studies, poststructuralism, and radicalism." Normal, Ill. Illinois State University, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ilstu/fullcit?p9835920.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1998.<br>Title from title page screen, viewed July 6, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Maurice Scharton (chair), Bruce Hawkins, Janice Neuleib. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-260) and abstract. Also available in print.
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Edmunds, Susan. "The English riddle ballads." Thesis, Durham University, 1985. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7574/.
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The term 'English Riddle Ballad' is taken here to describe the six items in Child's collection of English and Scottish popular ballads which have become known as such: Child numbers 1, 2, 3,45, 46 and 47. All these ballads are in the English language, and all contain some sort of questions which do not have direct answers; beyond this, the group is not a homogenous one in age, place, form or content. For each ballad, as many variants as possible have been assembled and are described chronologically in Appendices. By an examination of the whole corpus of texts, this thesis traces, within the limitations of the material, the history and transmission of each item. At the same time, the various relationships with cultural and historical backgrounds are explored. The tunes have been arranged in groups to help in identifying patterns of transmission. In particular, the nature and effects of the riddling element in each case is investigated, and a separate chapter (8) goes on to compare and analyse these as poetic structures. This chapter also puts forward a definition of riddling based on the mental processes involved, rather than on the linguistic form of the riddle itself; this avoids the problems of former definitions of the genre which exclude much material that is traditionally and instinctively classed as riddle. According to this definition, however, only four of the six 'Riddle Ballads' can be said to contain true riddling elements. A final chapter brings the ballads into alignment with modern anthropological studies of the riddle, describing other contexts in which riddling occurs, and evaluating the achievements of this limited but intriguing genre.
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Lee, Debbie Jean 1960. "Slavery and English Romanticism." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288753.
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During the Romantic period, England, which then led the world in slave exports, abolished both the African slave trade and West Indian slavery, setting a trend that the Portuguese, Danish, French, Germans, and Americans would follow. Abolition, a powerful moral engine, barreled through England on the tracks of pamphlets, poetry, engravings, speeches and sermons. Abolition was clearly the moral (as well as economic and social) issue of the age. My dissertation investigates the ways in which Romantic writing emerged from and responded to the issues brought on by the slavery question. Through primary and archival research, I reconstruct not only the voices of abolition, but also of various contributing discourses such as medicine, travel, cartography, labor, and iconography. This range of sources provides the basis from which I read major Romantic poems, advancing interpretations that make clear seemingly discordant relationships, like that between Keats, slavery and voodoo; between cartography, slavery and sonnets; and between Wordsworth, slavery, and abortion. The way Romanticism is haunted by the slavery question, I argue, needs to be recovered within literary history as much as within Romantic poetry itself. My dissertation thus combines three kinds of projects: a contribution to historical reconstructions based on primary research; a contribution to knowledge of specific literary works; and a contribution to ongoing arguments about critical method.
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Brocklebank, Lisa M. "Presentiments, sympathies and signs : minds in the age of fiction---reading and the limits of reason in Victorian Britain." View abstract/electronic edition; access limited to Brown University users, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3318292.
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