Digital Commons Network^™

Samuel Johnson's Part In The Swiftian Tradition: A Study Of Johnson As Swift's Biographer, Critic, And Associate Moralist, Jordan Paul Richman

English Language and Literature ETDs

A study of Johnson's part in the Swiftian tradition begins with his Life of Swift, because his portrayal of Swift's life and work indicates the extent he is able to accept the permanence of Swift's work. His picture of Swift is not damaging as many believe. Johnson made use of earlier eighteenth-century biographical sketches, such as those written by Orrery, Delany, Pilkington, and Hawkesworth. In his synthesis of the early sketches, Hawkesworth is objective, sympathetic, and often close to Johnson's own style and sentiments. Though Johnson's Swift is a man of genius, unable to renounce his childish impulses and acute …

Paradise Lost And The State Of Innocence: A Comparison Of Plot, Characterization, Genre And Theme, Evelyn N. Saucier

English Language and Literature ETDs

Previous studies of Paradise Lost and The State of Innocence have been concerned primarily with the question of rhyme and blank verse. Although the difference in versification is important, there are other areas of comparison which might also be profitably studied. The purpose of this paper is to examine the plots, characterization, and themes of these two works and to suggest several reasons for Dryden’s innovations. The plot of Dryden’s opera consists of incidents similar to those found in the epic. Dryden arranges his material in strict chronological order, discarding the “in media res” technique of Milton. Thus the sequence …

The Critical Career Of Allen Tate, 1922-1952., Vera Louise Norwood

English Language and Literature ETDs

The thesis of this paper rests on the conviction that Allen Tate's essential contribution to letters, despite his connections with the Southern Fugitive and Agrarian movements, is of lasting national importance. He is a critic who, because he is also a modern poet, recognized and developed a new critical stance which was quite relevant to the concerns of other men of letters of his generation. In order to understand how this stance developed one must understand Tate's own loss of traditional values after World War I. This loss is best expressed in his poetry, but its implications are carried out …

John Gay's Comic View Of Society, Bruce Frederick Hann

English Language and Literature ETDs

INTRODUCTION

Up to 1963 Sven Armens was the only student of Gay who had considered the intention behind Gay's work as a whole. Unfortunately Armens saw Gay's poetry almost exclusively as autobiographical and moral, reflecting the nostalgia of a country boy condemned to life in the city but setting forth in his poetry country life as ideal; city life as less than ideal at best, vicious at worst. Armens’ emphasis on Gay's nostalgia for the country is too strong, 1f not completely mistaken. I have undertaken, therefore, an exploration of Gay’ s general attitude toward his world with special attention …