Dulce Maria Loynaz' Jardin: Subversive tropological discourse

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how the tropes or figurative discourse in Loynaz’s novel, Jardín, becomes a means by which she involves the reader within a text that subverts socio-cultural conventions. Through textual analysis, it explains how the poet communicates her views of the world as a conflictive space where existence is the will to live, life being a human construction like a garden, and a woman’s decision –often frustrated by men– to seek self-realization.^ By tracing some critical studies focused on polarities allegedly present in Jardín, such as: poetry/prose, lyric poetry/novel, word/silence, life/death, character novel/space novel, civilization/barbarism, posmodernismo/vanguardismo, and femininity/feminism, this essay explores Loynaz’s esthetic and ideological codes to demonstrate how opposition can be seen in her novel as part of her arrangement of an artistic philosophy.^ This research refers to three main sources: the semiotician Umberto Eco’s notion of the text’s indeterminacy as an opera aperta, reception theory, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism. By applying these theories to the analysis of this novel, I seek to show Loynaz’s literary modus (tropological language) and ideological dictum , which correlate oppositions and transform them as a point of departure to reconsider civilized life. The poet is presented as an esthetic force that compels the reader to question some false values, by creating an implicit but intelligent dialogue between him/her and a lyrical text. To describe such literary procedure, I coin in this study the term dialirismo (dialyricism). ^ My essay is centered on the tropes through which Loynaz creates her dialyrical text. By focusing on metaphor, symbol, synecdoche, and metonymy, I examine Jardín as a convergence of the following conceptual aspects: intertextuality, primitivism, and feminist discourse. I argue that Loynaz’s novel is a creative response to the literary tradition, as well as a proposal to understand writing –and reading– as an open, interactive process in search not only of artistic values but also of critical knowledge.^ This exploration shows how the novelist faces a so-called civilized world through the eyes of her fictional character, Bárbara, who confronts patriarchal discourse. It celebrates Loynaz’s poetic representation of this inquisitive woman, in her fenced garden, as a human being who can see, above and beyond an iron curtain, the possibility to overcome an aggressive male-centered civilization.^

Akrasia and the Aesthetic: Human Agency and the Site of Literature, 1760-1820

This study focuses on a series of foundational stylistic and formal innovations in eighteenth-century and Romantic literature, and argues that they can be cumulatively attributed to the distinct challenges authors faced in representing human action and the will. The study focuses in particular on cases of “acting against better judgment” or “failing to do what one knows one ought to do” – concepts originally theorized as “akrasia” and “weakness of the will” in ancient Greek and Scholastic thought. During the Enlightenment, philosophy increasingly conceives of human minds and bodies like systems and machines, and consequently fails to address such cases except as intractable or incoherent. Yet eighteenth-century and Romantic narratives and poetry consistently engage the paradoxes and ambiguities of action and volition in representations of akrasia. As a result, literature develops representational strategies that distinguish the epistemic capacities of literature as privileged over those of philosophy.

The study begins by centering on narratives of distempered selves from the 1760s. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey narrate cases of knowingly and weakly acting against better judgment, and in so doing, reveal the limitations of the “philosophy of the passions” that famously informed sentimental literature at the time. These texts find that the interpretive difficulties of action demand a non-systematic and hermeneutic approach to interpreting a self through the genre of narrative. Rousseau’s narrative in particular informs William Godwin’s realist novels of distempered subjects. Departing from his mechanistic philosophy of mind and action, Godwin develops the technique of free indirect discourse in his third novel Fleetwood (1805) as a means of evoking the ironies and self-deceptions in how we talk about willing.

Romantic poetry employs the literary trope of weakness of will primarily through the problem of regretted inaction – a problem which I argue motivates the major poetic innovations of William Wordsworth and John Keats. While Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought to characterize his weakness of will in philosophical writing, Wordsworth turns to poetry with The Prelude (1805), revealing poetry itself to be a self-deceiving and disappointing form of procrastination. More explicitly than Wordsworth, John Keats identifies indolence as the prime symbol and basis of what he calls “negative capability.” In his letters and poems such as “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” (1817) and “Ode on Indolence” (1819), Keats reveals how the irreducibly contradictory qualities of human agency speak to the particular privilege of “disinterested aesthetics” – a genre fitted for the modern era for its ability to disclose contradictions without seeking to resolve or explain them in terms of component parts.

Spic'ing into Existence: Epitaph, Epithet, and the Ethnopoetic Imagination

Quién Es, Quién Somos? Spic’ing into Existence claims a four-fold close-reading: first, analysis of texts: from theoretical meditations to (prison) memoir and film. Second, a half dozen central figures appear, largely Latinx and black American. They cut across a score of registers, socio-economics, ideological reservations, but all are, as Carl Carlton sang, poetry in motion. Writers, poets, theologians, pathologists, artists, comedians, actors, students whose vocation is invocation, the inner surge of their calling. Third, the manuscript draws from a series of historical moments—from radical liberation of the late 60s, to contemporary student activism. Finally, this body of work is movement, in all its social, gestural, and kinesthetic viscera. From this last heading, we peel away layers of what I call the ethnopoet, the fascia undoing that reveals its bio-political anatomy, dressing its bare life with kinship speech. First, the social revolutions of the Civil Rights, Black Power, abolitionism, the Black Panthers and Young Lords, boycotts and jarring artistic performances. These events are superficial not in vain sense, but key epicenters of underground murmurings, the workings of a cunning assailant. She robs not lavish estates, but another day to breathe. Gesturally, as perhaps the interlocutor, lies this author, interspersing his own diatribes to conjure her presence. The final branch is admittedly the most intangible. Kinesthetically, we map the nimbleness, footwork lígera of what I call the ethnopoet. Ethnopoet is no mere aggregate of ethnicity and poetry, but like chemical reaction, the descriptor for its behavior under certain pressures, temperatures, and elements. Elusive and resisting confinement, and therefore definition, the ethnopoet is a shapeshifting figure of how racialized bodies [people of color] respond to hegemonic powers. She is, at bottom, however, a native translator, the plural-lensed subject whose loyalty is only to the imagination of a different world, one whose survival is not contingent upon her exploitation. The native translator’s constant re-calibrations of oppressive power apparatuses seem taxing at best, and near-impossible, at worst. To effectively navigate through these polarized loci, she must identify ideologies that in turn seek “affective liberatory sances” in relation to the dominant social order (43). In a kind of performative contradiction, she must marshall the knowledge necessary to “break with ideology” while speaking within it. Chicana Studies scholar, Chela Sandoval, describes this dual movement as “meta-ideologizing”: the appropriation of hegemonic ideological forms in order to transform them (82). Nuestros padres se subieron encima de La Bestia, y por eso somos pasageros a ese tren. Y ya, dentro su pansa, tenemos que ser vigilantes cuando plantamos las bombas. In Methodology of the Oppressed, Sandoval schematizes this oppositional consciousness around five principle categories: “equal rights,” “revolutionary,” “supremacist,” “separatist,” and “differential.” Taken by themselves, the first four modes appear mutually exclusive, incapable of occupying the same plane, until a fifth pillar emerges. Cinematographic in nature, differential consciousness, as Sandoval defines it, is “a kinetic motion that maneuvers, poetically transfigures, and orchestrates while demanding alienation, perversion, and reformation in both spectators and practitioners” (44). For Sandoval, then, differential consciousness is a methodology that privileges an incredible sense mobility, one reaching artistic sensibilities. Our fourth and final analytic of movement serves an apt example of this dual meaning. Lexically speaking, ‘movement’ may be regarded as a political mobilization of aggrieved populations (through sustained efforts), or the process of moving objects (people or otherwise) from one location to another. Praxis-wise, it is both action and ideal, content and form. Thus, an ethnic poetics must be regarded less as a series of stanzas, shortened lyric, or even arrangement of language, but as a lens through which peripheralized peoples kaleidecope ideological positions in an “original, eccentric, and queer sight” (43). Taking note of the advantages of postponing identifications, the thesis stands its ground on the term ethnopoet. Its abstraction is not dewey-eyed philosophy, but an anticipation of poetic justice, of what’s to come from callused hands. This thesis is divided into 7.5 chapters. The first maps out the ethnopoet’s cartographies of struggle. By revisiting that alleged Tío Tomas, Richard Rodriguez, we unearth the tensions that negatively, deny citizenship to one silo, but on the flipside, engender manifold ways of seeing, hearing, and moving . The second, through George Jackson’s prison memoirs, pans out from this ethnography of power, groping for an apparatus that feigns an impervious prestige: ‘the aesthetic regime of coercion.’ In half-way cut, the thesis sidesteps to spic into existence, formally announcing, through Aime Cesaire, myself, and Pedro Pietri, the poeticization of trauma. Such uplift denies New Age transcendence of self, but a rehearsal of our entrapment in these mortal envelopes. Thirdly, conscious of the bleeding ethnic body, we cut open the incipient corpse to observe her pathologist. Her native autopsies offer the ethnic body’s posthumous recognition, the ethnopoetics ability to speak for and through the dead. Chapter five examines prolific black artists—Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar—to elide the circumvention of their consumption via invoking radical black hi/her-stories, ones fragmenting the black body. Sixth, the paper compares the Black Power Salute of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to Duke’s Mi Gente Boycott of their Latino Student Recruitment Weekend. Both wielded “silent gestures,” that shrewdly interfered with white noise of numbed negligence. Finally, ‘taking the mask off’ that are her functionalities, the CODA expounds on ethnopoet’s interiority, particularly after the rapid re-calibration of her politics. Through a rerun of El Chavo del Ocho, one of Mexican television’s most cherished shows, we tune into the heart-breaking indigence of barrio residents, only to marvel at the power of humor to, as Friday’s John Witherspoon put it, “fight another day.” This thesis is the tip of my tongue. Y por una vez, déjala que cante.

The magical transformation contest in the ancient storytelling tradition

El concurso de transformación mágica, esquema narrativo difundido en la tradición popular, se presenta en dos variantes principales: los hechiceros que compiten pueden metamorfosearse en varios seres o crear esos seres por medios mágicos. En cualquier caso el concursante ganador da a luz criaturas más fuertes que superan las de su oponente. La segunda variante fue preferida en el antiguo Cercano Oriente (Sumeria, Egipto, Israel). La primera se puede encontrar en algunos mitos griegos sobre cambiadores de forma (por ejemplo, Zeus y Némesis). El mismo esquema narrativo puede haber influido en un episodio de la Novela de Alejandro (1.36-38), en el que Darío envía regalos simbólicos a Alejandro y los dos monarcas enemigos ofrecen contrastantes explicaciones de ellos. Esta historia griega racionaliza el concurso de cuento de hadas, transfiriendo las fantásticas hazañas de creaciones milagrosas a un plano secundario pero realista de metáfora lingüística.

Algunas consideraciones acerca de la presencia de Homero en la obra de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno fue un constante lector de poesía épica, en la que Homero siempre tuvo un lugar preferente, y no solo por motivos profesionales. A lo largo de su obra, tanto en prosa como en verso, pueden rastrearse distintas y a veces contradictorias referencias a la Ilíada y la Odisea sobre las que hizo profundas reflexiones, intentando siempre ajustarlas a su propia visión de la vida y de la muerte. Desde esta perspectiva se acerca a escenarios como el ‘prado de asfódelos’, o, a partir del símil homérico, al ‘sucederse de las generaciones de las hojas y de los hombres’, o a figuras míticas como las Sirenas, Helena, Tántalo, Sísifo y Ulises.

MEN WRITING WOMEN: “THE WOMAN QUESTION” AND MALE DISCOURSE OF IRANIAN MODERNITY"

In this dissertation I explore “The Woman Question” in the discourse of Iranian male authors. A pro-modernity group, they placed women’s issues at the heart of their discourse. This dissertation follows the trajectory of the representation of “The Woman Question” as it is reflected in the male discourse over the course of a century. It discusses the production of a literature that was anchored in the idea of reform and concerned itself with issues pertaining to women. These men challenged lifelong patriarchal notions such as veiling, polygamy, gender segregation, and arranged marriages, as well as traditional roles of women and gender relations. This study is defined under the rubrics of “The Woman Question” and “The New Woman,” which I have borrowed from the Victorian and Edwardian debates of similar issues as they provide clearer delineations. Drawing upon debates on sexuality, and gender, this dissertation illustrates the way these men championed women was both progressive and regressive. This study argues that the desire for women’s liberation was couched in male ideology of gender relations. It further illustrates that the advancement of “The Woman Question,” due to its continuous and yet gradual shifting concurrent with each author’s nuanced perception of women’s issues, went through discernible stages that I refer to as observation, causation, remedy, and confusion. The analytical framework for this project is anchored in the “why” and the “how” of the Iranian male authors’ writings on women in addition to “what” was written. This dissertation examines four narrative texts—two in prose and two in poetry—entitled: “Lankaran’s Vizier,” “The Black Shroud,” “‘Arefnameh,” and “Fetneh” written respectively by Akhundzadeh, ‘Eshqi, Iraj Mirza, and Dashti. Chapter one outlines the historical background, methodology, theoretical framework, and literature review. The following chapters examine, the advocacy for companionate marriage and romantic love, women and nationalistic cause, veiling and unveiling, and the emerging figure of the New Iranian Woman as morally depraved.

The subjunctive mood in Late Middle English adverbial clauses: the interaction of form and function

This thesis focuses on the history of the inflexional subjunctive and its functional substitutes in Late Middle English. To explore why and how the inflexional subjunctive declined in the history of English language, I analysed 2653 examples of three adverbial clauses introduced by if (1882 examples), though (305 examples) and lest (466 examples). Using a corpus-based approach, this thesis argues that linguistic change in subjunctive constructions did not happen suddenly but rather gradually, and the way it changed was varied , and that different constructions changed at different speeds in different environments. It is well known that the inflexional subjunctive declined in the history of English, mainly because of inflexional loss. Strangely however this topic has been comparatively neglected in the scholarly literature, especially with regard to the Middle English period, probably due to the limitations of data and also because study of this development requires very cumbersome textual research. This thesis has derived and analysed the data from three large corpora in the public domain: the Middle English Grammar Corpus (MEG-C for short), the Innsbruck Computer Archive of Machine-Readable English Texts (ICAMET for short), and some selected texts from The Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, part of the Middle English Compendium that also includes the Middle English Dictionary. The data were analysed from three perspectives: 1) clausal type, 2) dialect, and 3) textual genre. The basic methodology for the research was to analyse the examples one by one, with special attention being paid to the peculiarities of each text. In addition, this thesis draw on some complementary – indeed overlapping -- linguistic theories for further discussion: 1) Biber’s multi-dimensional theory, 2) Ogura and Wang’s (1994) S-curve or ‘diffusion’ theory, 3) Kretzchmar’s (2009) linguistics of speech, and 4) Halliday’s (1987) notion of language as a dynamic open system. To summarise the outcomes of this thesis: 1) On variation between clausal types, it was shown that the distributional tendencies of verb types (sub, ind, mod) are different between the three adverbial clauses under consideration. 2) On variation between dialects, it has been shown that the northern area, i.e. the so-called Great Scandinavian Belt, displays an especially high comparative ratio of the inflexional subjunctive construction compared to the other areas. This thesis suggests that this result was caused by the influence of Norse, relating the finding to the argument of Samuels (1989) that the present tense -es ending in the northern dialect was introduced by the influence of the Scandinavians. 3) On variation between genres, those labelled Science, Documents and Religion display relatively high ratio of the inflexional subjunctive, while Letter, Romance and History show relatively low ratio of the inflexional subjunctive. This results are explained by Biber’s multi-dimensional theory, which shows that the inflexional subjunctive can be related to the factors ‘informational’, ‘non-narrative’, ‘persuasive’ and ‘abstract’. 4) Lastly, on the inflexional subjunctive in Late Middle English, this thesis concludes that 1) the change did not happen suddenly but gradually, and 2) the way language changes varies. Thus the inflexional subjunctive did not disappear suddenly from England, and there was a time lag among the clausal types, dialects and genres, which can be related to Ogura and Wang’s S-curve (“diffusion”) theory and Kretzchmars’s view of “linguistic continuum”. This thesis has shown that the issues with regard to the inflexional subjunctive are quite complex, so that research in this area requires not only textual analysis but also theoretical analysis, considering both intra- and extra- linguistic factors.

Grimorio: a tradução nos limites de "prosa"

This article aims at discussing the translation of the word grimoire, central in Mallarme's conception of language, in a poem called 'Prose' and its four translations into Portuguese. To do so, it will be necessary, in the first place, to have a closer look at this word and its meanings in Mallarme's work and discuss, in a following step, the choices in translation.

Cognitive training increases platelet PLA(2) activity in healthy elderly subjects

Phospholipases A(2) (PLA(2)) are ubiquitous enzymes involved in membrane fatty acid metabolism and intracellular signalling. Recent studies have shown that PLA(2) subtypes are implicated in the modulation of pathways related to memory acquisition and retrieval. We investigated the effects of cognitive training on platelet PLA(2) activity in healthy elderly individuals. Twenty-three cognitively unimpaired older adults were randomly assigned to receive memory training or standard outpatient care only. Both groups were cognitively assessed by the same protocol, and the experimental group (EG) underwent a four-session memory training intervention. Pre- and post-test measures included prose and list recall, WAIS-III digit symbol, strategy use measures and platelet PLA(2) group activity. After cognitive training, patients in the EG group had significant increase in cytosolic, calcium-dependent PLA(2) (cPLA(2)), extracellular (or secreted), calcium-dependent PLA(2) (sPLA(2)), total platelet PLA(2) activity, and significant decrease in platelet calcium-independent PLA(2) (iPLA(2)) activity. Our results suggest that memory training may have a modulating effect in PLA(2)-mediated biological systems associated with cognitive functions and neurodegenerative diseases. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

O sentido de ser professor de Educação Física pelos “modos de ser sendo junto ao outro no mundo” perverso- fascista e democrático: a vivência real & no filme “Má Educação”

Quais são os “modos de ser sendo junto ao outro no mundo” professores de Educação Física da Prefeitura Municipal da Serra, ES, situados no que se denomina “real” e do professor de Educação Física padre José no filme “Má Educação” de Pedro Almodóvar situado no que se denomina “ficcional”? Que contribuições reflexivas podem trazer tais dados (analisados hermeneuticamente) para a Formação Continuada de professores de Educação Física [3]? OBJETIVO: Descrever os “modos de ser sendo junto ao outro no mundo” de [1] professores de Educação Física que trabalham em escolas públicas da Prefeitura Municipal da Serra, ES & do [2] padre José, personagem ficcional, professor de Educação Física no filme espanhol de 2004 “Má Educação” fazendo-o primeiramente através de uma pesquisa clássica (descritiva e hermenêutica) e depois uma literaturalizada e artística (hermenêutica). MARCO TEÓRICO: Trata-se de uma proposta discursiva (teórica) fenomenológica existencial de tendência marxista criada por Pinel; METODOLOGIA: Tratou-se de uma pesquisa fenomenológica existencial seguindo recomendações de Forghieri (2001) e Pinel (2006; 2012) - dentre outros. Os 29 professores de Educação Física foram provocados a mostrarem os seus “modos de ser sendo junto ao outro no mundo” do ofício professor de Educação Física. Depois essa mesma provocação foi feita ao personagem do filme. RESULTADOS & DISCUSSÃO: Descreveram-se [1] os “modos de ser sendo junto ao outro no mundo” dos professores de Educação Física na dimensão do real e do ficcional (cinema), e não se objetivou comparação por mais que isso tenha ficado evidente. Esses professores, em 2011/2012, experienciando uma democracia (im)perfeita brasileira [que tem até tendências neofascistas], mais ainda assim democracia - foram compreendidos sempre tomando um norte/ rumo/ direção em subjetivação pelos Guias de Sentido (GS – Pinel) democráticos reconhecimento [demanda do grupo em ser valorizado, reconhecido], em (im) potência [impotência e potencia possível de vir a lume sempre; a força e seu outro lado, a fragilidade de ser], afetando [o que se pratica e pensa/sente afeta a si mesmo, o outro e o mundo; o afetar produz mais subjetivações], sonhando [há demanda sempre de realizar projetos de vida; o projeto de ser sempre devir, em construção sempre; é uma precisão imprecisa], saudavelmente insano [o quão perto pode estar a experienciar a sanidade e a loucura e o quanto uma loucura é sã, pois criativa, inventiva, produtiva, opositora ao estabelecido] – eles mesmos junto ao outro no mundo tornando-se sujeitos. [2] Já o professor de Educação Física padre José da película almodovariana é um professor que de imediato pode ser apreendido como sólido e fixo na sua perversão fascista, ele como parte legitimadora do Estado espanhol de Franco, na década de 60, provavelmente em 1964, que é, na ficção, o espaço-tempo de José e suas ações pedagógicas e psicológicas (e de Educação Física). Mas não é apenas o fascismo que torna o fascista um criador de um cotidiano fascista, pois afinal, paralelamente a ele, no concreto e na ficção, haviam pessoas generosas, resistentes e resilientes que atuavam contra essas pressões quase na maioria das vezes advindas do todo (Estado) – eram pessoas democráticas individualmente e em pequenos e grandes grupos; eram exemplo de resistência contra o estabelecido pela ideologia dominante de então. José numa instituição fascista não conseguiu refletir e agir diferentemente, isto é, com mais saúde mental, escolhendo (na liberdade) ser fascista, ser menor (pouco) – optou não ser-mais. Finalmente os mesmos dados são apresentados em outra estética possível e sempre aberta, inconclusa, devir... As artes e a poesia (bem como a literatura) procuram cuidadosamente desvelar os “modos de ser junto ao outro no mundo” professor de Educação Física do mundo real e do imaginário (fílmico) desvelando muitas vezes indissociados. PÓSCRITO: O autor descreve as possíveis implicações do seu estudo para educação física pautado sempre em uma proposta de criar um discursso insubmisso focando na ideia de que uma pesquisa demanda narrar a vida, e literaturalizar a ciência.

Tradução e poesia: actividades irreconciliáveis?

Associar tradução e poesia será, muitas vezes, sinónimo de enfrentar preconceitos académicos e científicos muito enraizados na cultura ocidental. Se, por um lado, a tradução é vista como indispensável à troca de informações entre códigos linguísticos diferentes e até mesmo como a possibilitadora de avanços científicos e tecnológicos decorrentes do contacto com outras realidades economicamente mais evoluídas, a verdade é que o seu papel enquanto “ponte” cultural está longe de ser aceite universalmente quando em causa passam a estar os “tesouros literários” de uma cultura nacional. Este carácter polémico levou-me a ponderar a hipótese de analisar, de um ponto de vista eminentemente prático, quatro traduções dissemelhantes, de épocas também distintas, do poema The Tyger, de William Blake. Ter ao dispor quatro traduções de quatro tradutores diferentes tornou possível a compilação de um corpus mais alargado e diversificado onde basear conclusões reais para os problemas de tradução de poesia, devidamente contextualizados.

1600-luvun proosan ja runokielen potentiaaleja

Summary: Potentials in 17th century prose and verse

La retorica delle sarabandes : ricerca retorica nelle prime tre sarabandes delle Sechs Partiten für klavier di J. S. Bach

La presente tesi di ricerca si propone di studiare la danza della sarabanda come capolavoro di musica, retorica e poesia in tre delle Sechs Partiten für klavier di J. S. Bach (BWV 825-830). Lo studio svolto è fondamentalmente di tipo retorico: permette di individuare e interpretare la struttura oratorialepoetica del discorso letterario-musicale nelle tre danze scelte e di imarcarne i suoi aspetti più salienti di ritmica e ornatus. L’approccio permette di osservare, con uno sguardo di comparazione, la presenza di un percorso retorico comune alle tre sarabande, che evolve con gradualità, differenziandole nettamente: ciò riesce a valorizzare a pieno la danza nella sua forza ed efficacia espressiva, che la rende di fatto il movimento di massima commozione di ogni Partita.

Christina Rossetti's "Goblin market" : Milton revised or revived?

The present study examines Christina Rossetti's (1830-94) best-known poem "Goblin Market" (1859) as a response to John Milton's (1608-74) Paradise Lost (1667) and Paradise Regained (1674). Rossetti's poem relates to Milton's twin epics with a surprising degree of complexity, something that the thesis demonstrates through a large number of hitherto unexplored textual parallels. In its recontextualisation of Rossetti's poetry, this study balances interpretative strategies evolved by feminism with more historicist readings. SinceGilbert and Gubar's landmark feminist work of 1979, it has become something of a critical commonplace that Milton was a figure of patriarchal oppression whom women writers have challenged through revision. As a consequence, intertextual Rossetti studies have tended to emphasise such a revisionist element in her achievement. But if we place "Goblin Market" within the larger context of Rossetti's thoughts on religion and poetry throughout her writing, and if we de-emphasise the dichotomy between Rossetti and her male precursor, alternative patterns of reading begin to emerge. This thesis argues that Rossetti's aim was not only to revise Milton but also to revive him. It develops this point in several ways: first, by introducing the subject and theoretically arguing that literary allusiveness is not necessarily a matter of oedipal or feminist envy only (Chapter One); second, by determining the nature and extent of Rossetti's Miltonic allusions in terms of theme, imagery and language (Chapter Two);and third, by examining their function in terms of argument (Chapters Three andFour). I n an age of increasing religious doubt, Rossetti's poetry provided a subtle challenge not so much to Milton as to the emerging scepticism and aestheticism in Victorian society and its art-world, and not least to the secular tendencies of the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Christina Rossetti was ahead of her time (and perhaps ours) in seeing the feminist potential in both John Milton and the Christian message. In the soul's relation to Christ, gender does not matter. What matters is the individual's quest for salvation, a quest in which poetry is a sacramental act, with a transformative, unifying function. Rossetti's poems both depict and constitute such a quest for union with God, on the assumption that God's word offers a pathway that is open to men as well as women.

Women’s Literary Club of St. Catharines Fonds

The Women's Literary Club of St. Catharines was founded in 1892 by a local author, Emma Harvey (Mrs. J.G.) Currie (1829-1913) and held its last official meeting on February 19, 1994. The Club developed, flourished and eventually waned. After more than one hundred successful years, the last members deposited the Club's archives at Brock University for the benefit of researchers, scholars and the larger community. The ‘object of the Club’ was established as “the promotion of literary pursuits.” The Club was a non-profit social organization composed of predominantly white, upper middle class women from the St. Catharines and surrounding areas. Club meetings were traditionally held fortnightly from March to December each year. The last meeting of the year was a celebration of their Club anniversary. The early meetings of the Club include papers presented and music performed by Club members. The literary pursuits that would dominate the agendas for the entire life of the Club reflected an interest in selected authors, national and local history, classical history, musical performances and current cultural and newsworthy events. For example in 1893 a typical meeting agendas would contain papers on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hawaii, Brook Farm, Miss Louisa May Alcott and “Education of Women 100 years Ago.” Within the first year of the Club’s existence, detailed minute books became the norm and an annual agenda or program developed. The WLC collection contains a near complete set of meeting minutes from 1892 until 1995 and a comprehensive collection of yearly programs from 1983-1967 which members took great care to publish each year. Mrs. Currie brought together a group of women with a shared interest in literature and history, who wanted to pursue that interest in a formal and structured manner. She was well educated and influenced at an early age by her tutor and mentor William Kirby, local historian, writer and newspaper editor from Niagara-on-the-Lake. While Currie’s private education influenced her love of literature and history, the Club movement of the 1890’s offered a more public forum for her to share knowledge and learning with other women. Mrs. Currie was the wife of St. Catharines lawyer, James G. Currie, who also served as a Member of Parliament for the county of Lincoln. Mrs. W.H. McClive, who was also married to a St. Catharines lawyer, worked closely with Currie and they began research into the possibility of a literary Club in St. Catharines. Currie corresponded with a variety of literary Clubs across North America before she and Mrs.McClive tagged onto the momentum of the Club movement and published “A Clarion call for Women of St. Catharines To Form a Literary Club” in the local paper The St. Catharines Evening Journal. in 1892 and asked like Clubs to publish the news of their new Club. The early years of the WLC set the foundation of how the Club meetings and events would unfold for the next 80 plus years. Photos and minutes from the first ten years reveal an excitement and interest in organized Club outings. One particular event, an annual pilgrimage to the homestead of Laura Secord, became a yearly celebration for the Club. Club President, Mrs. Currie’s own personal work on Laura Secord amplified the Club’s interest in the ‘heroine of 1812’ and she allocated the profits from her publication on Secord in order to create a commemorative plaque/monument in the name of Laura Secord. The Club celebrated this event with a regular pilgrimage to this site. The connection felt by Club members and this memorial would continue until the Club’s last meetings. The majority of members in the early years were of the upper middle classes in the growing city of St. Catharines. Many of the charter members were the wives of merchants, business men, lawyers, doctors, even a hatter. Furthermore, the position of president was most often held by a woman with a comprehensive list of interests. This is particularly the case in Isabel Brighty McComb (1876-1941). Brighty who became a member in 1903, became Club president in 1932 and stayed in her post until her death in 1941. Similar to Mrs. Currie, Brighty was a local historian and published 2 booklets on local history. Her obituary indicates her position in the community as an author and involved community member committed to lifetime memberships in the Imperial Order of Daughters of Empire, I.O.D.E., the National Organization of Women, N.O.W. and the United Empire Loyalist Society, as well as the WLC. She was a locally known ‘teacher of elocution’ and a devoted researcher of Upper Canadian history. In a Club scrapbook dedicated to her, the biographical sketch illustrates the professionalism surrounding Brighty. There is very little personal history mentioned and the focus is on her literary works, her published essay, booklets and poetry. This professional focus, evident in both her obituary and the scrapbook, illustrate the diversity of these women, especially in their roles outside of the home. The WLC collection contains a vast array of essay, lectures clippings and scrapbooks from past meetings. Organized predominantly by topic or author, the folders and scrapbooks offer a substantial amount of research opportunity in the literary history of Canada. The dates, scope of topics and authors covered offer historians an exciting opportunity to examine the consumption of particular literary trends, artists and topics within the context of a midsized industrial city in English Canada. This is especially important because the agenda adhered to by the Club was bent on promoting, discussing and reviewing predominantly Canadian material. By connecting when and what these women were studying, scholars many gain a better understanding of the broader consumption and appreciation of literary and social trends of Canadian women outside of publishing and institutional records. Furthermore, because the agendas were set by and for these women, outside of the constructs of an institutionalized canon or agenda, they offer a fresh and on the ground examination of literary consumption over an extensive length of time.