Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Dialectic Of Victorian Ideals In Shaw’S Mrs. Warren’S Profession And Candida, Catherine Meijer

Senior Honors Theses

During the Victorian Era, English society experienced societal changes as they adjusted to an industrialized economy, considered the role of women in the home, and tried to reconcile faith with new scientific discoveries that led to conflicting ideals. George Bernard Shaw, who began writing towards the end of the Victorian period satirized ideals that Victorian society held dear, like the glorification of female virtue and the domestic sphere. Shaw, with his iconic wit and iconoclastic themes, subverts Victorian ideals of femininity in his dramatic works. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Candida, characters and ideals react against each other in a …

Bloody Thoughts: Violence And Wit In Shakespeare's The Tempest, Aubrey Keller

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

In this Honors thesis, I examine the roles of wit and violence in Shakespeare's The Tempest, exploring my original suspicion that the play is a pacifist work. Noticing references to "bloody thoughts" in both Hamlet and The Tempest, I hypothesized that while Shakespeare resolves his tragedies using violence, he resolves his comedies using wit, making the two foil plot devices. I discovered that the plot is not propelled by either violence or wit on their own, but by Prospero's cunning. Rejecting the conventional reading of Prospero as a sorcerer, I read Prospero as a Machiavellian figure. I examine …

Owen Barfield Collection Finding Aid, Taylor University

Finding Aids

The Owen Barfield Collection features a variety of books and articles by and about Barfield. It also includes letters and manuscripts written by Barfield, as well as rare and first editions of his books.
Last Updated: August 29, 2022

Dorothy L. Sayers Collection Finding Aid, Taylor University

Finding Aids

The Dorothy L. Sayers Collection features a variety of rare books, pamphlets, and articles written by and about Sayers. These include multiple first editions of her poetry books, crime novels, and reflection on theology.
Last Updated: August 29, 2022

Charles Williams Collection Finding Aid, Taylor University

Finding Aids

The Charles Williams Collection features a variety of books and articles by and about Williams. It also includes letters and typescripts written by Williams, in addition to rare and first editions of his books.
Last Updated: August 29, 2022

Synthesizing The Sublime And Beautiful: Aesthetics In Shelley's "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty", Christopher T. Lough

Student Publications

As a Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley bristled at rationalistic attempts to definitively categorize the human condition. Taking Edmund Burke’s treatise “On the Sublime and Beautiful” as his chief foil, Shelley explored aesthetic categories that certain strains of Enlightenment thought had held apart from one another. In my brief exegesis of his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” from 1816, I build on Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous and the work of intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit to argue that Shelley presents a holistic account of experience with the ineffable.

A Journal Of The Plague Year As A Sequel To Robinson Crusoe, Ala Alryyes

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Elizabeth Kent’S New Tales Of Botanical Friendship, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

Elizabeth Kent has been considered a rather minor figure in the Leigh Hunt circle. However, this examination of her previously unknown children’s tales illuminates how Kent’s generic crossings establish a common emphasis on observation in the realms of botany, pedagogy, and poetry while suggesting that what happens beyond the observable world might be equally generative. Taken as a whole, Kent’s work constitutes a previously unacknowledged challenge to the Cockney School’s almost fetishistic attachment to the social. The identification of New Tales brings into focus Kent’s efforts to systematize friendship through her writing and clarifies her ambiguous response to Cockney amiability.

Sensitive Plants And Senseless Weeds: Plants, Consciousness, And Elizabeth Kent, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

When a team of researchers in 2018 found that plants exposed to anesthesia appeared to lose consciousness, the press reported that plants might have a consciousness to lose. The ensuing debate revealed a gap between scientific and literary approaches to human and nonhuman consciousness that this article traces back to the botanical writing of the Romantic period. These concerns, I argue, are central to Elizabeth Kent’s Flora Domestica (1823) and Sylvan Sketches (1825), both botanical works that double as literary anthologies in order to expose a productive gap between literary and scientific knowledge. In a time when the distinction between …

"The Most Glorious War Recorded In The British Annals”: Portugal In British Figurations Of The Peninsular War, Manuela MourãO

English Faculty Publications

[First paragraph]

“THE MOST GLORIOUS WAR RECORDED IN THE BRITISH ANNALS,” AS ROBERT Southey described it in the dedication of his History of the Peninsular War,1 the conflict that brought together Portugal, Spain, and Britain against Napoleon’s armies between 1807 and 1814 was a dominant preoccupation of the British public in general, and of the first generation of Romantics in particular.2 Many critics have shown the extent to which the Iberian uprising against the tyranny of Napoleon galvanized the British people, united the British nation, and afforded Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge a renewed opportunity to sympathize with the cause of …

Music Terminology And Context In Robert Browning’S “A Toccata Of Galuppi’S”, Natalie M. Dolan

Student Publications

In his poem describing a performance of a Baldassare Galuppi toccata, Robert Browning uses music theory terminology and historical context to explain the emotions inspired by the piece. Browning’s 19th-century narrator reflects on the lives of past audiences and on his own mortality as he addresses the deceased composer. This paper analyzes the use of musical references in explaining the narrator’s response to the performance. The analysis includes an examination of Galuppi’s compositional period and a discussion of the specific terminology that Browning uses to convey his narrator’s wariness of death.

The Immortal Jane Austen: Why Her Novels Remain Popular, Jayrah Trapp

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

No abstract provided.

Gender In Literature, Various, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of the Gender Roles portrayed in Literature. Contains Anna Lombard by Victoria Cross; The Beth Book by Sarah Grand; King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard; Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy; The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat; The Beetle by Richard March; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

The Works Of The Brontë Sisters, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of the Brontë Sisters' writings. Contains Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Villette by Charlotte Brontë; Shirley by Charlotte Brontë; Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

18th-20th Century British Literature, Various, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of 18th-20th Century British Literature. Contains Persuasion by Jane Austen; Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë; Lady Audley’s Secret by M.E. Braddon; Middlemarch by George Eliot; A Passage to India by E.M. Forster; Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy; Pamela by Samuel Richardson; Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

Animals And Literature, Lewis Carroll, Herbert George Wells, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Animals and Literature. Contains Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells.

British Literature Of The 18th-20th Cenutry, Jane Austen, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Edward Morgan Forrester, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Mary Prince, Samuel Richardson, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of British Literature from the 18th-20th centuries. Includes: Persuasion by Jane Austen, Lady Audley’s Secret by M.E. Braddon, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Middlemarch by George Eliot, A Passage to India by E.M. Forrester, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson.

Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Shakespeare. Contains The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Fantastic Borderlands And Masonic Meta-Religion In Rudyard Kipling’S “The Man Who Would Be King”, Lucas Kwong

Publications and Research

This article examines Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King” through the lens of Freemasonry’s interreligious ideology. In British India, members of “The Craft” offered what scholar James Laine calls a meta-religion, a fraternity whose emphasis on interreligious tolerance masks power relations between colonizers and colonized. When he became a Freemason, Kipling’s lifelong fascination with India’s religious diversity translated into enthusiasm for the sect’s unifying aspirations. In this context, “The Man Who Would Be King” stands out for how sharply it contests that enthusiasm. The story’s Masonic protagonists determine to find glory and riches in Kafiristan, a borderland region known …

From Erotic Conquest To The Ravishing Other: Imperial Intercourse In Shakespeare's Drama And Anglo-Spanish Rivalry, Eder Jaramillo

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines how shifts in Anglo-Spanish relations from attraction to fear fashioned early modern cross-cultural encounters in imperialist terms. In discussion with recent inter-imperial studies of Mediterranean rivalries, I argue that as Anglo-Spanish relations engaged in what I refer to as imperial intercourse, one country’s expansionist ambitions become a double-edged sword, namely as said country is subsequently haunted by the threat of invasion from other rivals. This dissertation focuses on dramatic and colonialist texts representing the threat of invasion in the trope of the ravishing Other—a term with a play on words that illustrates the shift in …

Wherein To Catch The Conscience Of The Queen: Dystopian Politics In Elizabethan Drama, Helen Fielding

Senior Honors Theses

Though established English history portrays Elizabeth I (1533-1603) as uniting England under the new Protestant religion, recent historical evidence reveals that extensive counter-currents still existed. This thesis examines how the politico-religious beliefs of Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights manifest themselves in their drama, particularly through imagery and allusions. It draws especially from Frances Yates to assert that imagery of white magic, Christian Cabala, and alchemy in these dramatists’ works refers to the pure imperial reform movement of Elizabeth’s reign, and also from Clare Asquith to illuminate a reading of Shakespeare as a playwright who encoded in his plays a Catholic message …

Much Ado About Contemporary Women: Gender Adapted In Contemporary Settings, Jessica C. Valdes

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing has been reproduced multiple times in a contemporary context. This thesis focuses on two key productions, BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told televised adaptation and Joss Whedon’s 2013 film and examines how these productions translate the gender themes in the play to a contemporary setting. To study translations of gender, this thesis is focused on the adaptations of Beatrice and Hero, two major female characters of the play. The comparison of these adaptations is accomplished through analyzing the pieces and reviewing existing work. While there are some important differences between the adaptations, the major problems Beatrice and Hero are …

Aspects Of Character: Quantitative Evidence And Fictional People, Jonathan Cheng

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

“Aspects of Character” uses quantitative evidence to trace new timelines in the literary history of characterization. The guiding premise of this work is that digital libraries and mathematical perspectives can shed new light on the practices used to configure fictional people. Using texts from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, this dissertation analyzes how different aspects of characters have transformed throughout history, coordinating quantitative experiments with the critical perspectives of literary scholars. This project begins by analyzing the characterization used in works of fiction that were reviewed by prestigious publications. This first experiment pushes back on a historical truism about “well-crafted” …

Sartorial Subversion: Eliza Haywood’S Fantomina And The Literary Tradition Of Women’S Community, Ruth Garcia

Publications and Research

This article locates Fantomina in a literary tradition that proposes all-female communities, such as convents and monasteries, as liberating and empowering spaces. I argue that the novella implies a virtual community rather than an actual one, as the heroine collectively embodies many different women, all of distinct social ranks: the heroine is both one woman and a variety of women brought together under the auspices of a single body, much the way discrete individuals together compose a community. Then, too, Beauplaisir, the object of the heroine’s desire, treats all the personae the same, no matter their social station. This emphasis …

Commensality And Connection: How Shared Food Experiences Connect Characters In Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials, The Book Of Dust And ‘Lyra’ Stories, Susan Anna Grace

Articles

Commensality is an inherently social activity that shapes society and enacts social dynamics. Consequently, these shared exchanges can reveal much about the society and the individuals who engage in the act. This thesis explores commensality in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, The Book of Dust Series and companion texts to the novels. The research investigates how commensal exchanges create and maintain connections between characters across the collection. In doing so, it considers how literary characters differ from real-life humans and how the existing body of knowledge on commensality can be applied to literary figures. A qualitative approach was …

Gendering Art History In The Victorian Age: Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Eastlake, And George Eliot In Florence, Antje Anderson

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis investigates how three professional Victorian women writers, Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Eastlake, and George Eliot, wrote about Renaissance art in Florence. As nineteenth-century women, they were excluded from certain realms of knowledge, agency, and influence. This exclusion (complicated by their privilege in terms of class, nationality, and education) influenced the way they experienced and wrote about art. The introduction addresses how changing modes of travel, broader access to publication, and art history’s gradual emergence as an academic discipline helped shape their careers as women art writers—the well-known “Mrs. Jameson” as a popularizer of art history for a broad readership; …

Too Soon Forgot: The Ethics Of Remembering In Richard Iii, Now, And House Of Cards, L Monique Pittman

Faculty Publications

Three interconnected performances of Shakespeare's Richard III display the extreme hermeneutical volatility of representation when remediated through a celebrity's personal history. The film NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage (dir. Jeremy Whelehan, 2014) documents the Bridge Project Company's Richard III directed by Sam Mendes and starring Kevin Spacey (2011-12), a production launched at London's Old Vic and transferred to twelve cities across the globe. Just prior to the distribution of NOW, Netflix released its first season of House of Cards (2013) with Spacey as the politician, Francis Underwood, at the center of its seamy landscape. Spacey insists …

The Meaning Of Peace: William Faulkner, Modernism, And Perpetual Civil War, Jason Luke Folk

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Much of scholarship regarding the presence of war in literary modernism has foregrounded psychic trauma endured by veterans of World War I. The returning soldier is often figured as representative of the war’s infiltration of the homefront. The common argument claims that the erosion of the distinction between war and peace (as well as private and public) is a mirror image of the veteran’s wounded psyche. This thesis, however, argues that peace and war in the West have always been indistinct. The body politic is, in actuality, constituted by a perpetual civil war. Furthermore, the novels of William Faulkner, because …

Get Out And The Remediation Of Othello's Sunken Place: Beholding White Supremacy's Coagula, Vanessa I. Corredera

Faculty Publications

As a result of director and writer Jordan Peele's remediation of the horror genre to create a racially polemic film, breakout horror-thriller Get Out (2017) has achieved critical and commercial success while substantially affecting how Americans think about and approach race. As stories about a black man amidst an all-white community who ultimately strangles his white female lover, Get Out and Shakespeare's Othello share obvious narrative overlaps. Othello, however, maintains a more tenuous status regarding race and its function within the storyline than does Get Out. Othello remains a play mired in questions about how or even whether …

Blake’S Method: Blake Imagining Milton In The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell, Micaela Freeman

English Student Scholarship

Major: English

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bruce Graver, English

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is William Blake’s articulation of his reaction to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. After analyzing Blake’s reaction to Paradise Lost, I will suggest how Blake’s reading of Milton helped shape 20th-century criticism, specifically post-war Miltonic criticism. My paper will begin by considering Blake’s rewriting of Milton in the ‘Argument’ of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, starting at the Adamic myth. I will continue my analysis with looking at the famous passage on Plate 6 when Blake writes, “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote …