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" Fruitful wastelands: Literature, blank spaces, and the shaping of early twentieth-century British culture "
John Matthew Tabor
M. Boscagli
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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55030
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| Doc. No
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TL24984
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| Call number
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3233008
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| Main Entry
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John Matthew Tabor
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| Title & Author
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Fruitful wastelands: Literature, blank spaces, and the shaping of early twentieth-century British culture\ John Matthew Tabor
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| College
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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| Date
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2006
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2006
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| Page No
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408
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| Abstract
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In this project, I examine ways in which early twentieth-century British subjects responded to the wastelands of the imperial map. This dissertation considers what was found in the British Empire's most unproductive expanses: expended spice colonies, deserts, glaciers, battlefields, and graveyards. I argue that these barren spaces were critically important to the formation of late-Victorian and Edwardian nationalism and masculinity---particularly during and after the Great War. Where traditional adventure fiction was set in the exotic landscapes of Africa or India---spaces from which thrilling stories of manly adventure as well as valuable commodities (diamonds, gold, ivory, silk, and spice) were derived, the writers considered in this project, while their circumstances and values may vary, all turn to the barren space to confront the devil of modernity. This project also explores how landscape and environment shape the individual's conception of self---as cognitively mapped within the hierarchies of class, gender, and history. My dissertation examines representations of wasteland space found in the narratives of J. M. Barrie, Rupert Brooke, Joseph Conrad, H. Rider Haggard, Thomas Hardy, T.E. Lawrence, Herbert Ponting, Robert Falcon Scott, Lowell Thomas, and Virginia Woolf. My exploration of wasteland space and English identity begins at the end of the Victorian era. I investigate the shift from romance to realism that occurs between 1890 and 1935---as voiced in Britain's stony places. My project interrogates writings and other materials (films, photographs, cartoons, fanzines, Michelin Guides, WWI trench maps) from and about non-places where imperial subjects do not face the fanciful backdrops of adventure but the harsh conditions of the periphery. This project emphasizes first person experiences rather than fictional encounters with the Arabian Desert, Antarctic, Western Front, or imperial gravesites.
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| Subject
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Language, literature and linguistics; Blank spaces; British; Culture; Gender; Landscape; Modernism; Twentieth century; British and Irish literature; Literature; 0593:British and Irish literature; 0298:Literature
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M. Boscagli
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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