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The Existential Elements In The Poetry Of Wallace Stevens, Patsy Satterly

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study will deal with such existential elements in Stevens' poetry. The poetry will be treated in three main divisions: the early period of Harmonium (1923); the middle period of The Man With the Blue Guitar (1936), Ideas of Order (1937), and Parts of a World (1942); and the late period of Transport to Summer (1947) and Auroras of Autumn (1950). Two introductory chapters will precede the actual study of the poetry; one is a chapter on existentialism as it is expounded by Sartre and Camus, and the other is a description of the existential bias in Stevens' mind, in …

The Effect Of Presidential Action On Popular Support Of Foreign Policy: The Case Of Vietnam, William Hines Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Explicitly stated the hypothesis that was tested was as follows: The relationship between Presidential action and an increase in public support for the President on matters of Vietnam policy is equal to zero.

Presidential action was viewed as any major development in Policy (whether it be military or political) toward the war. Furthermore, any major speech by the President or other high governmental official reaffirming the government's course of action was posited into the category of Presidential action. In order for the speech to be considered "major" it either had to have been broadcast over nationwide television or widely disseminated …

Green River Steamboating A Cultural History, 1828-1931, Helen Bartter Crocker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In recent years, historians have displayed a growing interest in the cultural development of certain well-defined regions. Often a river valley inspired such a study, for example, R.E. Banta’s The Ohio, Thomas Clark’s The Kentucky and Harriette Arnow’s Seedtime on the Cumberland. These and many other river histories dealt less with the river itself than with its tendency to define and alter an area’s culture

This thesis, dealing with the culture of Green River’s steamboat era, is less about the steamboat or Green River than it is about their effect on river people. It searches the area’s homes, schools, business …

The Dominative Woman & Blasco Ibáňez, Joseph Mills

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Although certain critics have mentioned Blasco Ibáñez’s women characters in their writings, they often relegate these persons to a subordinate role relevant to the development of the plot and of the philosophy of the author. Many of the earlier critics have mentioned the importance of the setting in Blasco Ibáñez’s novels, as did James O. Swain when he wrote in 1935, “Especially in his Valencian novels, Arroz y Tartana, Flor de Mayo, La barraca, and Cañas y barro, does the setting play an important role.” As recently as 1961, Sherman Eoff has pointed out how characterization is secondary to …

The Implications Of The Holy Trinity & Its Antithesis In Billy Budd, Nancy Locke

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

There have been a number of books and articles written about the theological underpinnings of the novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville and about the symbolic characters which he created. Several critics have brought some of this material together, but no one has really attempted to correlate the basic studies. This thesis will not only endeavor to do this, but it will add, as well, a personal interpretation of the theological content of the work.

William Faulkner As Sociologist: An Adventure In The Sociology Of Literature, Katherine Stuart

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

My basic problem will be not to prove that Faulkner is, was, a sociologist or to suggest that his works be required reading in courses in sociological theory, but rather, to show in what sense and what areas his and the role of sociologist overlap. A. thorough reading of the major Faulkner novels, a sorting-out and. probing of his passages relevant to the field of sociology seems the most productive way to begin tackling the problem. First the effort will be made to grasp his ideas in context, then to extricate and analyze them out of context. The relationship of …

Domestic Imagery In Tennyson's In Memoriam, Ruth Clark

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The vehicle Tennyson uses to explore the thematic ambiguities of love/indifference; faith/doubt; hope/despair; and life/death is domestic imagery, specifically images which involve the home or house and those images of personal relationships which move the poet from despair to a tentative faith.

The initial chapter of this work will present a general view of Tennyson and In Memoriam by which the subsequent study of the elegy's domestic imagery may be brought into focus. In addition to a discussion of the occasion of the poem, pertinent critical material will be evaluated in terms of value to this discussion of imagery. After …

The Ministry: An Empirical Analysis Of Roles And Role Discord With Emphasis On Rural-Urban Differentials, Orville R. Cunningham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Ministers occupy a status-position within a social system that carries a well-defined set of cultural expectations about their roles. The membership of the minister’s church, the community at large, and the minister himself formulate ideas and expectations about the function of his roles. Whenever the minister performs his roles in a manner that is contrary to the expectations of the membership of his church or the community the result is a role discord. Role discord also occurs when the minister performs his roles in a way that contradicts his own self-image of his roles. Therefore, this thesis will have as …

Imagery In Meredith's Modern Love, Beverly Belden

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

George Meredith's Modern Love deals with a formula for achieving happiness in life by a man whose marriage has failed. His marital breakup serves as a catalyst for the husband's internal journey which, through intense self questionings, leads him to a fuller understanding of himself and his purpose within the harmony of nature. Definite overt action and external events are secondary in the sonnet sequence. Indeed, the major portion of the work is conveyed by images which reveal the husband's developing psychological states. As Lionel Stevenson says of Modern Love in the standard biography of Meredith,

. . . the …

Mother Of Mankind: Milton's Treatment Of Eve In Paradise Lost, Mary Swanks

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Although many critics have dealt with their general impressions of the character of Eve or have traced specific passages concerning her to the Bible or to rabbinical tradition, no one critic has made a detailed study of the way in which Milton portrays Eve from prelapsarian innocence through the fall to her ultimate reconciliation with Adam and with God. This study is concerned with Milton's complete portrait of Eve and with the way in which he uses the themes of women's inferiority, of the hierarchy of nature, and of the virtue of reason over passion to explain the fall of …

Critical Issues In The Religious Content Of The Poetry Of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Problems & Resolutions, Jo Anne Gabbard

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study is to investigate a limited number of the most influential and interesting studies dealing in depth with the question of Hopkins' religion and its resultant influence on his poetic talent, and to attempt to resolve some of the points of dispute. some of the studies investigated argue that Hopkins was hindered in his poetic endeavors by his religion, while others attempt to prove that his religion enhanced his poetry. The present study is not intended as an evaluation of individual works; its purpose is rather to present the pertinent and relevant ideas projected in each …

A Critical Study Of The Dramas Of Four Major Romantic Poets, Earl Murphy Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Since little critical attention has been given to the dramas of this period, it would seem that further examination of them would be of value. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the dramas of the major Romantic poets in order to provide a new critical perspective on their plays specifically and Romantic drama generally. From this it is hoped useful conclusions can be drawn. The study will be limited to the plays of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. John Keats has been omitted from this group because his only …

Some Paradoxical Elements In The Fiction Of Carson Mccullers, Rona Bozarth

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Since the death of Carson McCullers in 1967, there has been no revival of interest in her work, and there has been little critical study done in regard to it. All of McCullers' stories have Southern settings, and most are set in her native Georgia. She uses folk materials (as do Faulkner, Welty and Warren), but the limitations which these impose are transcended, and the fiction becomes an "examination of universal moral circumstances."¹ McCullers does not exploit local color, which, as Robert Penn Warren has noted, is often "incomplete and unphilosophical."² Rather than treating locale for its own …

A Graphemic Analysis Of An Old English Text: The Parker Manuscript, The Laws Of Alfred & Ine, Mary Reiss

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study may be considered an exercise in graphemic analysis. It proceeds from the point of view that writing is an independent manifestation of language. As such, the writing system of a language may be subject to a descriptive analysis based upon methods similar to those used in the analysis of spoken language systems. The purpose of such a description is to determine the distinctive and non -distinctive elements of the system.

Chapter V of this study is a graphemic analysis of one section of the Parker Manuscript. This analysis is based upon the principles discussed in Chapter II …