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Preyer, Mack Rivkin

Honors Projects

One of the most difficult obstacles I faced while working on this collection of writings was articulating exactly what this project is. It is, on the surface, a Research Honors Project, defined by Illinois Wesleyan University as "an opportunity for qualified seniors to engage in a significant research project under the guidance of a faculty advisor" ("Office of the Provost"). In my preliminary Research Honors proposal, I declared my intention to concoct a capstone project which, through ecopoetics, would honor my four years of study in the fields of Environmental Studies and English. I wanted to utilize my skills in …

Memory, Deconstructed And Reconstructed An Ontward Expression Of An Inward Reality, Jessica Rochford

Honors Projects

Opening Paragraph

Lieux de Memoire, or "places of memory," are symbolic sites of national identity. Defined in Le Grand Robert de la langue franfaise, the term is attributed to French historian Pierre Nora. Nora has compiled two large project anthologies and several individual books of essays by various authors that identify and reflect upon symbolic sites of great national importance throughout France. Nora's various collections of work, span over "seven volumes, six thousand pages") and "more than one hundred and thirty authors" (Le Goff 118). The particular project of Nora's that I will focus on, titled Realms of Memory: The …

The Dark Places Of Psychology: Consciousness In Virginia Woolf's Major Novels, Linda Martin

Honors Projects

In a 1919 essay, Virginia Woolf wrote that “[f]or the moderns ‘that,’ the point of interest, lies very likely in the dark places of psychology.” For Woolf, this assertion represented a career-long interest in the mind and consciousness; she made a project of describing and explaining the mystery of subjective experience in her fiction. In my paper, I argue that specific, turn-of-the-century psychologists’ and scholars’ theories of consciousness influenced and inspired Woolf to integrate their ideas into her fiction. Further, through an in-depth exploration of Woolf’s middle fiction (Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves), I demonstrate …

Responding To Romanticism, Valerie Higgins '08

Honors Projects

My vision was aided by the fact that this course on the Romantics encouraged me to engage with the material in ways that were both critical and creative. In addition to critical essays and papers, one assignment required that students keep a notebook of personal responses to course readings. The seeds for the essays in this project were planted and germinated in that assignment. Thus, it was my creative and critical reactions to the work of the Romantics, combined with the creative and critical works of the Romantics themselves, which provided me with examples of a different kind of engagement …

Much Ado About Nothing's Criticism Of The Renaissance Patriarchy, Kristen Zomparelli '07

Honors Projects

Conventional beliefs during the Renaissance still supported unchallenged patriarchal rule. Male domestic treatise writers as well as male educators during the Renaissance prescribed silence as a necessary virtue for the ideal woman (Hull, Women 23). The most common rationale for women's silence was religious, and men used Biblical examples - such as the story of creation, the story of the Fall, and the Proverbial descriptions of the good wife - to support their beliefs in women's silence (Kelso 3). Men also prescribed obedience, chastity, and domesticity for women as a strategic method of preserving men's limitless, unchallenged power (Hull, Women …

Raiding The Archive: A Study In The Veneration And Visibility Of The Lindisfarne Gospels, Rebecca Welzenbach '07

Honors Projects

The Lindisfarne Gospels (LG), also known as BL MS Cotton Nero D.iv, an eighth-century English Gospel Book, has been revered since its creation for its unique illuminations and its Anglo-Saxon gloss of the Latin gospels. The codex has changed hands many times, surviving Viking attacks, the Norman Conquest, and the tragic biblioclasm associated with the English Reformation. This study examines the way that three owners of the manuscript have understood and negotiated the balance between protecting the LG and sharing its treasures with pilgrims and scholars. I explore the methods and motives of the eighth-century monastic community that produced the …

Stepping Through The Thin, Crackly Crust Of The Present: Historians, Biographers, Novelists And Jack Burden, Lindsay A. Theisen '07

Honors Projects

From the back of my copy of All the King's Men I learned that Willie Stark is an important part of "our collective literary consciousness," and that he is as memorable as Holden Caulfield or Huck Finn. This statement is both interesting and suspect, because Willie Stark is neither the focus of the novel nor its most compelling character. Apparently, though, charismatic politicians are infinitely more engaging than well-spoken, introspective, and witty writers - at least to some of Robert Penn Warren's peers. Despite Jack Burden's position as the protagonist in the novel, any simple plot summary of All the …

"Spirit Of Health" And "Goblin Damned": The Ghost Of King Hamlet As A Symbol For The Religious Ambialence In England During The Religious Reformation, Bridget O'Connor '06

Honors Projects

A mysterious apparition appears during the opening scene of Hamlet, paradoxically seeking revenge and eternal peace. The Ghost of King Hamlet, unlike the supernatural spirits in most of Shakespeare's plays, is one of the most significant characters in Hamlet because he is the catalyst that sets the play in motion. Without him, Hamlet would never have known the truth about his father's death and would never have embarked upon the mission to kill Claudius. Because the Ghost's role is so pivotal to the plot, it was essential that the Elizabethan audience believed that the Ghost was real in order for …

And I Will Open And Close My Petals, Molly M. Mclay '06

Honors Projects

I have found that poetry provides not only a space for the articulation of voice, but also a space for vocal play. Unlike spaces containing singular, masterful voices, poetic space can be poly-vocal. Much more than the voice of a critical essay, the voices of poems can dream, argue, create, question, collide, sometimes all at the same time, in new and relevant ways. While some poems function with linearity and mastery-they make arguments and stick to them--others employ a more sensing, associative language. Some navigate the space between such states, or take on both at the same time, and still …

If: Poems From The Unstandardized Perspective, Douglas Pietrzak '05

Honors Projects

When I was about six years old, I used to read a new sports book every week. The protagonist was always a five to twelve-year-old boy who was slightly dorky and had a minor quirk. Maybe he counted the number of seams on a baseball every morning, had an imaginary pet goldfish, or only wore blue shoes. He was also imaginative and interested in sports, most often baseball, but sometimes soccer. The boy usually went through a series of trials -raising money by painting a fence, helping his grandparents move to a new house, or teaching his little sister to …

My Little Force Explodes: A Re-Creation Of The Assembly Of Emily Dickinson's Fasicicle 18, Katie Brokaw '02

Honors Projects

It is hard to recall my exact first encounter with Emily Dickinson. In some ways, I feel as though I have always known her. I remember quoting A word is dead! When it is said, / Some say. / I say is just / Begins to live / That day to my Junior High language arts class. Throughout the years, Dickinson has grown with me, in me. In the summer of 2000, I began an independent study focusing on ED's fascicles. It was during that summer that I chose to focus on F.18, by virtue of the fact that it …

The Power Of Perception And Origin Myth: Reconsidering The Origins Of The Arthurian Legend, Rae Marie Marotta '00

Honors Projects

Ashe insists that the link between Riothamus and Arthur lies within the writings of Jordanes, a Gothic historian; Gregory of Tours, a Frankish historian; Sidonius Apollinaris, a Gallo-Roman author; and William, author of the Legenda Sancti Groeznovii (Lacy and Ashe 47; Ashe, "Ancient" 310-11; Ashe, Discovery 54-57). In the mid sixth century, Jordanes wrote the Gothic History, where he explained that the Britons answered the Roman Emperor Anthemius' request for aid when confronted with a Gothic threat in Gaul. However," Euric, King of the Visigoths, came against them with an innumerable army, and after a long fight he routed Riotimus, …

From Literal Path To Transcendent Journey: The Pilgrim's Movement Throughout Inferno, Shelley Manning '99

Honors Projects

In his "Letter to Can Grande," Dante attributes the concept of polysemy, which means "many levels," to his poem. l In the letter, Dante states: "For the clarification of what I am going to say, then, it should be understood that there is not just a single sense in this work: it might rather be called polysemous, that is having several senses" ("Letter" 99). This concept not only applies to the mUlti-layered construction of the Divine Comedy but also to its interpretation. Although most critics rely upon the "Letter," I find his defense of hierarchical interpretation in the "Four Levels …

"Who Is't Can Read A Woman?": Shakespeare's Cymbeline And The Renaissance Woman, Nicole Williams '98

Honors Projects

At the end of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, the villainous Iachimo unravels the sordid details ofhis scheme to convince Posthumus that he has "enjoyed the dearest bodily part of [his] mistress," and Posthumus is struck with the horrible realization that he has commanded the murder ofhis innocent wife (1.4.40-1). Referring to his wife as a "temple / of virtue," Posthumus laments that he has destroyed Imogen's physical body, a holy space that contained a pure and righteous spirit. To his great relief, he discovers moments later that his wife is still alive and that the beauty ofboth her body and her spirit …

Misery And Madness?: The Irish Face In Modern Irish Drama, Rob Mawyer '98

Honors Projects

The primary point of this paper is to examine the Irish face as it is seen in these dramas, analyzing how it functions as a symbol of the identity of Irish manhood. On one level, the Irish face reflects the traditional stereotype of the Irish hero: pathetic, drunken, crazy. It incorporates everything that is detestable about being Irish. However, it is also a shield, representing a strength that is not initially apparent. The Irish face establishes a distance from the misery and emptiness of life, a distance that underscores both the isolation of the character and the inner strength that …

Sexuality And The Balance Of Power In The Canterbury Tales, Sarah C. Zumdahl '97

Honors Projects

When examining ideas on the sexuality of Chaucer's characters, one cannot help but come across the work of Alfred David. In his bookTheStrumpet Muse, David studies selected Canterbury tales from the perspective of New Criticism, analyzing various sexual attitudes expressed in the separate tales. In this paper I appropriate a basic concept of David's and use it to my own feminist critical purposes, adding significantly to David's core idea. Throughout the following study of sexuality and power in the Canterbury Tales, I use "sexual natural" to define a certain state of human sexuality. While the term is my own, the …

Expressions Of Divine Order In The Canterbury Tales, Nicole Buscemi '97

Honors Projects

The expression of divine order permeates much of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The methods used in the attempt to express divine order vary greatly, most notably from the "Knight's Tale" to the "Second Nun's Tale." In the "Knight's Tale," Theseus operates within the hierarchy of the patriarchal feudal system. Situated at the top of the human chain of being, Theseus tries to duplicate the "ordre" which he finds embodied in the works of the Firste Moevere (3003). Destruction and containment are used in these attempts at bringing about order which are characteristic of male attempts to impose order on that which …

Adult Attachment Style And Attitudinal Assessment Of Preferred Timing Of First Marriage, Elizabeth J. Arthur

Honors Projects

The study assessed the factors contributing to expected ages of marriage in two student populations that are presumed to differ in academic achievement and goals. A primarily goal of this study was to describe the influence that adult attachment style has upon a person's expected age at marriage. A secondary goal was to explore other social and goal-oriented influences on timing of marriage in the two populations. There were no significant differences in attachment style for men and women. The more Avoidantly a person ranked, the later the age at which they expected to get married. University students' ideas about …

Descent Into Chaos: Ways Of Reading St. Thecla, Betsy Phillips '96

Honors Projects

I find reading a hypertext akin to finding shapes in a cloud. One minute, the cloud clearly looks like two people in a row boat, then the wind blows and the cloud becomes a dinosaur. In a hypertext, just when an incipient shape presents itself in the text, then one clicks the mouse, and that meaning can completely change. In fact, unlike a cloudy sky, in which the context of the clouds, the sky, remains the same, the whole context of the text can change. Trying to analyze a particular hypertext, then, could be likened to trying to convince a …

The Living Metaphor Of Orlando: Duration, Gender, And The Artistic Self, Michele L. Herrman '95

Honors Projects

Virginia Woolf knows from the beginning what Orlando learns in the end: to be an artist is to be a living metaphor-a self which is not static and discrete, but evolving and "capable of others," to quote Cixous (Laugh, 345). In Orlando, Woolf represents the realization of the artistic self as a "creative evolution" through time; Orlando experiences time as a duration, unlike her peers, which separates her from society and its moment-to-moment constitution of self through gender, allowing her to experiment-with gender masquerade and develop the sensibility with which she can create metaphor.

A Legacy Of Love, Jennifer Shurtleff '95

Honors Projects

The paper that I am presenting is a bit unconventional. It is a narrative and historical piece which tests many of the theoretical claims I have been studying over the past two years. I took three courses important to this work: one on the women pioneers who settled the American frontier, another on the relationship of gender to genre, and I am currently studying the creation of self in autobiography. After studying different theories on women writers and the experiences of women pioneers, I decided to test the things I had learned by writing my own story.

Order And Orderlessness In Gravity's Rainbow: A Dialectic, Richard A. House '94

Honors Projects

Gravity's Rainbow is a notoriously unreliable text. The perspectives of the strange narrator and various characters give an account of the novel's events that is clearly problematic in terms of the degree of "reality" that can be ascribed to various episodes: fantasies, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions are often indistinguishable from the events which may cause them or to which they may refer. To an unusual degree, then, the fundamental plot-question-"What happens?"-becomes a point of depa.rt"u!e for a sort of textual metaphysics. Often, arguments about the significance of passages may be upstaged by arguments about the plot itself: what "really" happens …

Demythifying Melville: Charles Johnson's Middle Passage And The Nightmare Of Slavery, Rachel Palencia '94

Honors Projects

When I first picked up Middle Passage, I was struck by an odd sense of familiarity, for having read "Benito Cereno" that same year, I immediately noted a connection to Melville. I became curious to determine not only the nature of that connection but also how an analysis of it might enhance an understanding of Johnson's text. I asked myself: "Why does Johnson deliberately choose to retell Melville?" A few reasons immediately suggested themselves: because Melville represents the canon of classic American literature and because he is an American writer who has adopted the 'European perspective of the empire. Moreover, …

(Un)Dress And (Dis)Empowerment): The Relationship Between Women And Dress From The Cavaliers To The Romantics, Kimberly A. Elashik

Honors Projects

References to women and their dress continually recur in British literature, especially predominant between the mid-seventeenth century (the Cavaliers) and the early nineteenth century (the Romantics). Clothing, or lack thereof, becomes one means for male authors to write about women. In John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes" and "Delight in Disorder" (1648), and John Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes" (1819), the authors undress the individuals to render them vulnerable, often weaving eroticism and voyeurism into their examinations. Other works, such as Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1714) and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722), …

Eating Away: A Study Of Women's Relationship With Food In Literature, Sheila Bauer '93

Honors Projects

Women struggle against a male dominated structure to grasp control and shape their own identities. In her analysis of the "feminine mystique," Betty Friedan states "It is my thesis that the core of the problem for women today is not sexual but a problem of identity -a stunting or evasion of growth" (Chernin 17). Friedan is correct--many women cannot define the boundaries of the self and, further, cannot find an identity within the larger social structure to claim for themselves. These three issues--self, autonomy, and identity--are interwoven as causes behind the development of eating disorders.

Alcohol Advertising: Freedom Of Speech V. Social Responsibility, Reona Jack '91

Honors Projects

In Illinois, 10% of the population, or approximately 800,000 citizens, meet the criteria to be classified as problem drinkers; nationally, one out of four children comes from an alcoholic home; and, alcohol plays a role in nearly half of America's murders, suicides, and accidental deaths, claiming at least 1,000,000 lives per year.' Not only do these statistics add up to social problems but they also reflect an increasing economic cost to society. Estimates of the cost of alcoholism and alcohol abuse reach nearly $117 billion a year, considering premature deaths, reduced work effort, and treatment.

Mediating Between The Mediums: The Changing Shakespearean World, Rebecca Ewert '91

Honors Projects

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream has been described as "poetry, ritual, ballet, and circus rolled into one" (Bryden 17). Encompassing so many different mediums of performance and human experience, these various levels incorporated the realms of words, music, movement, and spectacle as integral parts of Shakespeare's production. Music was, of course, by the sixteenth century an accepted addition to the spoken language of the plays. Louis Elson, for example, writes that "[a]11 performances of [Shakespeare's] epoch were preceded by three flourishes of the trumpets," and it was only after the third flourish that the curtain was drawn and the prologue …

George Elliot: A Conflict Of Heart And Mind, Janet Polsgrove '75

Honors Projects

It is the purpose of this paper to explore this continuing conflict within George Elliot and the various resolutions of the conflict which she achieved.

The Ubermensch-Artist Of Friedrich Nietsche And Thomas Mann, Dale Whitney

Honors Projects

There is at once a thin line and an enormous gulf between the artist-philosopher and the philosopher-artist. Where one spreads out his ideas in a dazzling and often bewildering array, the other builds a framework with them and constructs the fictional experiences of a latent philosophy. Where Nietzsche exultantly screams an aphorism, Mann constructs a novel.

Tragic Vision In The Age Of Shakespeare, Mr. Fredman, Patricia Rioux, Sharon Martin, Charlotte Mach, Larry Knilands, Sherron Mcfalls, Marilyn Nickerson

Honors Projects

The following

essays - investigative, critical, or interpretativee -were selected from the 1964 Senior Seminar in English.

It was the primary purpose of this Seminar to penetrate into the three types of tragedy written during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods: the de casibus, Italianate, and Domestic. Nadeleine Doran's Endeavours of Art was used as the basis for categorizing the various plays studied during the semester. Of the papers herein bound, only two of the above categories are represented: de casibus tragedy in Coriolanus, Dr. Faustus, and Bussy D'Ambois; ltalianate tragedy in The Spanish Tragedy, Othello, and The Duchess of Malfi.