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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
“The Whole Vexed Question”: Seamus Heaney, Old English And Language Troubles, Una A. Creedon-Carey
“The Whole Vexed Question”: Seamus Heaney, Old English And Language Troubles, Una A. Creedon-Carey
Honors Papers
As an Irish poet writing during the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney is constantly aware of the politics and problems of operating in the English language. My project locates Heaney in a context of writers and theorists who are similarly interested in the politics of language-ownership and the logistics of communication and expression in a major language. I argue that Heaney’s North presents a unique solution to these common language questions, and that the poet’s focus on etymologies and language history makes his escape into linguistic nonaffiliation more feasible than other, more abstract attempts at a borderless, liberated language.
A Poetics Of Space: Opening Up A World Through Vessel Metaphors In Modern And Contemporary Poetry, Lili Pariser
A Poetics Of Space: Opening Up A World Through Vessel Metaphors In Modern And Contemporary Poetry, Lili Pariser
Honors Papers
This project follows the strangely consistent fascination in modern and contemporary poetry with vessel objects. From Wallace Stevens' "jar [placed] in Tennessee," to "That vase" of Philip Larkin or James Merrill's "clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on," even so far back in literary history as the shapely "Grecian Urn" of John Keats' famous ode among numerous others, the genre is teeming with vessels. I argue that these kinds of objects open up distinctive possibilities for poetic exploration because of the unique way that they engage with space. Consequently, by using these objects as metaphors, poets are able …
An Eelnet Made For The Eel Fighting: Layers Of Obscurity And The Continuous Present In The Space Of Robert Lowell's Poetry, Alena Jones
Honors Papers
In this essay I undertake to describe how the continuous present might persist on Lowell's page. I move from "Epilogue" first to a Heideggerian critic, Adam Kirsch, and then to Heidegger, whose theory of language establishes a space where the continuous present is always possible on the page. But here, where Heidegger says it should succeed, language proves insufficient for Lowell. Lowell exposes his own failure to shape his material using literary devices like journey and climax. His attempts to align his writing with visual media allow his specific literary failures to become sites of the successful preservation of a …
A Raid On The Inarticulate: The Problem Of Language In The Poetry Of W.S. Merwin, Anthony G. Stocks
A Raid On The Inarticulate: The Problem Of Language In The Poetry Of W.S. Merwin, Anthony G. Stocks
Honors Papers
In this paper, I hope to examine Merwin's ultimately successful quest for such a language and such a myth. Beginning with a brief description of his early work, in which the problem of language becomes a seemingly insuperable barrier to an understanding of the world, I wish to demonstrate his gradual evolution of a poetic voice which is both contemporary and universal. Of course, a study of this length will inevitably be marred by a certain amount of over-generalization and simplification. Merwin's struggle with language has been a long and arduous one, and he has explored many byways on the …
Moving Beyond The Mask: The Progression Of Women In Christina Rossetti's Poetry, Marianne Skoczek
Moving Beyond The Mask: The Progression Of Women In Christina Rossetti's Poetry, Marianne Skoczek
Honors Papers
In this paper I will be concerned with one of these more neglected perspectives. I will be looking at the image of women as portrayed in Rossetti's non-devotional poetry, showing that, contrary to what I suppose could be called popular (literary) opinion, her women are often -- and increasingly so -- strong rather than weak, and that Rossetti herself was a conscious observer and critic of the "options" open to the Victorian woman. Given the emphasis that my work will take, I shall also be looking at various aspects of the poet's personal life, some of which have been largely …
The Role Of The Protagonist In "The Faerie Queene": A Study Of The First Three Books, Gretchen Mertz
The Role Of The Protagonist In "The Faerie Queene": A Study Of The First Three Books, Gretchen Mertz
Honors Papers
That Spenser was regarded as a great poet in his own time is clear from incidental remarks by such eminent critics as Sidney, and later, Milton. Yet they say little about Spenser in depth, so we are left to infer their opinions from theories of good poetry at the time. As had long been the case, poetry's purposes were felt to be to teach and to delight, and Spenser's Faerie Queene evidently fulfilled both of these. Edward Dowden, defending Spenser as a moralist in the late nineteenth century, says of Renaissance poetry: poetry aims at something more than to decorate …
To Maintain The Sublime: Art, Reality, And Society In The Work Of Ezra Pound, Camilla Bunker Haase
To Maintain The Sublime: Art, Reality, And Society In The Work Of Ezra Pound, Camilla Bunker Haase
Honors Papers
It is the purpose of this paper to find out what that conception was: to extract from Pound's critical writings the fundamental beliefs about the nature and function of art which governed his activities. During the most active part of his life, one thus discovers, Pound was governed by a mimetic theory of art: a work of art, he thought, is an accurate representation of an artist's impression of reality. Poe can-thus provide reliable information about the way people respond to reality, about the way they behave--data which, Pound believed, can and indeed must be used in formulating; ethical codes. …