Forms of the Chronotope  
              in Fin-de-Siècle British Women’s Poetry 
                                   
                                   
                                   
                                   
                 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of  
                            Doctor of Philosophy  
                           in the Faculty of Humanities 
                                   
                                   
                                   
                                2019 
                             Julie Casanova 
                     School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 
                                   
                                   
                                                                        Table of Contents 
                                
                               Table of Figures...................................................................................................................... 4 
                               Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 5 
                               Declaration and Copyright Statement ................................................................................. 6 
                               Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 7 
                               INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 9 
                                  1.    The Poetic Chronotope in Context ............................................................................ 15 
                                     1.1     Current Research on the Chronotope: Generic versus Cognitive ............... 15 
                                     1.2     The Chronotope in Feminist and Gender Studies: 1980s Onwards ............ 18 
                                     1.3     Bakhtin’s Chronotope and Poetry: Tensions, Adaptation, Application ..... 20 
                                  2.    Chronotopes, Women’s Poetry and the Fin-de-Siècle .............................................. 24 
                                     2.1     The Fin-de-Siècle as a Chronotope ................................................................. 24 
                                     2.2     Hegemonic Narratives at the End of the Century ......................................... 27 
                                     2.3     Mapping the Fin-de-Siècle: Women’s Poetry & the Pitfalls of Liminality . 30 
                                     2.4     Micro-mapping the Fin-de-Siècle and the Feminine ..................................... 35 
                                  3.    Outline of the Chapters ............................................................................................. 37 
                               CHAPTER 1: SPECTRAL & ‘WILD WOMEN’ CHRONOTOPES IN THE POETRY 
                               OF ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON ....................................................................... 41 
                                  1.    Introduction: A Province of her Own – The Spectral Chronotope ........................... 41 
                                  2.    Counting Down to Domestic Rebellion: Border-Ballads, Time Bombs and the ‘Wild 
                                  Woman Chronotope’ .......................................................................................................... 46 
                                  3.    The New Woman and the Revolution Chronotope in “Quern of the Giants” ........... 68 
                                  4.    London, ‘Goddess and Sphinx’: Monstrosity, Eros and the New Woman in Marriott 
                                  Watson’s City Songs .......................................................................................................... 83 
                                  5.    Conclusion of Chapter 1 ........................................................................................... 98 
                               CHAPTER 2: CHRONOTOPES OF THE INHUMAN AND NON-HUMAN: 
                               ALIENATED TIME AND ANTICLIMAXES IN MAY KENDALL’S POETRY ...... 100 
                                  1.    Introduction: Chronotopic Tension in Kendall’s Urban & Satirical Poems ........... 100 
                                  2.    End of a Dream: Work-Discipline, Inhuman Time & Chronotopes of Idleness ..... 106 
                                  3.    Dream of an End: Evolution, Deep Time and Non-Human Chronotopes .............. 122 
                                  4.    Conclusion of Chapter 2 ......................................................................................... 143 
                               CHAPTER 3: COMMON CHRONOTOPIC PATTERNS IN NEW WOMEN’S 
                               POETRY ............................................................................................................................. 144 
                                  1.    Introduction: Building a New Woman Mythos ....................................................... 144 
                                  2.    Decadent Ariadne: Chronotopes of the Labyrinth .................................................. 146 
                                     2.1     Chronotopes of the ‘Public Woman’: Baudelaire, Symons and Wilde ..... 148 
                                     2.2     Chronotopes of the Labyrinth: Levy, de Mattos and Marriott Watson ... 152 
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                                  3.    Sisters of Artemis: Chronotopes of the Moon ........................................................ 160 
                                     3.1     Lunar Chronotopes of Death: Laforgue, Wilde and Symons .................... 163 
                                     3.2     Chronotopes of the Creative Moon: Marriott Watson, Blind and Field ... 165 
                                  4.    Count-Down to the Promised Epoch: Timers and Chronotopes of the Future ....... 171 
                                     4.1     Lifetime, Clocks and Hourglasses: Symons and Henley ............................. 172 
                                     4.2     Counting Tropes in Women’s Poetry: Coleridge, Levy and Blind ............ 177 
                                     4.3     Future and the Chronotope of the Cigarette: Dollie Radford ................... 180 
                                  5.    Conclusion of Chapter 3 ......................................................................................... 187 
                               AFTERWORD ................................................................................................................... 188 
                               Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 192 
                                  Primary Literature ............................................................................................................ 192 
                                  Secondary Literature ........................................................................................................ 194 
                               Annexes ............................................................................................................................... 206 
                                
                                                                                       
                                
                                                                        Word count: 72,991 
                                                                                       
                                                                      
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                         Table of Figures 
           Figure 1: Arthur Tomson, frontispiece to A Summer Night, and Other Poems, by Rosamund 
           Marriott Watson (London: Methuen), 1891. .......................................................................... 96 
           Figure 2: The Lay of the Trilobite, Punch Magazine 88, 24 January 1885 ......................... 137 
           Figure 3: The Philanthropist and the Jellyfish, Punch Magazine 91, 27 Nov. 1886 ............ 137 
           Figure 4: Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, oil on canvas (Nelson-Atkins Museum 
           of Art, Kansas City, USA), 1873-1874. ............................................................................... 206 
           Figure 5: James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 
           oil on panel (Detroit Institute of the Arts), 1875. ................................................................. 207 
           Figure 6: Franz von Stuck, The Kiss of the Sphinx, Found in the Victorian Web, c. 1895. 208 
           Figure 7: Tintoretto, Bacchus, Venus and Ariadne, oil on canvas (Venice: Palazzo Ducale), 
           1576-77 ................................................................................................................................ 209 
                              
                         
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