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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Hawthorne’S Human Nature And Sin: Criticisms Of Puritanism And Progressivism, Oscar Martinez Nov 2022

Hawthorne’S Human Nature And Sin: Criticisms Of Puritanism And Progressivism, Oscar Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

One of America’s greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in a time of rapid scientific, material, and intellectual advancement. However, unlike many of his peers who went all-in on utopian reform movements, Hawthorne took a cautious and reserved approach to progress even though he supported the idea abstractly. Using six tales written acrossHawthorne’s career, this work will examine what each has to say about Hawthorne’s belief in human nature and why he takes such a skeptical position against movements aiming to fundamentally reshape people and society. The tales from the 1830s, “The Gentle Boy,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black …


Marianismo And The Catholic Autobiographer: A Comparative Analysis, Nina Lee Jun 2022

Marianismo And The Catholic Autobiographer: A Comparative Analysis, Nina Lee

Theses and Dissertations

As a version of femininity that derives from the figure of the Mother Mary, marianismo emphasizes the traditional roles of self-sacrifice, motherhood, spirituality, and nurturance. While marianismo is most often associated with Latin America, it can be traced back to Catholicism’s origins in Europe. Early and medieval Catholic theologians, such as Saint Augustine of Hippo and Peter Abelard, demonstrate marianista beliefs within their autobiographical writings. As autobiography is purported to be the most intimate window into both the personal and larger social situations of a given time and place, the autobiographies of such Catholic male theologians provide insight into the …


New Perspectives On Paul And Marx: William Blake's <">The Chimney Sweeper<"> In <<>I>Songs Of Innocence And Experience<<>/I>, Lianna Jean Manibog Apr 2018

New Perspectives On Paul And Marx: William Blake's <">The Chimney Sweeper<"> In <<>I>Songs Of Innocence And Experience<<>/I>, Lianna Jean Manibog

Theses and Dissertations

New Perspectives on Paul and Marx: William Blakes œThe Chimney Sweeper in Songs of Innocence and ExperienceLianna Jean Rose ManibogDepartment of English, BYUMaster of Arts This article explores the function of religion in socio-political spheres. Karl Marx is famously against religion in all its various capacities, arguing that it is a tool used by power structures to control the masses. William Blake, the British poet, is also seen as critical of religion, and because of this his works are often read through a Marxist lens. And yet depictions of Blake as a staunchly anti-religious man dont seem to fit with …


An Annunciation For A Secular Age: The Struggle For Faith In Mary Szybist's Incarnadine, Devin Morgan Theurer Mar 2018

An Annunciation For A Secular Age: The Struggle For Faith In Mary Szybist's Incarnadine, Devin Morgan Theurer

Theses and Dissertations

Mary Szybist's 2013 collection, Incarnadine, uses the Annunciation as a foundational narrative through which to examine the implications of faith and having a relationship with God. Transforming this pivotal Biblical event through metaphor, intertextuality, and different points of view, Szybist showcases what Charles Taylor terms "fragilization" of faith, or the contestable and dubious position of believing among plurality of belief and nonbelief. By repeatedly shifting the framing of the Annunciation, Szybist creates several different visions of who God is. Rather than reinterpreting the Annunciation with a new dictum on exactly who God is and what it means to believe …


Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky Oct 2017

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …


Converting Ovid: Translation, Religion, And Allegory In Arthur Golding's Metamorphoses, Andrew Robert Wells Mar 2012

Converting Ovid: Translation, Religion, And Allegory In Arthur Golding's Metamorphoses, Andrew Robert Wells

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars have not adequately explained the disparity between Arthur Golding's career as a fervent Protestant translator of continental reformers like John Calvin and Theodore Beza with his most famous translation, Ovid's Metamorphoses. His motivations for completing the translation included a nationalistic desire to enrich the English language and the rewards of the courtly system of patronage. Considering the Protestant opposition to pagan and wanton literature, it is apparent that Golding was forced to carefully contain the dangerous material of his translation. Golding avoids Protestant criticism of traditional allegorical readings of pagan poetry by adjusting his translation to show that …


A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook Dec 2010

A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

The Richmond Outreach Center “The ROC” is an independent soulwinning megachurch in Richmond, Virginia. This thesis explores how rhetoric plays a role in the rapid growth of this urban church and considers the church’s response—rhetorically and politically—to the city’s social issues. Through a rhetorical analysis of sermons and written texts by Geronimo Aguilar, the ROC’s founder and pastor, it is concluded that Aguilar has generated a rhetoric of change that says social change must come to Richmond and that everyone, both rich and poor, are responsible for change. Aguilar galvanizes an audience to seek social change because he articulates roles …


Reading Holiness: Agnes Grey, Ælfric, And The Augustinian Hermeneutic, Jessica Caroline Brown Nov 2010

Reading Holiness: Agnes Grey, Ælfric, And The Augustinian Hermeneutic, Jessica Caroline Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Although Anne Brontë's first novel, Agnes Grey, presents itself as a didactic treatise, Brontë's work departs from many accepted Evangelical tropes in the portrayal of its moral protagonist. These departures create an exemplary figure whose flaws potentially subvert the novel's didactic purposes. The character of Agnes is not necessarily meant to be directly emulated, yet Brontë's governess is presented as a tool of moral instruction. The conflict between the novel's self-proclaimed didactic purpose and the form in which it presents that purpose raises a number of interpretive questions. I argue that many of these questions can be answered through …


The Tractarian Penny Post'S Early Years (1851–1852): An Upper-Class Effort "To Triumph In The Working Man's Home", Kellyanne Ure Aug 2009

The Tractarian Penny Post'S Early Years (1851–1852): An Upper-Class Effort "To Triumph In The Working Man's Home", Kellyanne Ure

Theses and Dissertations

The Penny Post (1851–1896), a religious working-class magazine, was published following a critical time for the Oxford Movement, a High Church movement in the Church of England. The Oxford Movement's ideas were leaving the academic atmosphere of Oxford and traveling throughout the local parishes, where the ideals of Tractarian teachings met the harsh realities of practice and the motivations and beliefs of the working-class parishioners. The upper-class paternalistic ideologies of the Oxford Movement were not reflected in the parishes, and the working-classes felt distanced from their place in religious worship. The Penny Post was published and written by Tractarian clergymen …


"Th' Offense Pardons Itself": Sex And The Church In Othello And Measure For Measure, Jeffrey Wayne Windsor Jul 2006

"Th' Offense Pardons Itself": Sex And The Church In Othello And Measure For Measure, Jeffrey Wayne Windsor

Theses and Dissertations

In 1604, James had newly ascended to the throne and England was now part of Great Britain. The Puritans-largely silenced during Elizabeth's reign-began again to assert political influence and call for reformation to both the state and the church. This is the context in which Shakespeare wrote Othello and Measure for Measure. In both plays, the role of the government in Cyprus or Vienna hinges upon the passions of a single authority figure. Both Angelo and Othello cause political unrest because they mismanage sexuality. In the case of Othello, his unfounded sexual jealousy leads to the death of Desdemona, Emilia, …