The dark circus : an examination of the work of Mervyn Peake, with reference to selected prose and verse

I have attempted in this dissertation to draw together a number of strands that make up the intricate and often bizarre tapestry of Mervyn Peake's work. In the Introduction, I raise an issue that seems to be most central to his vision: the relationship of the artist to worlds both real and imaginary, and the way in which these two worlds relate to each other. In Chapter One, I attempt to examine the multi-faceted nature of Peake's talent. Drawn to all the variety of life, expressing his perception of that variety in many different ways, he tries to come to terms with both the aching beauty and tenderness of the world and its horror and ugliness, often, indeed, revealing beauty in that ugliness. The chapter deals, then, with the poetry, both the joyful and the tormented, with the Nonsense world which informs so much of Peake's vision, and with the need to balance the contrary forces of life which he often reveals so tellingly. Chapter Two brings us to the heart of his vision in Titus Groan. In this chapter I deal with the nature of fantasy and its relation to other modes of opening out the real so that its richness may be revealed: ranance, the marvellous,Gothic. I then examine these in terms of the mythic world that is Gorrnenghast, paying particular attention to ritual and the ways in which the characters in the novel respond to their world, often through escape into private worlds and secret rituals. Peake's use of the grotesque is examined in relation to whether characters are able to grow through their private rituals. The mythic world is again important in Gorrnenghast but here we find a tension between Titus who is at once a part of and apart from his environment, and the Castle which is at once oppressive and nurturing. The ambivalence of attitude that Titus experiences offers a focus for the conflict experienced by the other characters in response to the Castle. Titus is seen to be torn between his role as epic hero of his society and as romantic hero, true to his own impulses. Consequently, the movement towards an assimilation of outer and inner worlds is of vital importance and throughout one is aware that Peake, too, is trying to achieve this assimilation. Having vindicated himself as epic hero of the sheltering canmunity, Titus grows out of the mythic stillness of Gormenghast and in Titus Alone, .we see him confronted by a dystopic world bound to linear time. It is in this deracinated world that Titus learns the value of the Mother that is Gormenghast. He realises that it has given him a set of values that he may bear inside him, that informs and beautifies the world. The parallel between Titus's experience of myth and Peake's experience of imagination is clear, as both put their worlds to the test - the one by physical separation, the other by courageous self-travesty

REPRESENTATIONS OF DESIRE AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S WRITING AND FILM-MAKING.

PhDFollowing the publication of Simone de Beauvoir's influential book, The Second Sex, (1949), many feminist critics in Europe and North America have discussed the problems facing women artists and critics of working within phallocentric and phallo-symbolic culture and language. Simone de Beauvoir was the first to demonstrate how male-dominated culture has used symbolic language in order to exclude, repress, and objectify women. Language is one of the key mechanisms employed in phallocentric culture to define and construct reality and gender identity according to male experience and desire. Feminist critics writing since the 1950s,. have been examining the ways in which women might find or develop a language through which they can express their own experience of reality, gender identity, sexual desire and pleasure. Many contemporary women writers and film-makers have appropriated the representations of female desire and sexuality that pervade male-dominated western culture, deconstructing and subverting them in order to create innovative and challenging representations of their own. They refer to, and draw upon, the traditional imagery and conventions of classic Hollywood cinema, using such references to serve their own ends and create their own meanings. They have also radically deconstructed and reappropriated stereotypical pornographic images, exploring the possibility of creating a female-oriented, woman-centred, non-misogynous erotica. Women working in the fields of literature and film are attempting to explore and develop alternative representations of female desire and gender identities, experimenting with new vocabularies of representation in order to explore women's perceptions of their multiple identities and their experience of themselves as desiring subjects. They have taken some of the most negative representations of women constructed by phallocentric culture, and reappropriated them in order to create innovative, alternative forms of representation and a radical critique of the social construction of "femininity" and gender identity

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 5: Periodical Articles--Secondary References, Alphabetical Listing

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. Volume 5 includes "passing" or "secondary" references, i.e. those entries that are passing in nature or contain very brief information or content

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 9: All Formats—Combined Alphabetical Listing

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. This volume contains all listings in all formats, arranged alphabetically by author or main entry. In other words, it combines the listings from Volume 1 (Monograph and Serial Titles), Volume 3 (Periodical Articles), and Volume 7 (Audio/Visual Materials) into a comprehensive bibliography. (There may be additional materials included in this list, e.g. duplicate items and items not yet fully edited.) As in the other volumes, coverage of this material begins around 1994, the final year covered by De Waal's bibliography, but may not yet be totally up-to-date (given the ongoing nature of this bibliography). It is hoped that other titles will be added at a later date. At present, this bibliography includes 12,594 items

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 6: Periodical Articles, Subject Listing, By De Waal Category

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. Volume 6 presents the periodical literature arranged by subject categories (as originally devised for the De Waal bibliography and slightly modified here)