Department of English

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Collections in Department of English

Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies [2]
Centre for Research on National Identity [0]
English [76]
Linguistics Programme [30]

Recent Deposits

From subject to device, history as myth in action : the evolution of event from mythic processes as revealed in Waterfront Dispute fiction

Matthewson, Claire C. (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 1986)

This analysis of selected New Zealand works defends the evolving function of history as fiction-material. It is intended to establish that purpose and treatment alter, as time further separates the writing and the event. ...
Esprit de corps[e]: Joyce, Ulysses, and the Body

Lesser, Jared (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2017)

Throughout his writing James Joyce fashions a sweeping display of corporeal realities shaped by contemporary social, economic, and political conditions. In examining bodies framed by such tropes as impoverishment, addiction ...
John Evelyn (1620-1706) An Inventory of Works, Special Collections, University of Otago

Smith, Romilly (Working Paper, 2016)

John Evelyn was born in Wotton, Surrey in October 1620. He lived in tumultuous times – the execution of Charles I, the ascension of Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum, and the Restoration of King Charles II, of whose ...
Of Beauty and Its Other: Janet Frame's Ethical Aesthetics

Hume, Samuel (Thesis, Master of Arts, 2016)

In this thesis, I argue that Janet Frame's experimental aesthetics are the manifestation of an ethical impulse that runs throughout her oeuvre. In making such an argument, I contribute to the recent scholarship that places ...
The Monstrous Mother and the 'natural man': Mythic Figures and Recurring Metaphors in the Plays of James K. Baxter

Matthews, Sharon (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016)

Previous critical commentary has considered the plays of James K. Baxter to be predominantly a re-working of his social criticism in a different medium. In this study, I argue that a reassessment of Baxter’s plays using a ...
T. S. Eliot, 'Four quartets' and the mediaeval mind

Sinclair, John (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 1987)

The subject of this study is the tradition which gives meaning to T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Eliot insisted that the significance of a literary work is determined by its relationship with the works which have preceded it. ...
“Never mistake a civic pageant for King Lear” – Child Actors’ Skill in Elizabethan Civic Entertainments

Norrie, Aidan (Thesis, Master of Arts, 2016)

This thesis argues that child actors played an important role in the political theatre of Queen Elizabeth I’s civic entertainments because of their function as inherently innocent symbols of the future. Functioning in this ...
Scripted Spaces: The Geopoetics of the Newspaper from Tret'iakov to Prigov

Edmond, Jacob (Journal Article, Slavic Review, 2016)

This essay examines Sergei Tret’iakov’s and Dmitrii Prigov’s turn to the newspaper in their search for a symbolic form adequate to the geopolitical fl ux at the beginning and endpoints of Soviet history. Fusing the epic ...
The Effeminate Prodigal

Real, Julian (Thesis, Master of Arts, 2016)

This thesis proposes the existence of a stereotypical character in early modern drama that, having failed to mature, is defined by effeminate, immature, and prodigal behaviour. The figure, labelled the Effeminate Prodigal, ...
An exploration of ESL learners' emergent beliefs about academic group work and peer review at a New Zealand university

Hislop, Jane Louise (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016)

This qualitative study explored ESL learners’ emergent beliefs about academic group work and peer review at a New Zealand university. The thesis focuses on learners’ beliefs about the factors that are necessary for successful ...
Samuel Beckett and the Emergence of the Nominalist Ethic

Phillips, Holly Louise (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016)

In this thesis, I argue that Samuel Beckett’s 1932 encounter with late-medieval Nominalism in Wilhelm Windelband’s History of Philosophy (1901) was a decisive factor in the emergence of his mature aesthetic. Beckett’s early ...
Intercultural Communicative Language Teaching: Enhancing awareness and practice through cultural portfolio projects

Oranje, Joanne Maree (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016)

Recommended in language education curricula around the world, intercultural communicative language teaching (ICLT) is also promoted by the New Zealand Ministry of Education for teaching and learning languages at secondary ...
Bloom's Situated Mind in James Joyce's Ulysses: Decoding Character in a Social Storyworld

Haggart, Kerri Marie (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016)

This thesis uses a theoretical framework derived from recent research in cognitive science to analyse human action and interaction as portrayed by literary character in Ulysses. Accordingly, it is interested in the narrative ...
Greek myth in four plays by James K. Baxter

Lawson, Donald W. (Thesis, Master of Arts, 1974)

This thesis examines four plays by James K. Baxter: The Sore-footed Man, The Bureaucrat, and Mr. O' Dwyer's Dancing Party, all first produced in 1967 and early 1968, and Temptations of Oedipus, first produced in 1970. Each ...
Patterns of judgement : the rhetoric of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.

Hay, Ronald J (Thesis, Master of literature in English, 1972)

This study seeks to achieve a fresh perspective on these two major Victorian novelists by following up in a detailed and systematic analysis of some of their works the rhetorical approach to literature established by such ...
Being-in-Light at the Early Modern and Reconstructed Theatres

Vallelly, Neil (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015)

Being-in-Light explores how people experienced light in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and to what extent these experiences impacted upon theatrical experience and practice in the period. Furthermore, it considers ...
The Relationships Among Learning Styles, Learning Strategy Use, and English Proficiency of Chinese EFL University Students: A Mixed Methods Study

Zhang, Juan (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015)

This study investigates the multi-dimensional learning style preferences, learning strategy use, and English proficiency of Chinese EFL students studying at a university in the north-eastern part of China, with a focus on ...
“Dirt, And Spit, And Poetry”: The Changing Shape Of Kathleen Jamie’s Writing

Paterson, Sarah (Thesis, Master of Arts, 2015)

Scottish poet, Kathleen Jamie, published her first collection of poetry in 1982 and over the past three decades her work has observed and explored a transitory phase in Scottish constitutional politics. This thesis examines ...
'Neither here nor there, and therefore home': A Poetics of Migration in Contemporary Irish Poetry

McDaid, Ailbhe (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015)

This thesis proposes a reading of the migration impulse in contemporary Irish poetry, arguing for a distinctive nexus of memory and an ethic of reinvention. It sets out how contemporary poets reinvent inherited tropes of ...
Maisin: A grammatical description of an oceanic language in Papua New Guinea

Frampton, Joanna (Thesis, Master of Arts, 2015)

Maisin: a grammatical description of an Oceanic language in PNG is a descriptive study of the Maisin language, spoken in Collingwood Bay, on the north coast of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, with particular treatment of ...