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English Language and Literature Commons

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Union College

Honors Theses

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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

The Perception Of Literary Quality Differing As A Function Of Authorial Gender And Emotionality, Sarah Dean Jun 2013

The Perception Of Literary Quality Differing As A Function Of Authorial Gender And Emotionality, Sarah Dean

Honors Theses

Previous research suggests that gender acknowledgment yields significant consequences on subsequent judgments. In the current research, we examined whether gender of authorial names affected the perception of literary quality. Participants read a short story excerpt designated as male‐authored or female‐authored that contained either exaggerated emotional content or minimal emotional content. Following presentation of the passage, participants reported perceived quality and emotionality and then completed the 10-item short form of the Need for Affect Questionnaire (NAQ-S; cf. Maio & Esses, 2001) followed by the 18‐item Need for Cognition Scale (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao 1984). Results indicated that participants rated female authors …


When Mountain Meets Road: Mfankind's Connection To Nature Through Sublime Theory In Shelley's Mont Blanc And Mccarthy's The Road, Catherine Elliott Jun 2012

When Mountain Meets Road: Mfankind's Connection To Nature Through Sublime Theory In Shelley's Mont Blanc And Mccarthy's The Road, Catherine Elliott

Honors Theses

Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2005) is a strong example of how post-modern dystopian fiction has captivated the mass imagination. Contemporary scholars have discussed The Road thoroughly, commenting on the text's redemptive journey, post-apocalyptic message or cauterized terrain. However, I argue that McCarthy's novel is not merely a modern text with an alienating landscape. Rather, the story conveys a strongly sublime aesthetic, which is recognizable from nineteenth­century British Romantic works such as Percy Bysshe Shelley's Mont Blanc (1817). These texts have a shared obsession vvith the fictional representation and investigation of the sublime aesthetic and humankind's relationship with the natural world. …