A study of the life and works of Blaze de Bury : a counter-narrative of a transcultural woman’s involvement in nineteenth-century European politics

This thesis presents evidence of female participation in nineteenthcentury discourses on European international politics, using the case study of the writer Baroness Marie Pauline Rose Blaze de Bury (1813?–1894). It argues that examining Blaze de Bury’s life and works, specifically through a transcultural lens, reveals a political stance which strives for an inclusive European identity politics whilst preserving individual cultural difference. This thesis contributes to the expanding corpus of “forgotten” nineteenth-century texts and writers. It transcends a traditional national and gender scope by providing a counter-narrative to the discourse about women’s involvement in nineteenth-century politics, focusing on the transcultural and gender-hybrid aspects of Blaze de Bury’s European life and works. It includes findings from both primary archival research and historical contextualisation. Blaze de Bury’s texts are placed in historical literary and non-literary contexts which reveal British perceptions of the European cultural and political atmosphere. Furthermore, this thesis sets out a new impulse for the developing transcultural approach in Victorian literary studies, namely Blaze de Bury’s engagement with politics within Europe. This study of a transcultural consciousnes in Blaze de Bury’s texts offers a timely contribution to the discussion of English/British/European identity by revealing her engagement with the tension between cultural homogeneity and difference within Europe. This endeavour incorporates a historical and theoretical engagement with the transcultural concept. Particular focus lies on genre-hybridity, and intertextual translation and multilingualism. This study presents not only a writer outside of the canon but also a transcultural female writer of “unfeminine” politics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Egloff, Rachel Margaret

Contributors dc:contributor

• Pohl, Nicole
• Kontou, Tatiana

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/c54h-6y77

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:70be9ae9-a87d-498d-a091-70a8bf1ca77f:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1