Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Books Great Britain Format'
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Akinyeye, O. A. "Guarding the gateways British and French defence policies in West Africa, 1886-1945 /." Akoka, Yaba-Lagos, Nigeria : University of Lagos Press, 2003. http://books.google.com/books?id=lPpyAAAAMAAJ.
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Grint, Kristopher. "James Mill's common place books and their intellectual context, 1773-1836." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2014. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/47828/.
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This thesis is an intellectual history of James Mill's political thought, which focuses on four specific topics: his ideas on parliamentary reform; on libel law, or the freedom of the press; education, or man's ability to utilise his reason; and on established religion, primarily in the form of Mill's attitude towards the Church of England. At face-value, the thesis' main aim is to contextualize in detail Mill's published writings on these four subjects (which comprise its four chapters) by virtue of comparing them with unpublished manuscript material present in his common place books, which were transcribed as part of this PhD project. Although the chapters are developed in such a way that they can be seen as independent studies of Mill's thought, there are of course more general themes which run through the thesis as a whole, as well as specific links between particular topics. One notable example is the notion that Mill employed ‘dissimulation' in his published writings, that is to say that he did not necessarily express in public the full extent of his ideas, because of a fear that their radical extent would attract intrigue or prosecution from the reactionary governmental or religious authorities in Britain. It is also prudent to note how Mill's well-documented intellectual influences are incorporated into the thesis. By this we are referring to the importance of the Scottish Enlightenment background to Mill's own education and upbringing near Aberdeen and in Edinburgh, and also the doctrine of Utilitarianism he adopted from Jeremy Bentham once in London. The particular nature of the material found in the common place books warrants a full re-evaluation of these influences, as well as an exploration of the possibility that additional influences beyond these two contexts have thus far been understated in studies of Mill. This suggests the value of the study to current Mill scholarship.
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Gerner, Dominique Pierre. "La traduction des Otia Imperiala de Gervais de Tilbury par Jean de Vignay dans le Ms. Rothschild 3085 de la Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris edition et étude /." Villeneuve d'Ascq : Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1997. http://books.google.com/books?id=HriAAAAAMAAJ.
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Gleason, Mary Louise. "The Royal Society of London years of reform, 1827-1847 /." New York : Garland, 1991. http://books.google.com/books?id=_rHaAAAAMAAJ.
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Bruley, Sue. "Leninism, Stalinism, and the women's movement in Britain, 1920-1939." New York : Garland Pub, 1986. http://books.google.com/books?id=Pa7aAAAAMAAJ.
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Bieker, Eva. "Die Interventionen Frankreichs und Grossbritanniens anlässlich des Frankfurter Wachensturms 1833 eine Fallstudie zur Geschichte völkerrechtlicher Verträge /." Baden-Baden : Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003. http://books.google.com/books?id=mNPiAAAAMAAJ.
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Parsonage, Catherine Jane. "The evolution of jazz in Britain c. 1880-1927 : antecedents, processes and developments." Thesis, City University London, 2002. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/14853/.
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This thesis examines the way in which jazz evolved in Britain beginning with an examination of the cultural and musical antecedents of the genre, including minstrel shows and black musical theatre, within the context of musical life in Britain in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. The processes through which this evolution took place are considered with reference to the ways in which jazz was introduced to Britain through imported revue shows and sheet music, as well as by the visits of American musicians. Finally, the subsequent development of jazz in Britain in the 1920s is analysed with particular consideration of the 'jazz age', modernism and the 'culture industry' as theoretical constructs and detailed study of dance music on the BBC and jazz in the underworld of London. The thesis falls into two parts, the first provides historical and theoretical perspectives on the topic, and the second presents various case studies that examine particular manifestations of the evolving presence of jazz in Britain. The research makes use of a wide variety of primary source material; in addition to recordings (where available), sheet music, and concert programmes, which offer direct information about the music performed; biographies, film, photographs, government, police and court records, newspapers and periodicals provide the necessary context. This thesis presents a new version of the history of jazz in Britain, not only through the factual findings resulting from the consideration of how jazz evolved in Britain, but also through the methodological approach used. The research establishes the parallel worlds of jazz that existed by the end of the 1920s in Britain: the realm of the institutionalised 'culture industry' and the underworld, and shows the importance of image and racial stereotyping in shaping perceptions of jazz in Britain. Most significantly I this study clearly establishes that the evolution of jazz in Britain is unique, rather than an extension or reflection of that in America.
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Kemp, Helen. "Collecting, communicating, and commemorating : the significance of Thomas Plume's manuscript collection, left to his Library in Maldon, est. 1704." Thesis, University of Essex, 2017. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/20651/.
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This thesis is about networks in seventeenth-century England: the making and re-shaping of networks of people and texts, and the ways in which they evolved and transformed. It focuses on the manuscripts collected by Dr Thomas Plume (1630-1704), vicar of Greenwich and archdeacon of Rochester, who left them with a substantial body of books and pamphlets to the Library he endowed in Maldon. They take the form of notebooks and papers complied by a number of different clergymen, in particular Dr Robert Boreman (d.1675) and Dr Edward Hyde (1607-1659), in addition to Plume. The significance of the research lies in its reconstruction of the intellectual lives of the middle-status loyalist clergy through their handwritten texts. The research intervenes into debates about the nature and status of the manuscript form in an age of print and asks why these texts were left with the Library. The content and material form of these notebooks and papers evidence the reading and writing practices of the middle-status clergy, and the ways they were able to use their positions to influence and persuade on local and national levels. The main sections of the thesis encompass: a critical analysis of the manuscript collection; an examination of why the manuscripts were created and re-used; an appraisal of themes of identity, memorial, and legacy reflected within them; and the relationship between the handwritten items and printed books. This thesis argues that these seemingly-ephemeral texts were in fact the ‘heart’ of Plume’s library collection, representing a network of clergymen whose commitment to each other’s work extended as far as if they had been related by blood. Their working papers symbolised a memorial to their scholarship, saved for posterity under the shadow of destruction and loss during the Civil Wars.
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Neal, James R. "Defining power in the Mercian supremacy : an examination of the dynamics of power in the kingdom of the borderers /." abstract and full text PDF (UNR users only), 2008. http://0-gateway.proquest.com.innopac.library.unr.edu/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1455658.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008."May, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-79). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2009]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.
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Rogers, Janine. "Gender and the literature culture of late medieval England." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35053.
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This dissertation explores the impact of gender ideologies held by medieval readerships on the production of books and circulation of texts in late medieval England. The first chapter explores how the professional book trade of late medieval London circulated booklets of Chauceriana which constructed masculinity and femininity in strict adherence to the courtly love literary tradition. In the second chapter, I demonstrate that such a standardized representation of courtly gender could be adapted by a readership removed from the professional book trade, in this case the rural gentry producers of the Findern manuscript, who present a revised vision of femininity and courtliness in their anthology. This revised femininity includes several texts which privilege the female speaking voice. The third chapter goes on to investigate the use of the female voice in one particular genre, the love lyric, and asks if the female lyric speaker can be associated with manuscripts in which women participated as producers or readers. Finally, the fourth chapter turns to masculinity, examining how the commonplace book of an early 16th century grocer, Richard Hill, contains selections from didactic and recreational literature which reinforce the ideals of masculine conduct in the merchant community of late medieval London. The dissertation concludes that manuscript contexts must be taken into account when reading gender in medieval English literature.
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McAleer, Joseph. "Popular literature and reading habits in Britain, 1914-1950." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7cf39377-41a1-4a44-bb62-0786b297fc37.
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This thesis is an examination of the mass-market publishing industry in Britain after the First World War and of the 'literature' read by the lower-middle and working classes: novels and weekly magazines. We chronicle the development of the industry both generally and through the experiences of three publishers, examine the activity and motivations of the reading public and consider the treatment of contemporary issues and attitudes within popular fiction as a useful barometer for the historian. There are seven chapters. Chapter 1 considers the period before 1914 in order to provide the necessary background for an understanding of the focus of this study, 1914-1950. The origins of the popular publishing industry and Wilkie Collins' 'Unknown Public' are examined and continuities with post-1914 popular literature traced. In Chapter 2 a broad overview of our period is conducted: the development of the industry and of the market, the influence of war and the depression, and the effect on reading of the growth of other leisure activities. Chapters 3 and 5 look at the reading habits of adults and children/adolescents from the lower-middle and working classes. In both cases contemporaries and readers themselves seemed to think 'escapism' was paramount in the selection of 'light' fiction and there was therefore a significant continuity between child and adult reading. Finally, Chapters 4, 6 and 7 focus on the histories and influence of three publishers of popular fiction during this period. These include two of the most successful (Mills and Boon, D.C. Thomson) and in contrast, a prominent but declining firm (The Religious Tract Society). In each case the complex relationship between market forces and editorial policies is discussed. We conclude that a reciprocal relationship existed between publisher and reader, with the latter dictating much of what was published. Popular fiction, moreover, served to reinforce predominant stereotypes and ideological views of society rather than to impose specific doctrine.
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Melnyk, Veronica. "'Half fashion and half passion' : the life of publisher Henry Colburn." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2002. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/163/.
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This thesis focuses on some of the most significant and least understood aspects of the life of London publisher Henry Colburn (c.1784-1855). Its purposes are to correct the misinformation currently in circulation, to introduce new information, and to reassess Colburn‘s reputation and accomplishments in light of this evidence. The thesis first examines the errors and limitations of previous appraisals of Colburn and how various primary sources can be used to correct and augment them. It next considers Colburn‘s early years before surveying his periodical publications and his controversial publicity methods. The thesis briefly recounts Colburn‘s involvement with the ‘silver-fork’ school of fiction and then examines in greater depth his relationships with writer Benjamin Disraeli and one-time business partner Richard Bentley. Colburn‘s two marriages are also studied as the focus of the thesis moves onto the latter half of his career, his retirement, and his death. The final chapter tenders some general conclusions based on the foregoing matter and suggests further avenues of study concerning Colburn, his role in the history of publishing, and his place in the traditional paradigms of Romantic and Victorian literary culture.
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Dallachy, Fraser James. "A study of the manuscript contexts of Benedict Burgh's Middle English 'Distichs of Cato'." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4179/.
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This thesis aims to establish an impression of the readership and reception of Benedict Burgh’s Middle English Distichs of Cato. The intended outcome of this research is to demonstrate the layer(s) of society in which the text was read and the ways in which it was presented by scribes and marked by its readers. Presentation and annotation are viewed as the best way of identifying the esteem and attention paid to the Distichs and thus of evaluating its cultural importance. These research goals are therefore achieved through examination of the Distichs’ manuscript contexts. The first chapter delineates the text’s background as a translation of a late Classical Latin original, heavily used in primary education throughout Europe both for its practical advice and its suitability for teaching basic Latin grammar. The chapter discusses the authorship of the Latin Disticha Catonis, the translator of the Middle English version under investigation, and the medieval theories of translation and authorial ‘authority’ which impact on the nature of Burgh’s translation efforts. The second and third chapters focus on specific manuscripts, collating and discussing information on their contents, the circumstances of their production, and the likely audience for which they were produced. In chapter two, British Library MSS. Harley 7333 and Harley 2251 are examined in light of their relationship to the miscellanies of fifteenth-century secretarial clerk, John Shirley. Through examination of the likely audience of Shirley’s manuscripts and the nature of other volumes copied from them, it is argued that manuscripts such as the two Harley volumes are likely to have been owned by members of the gentry and/or the literate ‘middle class’ of clerks and merchants. Chapter three focusses on Glasgow, University Library MS. Hunter 259 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. e.15, both of which are in the hand of the Carthusian monk Stephen Dodesham. Dodesham was resident at the Charterhouse of Sheen, which had strong connections to neighbouring Bridgettine nunnery, Syon Abbey. This chapter considers the possibility that these manuscripts were made for Syon nuns but, through comparison with other comparable Distichs volumes, also suggests that their audience may have lain more in the network of pious lay patrons surrounding Sheen and Syon. The members of this patronage milieu were predominately from the gentry, and thus overlapped with the audience of the Harley volumes. Chapter four considers patterns of presentation and use of the manuscripts across the group to support the gentry/middle-class audience established in chapters two and three, and to draw a general picture of the Distichs’ reception by this audience. This includes establishing that both male and female readership was common, and that the dissemination of the text may have been aided by close association with the poetry of John Lydgate. Selection/excerption of stanzas for copying, annotation of particular stanzas, and evidence of wear on the manuscripts are presented as evidence that medieval readers did engage with the text, and continued to value it as previous centuries had valued the Latin source text. A concluding chapter summarises the main points of the argument, and offers directions for future research.
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Mackay, Francesca L. "Reading Pitscottie's Cronicles : a case study on the history of literacy in Scotland, 1575-1814." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2016. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7341/.
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This thesis addresses a range of research questions regarding literacy in early modern Scotland. Using the early modern manuscripts and printed editions of Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie’s late sixteenth-century 'Cronicles of Scotland' as a case study on literacy history, this thesis poses the complementary questions of how and why early modern Scottish reading communities were encountering Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', and how features of the material page can be interpreted as indicators of contemporary literacy practices. The answers to these questions then provide the basis for the thesis to ask broader socio-cultural and theoretical questions regarding the overall literacy environment in Scotland between 1575 and 1814, and how theorists conceptualise the history of literacy. Positioned within the theoretical groundings of historical pragmatics and ‘new philology’ – and the related approach of pragmaphilology – this thesis returns to the earlier philological practice of close textual analysis, and engages with the theoretical concept of mouvance, in order to analyse how the changing ‘form’ of Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', as it was reproduced in manuscript and print throughout the early modern period, indicates its changing ‘function’. More specifically, it suggests that the punctuation practices and paratextual features of individual witnesses of the text function to aid the highly-nuanced reading practices and purposes of the discrete reading communities for which they were produced. This thesis includes extensive descriptive material which presents previously unrecorded data regarding twenty manuscripts and printed witnesses of Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', contributing to a gap in Scotland’s literary/historiographical canon. It then analyses this material using a transferable methodological framework which combines the quantitative analysis of micro-data with qualitative analysis of this data within its socio-cultural context, in order to conduct diachronic comparative analysis of copy-specific information. The principal findings of this thesis suggest that Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles' were being read for a combination of devotional and didactic purposes, and that multiple reading communities, employing highly nuanced reading practices, were encountering the text near-contemporaneously. This thesis further suggests that early modern literacy practices, and the specific reading communities which employ them, should be described as existing within a spectrum of available practices (i.e. more or less oral/aural or silent, and intensive or extensive in practice) rather than as dichotomous entities. As such, this thesis argues for the rejection of evolutionary theories of the history of literacy, suggesting that rather than being described antithetically, historical reading practices and purposes must be recognised as complex, coexisting socio-cultural practices, and the multiplicity of reading communities within a single society must be acknowledged and analysed as such, as opposed to being interpreted as universal entities.
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McClelland, Lauren S. "Studies in pre-Reformation Carthusian vernacular manuscripts : the cases of Dom William Mede and Dom Stephen Dodesham of Sheen." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5256/.
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In the field of manuscript studies, the identification of individual scribes and the reconstruction of their lives and work through examination of manuscript material has recently undergone revival. This thesis contributes to that field by presenting two biobibliographical case-studies of two fifteenth-century scribes and Carthusian monks, William Mede and Stephen Dodesham of Sheen. It sets out to demonstrate the value of an integrated biographical and comparative approach in the examination of the making and circumstances of making of manuscript books. This is demonstrated by building scribal biographies based on the integration of evidence from documentary record and the analysis of the material manuscript output of Mede and Dodesham. Dodesham, as the more prolific of the two, has been more fully investigated in recent scholarship. New documentary evidence, however, has necessitated a fresh appraisal of his life and the contexts of his copying, contexts which I argue are strongly educational. I show that Mede’s life and work as a Carthusian reader, copyist, and perhaps writer, is therefore worth further scholarly investigation. Chapter one considers the current state of the field of historical biography and, more specifically, scribal biography. It assesses the usefulness of integrating biographical and codicological approaches in the study of manuscripts and provides a definition of codicology in its broader sense (as a means of writing biobibliographical histories). As not all aspects of codicology are considered here, I also identify those aspects of codicological enquiry I have chosen to apply to the manuscripts of Mede and Dodesham. The case is made for the usefulness of codicological methods as a means of interpreting historical material. As the main focal points of this study are the lives and work of two Carthusian scribes, chapter two provides context on the Carthusian life, incorporating an evaluation of recent work on Carthusian textual culture, a brief summary of the Order’s history, its administrative structure, Carthusian spirituality, its participation in the intellectual culture of the late medieval period, how it responded to changing patterns in devotion, and its members’ attitudes and approaches to the acts of reading, writing and copying. This background is essential in contextualising the scribal activity of Mede and Dodesham and will be referred to in the following chapters. Chapters three and four are dedicated to the case studies examining the lives and work of William Mede and Stephen Dodesham of Sheen. Chapter three, containing the case study of William Mede, includes analysis of his Anglicana and other idiosyncratic features of his hand; full descriptions of each of the six manuscripts so far attributed to him; and study of his language and punctuation practices, which vary, I argue, depending upon for what sorts of audience Mede is writing or copying. A detailed study of the Speculum devotorum demonstrates this adaptive scribal behaviour in action and also investigates the possibility that Mede may have been the author of the text. The above are all discussed in relation to the making and circumstances of making of Mede’s manuscripts. The conclusion to the chapter offers a summary of Mede’s life and work and makes the case for the importance of further investigation of this Carthusian scribe. Chapter four, the case study of Stephen Dodesham, includes a reappraisal in light of new evidence of his early scribal career, including his ordination at Sheen charterhouse, potential connections with the prominent Dodesham family of Somerset and connections with middle-class, professional families in London and around the south-western counties of England. This new evidence has made it possible to more firmly place the contexts of Dodesham’s manuscript copying. Much of chapter four is dedicated to analysing his language, and providing brief descriptions of those manuscripts so far attributed to him; the above all discussed in relation to the making and circumstances of making of Dodesham’s manuscripts. The conclusion offers a summary of Dodesham’s life and work and makes the case for the importance of further investigation as of particular interest in the areas of developing literacy and education. In chapter five, I bring both case studies together, assess the usefulness of the biographical approach in the context of this particular study, and evaluate its successes and limitations as a framework for combined biographical and codicological investigation.
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Lindsay, Christy. "Reading associations in England and Scotland, c.1760-1830." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cfeb9aa2-6917-4356-8d11-b26237c795a5.
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This thesis examines provincial literary culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, through the printed and manuscript records of reading associations, the diaries of their members, and a range of other print materials. These book clubs and subscription libraries have often been considered to be polite and sociable institutions, part of the cultural repertoire of a new urban, consumer society. However, this thesis reconsiders reading associations' values and effects through a study of the reading materials they provided, and the reading habits they encouraged; the intellectual and social values which they embodied; and their role in the performance of gender, local and national identities. It questions what politeness meant to associational members, arguing for the importance of morality and order in associational conceptions of propriety, and downplaying their pursuit of structured sociability. This thesis examines how provincial individuals conceived of their relationship to the reading public, arguing that associations provided a tangible link to this abstract national community, whilst also having implications for the 'public' life of localities and families. The thesis also considers how these institutions interacted with enlightenment thought, suggesting that both the associations' reading matter and their philosophies of corporate improvement enabled 'ordinary' men and women to participate in the Enlightenment. It assesses English and Scottish associations, which are usually subjected to separate treatment, arguing that they constituted a shared mechanism of British literary culture in this period. More than simply a 'polite' performance, reading, through associations, was fundamentally linked to status, to citizenship, and to cultural participation.
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Gordon, Sara Rhianydd. "Reading and imagining family life in later medieval western Europe." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:601245df-1c95-4bfe-8a08-b99a334278fa.
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This thesis discusses the ideals of behaviour which sought to govern family life and which were common currency in England and northern Europe, how they were constructed, and how the late medieval gentry and nobility interacted with them. Hagiography, sermons, and courtesy literature all explicitly sought to influence the views and behaviour of their audiences, whilst the letter collections of the Pastons, Plumptons, Stonors, Celys, and Armburghs offer an insight into the self-perceptions of the recipients of this didactic material. Much of this material has been studied, but it did not exist in a vacuum. Images in books, often marking key moments in a typical life-cycle, supported, extended, even contradicted the notions inculcated by these texts, were increasingly relevant to later medieval daily lives, and both influenced their audience and were used by their audience as a form of self-fashioning. The five chapters of this thesis each explore a different aspect of the medieval lifecycle. Chapters One and Two take the foundation of the household, marriage, as their starting point, discussing courtship and the ideal marriage ceremony, as well as the attributes and behaviour of the ideal spouse. Chapter Three turns to how this household operated on a wider scale, demonstrating how lords were caught between Christ's example and the pressures of lavish lay display when building networks of friendship. Chapter Four considers the genesis of a new generation: how images and texts conveyed sometimes different notions of the ideal mother and father, the location of the household as a place of learning, and the importance of models when shaping the development of the ideal child. Lastly, Chapter Five investigates the end of the lifecycle, death, and how images and texts worked together to propound the central medieval idea of a 'good death'. Consideration is given throughout this thesis to how the norms of behaviour communicated by texts and images may be studied.
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Sawyer, Daniel. "Codicological evidence of reading in late medieval England, with particular reference to practical pastoral verse." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8c21053f-e347-4349-9cc4-b1fa0229e95a.
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This study advances and adds detail to our history of the reading of verse in England c.1350-1500. Scholarship has established major twelfth- and thirteenth-century changes in reading, and linked these changes to manuscripts containing the modern Middle English verse canon. Historians of early modern reading have also argued for distinctive changes in their own period. But the examination of reading between these two clusters of change has been limited. This study therefore asks how later medieval Middle English verse was read. The surviving copies of The Prick of Conscience and Speculum Vitae, two hugely successful religious instructional poems, form the primary body of evidence. This body is augmented by reference to hundreds of other manuscripts containing Middle English verse. Together, these can reveal much about what was normal and abnormal in reading. They are also an important part of the context for the reading of more canonical Middle English verse. Manuscript studies often proceeds through case studies of individual books and unusual evidence such as marginalia. This thesis turns to codicology to understand more widespread evidence for reading, combining qualitative case studies with quantitative techniques borrowed and developed from continental scholarship. The first chapter examines evidence of provenance, revealing that both The Prick of Conscience and Speculum Vitae were read by an impressive range of people and remained current into the sixteenth century. The second chapter considers the navigational aids used in copies of both poems. Reading in this period has been characterised as 'discontinuous', but it could be discontinuous in diverse ways, and readers also read continuously. The third chapter is a large-scale study of books' size and shape, showing how these features can reveal books' reading histories, sometimes in counterintuitive ways. The fourth chapter contends that readers in this period attended closely to rhyme and probably read for balanced rhyme structures. The fifth chapter uncovers the ways in which these poems were rewritten for new readers and investigates the composition of the Southern Recension of The Prick of Conscience, arguing that this new text was partly a formalist intervention. The conclusion summarises the new 'baseline' history of the reading of Middle English verse which is offered here, and gestures towards implications for our reading of the Middle English poems which are canonical today.
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Whelan, Fiona Elizabeth. "Morals and manners in twelfth-century England : 'Urbanus Magnus' and courtesy literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4ccb50b9-7e0e-49c8-b9c5-104dfefa3fea.
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This thesis investigates the twelfth-century Latin poem entitled Urbanus magnus or 'The Book of the Civilised Man', attributed to Daniel of Beccles. This is a poem dedicated to the cultivation of a civilised life, aimed primarily at clerics although its use extends to nobility, and specifically the noble householder. This thesis focuses on the text as a primary source for an understanding of social life in medieval England, and uses the content of the text to explore issues such as the medieval household, social hierarchy, the body, and food and diet. Urbanus magnus is commonly referred to as a 'courtesy text'. This thesis seeks to understand Urbanus magnus outside of that attribution, and to situate the text in the context of twelfth and thirteenth-century England. Thus far, scholarship of courtesy literature has focused on later texts such as thirteenth-century vernacular 'courtesy texts' or humanist works as exemplified by Erasmus's De civilitate morum puerilium. This scholarship looks back to the twelfth century and sees texts such as Urbanus magnus as 'early Latin courtesy texts'. This teleological view relegates such earlier texts to positions at the genesis of the genre and blindly assumes that they belong to the corpus of 'courtesy literature'. This neglects both their individual importance and their respective origins. This thesis examines Urbanus magnus as a didactic text which contains elements of 'courtesy literature', but also displays moral and ethical concerns. At the heart of the thesis is the question: should Urbanus magnus be considered as part of the genre of courtesy literature? This question does not have a simple answer, but this thesis shows that some elements and sections of Urbanus magnus do conform to the characteristics of courtesy literature. However, there are further sections that reflect other literary traditions. In addition to morals and ethics, Urbanus magus reflects other genres such as satire, and also reveals social issues in twelfth-century England such as the rise of anti-curiale sentiment and resentment of upward social mobility. This thesis provides an examination of Urbanus magnus through the most prevalent themes in the text. Firstly, it explores the dynamics of the medieval household, along with issues such as social mobility and hierarchy. Secondly, it focuses on the depiction of the body and bodily restraint, covering topics such as speech, bodily emissions, and sexual activity. Thirdly, it discusses food and diet, including table manners, food consumption, and dietary effects of foodstuffs. The penultimate chapter looks at the manuscript dissemination of the text to investigate the different uses which Urbanus magnus found in subsequent centuries. The delineation of Urbanus magnus as part of the genre of courtesy literature ignores the social, cultural, and literary impact on the creation of the text. In response, this thesis has two aims. The first is to minimise the notion of genre, and treat Urbanus magnus as a text in its own right, and as a product of the twelfth century. The second shows that Urbanus magnus reflects both continuity and change in society in England following the Norman Conquest.
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Mercurio, Jeremiah Romano. "Fantasy as a mode in British and Irish literary decadence, 1885–1925." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1964.
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This Ph. D. thesis investigates the use of fantasy by British and Irish 'Decadent' authors and illustrators, including Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, 'Vernon Lee' (Violet Paget), Ernest Dowson, and Charles Ricketts. Furthermore, this study demonstrates why fantasy was an apposite form for literary Decadence, which is defined in this thesis as a supra-generic mode characterized by its anti-mimetic impulse, its view of language as autonomous and artificial, its frequent use of parody and pastiche, and its transgression of boundaries between art forms. Literary Decadence in the United Kingdom derives its view of autonomous language from Anglo-German Romantic philology and literature, consequently being distinguished from French Decadence by its resistance to realism and Naturalism, which assume language's power to signify the 'real world'. Understanding language to be inorganic, Decadent writers blithely countermand notions of linguistic fitness and employ devices such as catachresis, paradox, and tautology, which in turn emphasize the self-referentiality of Decadent texts. Fantasy furthers the Decadent argument about language because works of fantasy bear no specific relationship to 'reality'; they can express anything evocable within language, as J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates with his example of "the green sun" (a phrase that can exist independent of the sun's actually being green). The thesis argues that fantasy's usefulness in underscoring arguments about linguistic autonomy explains its widespread presence in Decadent prose and visual art, especially in genres that had become associated with realism and Naturalism, such as the novel (Chapter 1), the short story (Chapter 3), drama (Chapter 4), and textual illustration (Chapter 2). The thesis also analyzes Decadents' use of a wholly non-realistic genre, the fairy tale (see Chapter 5), in order to delineate the consequences of their use of fantasy for the construction of character and gender within their texts.
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Tucker, Joanna. "A new approach to medieval cartularies : understanding manuscript growth in AUL SCA MS JB 1/3 (Glasgow Cathedral's Registrum Vetus) and the Cartulary of Lindores Abbey in Caprington Castle." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2017. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8466/.
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Medieval cartularies have been the focus of many studies in the past few decades. Rather than simply repositories for charter texts, cartularies are now regarded by those who study them as carefully curated collections of texts whose contents and arrangement reflect the immediate concerns and archival environment of the communities that created them. One feature of cartularies which has not received attention is the ‘growth’ of their manuscripts beyond the initial phase of creation. This growth refers not only to the addition of fresh gatherings but also to the piecemeal addition of texts into the available spaces, often in a haphazard order and by many scribes working across a number of decades. ‘Manuscript growth’ is not an uncommon feature of cartularies from the central middle ages, particularly from the thirteenth century onwards. As a phenomenon, however, it has not been recognised or studied, for the good reason that it is difficult to discuss haphazard manuscript growth in a systematic way. This thesis offers a new methodology which engages with multi-scribe contributions to ‘active’ cartularies. It takes a holistic approach which integrates the textual and ‘physical’ evidence of cartularies, and embraces all forms of scribal activity. By studying the growth of cartulary manuscripts, we can gain significant insights into the contemporary use and perception of these valuable objects. This thesis therefore takes a fresh look at the ‘genre’ of medieval cartularies through the eyes of the manuscript evidence itself, and what this can reveal about its medieval scribes and readers. Two manuscripts are taken as the basis of this study: the older cartulary of Glasgow Cathedral (AUL SCA MS JB 1/3) and the older cartulary of Lindores Abbey (in private ownership in Caprington Castle). Chapter 1 introduces the field of cartulary studies, with reference to new work in this area (particularly in relation to cartularies in France and England). Central questions in this field are introduced, such as the definition of a cartulary, their creation and function. It also discusses approaches to analysing complex codices and multi-scribe activity within other manuscript genres. In Chapter 2, a new methodology will be introduced for analysing manuscript growth. This involves rethinking our approach to some familiar elements of manuscripts: their codicology, binding history, the scribes, as well as the challenge of dating the various contributions to the cartularies. New concepts and terminology will be introduced (such as ‘relative dating’ and ‘series’) that have been developed in response to these two complex cartularies. By applying this new methodology, the creation and subsequent growth of each manuscript can be examined in detail in Chapter 3 (for Glasgow Cathedral’s cartulary) and Chapter 4 (for Lindores Abbey’s). It is shown that the contemporary experience of these two cartularies was as a collection of simultaneously ‘active’ units (either unbound or in temporary bindings), offering new scribes a choice of where to place their material. Chapter 5 draws together the analysis, and focuses on the initial creation of the cartularies, the nature of their growth by piecemeal additions, and the reasons for this growth. This reveals two communities that took an active approach to reading and extending their cartularies, treating these manuscripts as a shared space. The vexed question of ‘repeated’ texts within cartularies is reconsidered in this light. The analysis allows us to develop a deeper understanding of the cartularies’ function and the role of their scribes as primarily readers, whose interactions with the manuscript were responsive and dynamic. The institutional setting is also discussed. The thesis concludes by considering the implications of this study for our understanding of the function and typology of cartularies, their relationship to archives of single-sheet documents, and as sources for institutional identity, as well as the potential of the methodology to act as a starting point for studying scribal interactions and scribes as readers in other manuscript genres with multi-scribe growth.
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Stone, Heather Brenda. "Companionable forms : writers, readers, sociability, and the circulation of literature in manuscript and print in the Romantic period." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:63f652fc-c4c2-4c3a-bc5c-893d4b922db1.
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Following recent critical work on writers' representations of sociability in Romantic literature, this thesis examines in detail the textual strategies (such as allusion, acts of address, and the use of 'coterie' symbols or references) which writers used to seek to establish a friendly or sympathetic relationship with a particular reader or readers, or to create and define a sense of community identity between readers. The thesis focuses on specific relationships between pairs and groups of writers (who form one another's first readers), and examines 'sociable' genres like letters, manuscript albums, occasional poetry, and periodical essays in a diverse series of author case-studies (Anna Barbauld, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats and Leigh Hunt). Such genres, the thesis argues, show how manuscript and print culture could frequently overlap and intersect, meaning that writers confronted the demands of two co-existing audiences - one private and familiar, the other public and unknown - in the same work. Rather than arguing that writers used manuscript culture practices and produced 'coterie' works purely to avoid confronting their anxieties about publishing in the commercial sphere of print culture, the thesis suggests that in producing such 'coterie' works writers engaged with and reflected contemporary philosophical and political concerns about the relationship between the individual and wider communities. In these works, writers engaged with the legacy of eighteenth-century philosophical ideas about the role (and limitations) of the sympathetic imagination in maintaining social communities, and with interpretative theories about the best kind of reader. Furthermore, the thesis argues that reading literary texts in the specific, material context in which they are 'published' to particular readers, either in print, manuscript, or letters, is vital to understanding writer/reader relationships in the Romantic period. This approach reveals how within each publication space, individual texts could be placed (either by their writers, by editors, or by other readers) in meaningful relationships with other texts, absorbing or appropriating them into new interpretative contexts.
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Caernarven-Smith, Patricia. "Gladstone and the Bank of England: A Study in Mid-Victorian Finance, 1833-1866." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2007. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3696/.
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The topic of this thesis is the confrontations between William Gladstone and the Bank of England. These confrontations have remained a mystery to authors who noted them, but have generally been ignored by others. This thesis demonstrates that Gladstone's measures taken against the Bank were reasonable, intelligent, and important for the development of nineteenth-century British government finance. To accomplish this task, this thesis refutes the opinions of three twentieth-century authors who have claimed that many of Gladstone's measures, as well as his reading, were irrational, ridiculous, and impolitic. My primary sources include the Gladstone Diaries, with special attention to a little-used source, Volume 14, the indexes to the Diaries. The day-to-day Diaries and the indexes show how much Gladstone read about financial matters, and suggest that his actions were based to a large extent upon his reading. In addition, I have used Hansard's Parliamentary Debates and nineteenth-century periodicals and books on banking and finance to understand the political and economic debates of the time.
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Evans, Katherine. "The Alice books - an imaginative testimony to a child's experiences of socio-cultural norms of the late Victorian age." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/2598.
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Introduction: Alice in Wonderland is perhaps the most renowned fantasy book for children. Over and above this though, it has relevance for adults. People too often dismiss it as purely escapist reading, a means to escape from the monotony of everyday realism by delving into the realms of fantasy. Many critics propose that it operates on more than one level and I would have to agree - it is a pioneer of children's literature as well as a product and critique of the Victorian age. It is a story that has captured the world's imagination, with vivid characters and exciting adventures. The sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, although not as well known, equally offers an insight into the late nineteenth-century. I intend to explore the many layers found in these stories, and hope to expose them as being more than mere narratives, but as pieces of literature that thrive because they are so cleverly constructed Perhaps also their success lies in that they deal with the universal theme (for children and adults alike) of making sense of the seemingly nonsensical aspects of life and society. The stories, as well as the strange characters and happenings, are reminiscent of the Absurdist genre in drama, in which the objective is to turn the world upside down, so to speak, in order to understand people and society. My dissertation will begin by exploring the literary trends of children's books prior to 1865, in other words, before Alice in Wonderland was published. I intend to present an overview of Victorian and pre-Victorian children's fiction, tracing the development of the story for teaching and religious instruction, up until the time when the story was liberated to be simply the vehicle for pleasurable recreational purposes. Thus my opening chapter is an exploration of the didactic children's literature that dominated the early nineteenth century, examining the educationalists that helped expand the genre of children's literature. Next, I will include a brief biography of Lewis Carroll. It is important to my overall theme in that a biography sums up, in one human centre, the forces at play in Victorian sensibility. As a modern audience, we seem to seize upon the idea of his 'character', desperately attempting to understand what motivated him to write such tour de force stories. The interest for me at this point is to examine how academics have portrayed Carroll's 'character'. The motive behind this section is to beg the question of whether his complex personality affects our reading of the texts, or whether they can be seen as entirely separate from a life to which some scandal has been attributed. In the remainder of my dissertation, I shall focus on how the texts are a reflection of a typical Victorian child's experiences, and discuss how Alice 'grows' as a character, and what she reveals about her society in the process of discovering how she should define herself. Alice is the vehicle for Carroll's subversive commentary about his society, and her experiences in Wonderland and Looking-Glass land are often rooted in the undermining of conventional behaviour and traditions. Lastly, I will examine Carroll's stylistic organization of the narratives, paying particular attention to his treatment of time, dreams and language in the texts. I will discuss what his intentions are in creating 'nonsense that makes sense', as well as what this 'nonsense' discloses about the society he lived in and the values he seems to object to.Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.