"To Conceive With Child Is The Earnest Desire If Not Of All, Yet Of Most Women": The Advancement Of Prenatal Care And Childbirth In Early Modern England: 1500-1770,
2018
Virginia Commonwealth University
"To Conceive With Child Is The Earnest Desire If Not Of All, Yet Of Most Women": The Advancement Of Prenatal Care And Childbirth In Early Modern England: 1500-1770, Victoria E.C. Glover
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis analyzes medical manuals published in England between 1500 and 1770 to trace developing medical understandings and prescriptive approaches to conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. While there have been plenty of books written regarding social and religious changes in the reproductive process during the early modern era, there is a dearth of scholarly work focusing on the medical changes which took place in obstetrics over this period. Early modern England was a time of great change in the field of obstetrics as physicians incorporated newly-discovered knowledge about the male and female body, new fields and tools, and new or revived …
Quoting Shakespeare In The British Novel From Dickens To Wodehouse,
2018
Linfield College
Quoting Shakespeare In The British Novel From Dickens To Wodehouse, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
Faculty Publications
Novelists heralded as Victorian Shakespeares frequently navigated the varied nineteenth-century practices of Shakespeare quotation (in the classroom in compilation books, in stage spoofs) to construct the relationship between narrator and character, and to negotiate the dialogue between Shakespeare's voice and the voice of the novel. This chapter looks at three novelists whose practices intersect and contrast: George Eliot, who resists the Bardolatrous imputation of a Shakespearean character's wisdom to its author by distinguishing her own characters' inept Shakespeare quotations from her narrative voice; Thomas Hardy, who claims the authority of Shakespearean pastoral, regional language against the glib quotations of his …
Sacred And Profane Loves: The Renaissance Influence In C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces,
2018
Georgia Southern University
Sacred And Profane Loves: The Renaissance Influence In C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, Kevin Corr
College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations
C.S. Lewis’ last novel, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, has often been regarded as his greatest work, but just as often as his most enigmatic work. The purpose of this thesis is to unveil much of the novel’s mystery by considering the impact Renaissance literature had in shaping the novel, most notably Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Although it is well-known that Lewis was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, current scholarship on Lewis has overlooked the Renaissance influence in the author’s work, which particularly plays a vital role in Till We Have Faces. …
Daniel Defoe's Protestant Roman Catholics. Global Religion, Colonialism, And The Limits Of Toleration In The Farther Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe,
2018
DePauw University
Daniel Defoe's Protestant Roman Catholics. Global Religion, Colonialism, And The Limits Of Toleration In The Farther Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, David Alvarez
English Faculty publications
In Daniel Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), the Protestant protagonist treats Roman Catholics with a friendly tolerance, which seems at odds with his violence towards idolaters. Placing the novel within the history of secularity reveals that Crusoe can tolerate Roman Catholics because their religion is represented in Protestant terms. In his global travels, an implicit Protestantism shapes his understanding of "religion," which cannot accommodate idolaters. To promote a proper form of religion that he can tolerate, Crusoe turns to violence.
Medical Celebrity In Eighteenth-Century Britain,
2018
West Virginia University
Medical Celebrity In Eighteenth-Century Britain, Katherine Richards
Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)
Medical Celebrity in Eighteenth-Century Britain argues that the cultural mechanisms responsible for creating and sustaining celebrity culture helped create and sustain commercialized medicine in eighteenth-century Britain. I identify the process by which celebrity and medical culture impact one another as a sociocultural phenomenon that I term medical celebrity. The following chapters present four case studies of how medical celebrity impacted the development of the medical profession, the medical market, cultural representations and perceptions of health and illness, and the patient experience. I engage with the work done by scholars in contemporary and early celebrity studies to shed light on the …
Chaucer's Divided "I": Narrative Voice And Performance Dynamics In Late Fourteenth-Century English Literature,
2017
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Chaucer's Divided "I": Narrative Voice And Performance Dynamics In Late Fourteenth-Century English Literature, Isaac Mcduffie
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Throughout the twentieth century, various Chaucer scholars have worked to achieve the now-consensus opinion that Chaucer wrote his works expecting them to be both listened to within a group setting and read privately in an individual setting. These scholars have either assumed or expressly stated that the experience of listening to and reading Chaucer’s works would have been the same. This dissertation argues otherwise. I show that in the late fourteenth century, English vernacular was only starting to be understood as a written language, and this peculiar circumstance created tensions between both listening and reading modes of reception. Such tensions …
Preface To Ssl 43:2,
2017
University of South Carolina - Columbia
Preface To Ssl 43:2, Patrick G. Scott, Anthony Jarrells
Studies in Scottish Literature
Introduces the two special sections in this issue, on Scottish fiction and Burns bibliography, and briefly describes the range of other contributions, noting the wide international range of contributors.
The Crème De La Crème: Old Favourites, New-Fangled Works, And Other Fictions,
2017
University of Glasgow
The Crème De La Crème: Old Favourites, New-Fangled Works, And Other Fictions, Willy Maley
Studies in Scottish Literature
Introduces the SSL Debate, in which 18 contributors react to and add to the BBC Scotland poll on Scotland's Favourite Novel, discussing the purposes and limitations of various lists that have ranked recent Scottish fiction, and commenting briefly on the differences between this debate and the deliberations of a selection panel.
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1834),
2017
Trent University
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1834), Kathryn Chittick
Studies in Scottish Literature
Argues that Thomas Carlyle's fictional autobiography from the 1830s deserves recognition as one of the most experimental of Scottish novels and suggests some ways in which it anticipates a fictive self-consciousness often thought of as post-modern.
Venturing A Little Further: Margaret Elphinstone, The Sea Road (2000),
2017
University of South Carolina
Venturing A Little Further: Margaret Elphinstone, The Sea Road (2000), Matthew Wickman
Studies in Scottish Literature
Proposes that Margaret Elphinstone’s historical novel about Gudrid of Iceland, an eleventh-century female explorer of Greenland and North America, is "a novel for many seasons: the eleventh century, the early and late twentieth, and far into the twenty-first," judging it "one of the great Scottish novels about the unknown," and "perhaps the nation’s greatest contribution to the modern zeitgeist."
Fresh Air: Michel Faber, Under The Skin (2000) With A Comment On Trainspotting,
2017
University of South Carolina
Fresh Air: Michel Faber, Under The Skin (2000) With A Comment On Trainspotting, Tony Jarrells
Studies in Scottish Literature
Comparing Faber's treatment of the Scottish Highlands (his only novel set in Scotland) with a Highland incident in Welsh's Trainspotting, arguing that in Faber the Highlands are "not merely some representation of a romanticized past," but also "represent this present moment,... marked by the class conflicts and near political hopelessness" seen in Welsh, but also "a strong sense of beauty and an appreciation for the environment."
Matthew Fitt, But N Ben A-Go-Go (2000),
2017
University of Wyoming
Matthew Fitt, But N Ben A-Go-Go (2000), Caroline Mccracken-Flesher
Studies in Scottish Literature
Puts forward Fitt's "challenging, haunting novel," "a dystopian, coming of age, scientific-detective-police procedural-medical romance," written in "lyrical/acerbic Scots," as "thrawn, readable, un-put-down-able," and a "darkly plotted challenge to family dynamics."
Scotland’S Top Ten & The Inadequacy Of A National Canon: Alasdair Gray’S Lanark (1981),
2017
Edinburgh Napier University
Scotland’S Top Ten & The Inadequacy Of A National Canon: Alasdair Gray’S Lanark (1981), Scott Lyall
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the healthy overlap in the recent BBC Scotland poll on Scotland's Favourite Novel between popular appeal and critical recognition; judges Gray's Lanark as "Scotland's greatest modern novel," which "deserves to be much better known internationally," as "the outstanding postmodern challenge to the global conformism of capitalist hyper-individualism," laments that, despite their usefulness, such curated polls and lists are self-perpetuating, to the neglect of many distinctive Scottish novels, and concludes by asking "what would a truly uncurated top 30 look like?"
Robin Jenkins, The Thistle And The Grail (1954) With A Comment On Sunset Song,
2017
Virginia Commonwealth University
Robin Jenkins, The Thistle And The Grail (1954) With A Comment On Sunset Song, David E. Latane
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Robin Jenkins's story of a Scottish football (soccer) team, Drumsagart Thistle, and its quest to win the Scottish Junior Cup, as "a marvelous compendium of Roy of the Rovers improbabilities, Our Town ethnography, critiques of gender relations, subtle and broad satire, and laugh outloud comedy."
Eric Linklater, Private Angelo (1946),
2017
University of St Andrews
Eric Linklater, Private Angelo (1946), Gill Plain
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Linklater's novel about World War II in Italy as "a book that cherishes national difference while utterly condemning nationalism," "as much a book for 2017 as it was for 1946," and "a sharply observant satire dissecting the male vanity, national hubris and hypocrisy behind the 'logic' of war."
Willa Muir, Imagined Corners (1931),
2017
University of Aberdeen
Willa Muir, Imagined Corners (1931), Timothy C. Baker
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Muir's novel (which came in 30th in the BBC poll), set in a small Scottish town and concerned with "'the ideology of Scotland,' and questions of class, religion, sexuality, politics, and education," as "indisputably a great novel, perhaps equalled in British fiction only by To the Lighthouse, and utterly unique in the Scottish canon,"
James Robertson, The Fanatic (2000),
2017
University of Konstanz
James Robertson, The Fanatic (2000), Silvia Mergenthal
Studies in Scottish Literature
Suggests that Robertson's first novel, chiefly concerned with 17th century Scotland, already shows the complex intertextual relationships with earlier Scottish works by Scott, Hogg, and Stevenson that marks his subsequent writing, and comments particularly on its question "What happens later?," in relation to the Scottish vote for political devolution in May 1997.
James Robertson, Joseph Knight (2003),
2017
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
James Robertson, Joseph Knight (2003), Ilka Schwittlinsky
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Robertson's novel, based on the true story of the Jamaican slave who in 1778 successfully asserted his freedom in the Scottish Court of Session, and the intertwined story of John Wedderburn, the Scottish plantation owner whose slave he had been, as "an eminently enjoyable historical novel which tackles a difficult subject matter [Scotland’s complicity in slavery and the slave trade] with astonishing humanity."
Nan Shepherd, The Quarry Wood (1928),
2017
University of Edinburgh
Nan Shepherd, The Quarry Wood (1928), Carole Jones
Studies in Scottish Literature
Recommends Shepherd's novel about an independent woman in north-east Scotland as "vivid in delineating its female central character, its local language, and what is undoubtedly a radical engagement with sexual politics," that "examines closely issues of sexual identity and gender relations, and ... comes to its own thoughtful conclusions on women's place in the world."
Muriel Spark, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1961),
2017
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Muriel Spark, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), Katrin Berndt
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses Spark's well-known novel, recognizing its "curious amalgamation of acerbic humour, elegance of style, Calvinist spirit, and careful poignancy of plot development," but pointing also to "the pleasurable challenge" offered by its "charismatic" protagonist, Jean Brodie, "glamorous and romantic," "with a proud self-assurance rarely bestowed on female characters," which nonetheless "eludes everyone’s emotional grasp."
