Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics Of Spenser’S Faerie Queene, April Phillips Boone

Doctoral Dissertations

While sixteenth-century citizens of England and the Continent read, interpreted, and appropriated The Book of Revelation for a number of purposes, Edmund Spenser’s primary motivation was to find a source of his poetic theory and practice, as well as his poetic themes and imagery. Spenser began his literary career in 1569 with the anonymous publication of his English translation of Jan van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings, which concluded with four sonnets based on scenes from Revelation. My project examines the ways in which Revelation, or Apocalypse as it was frequently called in the period, remained a significant creative fountainhead …

The Roots Of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien, Kelvin Lee Massey

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of William Morris (1834-1896) upon J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). It concentrates specifically upon the impact of Morris’s romance, The Roots of the Mountains, upon Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. After surveying the scholarly literature pertaining to this topic, it proceeds to discuss their work within the context of the nineteenth-century revival of interest in the medieval period and in folkloric and mythological narratives. It then analyzes numerous parallels between the two works in characterization; plot motifs; archaic diction, syntax, and semantics; and topographical description and reanimation are then analyzed. These parallels …

Emaricdulfe By E. C. Esquier (1595): Materials Toward A Critical Edition, Georgia Chapman Caver

Doctoral Dissertations

E. C.’s Emaricdulfe (1595; STC2 4268) is a collection of forty English sonnets introduced by a brief dedicatory epistle addressed “to my very good friends, John Zouch and Edward Fitton, Esquiers.” The book was printed by Joan Orwin for bookseller Matthew Law. Two copies of the original text survive, one in the Huntington Library, the other in the Folger Shakespeare Library. In both subject matter and poetic aspiration, the collection answers to the conventions of the sonnet sequence, a genre that captivated English poets great and small during the last decades of the sixteenth century. The subject of E. C.’s …

The Theory Currently Known As M, Jessica Beth Weintraub

Doctoral Dissertations

The Theory Currently Known as M is a creative dissertation for an English doctoral degree. Recent works in contemporary literature explore connections between scientific theories and the human emotions: Venn diagrams, botanical entries, and mathematical equations are numerous in theatrical successes such as David Auburn’s Proof and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, collections of short stories such as Karl Iagnemma’s On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, Anthony Doerr’s The Shell Collectors, and Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever and Servants of the Map, and novels such as Charles Baxter’s First Light. Writers, always searching for fresh forms of …

Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights Ngos And The Sponsoring Of Public Activism, Christopher Todd Minnix

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of human rights Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in sponsoring public deliberation and activism. Activists who take part in an NGO’s campaigns encounter a system of genres that aligns their human rights literacies and discourse with the NGO’s ideological and organizational structure. The genres that activists use thus play a powerful socializing role, placing the discourse of activists within a complex context of organizational discourse that not only embodies specific human rights exigencies, but also specific organizational rationales for addressing those exigencies. Human rights NGOs, while often reflecting an ideology of a common, unified voice for …

Finding Nature's Order: Stoicism, Humanism, And Rhetoric In Francis Bacon's New Philosophy, Susan Giesemann North

Doctoral Dissertations

Francis Bacon has long been considered a significant figure in the Scientific Revolution, but debate continues regarding the significance and quality of his contribution. Although Bacon claimed to be developing a natural philosophical movement, he contributed little to methodological or theoretical aspects of the work that would eventually become modern science. Bacon's contributions should be evaluated within the context of Renaissance humanism rather than modern science, to the extent that in arguing for a turn to natural philosophy his aims were more consistent with the broad societal goals of his fellow humanists than the more limited ambitions of those pursuing …

The Half-Life Of A Good Place: A Novel, Laura Amanda Hoffer

Doctoral Dissertations

This creative dissertation is a novel entitled The Half-life of a Good Place. Set in the twin cities of Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia, in 1994, a year of cultural and economic change, the novel's plot develops around a search for a missing woman. The threat of violence underlying the woman's disappearance aggravates existing tensions in the towns, and the novel explores how the geographic border of the state line, with its inextricable political, social, and cultural borders, determines individual and community identity in the Bristols.

In an effort to provide a comprehensive perspective on place, chapters in the novel …