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In Search Of A Female Self : The Masculinization Of May In Chaucer's Merchant's Tale, Kimberly Diane Whitley

Master's Theses

This examination of Chaucer's Merchant's Tale was undertaken as a response to existing scholarship. While criticism in the past tended toward a literal reading of the text, viewing it as a misogynist Merchant's story attesting to the innate depravity of women, more recent feminist criticism has leaned toward a reading which endeavors to defend the actions of May, claiming an evolvement on her part towards autonomy and self-knowledge. This thesis, taking its cue from French feminist theoretical assertions concerning self, refutes both of these readings. While it acknowledges the subversive nature of May's actions, it is unable to recognize any …

The Glasgow Paradox : A Study Of Ellen Glasgow's Sad Ladies, Frank Alexander Lovelock

Master's Theses

This study intends to examine the career of Ellen Glasgow to determine how her personal philosophy is re­ flected in her work--and more especially in the characters of her long-suffering heroines (the sad ladies). It is hoped that the reader will come to understand how Glasgow moved from an initial phase of hope, through a period of pain and sorrow, and into a final time of despair .

For the purpose of this study, special emphasis has been placed. on the importance of the novels which were written after 1900. It is these novels that have come to be considered …

An Introduction To The Victorian Woman : A Comparative Study Dealing With Poetical And Historical Sources, Lois Iffert Rudge

Master's Theses

The purpose of studying the Victorian women in poetry has been to find some relation between the historical woman and the literary woman. Louise E. Rorabacher in a similar thesis considered only the novels of the day (Victorian Women in Life and Fiction, University of Illinois, 1942). Her purpose was to determine the validity of the concept of the woman in the novel in terms of historical fact. She concluded that the fictional woman was real, in a narrow, myopic sense, but that she did not reflect the social change. The picture of her social and conservative home life was …

Geneva Thorne : A Narrative Poem And A Picture Of Pioneer Life Revealing The Grave Foundations Of Culture In Kansas And The Slight Structure Built Thereupon, Olive Van Metre

Master's Theses

This thesis is a narrative poem about frontier life in Kansas.