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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Christian Lady Rhetorica: Americanization Of Marian Rhetoric In Early American Sentimental And Seduction Novels, Stephanie Laszik Jun 2015

Christian Lady Rhetorica: Americanization Of Marian Rhetoric In Early American Sentimental And Seduction Novels, Stephanie Laszik

English Department Theses

In the larger scope of religious feminine iconography, the Virgin Mary stands out as a vessel of cultural rhetoric. As medieval studies in religion, culture, and language indicate, the Virgin Mary's biblical speeches, combined with her image as a mother and follower of God, create a unique opportunity for authors of fiction to explore the Marian manifestations in their characters. This project illuminates the occurrences of Marian Rhetoric as they are found in American sentimental and seduction novels as tools for cultural change. The American sentimental and seduction novels discussed in this project, show a need for the cultural commentary …


A Fire Stronger Than God: Myth-Making And The Novella Form In Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Chinh Ngo May 2015

A Fire Stronger Than God: Myth-Making And The Novella Form In Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Chinh Ngo

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Using concepts of cognitive evolutionary theory, the author explores how narrative storytelling manifests itself in Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. The novella form is also discussed, focusing on its manipulation of linear time, its naturalization of supernatural elements, and its deconstruction of dichotomous relationships. Utilizing the novella's distinct structural and thematic elements, Johnson's text shows the myth of American expansionism and industrial progress and that of Kootenai holism in collision, resulting in a narrative renegotiation that seeks to affirm coexistence and complexity.


Creating Difference: The Legal Production Of Race In American Slavery, Shaun N. Ramdin Apr 2015

Creating Difference: The Legal Production Of Race In American Slavery, Shaun N. Ramdin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the legal construction and development of racial difference as considered in literature written or set during the final years of American slavery. While there had consistently been a conceptual correspondence between black skin and enslavement, race or racial difference did not become the unqualified explanation of enslavement until fairly late in the institution’s history. Specifically, as slavery’s stability became increasingly threatened through the nineteenth century by abolitionism and racial slippage, race became the singular and explicit rationale for its existence and perpetuation. I argue that the primary discourse of this justificatory rationale was legal: through law race …


A Tale Of Acadie: Le Grand DéRangement Acadien Et Son Identité LittéRaire, Molly I. Parent Apr 2015

A Tale Of Acadie: Le Grand DéRangement Acadien Et Son Identité LittéRaire, Molly I. Parent

Senior Theses and Projects

In 1755, close to 12,000 Acadians, the descendants of French colonists, were expelled by British forces from their home in present-day Nova Scotia. They were then dispersed throughout the thirteen Atlantic colonies of the British Empire and forced to begin their lives anew in the wake of the trauma that they had suffered. This event has since been coined the “Grand Dérangement,” a title that ultimately suggests the havoc that was caused by the disruption of a culture. The Acadians were a people who had separated themselves from the European powers that fought over their land, a people who found …


Vergilian Allusions In The Novels Of Willa Cather, Nathaniel Wagner Jan 2015

Vergilian Allusions In The Novels Of Willa Cather, Nathaniel Wagner

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This work aims to explore the nature of Vergilian allusion in the novels of Willa Cather - how the author implicated classical language in her own texts as well as the purpose and efficacy of such allusions. By surveying traces of Vergilian passages and rhetorical techniques such as ecphrasis and anacolouthon across three of the writer's major novels, My Antonia, The Professor's House and Shadows on the Rock, this study reveals an important and persistent aspect of Cather's artistic program. The author intentionally and regularly uses Vergilian language and figures to lend a sense of grandeur to the small, individual …