Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Library Of Fiction: A Critical Edition Of Volume One (1836), Payton Marie Andreadakis, Joslyn Cristine Bishop, Catherine Ava Eliason, Marissa Nicole Fuller, Ariel Renae Hochstrasser, Jeanie Hope Jones, Elyse Christine Kunzler, Anna Sophia Lamb, Rebekah Olsen, Addison Paige Schenk

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In Summer of 2021, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at the Harold B. Lee Library acquired volumes one and two of a collection of short stories called The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-teller. The first volume of this collection, originally released in monthly installments published by Chapman and Hall beginning in April of 1836, contains 42 pieces of literature written by a number of Victorian authors. Some of these authors (like Mary Russell Mitford, Edward Mayhew, G. P. R. James, and W. H. Wills) were popular in their time but have been largely forgotten. This is not …

'Across The Sea': The Narrative Function Of Medieval Bridal Sea Voyages In Marie De France’S “Guigemar” And “Eliduc", Rebekah Olsen

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This paper analyzes the common medieval trope of the sea voyage in Marie de France's medieval romances, "Guigemar" and "Eliduc." Through framing both texts through an ecocritical lens tied to the associated symbolism of water and feminity, the paper highlights the importance of the sea due to it's association with female passivity in the medieval era. However, this paper focuses primarily on the narrative tropes found in the two stories and shows that throughout the lais, Marie both implements and subverts the assumptions of the Medieval sea voyage trope, which is clearly defined in Albrecht Classen’s article “Sea Voyages in …

Not All R & R Is Good: Religiosity And Racism Within Charles Dickens’S And Wilkie Collins’S The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners, Emma Judd

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In their 1857 collaborative Christmas novella, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins present various instances of blatant and unabashed racism on the island of Silver-Store. From nearly the beginning, the story’s narrator, Gill Davis, notes, “I have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be made. I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one; but, I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters” (12). This racist attitude is not …

Just Do It: The Value Of Being A Doer In Wilkie Collins’S And Charles Dickens’S The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners, Kori Anne Dryer

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In Wilkie Collins’s and Charles Dickens’s 1857 novella The Perils of Certain English Prisoners and Their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels, the inhabitants of Silver-Store are presented with a unique definition of worth and value. The text discusses many types of value: intellectual value, physical value, productive value, etc. The collaborating authors present a pattern of having the white-male characters’ worth on the island of Silver-Store as action-based: that the doers of the society are seen as more valuable than those that are passive in the society. Gillian Ray-Barruel extrapolates on this unequal idea of social value …

English Prisoners In Their Unnatural Habitat: Conquering Nature In The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners By Wilkie Collins And Charles Dickens, Madeline Christensen

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Charles Dickens is most famous for writing about urban spaces and environments such as the city of London. However, as Joseph Carroll points out, there are numerous "prominent British depictions of wild nature" and these depictions of nature find their way into the "cultivated tracts of British domestic fiction" (305). It is this relationship, between the cultivated and uncultivated wilderness that Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins touch upon in their collaborative 1857 Christmas novella, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and Their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels. Collins and Dickens explore the relationship between humans and nature …

The Knights Of The River Rafts: Leadership Of The Common Citizens And Soldiers In Charles Dickens’S And Wilkie Collins’S The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners, Annika Carlson

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The 1850s are infamous for the political scene within the British Empire and her colonies. The Crimean War against Russia, a rebellion in India treated as a mutiny against the empire, and a shifted focus to international issues over domestic problems highlighted every mistake and misstep of the largely aristocratic government. Rumbles of discontentment arose from the working class within Britain as they watched governmental neglect produce massive repercussions at home and abroad. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins wrote their 1857 novella The Perils of Certain English Prisoners with these perceived political disasters and leadership failures in mind. Leslie Mitchell …

"They Simply Act": Muscular Christian And Domestic Soldiers In Charles Dickens's And Wilkie Collins's The Perils Of Certain English Prisoners, Kathryn Sumsion

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This paper discussion of Charles Dickens's and Wilkie Collins's use of domestic soldiers and muscular Christian soldiers in the 1857 Christmas novella,The Perils of Certain English Prisoners. It covers the frustration among Victorian society and especially the two authors regarding colonial government after the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. They bring the military forward as an alternative source of governing colonial power. Dickens characterizes ideal military power in the form of muscular Christian soldiers, while Collins favors domestic soldiers. In the end, both military roles are proved to be necessary in colonial governance.

Folklore-In-The-Making: Analyzing Shakespeare's The Tempest And Adaptations As Folklore, Heather Talbot

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This paper explores the similarities between folklore and Shakespeare's play,The Tempest. Not only is The Tempest an example of a folkloric story, this paper looks at how this play calls to attention the importance of story and the need for story to adapt in order to survive. Folklore is an oral tradition that is living, or continually adapting. Shakespeare's plays, while written are also performances which can be adapted through interpretations and by adapting to new genres. It is this adaptability which allows Shakespeare's works to continue to thrive and it is this adaptability which will determine how …

Music, Shakespeare, And Redefined Catharsis, Megan Jae Hatt

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The definition of catharsis has changed since the time of Aristotle. A person does not only experience catharsis out of pity or fear from theatric tragedies; they also experience it through laughter, love, and simply immersing themselves into the emotions presented by different forms of media. This essay reviews the catharsis one can experience through contemporary music and Shakespeare as they become submersed in the emotions and spectacle of each respective media. In this essay, I compare and contrast contemporary music and Shakespeare text and performance in order to relate them to this new definition of catharsis by including different …

Children As The Power Of Shakespeare, Samantha Rowley

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An dive into how children are used in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. While there has been some extensive research on numerous of Shakespeare’s minor characters, some of his other characters, the minors, have been focused on less. Because they fly under the radar, Shakespeare uses these “minor” characters in order to subtly manipulate his audience, using them as a source of pathos in much the same way adults use children to manipulate audiences while silencing the actual opinions of the children they claim to represent. However, though he may often use children for this effect due to their fragility, Shakespeare …

The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends: Theological Conundrums And Religious Scepticism In Hamlet, Kyler Merrill

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This paper proposes that Shakespeare deliberately incorporated speculative theology into Hamlet to stimulate religious scepticism. It explores the troubling implications of the ghost’s behaviour, cinematic adaptations of the murder testimony, and the characters’ moral failings in the purportedly Catholic cosmos of Elsinore.

Monstrosity As A Problem Of Moral Proximity In Shakespeare’S Othello, Kyle Ward

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Abstract

In Othello, Shakespeare explores the idea of monstrosity through his titular character. This paper argues that Othello exemplifies the idea that monstrosity is not an inherent evil, but rather that it is a problem of Moral Proximity. The Problem of Moral Proximity, as it is explained in the paper, is the idea that good and evil are the moderation of or corruption of neutral traits. This paper not only argues that monstrosity is one of these neutral qualities, but also explores how Iago corrupts this monstrosity to bring about Othello's downfall.

Flannery O’Connor And Transcendence In The Christian Mystery Of Grace, Taran Trinnaman

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Within Flannery O’Connor’s works are the repeating themes of grace and salvation. Kathleen G. Ochshorn points one major criticism towards O’Connor’s works however in that her morally flawed characters’ reception of grace and salvation comes through violent or traumatic means, which appears counter to the Roman Catholic faith of Flannery O’Connor. This paper argues against this reading of Flannery O’Connor’s works by examining the Catholic theology surrounding grace alongside the theology of grace as understood through Protestantism. The paper then places three of Flannery O’Connor’s works, “Greenleaf,” “Revelation,” and “The Enduring Chill,” within a Catholic and Protestant reading to explore …

An Annotated Critical Edition Of "The Show Folks!" By Pierce Egan, Audrey Saxton

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This is a critical edition of Pierce Egan’s 1831 Poem, “The Show Folks!” It includes an introduction written which grounds Egan’s poem in the tradition of Victorian England’s burlesque theater and circus acts. It also includes selected footnotes and appendices in order to further explore the text. At the end is included a list of sources for further reading and research regarding Pierce Egan and “The Show Folks!”

An Annotated Critical Edition Of Wild Mike And His Victim By Florence Montgomery, Kristen Evans

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This paper is a critical edition of Wild Mike and His Victim by Florence Montgomery, a novel first published in 1875. This critical edition includes a critical introduction, footnotes, and appendices, as well as the original text.

All The Light We Choose Not To See, Hayley C. Campbell

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Throughout history, society's winners have selectively altered history to best fit the needs of a given population or political regime. Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See seeks to uncover the truth about selective remembrance and blindness as his characters traverse the complicated European landscape of WWII. This paper seeks to unlock this conversation that Doerr introduces through his 2015 novel.

The Shadowland Of Shakespeare: Christianity And The Carnival, Micah E. Cozzens

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The moral complexity of Shakespeare’s work is created by balancing carnival elements such as subversion of authority, plays within plays, and ascension of thrones, with Christian elements such as repentance, the supernatural, and forgiveness. Far from being didactic or moralizing, Shakespeare’s plays—specifically King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet—frequently inhabit an ethical shadowland, in which right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right. This intricacy renders even the simplest of his plots an interesting exploration of human consciousness. But Shakespeare never exalts Christianity at the expense of the carnival nor the carnival at the expense of Christianity—rather, …

Dangerous Fictions In Shakespeare's Richard Ii, Terence D. Wride

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In Shakespeare's Richard II, Shakespeare deposes monarchy by exposing the dangerous fictions of The King’s Two Bodies, Carl Schmitt's definition of sovereignty as expounded in Political Theology, and the English tradition of the divine right of kings and royal prerogative. By examining Ernst Kantorowicz's explication of the king's body politic and body natural as found his book The King's Two Bodies, I argue that Shakespeare critiques the popular political theology of his time by exposing the negative political repercussions of an ill-defined body politic. What past scholars have overlooked and failed to do is provide a concrete definition of …

Edgar Allan Poe And Alan Parsons: All That We See Or Seem Is Nevermore, Kimball R. Gardner

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Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century, and several critics and experts agree that he was well ahead of his time. As a result, he has had heavy influence on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One group that he impacted greatly was the progressive rock band the Alan Parsons Project. This group recorded an album titled Tales of Mystery and Imagination—an homage to Poe and his works.

This paper investigates two of Poe's poems: "A Dream within a Dream" and "The Raven," and how the song adaptations by the Alan Parsons Project can …

The Need For Shadows: The Death Of The Ego For Virginia Woolf In Night And Day, Jennifer A. Beck Miss

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Following Woolf’s own belief that the human character and condition changed in 1910, Woolf examines in Night and Day the human condition by destroying the identity of Katharine and following her reconstruction of self to evaluate just how far the human character has changed and where this change will lead the modern novelist. Through a Freudian melancholic reading, we identify what Katharine has lost, the ambivalence that shadows cast upon her play in one’s self-discovery, and the death of her ego, which causes her to retreat into her imaginary world. Although Katharine fails to gain a new ego at the …

Harry Potter And The Analysis Of A Hogwarts Education, Kayla M. Nelson

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A Hogwarts education is one that is coveted by many young (and old) people. The idea of a magical school is tantalizing. However, the magic only goes so far. This article exposes the flaws of a Hogwarts education.

Folklore, Stories, And Truth, Rebekah Hartshorn

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An exploration of Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story through the lens of the academic discipline of Folklore. Where is the line between reality and imagination? Stories are true because they influence lives and people interact with them. Many stories believed to be true have origins that are lost to time and their truth is questionable at best. However, when an audience interacts with a story, the story begins to exist within the timeline of the audience members’ lives. The story becomes part of the truths that they live.

God And Man, Nicole A. Ratliff

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An analysis of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath in regards to Samuel Johnson's "The Vanity of Human Wishes." The paper's argument is structured as the book progresses. In regards to Samuel Johnson's piece, both pieces of literature progress in the same way- starting off with very vain characters and ending with a change towards a more religious side. This paper tries to expand upon the religious aspects of The Grapes of Wrath, and come up with a theory that defies the socialist aspect.

Sylvie And Bruno And The Loss Of Innocence, Veronica R. Whelan

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This essay shows the correlation between innocence and guilt in the novel Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll. It looks into the major differences in perception displayed by both adult and child characters within the story, and explores the need for a balance of both an innate innocence and a gained sense of knowledge of the world. The author uses a number of sources ranging from psychological studies on innocence and knowledge to comparisons of knowledge as displayed in other fictional texts.

Animal Farm Corruption, Justin Rich

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This paper details how Animal Farm is not just a literary work comparing a farm of beast to the Soviet Union, but it has a much deeper meaning. It explains how the author, George Orwell, uses the character and the plot line to show how leadership and power corrupt a person. It also discusses how power is more easily obtained than used correctly.

Always The Feminine Fool, Shelby L. Dana

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Women have often been cast as mentally unstable throughout history. It is assumed that since they are the "weaker sex," they are psychologically inept. However, many times they act irrationally because they are filling a role in which society has already placed them, not because they are insane. Author Charlotte Perkins Gilman illustrates this in her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, as readers can watch narrator go insane after being told time after time that she already is. Some people are born mad, some achieve madness, but women have madness thrust upon them.

The Goose Girl: The Importance Of Understanding Self-Concept, Elizabeth R. Perkins

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This paper delves into the psychology behind a beloved Grimms Brothers story as retold by Shannon Hale. What makes the story so timeless? The development of the main character as she grows into her own skin and overcomes her thinking errors makes this book attractive for YA audiences who are going through similar issues.

"Man's Greatness": Steinbeck's Evaluation Of Nature And Nurture In His Epic Novel East Of Eden, Courtney Smith

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In his epic novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck explores the ideas of agency and morality. He presents the idea of timshel, or “thou mayest,” to show that every person makes their own choices. He expands on this idea by evaluating the age-old debate of nature vs. nurture throughout the novel as the characters interact with their “nurtures” or environments and respond based on their natural personalities. Steinbeck shows that our choices are our own, but they are influenced more by our natures than our nurtures. This is seen poignantly in his characters Cathy Ames and Caleb (“Cal”) Trask …

The Lives And Deaths Of Flora Mac-Ivor And Rose Bradwardine: Romance And Reality In Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, Monica D. Allen

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In Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, Scott presents the problem of romance versus reality. He does this by personifying romance and reality through Flora Mac Ivor and Rose Bradwardine. Flora, with her passion, represents romance. While Rose, a more mellow character, represents reality. Waverley finds that he must choose between them. Rose is a “kindred spirit” to him, while Flora resembles “one of his daydreams.” They embody these ideas through a physical location. Flora’s location is the romantic Scottish Highlands, and Rose’s location is simply her father’s home. Besides location, the figurative deaths of Flora and Rose embody romance and …

The Texting Smile, Richard K. Angel

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There's nothing like dating to turn us into a miserable puddle of falsehood. When we're with the person we like, we fight to play the game and find the right balance of not showing too much interest (so she'll know that you like her) and showing enough (so she doesn't think you don't). It's an art. But when we're only texting, we can behave however we'd like as long as we choose our words carefully; we don't even try to hide our emotions, and the perfect strangers surrounding us see more of our unabashed smile than the object of our …