Digital Commons Network^™

Diane Di Prima: A Beat Poet?, Shelby K. Miller

Student Scholar Showcase

The Beat Poets were a group of men who wrote counterculture poetry that committed on society. They embraced themes of open sexuality, Buddhism and Eastern religions, and activism. Diane di Prima, called by most literary scholars but not by her contemporaries, was one of those Beat Poets who embraced those themes. Her focus on motherhood and female empowerment is what caused her contemporaries to reject her as an equal. A second focus will the continued rejection of di Prima from the literary canon.

Girl Power: Recovering The Female Stage Voice In Ben Jonson’S The Masque Of Queens, Sara Severens

Student Scholar Showcase

The Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson was written in 1609, and is a play about chaos and order. My research focused on the significance of royal women as lead roles in a play when society did not allow females to be employed as actors, the juxtaposition of royal high class and the witches who open the play in an “anti-masque,” and the role masques played in the greater order of the literary canon.

I chose this topic because masques are a neglected genre of English literature and theatre that could be better utilized in classrooms, as well as in …