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St. Mawr: A Critical Study, David Cavitch

English Language and Literature ETDs

Style appears elusively in the flashing shape of a conception. Ideally, the way a thing is thought of becomes the style in which it is expressed. Style is not the man; it is his thought. Lawrence's style is astonishing because he conceived of things in an astonishing way: in St. Mawr the sophisticated prose techniques are the mode of Lawrence's perception, the means of his discoveries.

Four Aspects Of Milton's Samson Agonistes: Imagery, Comedy, Autobiography, Tragedy, Ronald Kutny

English Language and Literature ETDs

The lengthily extended figures of speech and the many instances of recurrent synonymous modifiers must be evident even to the most casual reader of John Milton's poetic drama, Samson Agonistes. It is difficult to label, in any simple literary terminology, the technique which I shall discuss and attempt to analyze in this chapter. Therefore, I shall borrow a term from the vocabulary of music in order to indicate, with as much precision as possible, the nature of this technique -- leitmotiv.

An Edition Of William Dean Howells' Literary Friends And Acquaintance With An Introduction Treating Literary Reminiscence As A Genre, David Franklin Hiatt

English Language and Literature ETDs

Although the literary reminiscence is a highly specialized kind of autobiography, many of the problems encountered in autobiography are worth considering when one attempts to focus on the reminiscence. Before placing Literary Friends and Acquaintance into the broad stream of literary reminiscence that appeared in America in the latter part of the nineteenth century, I should like to consider the critical problems of the autobiographical mode and the relationship between autobiography and literary reminiscence. Then I should like to suggest an approach to the literary reminiscence and to consider several individual reminiscences using this approach.

Nevada Place Names: Origin And Meaning, Helen S. Carlson

English Language and Literature ETDs

This study was initiated in 1953 with the preparation of a critical bibliography of Nevada place name materials, written as a seminar paper under the direction of Professor Charlton Laird at the University of Nevada for submission to Professor Thomas Matthews Pearce, editor of "Names and Places," Western Folklore. Subsequent investigation into names of the Comstock Lode mines, a thesis prepared at the University of Nevada, and names along the line of nineteenth-century railroads in Nevada, published in Western Folklore (April, 1956), led to this state survey of some 3,000 names, representing perhaps a tenth of the name body of …

Four Stories From The History Of Carthage, Donald W. Bozeman

English Language and Literature ETDs

As a child I remember reading in ancient history about the colorful, violent, and tragic end of a powerful city in northern Africa--Carthage. The story fired my imagination when I first encountered it but was merely committed to memory amidst the sweep of many other subjects and interests at that impressionable age. With the passage of time the name of Hannibal recurrently appeared, and I read various accounts of his crossing the Alps.

Soon after I became interested in creative writing, the dramatic story of Carthage once again struck me. I began in my leisure to study Carthaginian history--what fragments …

A Very Human Fear, Joseph Ferguson

English Language and Literature ETDs

Perhaps there are some who will agree with me when I say that the first half of the century has witnessed the greatest flourishing of English poetry in the history of our language. Yet I am forced to add, paradoxically, that never has an age been more indifferent to poetry than our own. Naturally enough, the effect has been disheartening to many of our great geniuses.

Henry Miller: A Semi-Critical Approach, Gilbert Neiman

English Language and Literature ETDs

I have often been asked, when a person learns that I have had more than a reading acquaintance with Henry Miller, why Mr. Miller uses such language and describes such scenes. I have always wanted to quote in reply a passage which I seem never to be able to quote verbatim but which I now take this opportunity of copying out word for word from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

I then asked Ezekial why he eat dung, & lay so long on his right & left side? he answer'd, "the desire of raising other men into …

The Social Individual: Social Criticism In The Writings Of James Thurber, Arthur M. Kompass

English Language and Literature ETDs

It may seem unfitting to base a polemical thesis on the writings of a humorist. Most of us read humor solely for entertainment, when we are tired of quidities and want escape from problems. We look to other forms of writing for social and philosophical critiques. Moreover, we are often reluctant to account the teller of funny stories a reliable source for information about reality. Serious writers carry with them a background of straight forward facts. They furnish their own documentation. But, a humorist, though he often finds the concrete detail the best building stone for his humor, frequently seems …

Oliver La Farge: The Scientist As Literary Artist, Phillip Friedman

English Language and Literature ETDs

The purpose of this paper is to show the development of a scientist into a writer and to indicate elements in his writings which display signs of having been influenced by his earlier training as an anthropologist. In the biographical section, an effort will be made to determine the major factors that helped to shape the life and art of La Farge. The anthropologist is particularly cognizant of the peculiarities of locale, and in the third chapter, "The Influence of Places," three cities that have been important to La Farge will be discussed. Theme and symbol are much of the …

Twentieth-Century Criticism Of Form In Tristram Shandy, Charles Parish

English Language and Literature ETDs

One of the critical tenets of the twentieth century emphasizes the discreetness of the artist and the work of art. Whatever the artist has to say about his creation, whatever image of the artist may be found in his work, we look upon with interest; but that interest is an irrelevant interest and we recognize it to be so. The autonomy of the work of art is essentially inviolate. Whatever the extent of the artist's involvement in his work, we cannot, in justice to him and in justice to the continuum of artistic creation, credit him with it or discredit …