English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Zea Mexican Dairy: 7 Sept 1926 - 7 Sept 1986. By Kamau Brathwaite (Book Review), Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

I may be hard put to classify the latest work of noted poet, historian, literary critic, linguist, and Africanist Kamau (Eddie) Brathwaite, but I have no problem describing it - compelling, riveting, unforgettable! Begun when Brathwaite received the devastating news that his wife Doris (his Zea Mexican) was dying of cancer, it is a paean to her, a record of his efforts to deal with her dying, death, and absence, an account of their relationship, and an autobiographical confessional. The Zea Mexican Diary includes diary entries, letters, memorates, an epigraph, expressions of sympathy, confessions, autobiographical narrative, poems - but whatever …

Jesse B. Semple And The Black Press : The Voice Of Black People, Mary A. Massey

Master's Theses

Black newspapers play a vital role in keeping people up-to-date with what's happening in the Black community. This study will show how Black newspapers play a vital role in reporting news and comments from an Afro-American perspective. It will provide a historical overview of Black news as well as a close examination of Langston Hughes' columns and his character of Jesse B. Semple within the context of the Black press, particularly the Chicago Defender.

The results of this study will reveal the joys and concerns that Afro-Americans shared with each other through the Black newspapers and show how the character …

The Question Of Free Will In James Joyce's Exiles And William Faulkner's Requiem For A Nun, Robin Hume Brownhill

Master's Theses

Joyce's Exiles and Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun are both unsuccessful naturalistic dramas written by novelists. This study compares the two texts, applying the question, "Is free will possible?" to four common themes within each work: the past, religion, marriage and politics. Within these four contexts, the two plays exhibit similarities of language and content; however, they consistently distinguish themselves on the question of free will. Joyce's work shows a protagonist who "frees" himself, through sacrifice, from the bonds of tradition. Faulkner's work shows a protagonist "doomed" and "damned" to suffer endlessly for her past. Despite their opposing presentations of …

The Representation Of Tabooed Love In Lillian Smith's Fiction, Jane Elizabeth Payne

Master's Theses

My study explores Lillian Smith's autobiographical relationship to her fiction, particularly two novels, Strange Fruit, and One Hour. The focus of this work is Smith's challenge to the category of sexual orientation and her related use of fiction as a source of social commentary and self-reflection. Smith's uses veiled and encoded language and other kinds of tabooed love to study her own lesbian love. She also assumes a male persona to understand and express her erotic attraction to women. I approach Smith's life and literature in chronological order with an emphasis upon characterization, symbolism, narrative technique, and metaphors of nature. …

Various Black Virginians As Told To Daryl Cumber Dance, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Shuckin' and Jivin': Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans, published in 1978, derived from fieldwork done far a doctoral dissertation at Virginia Commonwealth University by Daryl Cumber Dance (the only woman named Daryl I have heard of aside from Daryl Hannah). She gathered stories and verses from black Virginians in colleges, senior citizens' centers, and a penitentiary. Though she doesn't bring to the party an editorial touch as enlivening as Zora Neale Hurston's, she has an ear and-unlike far, far too many assiduous collectors of folktales - knows how to capture vocal rhythms on a page.

Finding The Words : Negotiating Linguistic Communities In Sherley Anne Williams' Dessa Rose, Nanci M. Roberts

Master's Theses

A study of linguistic communities in Sherley Anne Williams' Dessa Rose, this thesis focuses on the relationship between cultural behavior and the use of language. Using anthropological studies on the role of language in society, as well as major criticism of the novel, this paper seeks to prove that only through equalizing linguistic power can the characters achieve a language system which accurately reflects their experience. The paper focuses on four primary communities: the unequal interracial community of Southern slave society, the slave community, the white planter community, and finally the equal interracial community that results after slavery.