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This thesis will examine theatrical changes which were taken place in Britain in the 1990s as an influence of Thatcherite capitalism. There are two bases in developing that subject. The first is that arts subsidy, namely, money, has been more responsible for the changes than directors and playwrights have. The second is that the changes were basically undesirable, because they resulted in the dominance of capitalist values in theatre, under which theatre companies inevitably compete with each other, and are, thereby, increasingly inclined towards safe, popular, commercial products. By contrast, alternative oppositional activities that can play a role in checking and balancing the dominant capitalist cultural values becoming marginalised. It can be, thus, said that this thesis will critically explore the undesirable legacy of Thatcherism on the theatre economics and management of the 1990s.To this end, it will examine several sub-subjects. Chapter I deals with the British politics and economics of the 1980s and 1990s as background for the changes which also took place in theatre during the 1980s and 1990s. Chapter II will explore the two different attitudes of the Arts Council which has been in charge of distributing money [arts subsidy] to theatre companies since its formation in 1946; one prior to Thatcher's government and the other during Thatcher's government of the 1980s. Chapter III will examine the general theatrical economics and management of the 1990s. Chapter IV will deal with money from the national lottery in order to see how much it has contributed to theatre companies in terms of theatre economy. Chapter V is a case study to illustrate how the West Yorkshire Playhouse as one of the leading regional theatre companies has been managerially affected by post-Thatcherite theatre economy. Chapter VI is another case study to illustrate how Red Ladder as one of the leading political theatre companies in the 1970s has been deradicalised by Thatcherite capitalism in the 1980s and post-Thatcherite theatre economy of the 1990s.This thesis, with its critical tone on the changes, will illustrate, implicitly or explicitly, ways by which the undesirable state of the British theatre in the 1990s may be rescued. At the same time, I hope this thesis to serve as a ground for debates for the betterment of the British theatre in the future.

The thesis enters several under-examined areas. First, improvisatory music will be considered as a human phenomenon in the widest sense (Chapter 1 ), and a phenomenon destined to suffer relative decline in the cultural environment of the modern West (Chapter 2). In consequence, the language in which improvisatory music is now discussed in the West will be shown to carry a negative charge (Chapter 3). Among various philosophies of music in the Western tradition, none appears to have foregrounded improvisatory music specifically. However Heidegger's philosophy, it will be suggested, harbours inner trends which favour the idea of music as a central component in philosophical discourse (Chapter 4) and may be used as a starting point for a re-emergent understanding of musical improvisation as a metaphysical principle (Chapter 5). Improvisation in music will be seen to be linked to the centrality of hope in human experience, and this will be exemplified in relation to certain cultures and twentieth-century composers (Chapter 6). Further to this connection between improvisation and hope, improvisation in a Christian liturgical context will be examined. There is a dearth of existing discussion, not only regarding improvisatory music in Christian liturgy, but liturgical spontaneity in general (Chapter 7).

As its title suggests, this study is divided into two separate but related parts. Each part of the thesis is then sub-divided into sections. Part I is evolutionary in nature, building its argument in a more linear and expository style than those sections which comprise Part II which stand in a more dialogical relation to each other and are self-sufficient in form. The title of the thesis uses the term 'psycho-analysis' as it was first introduced by Freud with reference to a systemic methodology. It should be noted that the 'textual production' to which I refer in the title should not suggest a Marxist-based analysis. Instead, it refers to the activation of the text in conjunction with its encounter with the reading subject. As such, it does not refer to the creation of an author, nor to the material production via institutions in the strict historical sense. It does, however, refer to a material affect of the signifier in its interpretative rendering by emphasizing its bodily interlinking with the imaginary of the reader in a scene which is analogous to that of hysterical symptomatology. Part I is entitled 'Psycho-Analysis' and consists of three sections which explore the beginnings of psychoanalysis, its main theories on hysteria and the relationship between Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud. The theoretical base of hysteria is considered to be illuminating to analyses of critical procedures such as those employed in literary criticism. Part II is entitled 'Textual Production' and is comprised of six sections of textual readings. These readings are presented as discrete in themselves yet of an interlocking character. This study of psycho-analysis and textual production has attempted to examine the mechanisms of critical encounter in relation to the psychoanalytical text and the literary text. Theories offered by psycho-analysis formulated with reference to hysteria are considered to offer an illuminating parallel to those processes which occur in critical practice.

The thesis studies the whole range of Hardy's short stories, arguing that the distinctive core of Hardy's writing in this form is a profound sense of human alienation and loneliness. The opening chapter considers the factors that gave rise to the development of the genre in the 1880s and 1890s, and Hardy's stories are compared to these contemporary stories, noting the popularity of stories set in traditional, rural environments, especially the "Celtic fringes" far from the urban world which many readers inhabited. Attention is given to the traditional modes of story-telling adopted by Hardy; the appropriateness of the storyteller's "speaking voice" to the subject matter is discussed. Hardy's stories are seen as exemplifying Frank O'Connor's characterisation of the short story as the genre which expresses the experience of the "submerged population group" and the figure of the isolate or exile. The second chapter seeks to identify biographical factors which might have contributed to a vision of human loneliness, and these are related to contemporary intellectual developments. Particular motifs, such as the alienated returning native, are noted. The third chapter focuses on the power of place in Hardy's imaginative world, the ways in which landscapes and settings enact the theme of alienation and isolation. The fourth and fifth chapters consider the alienating effects of class consciousness in the stories, especially through its effects on love and marriage. The tensions here are seen as being exacerbated by the ways Hardy's society constructs women; the stories are frequently studies of the plight of women, trapped in a society which constrains or disregards their natural (including their sexual) impulses. The final chapter considers the way in which the stories show individuals struggling to live their lives in a world which no longer makes sense and considers Hardy's use of the conventions of the supernatural to dramatise his vision of humans alone in a world governed by chance.

Any consideration of the theme of ‘house and home’ leads into discussion on three different levels of discourse. First of all, houses have biographical and historical significance; they are, after all, real places in which real lives are lived. Secondly, home is an ideologically loaded noun, a bastion of value which is inextricably entwined with the notion of the pure woman. Thirdly, in literature, houses are metaphorical places. This thesis is primarily a study of those metaphorical places. It explores representations of ‘house’ and ‘home’ in late Victorian women's poetry. However, it also takes account of the biographical, historical and ideological significance of the house, looking at factors which may have helped to shape each poet's representations of ‘house and home’. The house occupies an ambiguous position in the poetry of the later Victorian period. It is variously imagined as a haunted house, a ruin, an empty house of echoes, and a prison of isolation and despair. At times, the house is a recognisable domestic place (the private house), at others, it is turned into a place of art or poetry, a new aesthetic ‘home’ for the female imagination. In some poems the house is a focus for nostalgia and homesickness. Yet it is also often a place which must be left behind. What unites the poets I have studied is the fact that the houses they inhabit in their work are never entirely their own and they are rarely entirely at home in them. Home is less roomy as a concept. It tends to carry religious or ideological connotations and is usually represented as a place of duty and responsibility. It also comes to mean the final resting place: the grave. Thus house and home, which are not identical terms, are freighted with different meanings. It is the mismatch of these two terms, the tension between them, which I explore in this thesis.

Albion and Albanius and its composer, Louis Grabu, have been unjustly dismissed by musical scholars. This thesis seeks to redress that injustice. A documentary biography of Grabu is provided, and a discussion of the inception of Albion and Albanius, detailing the role of each of its creators. The opera is subjected to a thorough examination, including a discussion of: 1) the relationship between the 1685 libretto and the 1687 score; 2) its largescale structure and tonal plan; 3) and its vocal and instrumental writing. These studies reveal that Grabu, in composing the music, Dryden, in writing the libretto, and Betterton, in designing staging, drew upon specific models from Lully's Phaêton (1683). Furthermore, it is shown that Grabu drew upon a thorough knowledge of Lully's other operas: not only the general compositional features and structures, but also specific movements. There is, in addition, evidence suggesting that Grabu borrowed musical ideas and techniques from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Information regarding the opera's performance is gathered from the score and developed through comparison with contemporary practices. In particular, the similarities between Grabu's score and those of Lully printed by Ballard suggest that Grabu wrote for an ensemble modelled on that of the Paris Opéra. The dance and staging elements of the opera are examined in the light of information about, and illustrations from, English and especially French productions (particularly the drawings of Berain). Grabu's influence on Purcell, and Dioclesian in particular, is demonstrated. The reception history of Albion and Albanius is explored, and the assertion that Grabu was an incompetent composer and the opera an artistic failure is shown to be unfounded. A modern edition of Albion and Albanius with critical commentary is provided.

[From the introduction] : In my first chapter I will offer a review of Marechera's reputation and the critical reception given to his work, both during his life and since his death. In Chapter Two I Will outline the major theoretical issues raised by Marechera's work: Art versus psychological catharsis; the artist-as-communal-spokesman versus the artist-as-Romantic-individualist; nationalism versus literary universalism. Chapters Three, Four, Five and Six will then consider in sequence, the work produced in Oxford, in London and in Harare, tracing the writer's physical and psychological deterioration through his evolving prose style. Each of these chapters will also focus on a major relevant critical issue. Thus Chapter Three will examine The House of Hunger, written following Marechera's arrival in Oxford, in the context of 'culture clash', 'the African heritage' and Postcolonialism which so preoccupied its original reviewers. Chapter Four will examine Black Sunlight and The Black Insider, written while the author was destitute in London, in terms of Jung's 'neurosis or art' debate. Chapter Five will examine Mindblast and Chapter Six will examine Scrapiron Blues, both containing material written after Marecheras' return to Harare, making reference to the historical and socio-political context of post-colonial Zimbabwe and to the writer's unsuccessful attempts to establish a role with the nation builders. I will conclude in Chapter Seven by discussing Marechera's place within the Zimbabwean literary canon, the current relevance and influence of his work and the implications this holds for the future of Zimbabwean writing.

The Pilgrim's Progress is accepted in the canon of children's literature due to its early adoption by child readers and because of its outstanding qualities. This thesis explores some possible reasons for the work's popularity and longevity. A New Historicist approach suggests the relevance of Bunyan's pilgrim hero and his narrative to each of the three centuries since the work's first publication. It focuses particularly on the interaction between society, child and text, considering the societal and psychic dimensions. History and Developmental Theory, including that of Faith Development, are drawn on as particular resources. A propositional model provides visual explanation for the interactionary role of the components and suggests a scientific basis for the relevance factors. A broad sample of copies of The Pilgrim's Progress, published from 1678 until 1994, is surveyed in order to test the hypothesis that the hero is a changing one, affected by society's changing norms and ethos. Bunyan's influence on writers for children over the three centuries is also considered, leading to recognition of The Pilgrim's Progress as a prototype for children's literature.

'Reading Richard Schechner' explores the theatre, theory, and academic leadership of a key figure in American theatre studies, engaging critically with Schechner's contributions, in order to assess their value for future theatre research. Chapter One considers how Schechner's theatre participated in social change and situates Schechner's analogy of theatre to ritual within an avant-garde theatrical tradition. Chapter Two models Schechner's career in terms of a singular performance project which moves from its early focus on theatre production, through performance theory, leading finally to his leadership of Performance Studies as an institutionally validated area. I examine the interplay between Schechner's theatre and his growing interest in anthropology, identifying the ways in which anthropological discourse supported his authority as a theatrical auteur. These chapters include case studies of his productions Dionysus in 69 and The Tooth of Crime. Chapter Three develops the relation between creative authorship and academic authority by introducing two key concepts. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital characterises the rewards for successful and authoritative authorship which, I argue, Schechner has pursued. Allegory articulates the historical relation between creative authorship and socially empowered authority. The logic of Schechner's performance paradigm is analysed as an allegorical structure, following Joel Fineman's definition. Chapter Four concentrates on the ways in which, over time, Schechner has repositioned theatre as subordinate to the broad spectrum he defines as performance. I give grounds for rejecting Schechnerian performance as a viable paradigm for theatre's study. Furthermore, I reinterpret it as an enterprising intermedia arts project aiming to disrupt the institution from within. To deauthorise Schechnerian performance in this way is also to reauthorise it, by returning its ostensibly objective structures to their origin in creative acts. To this end, I conclude by sketching a portrait of Richard Schechner as an author of avant-garde theatre and theory.

This thesis shows how the notion of androgyny works in the fiction of Violet Trefusis. It also posits her writing in connection to some novels by Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Working within a theoretical framework provided by Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytical theory this thesis focusses on and seeks to redress the traditional conceptualization of androgyny providing a notion of the androgyne more in accordance to Woolf's androgynous ideal. The androgyne is understood in this thesis as a carnivalesque figure that disrupts the patriarchal system of hierarchical binary oppositions. Chapter Two provides a historical framework to Woolf's androgynous ideal. The research focuses, in Chapter Three, on the literary relationship sustained by Sackville-West, Woolf, and Trefusis which produced an, up to now unexplored, intertextual space where Challenge (1919), Orlando (1928) and Broderie Anglaise (1935) are interwoven. The apprehension of androgyny is an attempt on the part of these three women writers to find a different type of sentence whose construction has been theorised by Kristeva as Poetic language. This literary practice is an uncomfortable and dangerous one since it implies the avowal of the maternal serniotic in symbolic language. The difficulties in achieving the symbolic positionality of the subject of poetic language are addressed in Chapter Four in the analysis of Trefusis's Echo (1931) and Woolf's Between the Acts (1941). Chapter Five concentrates on Trefusis's discomforting sense of outsiderness. In Pirates at Play (1952) Trefusis explores the dialectics of foreignerness. Through the transubstantiation of her self into an armchair in Memoirs of an Armchair (1960) Trefusis acknowledges her abject in an attempt to relax the boundaries that separate self from other. Finally Chapter Six examines the search of a feminine Jowssance and its connections to death, or rather undeath, in two novels: Sackville-West's All Passion Spent (1931) and Trefusis's Hunt the Slipper (1937).

The association of women and mysticism this century is not always perceived as a positive one. In Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (1995), the feminist philosopher of religion, Grace Jantzen, suggests that the experience of mysticism gradually became defined as an ineffable, private emotional encounter in order to remove it from the sphere of political management of society and religion. She writes of a direct increase of association between mysticism and women, who were permitted to have spiritual experiences, but powerless to speak with authority about their insights. Jantzen's view of this association of women with mysticism is therefore somewhat negative; she warns of mysticism's ability to silence and disempower. But as women mystics, particularly in the medieval period, have spoken and written of their (often vivid and imaginative) experiences with authority, this thesis explores how ideas about mysticism have been addressed by women writers this century. In particular, 1investigate whether the women writers treated in this thesis developed the definition of such spiritual experience in a more affirmative and expressive way than Jantzen suggests. Rather than assuming that mysticism is an unchanging spiritual experience within a strictly religious context, this thesis explores how women writers discovered a creative expression of their inner spirituality through the inspiration of contemporary ideas about mysticism, and how they helped to move these ideas on. I introduce my argument, therefore, by examining constructions of mysticism at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the idea of mysticism was defined and developed both in terms of experiential philosophy and of psychology. In particular, the attention paid to the emotional effects of a "mystical experience" became associated, by William James, with the importance of what he termed the "subliminal realm" of the mind, a realm which would subsequently be defined as the unconscious by Freud, but which James saw as a valid channel for imagination and spirituality As well as drawing attention to the "subliminal realm" and its role in spiritual experience, James first suggested the idea of the "stream of consciousness", a term which became important for much modernist literature, but which James did not link directly with the expression of mysticism. Not all psychological studies of mysticism were as open-minded as James'; I also look at texts which were hostile and eclectic in turn. And James himself was not immune to contemporary prejudice regarding gender. But the period's general interest in the imaginative workings of the mind, flowing from the unconscious into consciousness, and the struggle to express this imaginative process, has led me to the study of its literature in order to explore how such ideas about mysticism were used, by women writers, within a creative context. Evelyn Underhill provides a link between the areas of religious thought and women's fiction writing. Underhill in fact started her writing life as a novelist, exploring those themes of spirituality which she was later, more famously, to address in texts such as Mysticism, in which James' ideas are acknowledged. Importantly, Mysticism was certainly read by two women writers - May Sinclair and Dorothy Richardson - who, while fascinated by mysticism, were equally concerned to develop the novelistic form in order to allow the expression of individual consciousness. They were also interested in the subject of gender to a greater degree than was Underhill. By examining the work first ofMay Sinclair, whose mysticism is chiefly concerned with loss, then of Dorothy Richardson, who was to develop the mystical concepts of vision and illumination, I trace the progression of mysticism's influence in women's writing, an influence which Underhill had to a large extent initiated. Underhill, Sinclair and Richardson were not the only women writers to explore mysticism alongside stylistic innovation and an awareness of gender issues. There was, for example, Virginia Woolf, whose aunt, Caroline Stephen, was a respected Quaker. But rather than continue to explore all the women writing in this period, a task too large for this thesis, I move on to show how ideas about mysticism, gender and writing have developed in later thinkers. In examining the ideas of the feminist critics Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva, I show that mysticism, and the ways of articulating what James termed an "ineffable" experience, are even more strongly linked with gender and innovative creative writing in their work, whether "novelistic" in a strict sense or not. I have not anal.vsed the work ofUnderhill. Sinclair, and Richardson solely. in terms of psychoanalytically acute feminist criticism I, although I introduce such Such work is generally available: Jean Radford's examination of PiIbTfi mauc. for example critical ideas where appropriate, and have shown that these writers point towards the critical concepts of later feminist writers and thinkers. My emphasis is on the particular space lor creativity which mysticism develops and towards which psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the talking curehas indicated but paid less attention to than the aetiology and symptoms of madness and hysterical disorders. Rather than continue to pursue this psychoanalytical preoccupation, I have looked at the work of the later feminist critics as experimental mystical writers in their own right, and I suggest that it is mysticism. rather than hysteria or other forms of "madness", which has provided the creative space for gendered exploration of imagination and writing. Just as psychoanalytic criticism seeks to explore those "moments of vision" which madness has been said to facilitate in writers such as Woolf I have set out to show that the insights of mysticism, classed as neither mental illness nor rigorous rationality, have played an essential part in the development of women's fiction-writing, criticism and religious thought this century, allowing, additionally, the closer relationship of these three disciplines. In concluding this thesis therefore, I examine the way in which mysticism has provided a place for "visionary" gendered discourse in contemporary theology, and return to the area of religious thought, where I had begun my research. I examine ways in which there is now an increased awareness of the imagination in feminist theology and, specifically, in mysticism within a feminist theological context. The developments of mysticism's creative space have facilitated this awareness in theology, just as they have in the fiction and criticism through which I have traced its influence. Although the question of what constitutes mysticism and who counts as a mystic may remain open (plurality being one of the emphases of feminist critical thought), the conclusion of this thesis affirms that the space of spiritual creativity developed by mysticism has been one of the major forces to have shaped women's writing and critical thought (both literary and religious) this century.

The role of the Jacobean romance mode has been undervalued and misunderstood, not least because of what it has been seen to symbolise politically, and perhaps also because it was seen as beginning to be associated with a female audience. I suggest that gender and sexuality were often represented in romance in a radical way which was frequently empowering for women. Among dramatists, Fletcher and his collaborators in particular were freed by their use of romance to experiment with representations of gender in a radical way. The thesis is divided into four sections, all of which address the way that gender and sexuality are represented in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon. The first section has a chapter on Fletcher's debt to Shakespeare in Bonduca, and another on the two romance plays on which Fletcher and Shakespeare collaborated - The Two Noble Kimmen, and the lost Cardenio. The second section discusses Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess, first giving the context of English Jacobean pastoral tragicomedy and explaining its special significance for women, and secondly comparing Fletcher's play with Lady Mary Wroth's Love's Victory, a rare example of a Jacobean play by a woman. Section three explores the debt to prose romance of four plays - Philaster, Valentinian, Love's Cure and The Island Princess - focusing on the possibility that Fletcher may have been influenced by French precieux ideas. The final section investigates the part that women played in masques in the second half of the Jacobean period, and the way that Fletcher and his collaborators use masques and masque-like elements in their plays to exploit the dramatic potential of the Jacobean female masquer's unusually public and self-affirming role. By exploring the impact of Jacobean feminocentric romance forms on the plays of Fletcher and his collaborators I offer a fuller understanding of the ways in which they regarded gender and sexuality, and contribute to the wider project of rediscovering a history of women in the Jacobean period.

The central enquiry of this thesis is an exploration of the 7:84 (England) Theatre Company which was operational during the period 1971-1985. Contextualizing the company within the broad spectrum of ideologically oppositional theatre practice which developed after 1968, it will examine the interface between political theatre and societal and political structures evident in the 1970s and 1980s. The study will also address the reflexive relationship between theory and practice as it considers the dynamic relationship between formal structures, performative strategies and subject matter as a means of addressing both a macro and micro political agenda. The first chapter traces the relationship of 7:84 to the Arts Council. It charts the shifting ethos of this institution leading to the withdrawal of the company's subsidy in 1984. In particular it will assess the role of the Arts Council as an agent of economic, cultural and political control. The second chapter addresses the ideological framework which informed the rejection, by many politically motivated theatre practitioners, of hierarchical management structures and working practices in favour of collective and co-operative methods of organisation and creation. It relates this to the composition and working practices of 7:84, with specific reference to the function of women and the performer, director and writer. The third chapter draws on serniotic theory to analyse the shifting function of the audience within political theatre. It considers how 7:84 sought and consolidated a specifically working-class audience and explores their function as active negotiators of meaning within a process of ideological transaction. The fourth chapter addresses the conceptual framework underpinning the choice of performative strategies utilized within the plays performed by 7:84. The chapter has as the object of its enquiry such devices as: the adoption of epic structures, the foregrounding of history, comic intervention, direct address and the function of dialect and song. The final chapter contains close textual analysis of a number of 7:84 plays in order to examine the representation of women and the working-class and how this relates to shifting patterns of identification and societal structures. The thesis concludes with a brief assessment of the achievements and impact of 7:84.

There is an extensive body of work in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and sociology which identifies a specific world view based on the following criticism of modern society: that people live monocerebral existences divided from their physical, emotional, and intuitive abilities. In this state, the capacity for affect -emotional response - is believed to be atrophied, and experience nullified. Such a condition - which may be loosely termed 'mind/body split' - results in a diminished ability to relate to other people, a sense of alienation from the world, and a pathological loss of human capacities. Many psychologists believe that this state prefigures neuroses, destructiveness, and schizophrenia. This thesis is concerned with the concept of 'mind/body split' and its relation to affective communication in the theatre. The subjects of my enquiry are theatre practitioners or companies whose work has directly addressed these issues: Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, The Living Theatre, The Performance Group, The Open Theatre, Peter Brook, and Eugenio Barba. My aim has been to re-examine the work of these seven in order to produce evidence of their concern for affect, heightened experience, and the healing of mind-body schism. I propose that an understanding of these concerns provides a major critical key to the appraisal of the practitioners in question.

This thesis examines the work of David Bowie and its main theme is identity construction. Bowie was the first male pop star to project a succession of personae and his vocal styles, stage performances, lyrical method and videos are analysed in the light of his redefinitions of himself for public consumption. Bowie's guiding aesthetic was that of collage and his indebtedness to a variety of extra-musical sources, most significantly from literature and the theatre, is discussed. The theses eschews traditional narrative approaches which have been used to discuss individuals within pop, and deals with its subject matter thematically. The thesis describes the context in which Bowie's work is set and discusses the commercial constraints on his art, the relationship between the work and pop ideology, and the struggle between his public and private selves. The interaction between iconography and fandom is shown as playing a crucial role in determining his importance, and this analysis draws on my findings from correspondence with Bowie fans. Bowie's protean art has demanded a multi-disciplinary analytical approach and the thesis discusses the usefulness of musicology, semiotics, subcultural theory and Postmodernist thinking. The thesis suggests a way of explaining individuals in pop through a theoretical equilibrium between text and context.

To begin with, the role of theatre, and especially popular theatre, is contextualised within the theory of art and society and the debate about 'popular' and 'mass' culture. The thesis attempts to reassess the possibilities for positive and dynamic relations between audience and theatre within this context, through an investigation of some actual relationships between them. What is defined as 'mainstream' theatre is the basis of the research. The three major productions studied are A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols, Bloody Poetry by Howard Brenton, and Blood Brothers by Willy Russell. Qualitative research on audience responses for each play resulted in 37 in-depth interviews. A chapter is devoted to the problem of methodology for such a qualitative study; in particular, to the lack of any model method for analysis. The interview material is presented and discussed play by play. Initially, a broad 'consensus' view of each play, provides a background to the description and analysis of responses. Analysis is carried out under the headings of different 'cultural profiles', determined in relation to the play as 'accordant', 'discordant' or 'neutral' in orientation. The influences of such cultural profiles are shown in some cases to predetermine the perceived meaning or effect of the play, independently of the executants' intentions. Some responses are more readily understood as determined most importantly by a personal 'inner history', which can be even more resilient to change. Despite the predominance of habitual notions, it is found that particular kinds of theatrical technique are more successful than others in overriding biases corresponding to cultural profile. This is especially true of theatricality which raises the emotional identification of respondents with characters or events on stage without mobilising stereotypes. Findings indicate the importance of the cultural profile and personal history of audiences in any theory of the theatre's social function. The innate conservatism which characterises cultural profiles is seen to be a crucial factor. Conclusions suggest a need for models which do not rely on preconceptions or hidden assumptions about audience response. In addition, the emphasis which emerges on the autonomy of audience as critic and creator raises questions about the function and aspirations of certain types of theatre.

The thesis adopts a structural and systematic approach to the study and analysis of colour terms in Flaubert's fiction.The Introduction highlights how Flaubert has come to be regarded as a problematic writer and how much existing work on his colour terms is in some way lacking in clarity. I proceed to fill this gap in Flaubert studies by elaborating a method of analysis of colour terms which clarifies how meaning is produced by the text. The method of analysis comprises eight stages which are systematically worked through as one considers eleven variables, one or several of the latter coming into play at any stage in the method and which may influence the ultimate type and degree of value-charge carried by a colour term. The method and the variables should be thought of as one ensemble or a methodology for the analysis of colour terms in prose fiction. The methodology is highly refined and is without precedent in that I examine the dual exchange of figurative charging which is always operational between a colour term and its associated referent.The thesis is divided into five chapters where each text is studied separately. The Oeuvres de Jeunesse are experimental writings and Flaubert is testing the figurative potential of colour terms. The chromatic codification is mainly traditional, though a nascent private elaboration may be discerned. Madame Bovary represents the peak of literary perfection. All the novel's colours contribute to the overall illusion/reality dichotomy which lies at the heart of the text.

'The plays are very interesting, but again, formless,' was Violet Hunt's criticism of Lawrence's plays in 1912. This sort of comment is fairly predictable when the formal structure of drama in England, whether from the pen of Ibsen or Pinero, was expected to conform to the tenets of the well-made play. It arises from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of Lawrence's drama which has persisted until quite recently. Just as Lawrence's inclusion of the domestic details and rituals of the miner's home has been seen not as an ordering and defining principle but as a documentary, a transcript of unordered reality, so Lawrence's plays have been viewed as formless. To hold such an attitude is to fail to appreciate the form which inheres in the plays through such an ordering principle. The sense of form in Edwardian drama tended to emanate from two different but linked sources: formal construction, plays with a beginning, a middle and an end; and a structure of received ideas, an overt ideology which informs the plays with a cohesive intellectual order. Lawrence deliberately avoided both the rigidity of construction of the well-made play and the tendency of the social thesis. Lawrence was unable to find an appropriate form in the drama of his contemporaries. and found that their form was false to the drama be wanted to write. The aesthetic and morality of the well-made play in the hands of the society dramatists is inescapably interlinked, a part and parcel of the experience they convey. The experience mediated by the colliery plays is very different from the experience mediated by the society drama and therefore demands a different aesthetic, that is a different way of defining the drama. Lawrence deliberately constructed and gave form to his colliery plays by investing them with the sense of definition which I have analysed. Lawrence disguised the treatment of his material in order to achieve an effect which has greater congruity with our experience of the unordered reality of life. Similarly he disguised the construction of his plays so that we should be unaware of an externally imposed sense of form, either the theatricality of the well-made play or the intellectuality of the social thesis. Lawrence's plays are not more real that the plays of his contemporaries, he merely utilised a different convention, a different technique. He avoided the formal exposition by making the creation of the social and cultural context its own exposition, its own explanation and definition. He avoided the conclusive ending which allowed the audience to go home feeling contented and satisfied at having witnessed Edwardian middle-class morality triumphant, or feeling smug and complacent in feeling that it had performed some social duty in having its own view of the unfairness of the social and economic system confirmed by a Galsworthy. And in so doing he created a drama which mediated a different experience. It is only when the technique of Lawrence's plays is appreciated, when they are seen as carefully controlled and consciously dramatic works, that they can be hailed as they have been as 'the only really satisfying Naturalist drama in English’ (Lilian R. Furst and Peter N. Skrine, Naturalism, p. 68).

In this thesis an examination is made of criticism of Thomas Hardy's novels from the earliest comments of his publishers and reviewers in the late nineteenth century to the apparently more sophisticated studies of the mid-1980's. The thesis is organised chronologically with each chapter dealing with a specific historical period of not more than a few decades which marks a particular phase of criticism of Hardy's novels and which often reflects more general developments in critical attitudes to the novel as an art form. Thus, while much light is thrown on Hardy's own art as a novelist in the course of this study, its wider purpose has been to trace patterns of development in the theory and practice of novel criticism over the period 1870-1985 as a whole, and to examine the ideological assumptions which have informed it. In this sense criticism of Hardy's novels is a good subject for study because it reveals many features which may be said to be typical of the various phases of novel criticism; indeed, it often tells us far more about critical fashion and critical prejudice than it does about Hardy's art. Because this thesis traces general patterns of development in criticism, there has been no attempt to be all-inclusive in the coverage of Hardy's critics; books and articles have been chosen for their representativeness or their special merit. All the major critics have been discussed, however, and the study concludes that what criticism has gained in sophistication of technique ; and mode of expression appears to have been counterbalanced by its having lost the ability to respond directly to the impact of reading a novel and by the corresponding loss of a sense that literature (in this case Hardy's novels) has any value which can be related to life. It is suggested that recent critics might benefit from a study of the methods of their predecessors so that they might learn from their successes as well as from their mistakes.

The thesis commences with the examination of the place of dance in British society, and focusses on its social and cultural role, while proffering explanations pertaining to its metaphysical and symbolical significance. It is evident that changes in political and religious attitude led to censure of folkloristic pastimes and celebrations of dancing, but it transpires that during the Restoration Period a resurgence of the popularity and acceptance of dance occurred in both theatrical and social contexts. The role of the dancing master is depicted in the creation of a mannered society, when aesthetically, artistically, and technically, dance was valued. The function of dance as a form of physical exercise is examined and concludes the introductory section. In establishing the role of dance in education, a study of early nineteenth century educational philosophers and practitioners is made, and the implications of Swedenborgianism on their work is investigated. European and American influences in the form of militarism, the gymnastic movement, health and dress reform are also examined. The founding of the Women's Colleges of Physical Education established dance as an aspect of physical training, a role reinforced by the Board of Education through the publication of a series of Syllabuses on Physical Training. Drills, singing games and maypole dances were taught in schools prior to the Folk Dance Revival, when morris, sword and country dances assumed a place with court and national dances, which were also performed by children. The Modern Dance Movement developed during the inter-war period and was typified by a variety of neo-classical, rhythmical dance forms that emphasised datural movement and spiritual expression. An account is included on the implementation of modern educational dance during the post-war years, and an appraisal of contemporary practice is made. The conclusion forms a summary and analytical argument relative to the changing role of dance in education.

It is widely accepted that early American literature reflects the boundless social and moral optimism of "The Great Experiment", expresses certitude in the ultimate perfectibility of man in the New World. Equally widely held is the belief that American experience in the twentieth century has prompted something of a retreat from this optimistic position, has blunted the belief in -- crudely put -- the American Dream and that this retreat has been particularly marked in American fiction since World War Two. This thesis seems to confront such assumptions about the "American Nightmare", as described in contemporary American fiction, by examining the work of six post-War American fiction writers: three Jews -- Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud.and Chaim Potok and three non-Jews -- John Cheever, John Updike and William Burroughs. This arrangement allows for a discussion of the obvious literary differenlces between Jew and non-Jew in the period. Moreover, it allows for speculation about the cultural processes underlying such differences, processes which have enabled some writers to produce fictions reinforcing the values and principles of individual significance and moral virtue in a social context while the work of others powerfully argues the irrelevance or impossibility of such values in contemporary society. My object in this is not to make an equation whereby optimism equals good literature and pessimism equals bad literature. Rather it is to demonstrate the way in which the optimistic strain of American literature abides -- albeit in a somewhat muted form -- and to point up the paradoxical way in which it is the very Jewishness of their writing that has made the work of Bellow, Malamud and Potok seem so thoroughly American. In so doing, I hope to underline the singular contribution of Jewish Ameeican writing since ,1945 to the American literary canon.

T. S. Eliot consistently maintained that there was a close relation between his poetics and his poetry; that his poetic theory was the "by-product" of his "poetry-workshop" and best applied to his literary works, rather than regarded as general aesthetic principles to be applied to all poetry. This is the basis on which this study is undertaken. The study itself has two major aims.The first is to approach Eliot's creative works through the perspective of his poetics. I have attempted to identify certain of Eliot's major aesthetic theories and to relate them to those poems contemporary with them. I have also examined some of Eliot's poetic theories which may be seen in a more general way as illuminating and relevant to all his creative works. My study also identifies certain of Eliot's theories concerning drama and demonstrates how each of these is closely related to a particular play.My second aim is to show how all Eliot's poetry may be regarded as one great work of art. This developed in three stages which chart the poet's spiritual progress from the despair of the early poems through the confession and contrition of "The Hollow Men" and "Ash Wednesday" , to the sense of illumination and beatitude in Four Quartets. This progression, which reflects the pattern of the three stages in the Christian drama of salvation, is also evident in Eliot's plays. I have tried to show that his poetry, his poetics, and his life all fall into a common pattern and that there is a close interrelationship between the three.

In this dissertation I discuss the phenomenon of initial consonantal mutation in modern Welsh, and explore the syntactic structure of this language: I will concentrate on the syntax of Colloquial rather than Literary Welsh. It transpires that mutation phenomena can frequently be cited as evidence for or against certain syntactic analyses. In chapter 1 I present a critical survey of previous treatments of mutation, and show that mutation in Welsh conforms to a modified version of the Trigger Constraint proposed by Lieber and by Zwicky. It is argued that adjacency of the mutation trigger is the criterial property in Welsh. Chapter 2 presents a comprehensive description of the productive environments for mutation in modern Welsh. In chapter 3 I give a short account of Government and Binding theory, the framework used for several recent analyses of Celtic languages. I also discuss proposals that have been made concerning the underlying word order of Welsh, a surface VSO language. Although I reject SVO underlying order, I conclude that there is nonetheless a VP constituent in Welsh. Chapters 4 and 5 concern the role of NPs as triggers for Soft Mutation: both overt and empty category NPs are considered. In chapter 5, which centres on wh-traces, it is shown that the variable appears in a wider variety of construction types in Welsh than had previously been suggested. A pre-head relativization site for extractions from VP and NP is posited. Chapter 6 develops the theme of the role of wh-traces in unbounded dependencies, and it is argued that all relative clauses in Welsh are formed by wh-movement. The final chapter, chapter 7, looks at the wider variety of relative clause types found in Colloquial Welsh, and presents an analysis of the patterns of mutation and pronoun retention in the light of the NP Accessibility Hierarchy.

This study seeks primarily to examine three Scandinavian examples of the documentary novel. Initially I endeavour to isolate certain purported characteristics of the genre as a whole by considering which aspects of a narrative have prompted the critics to call it a 'documentary novel'. I then examine the three works in detail, applying standard techniques of literary criticism and comparing the facts on which the novels are based with the novels themselves to determine what makes them 'documentary' and what makes them 'novels'. The three novels share common techniques and all deal with the subject of Scandinavian polar exploration, but the author's relationship and attitude to the facts he has at hand are sufficiently different in each instance to permit a discussion of the literary form, ambitions and potential of the 'documentary novel'. The evidence suggests that the documentary novel uses authentic historical material but presents it through the techniques and forms of creative literature: the novelists adapt documented facts to support a view of a history which typically differs from accepted tradition. I then show that the conclusions to which this unorthodox view points, however, are invariably the same as those the authors draw about life in their other, non-documentary fictional works. Finally I demonstrate how the documentary novel is a fluid form which can be used in the service of fact, fiction or fraudulent propaganda, and I suggest a definition that embraces the three novels examined and the three kinds of documentary fiction that they represent.

Iconoclasm has proved to be a major feature in modern British drama, where in a short period of time, the theatre has witnessed a host of iconoclastic dramatists, where demythologization has been widespread and fierce and where the icons of the present and the past have been subjected to a wholesale desecration in large numbers at the hands of the Ardens, Brenton, Bond, Churchill and others, who, as their dramatization of history and its idols has shown, have much in common. Although the above playwrights and others were most active towards the end of the sixties and throughout the seventies, their assault, however, has not completely died away in the eighties. As I have shown, Berkoff in 1987 launched in Sink the Belgrano! a fierce onslaught on political sacred cows, including the present Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher who was mercilessly pilloried. On the 19th of February, 1988, Radio Three began broadcasting a nine part iconoclastic cycle by the Ardens, Whose Is The Kingdom? in which iconized personages from Roman history are revealed in a new light. In the above cycle, the playwrights set out to "demolish" "established notions" about Christ, Christianity, and rewrite the history of the Roman Empire, exposing its heroes and icons such as Constantine as manipulators and hypocrites. In other words, the Ardens' iconoclasm does not seem to have subsided; indeed it is on the rise! However, as mentioned earlier, iconoclasm is not merely the result of petty spite; it is a major aspect of political drama. It works towards changing the received images that the audience hold of history, the present and their icons the latter of which represent both the former. However, like the political theatre of which it is part, iconoclasm has failed to achieve its objectives for a number of reasons, foremost of which is the fact that the denigration of a historic idolatrized figure amounts to attacking the audience itself in whose mind, the images of those assaulted are deeply ingrained as holy and untouchable. The audience sees in such figures its own reflection. Lindenberger, in his book Historical Drama rightly argues that historical playwrights could "present a historical character or action within a broad framework of accepted notions". In other words, a playwright dramatizing a historical figure should try to adhere as much as he can to what is handed down to him and to his audience about the figure by history. Lindenberger goes on to say that "Historical material had the same status as myth, both belonged to what Horace called 'publicly known matters' ... and both depended - indeed, still do depend on - an audience's willingness to assimilate the portrayal of a familiar story or personage". Any portrayal of Achilles as not "restless, irascible, unyielding, and hard" would appear to the audience as unacceptable. The above theory can be rightly applied to the iconoclastic modern British playwrights' treatment of venerated persons. The audience would certainly stick to the “accepted notions" about Lord Nelson, Queen Victoria, Sir Winston Churchill and others. Plays such as The Hero Rises Up, Early Morning, and The Churchill Play can only arouse indignation in the audience and not a renunciation of received images. As I have shown, many spectators and critics were offended by, say, Arden's treatment of Nelson or Bond's degradation of Queen Victoria and William Shakespeare. The audience would rather adhere to what it already knows than revise its views, which brings to mind Marx's statement about the spell that the past casts upon the people, "The old has a strong grip on the people and, progress proceeds slowly." "Tradition is a great retarding force, is the vis inertiae of history". "The tradition of all past generations weighs like an Alp upon the brains of the living”. However, although they may be considered to have failed politically to dislodge right-wing iconography, the modern British demythologizers have established iconoclasm as a major trend in modern British drama and have revived an old tradition and consolidated it . Bond, a playwright who has constantly since 1968 called for the renunciation of the past .and its icons is, however, only too aware of the difficulties that his iconoclasm faces, yet as we Mire seen, he has not stopped producing iconoclastic plays. In his play, The Bundle, his revolutionary hero, Wang works hard with his fellow rebels to rid themselves of the past. He eggs them on to think of the future. For that purpose, he narrates to them the story of a man who carried the king on his back all his life, who even "did not know the king had died long ago", and who "carried him always and wasted his life", He goes on to say that the worst thing is "to carry the dead on your back", What the iconoclasts have tried to do during the past two decades is to remove that dead man from their nation's shoulders.

The history of music in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century is best understood within the context of the social, cultural and intellectual history of the German people during this period.The intellectual coming of age of the middle classes during the first decades of the century occurred as a result of growing confidence in the establishment of a national spoken and literary language. In a gradual progression of liberation and purification, the German language broke away from the dominant voices and cultures of its closest neighbours, leading to the crystalization of a clearly indigenous culture later in the century. Few other art forms followed this development more closely and indeed benefitted more from it than music.At the beginning of the century German music, and German culture in general, was still very much subjected to vassalage to foreign powers. Only in its church music, however, could a small but distinctly native voice be detected. With the growth of literary confidence, in particular in devotional poetry, music received considerable creative impetus. The figure who most closely followed these linguistic and literary developments is Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767).The object of this thesis is to place in its proper context the highly influential musical personality of Telemann, in particular through a study of his relationship to a younger generation of composers and theorists: the 'Berlin Circle'. In a detailed study of the composer's relationship to Carl Heinrich Graun(1703 or 1704-1759), the court Capellmeister at Berlin, the association between words and music, between musical and literary languages, will be discussed and, furthermore, they will be seen to be interdependent