English Language and Literature Commons^™

Pound's Use Of Merlin As Persona In The 'Rock Drill Cantos', Caryl J. North

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Ezra Pound wrote Cantos 85 to 95, Section: Rock Drill, while imprisoned in St. Elizabeth’s, a mental hospital in Washington, D.C. This section was first published in 1956, to be followed by the final Cantos (95-109) in 1958. The source for the title Rock Drill was an abstract sculpture cast in gunmetal by Sir Jacob Epstein as part of the Vorticist exhibition of 1915. In Pound’s eyes, this sculpture provided “a central metaphor,... [signifying] his own constant effort to drive home the ideas upon which the right kind of society rests.” In fact, Wyndham Lewis wrote a review of Pound’s …

Pincher Martin': Symbolism Serving Fable., Dianne Lucille Braley Runion

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

All three of Golding’s first novels make dark comment on what they show, but of the treem Pincher Martin, ostensibly the darkest, offers the most hope. Although “the protagonist’s particular history of guilt and greed is intended to stand as a fable for contemporary man,” man (and Pincher) could choose not to turn away from God. That choice, however, demands faith or vision. If, as Baker points out, “the final chapters intentionally contradict the reality shown in the narrative - and thus expose the fallibility of the rational point of view,” they also morally direct the reader’s vision, helping him …

The American Indian As Metaphor: William Carlos Williams And Hart Crane, Douglas Manning Tedards

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The American Indian has functioned metaphorically in American literature at least since his characterization as an agent of Satan in the captivity narratives of the 17th century. From then until now, the Indian has tended to represent either the noble savage of the primitive heathen. Moreover, literary criticism dealing with these images has shown a primary interest in the historical accuracy and fairness of portrayal of the Indian and his way of life. That is to say, relatively little critical attention has dealt with the Indian as metaphor, examining how the Indian functions figuratively in the literature. Two excellent studies …

The Genesis And Development Of "Parker's Back", Kara Pratt Brewer

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

”Parker’s Back” is the last short story Flannery O'Connor wrote before the ravaging disease Lupus took her life in August of 1964. When Caroline Gordon visited her “in a hospital a few weeks before her death,” she spoke of her concern about finishing it. “She told me that the doctor had forbidden her to do any work. He said that it was all right to write a little friction, though, she added with a grin and drew a notebook from under her pillow. She kept it there she told me and was trying to finish a story which she hoped …

The Composite Art Of Blake's "Laughing Song", William Robert Warner

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

During the past five years, the literary critics have discovered William Blake, helping readers to understand clearly the various stages of development and the final form of the poet's entire mythology. And recent criticism has also clarified and expressed more systematically than earlier criticism certain features of Blake's total thought. Nevertheless, much recent criticism has hindered rather than helped the serious student of Blake's poetry.] Most critics treat Blake's poems as if they were only literary, completely avoiding discussion of their visual components. Yet, Blake clearly envisioned and intended that his reader view the poetry as a new form consisting …

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience: A Reassessment, Thomas Aquinas Murawski

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Thoreau’s case is easy in one sense and difficult in another. One of the chief attractions of Civil Disobedience, and one of its necessary limitations, lies in its prophetic quality. Recent American history has confirmed Thoreau’s good judgment in abhorring state-supported racism and a questionable war. But in sympathizing with his outrage over these conditions, we are spared the difficult test to our forbearance that arises when others dissent against issues that lack the persuasive moral justification of Thoreau’s case. So in this respect at least, Thoreau presents a comparatively easy case. His case is difficult in that he minimizes …

Jews In The Mirror: From Hatred To Reconciliation In American-Jewish Fiction., Joseph D. Gallo

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Isaac Rosenfeld's short novel The Colony¹ is an orwellian allegory which on a significant level explores the range of attitudes expressed by contemporary Jews toward themselves and other Jews. Set in an exotic fictional country on the Indian subcontinent, the narrative pits the intellectual Satya, successor to a prophet-like leader, against the machinations of a controlling technology given to efficiency and the waging of modern war. During a rally at which he urges his audience to passively "despise and disobey," Satya is seized and imprisoned, whereupon his true ordeal begins. He is accosted by foes even more formidable than …

The Five Old Testament Plays Of The Chester Cycle: A Paradigm Of Salvation-History, Richard Floyd Norlin

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century critics looked upon the English medieval cycle drama, or "Corpus Christi plays" as colorful folk art, having value to antiquarians but not meriting systematic critical attention. Consequently, the plays were treated chiefly from the standpoint of literary history. In more recent decades scholars have been making a fresh effort to understand and judge the Corpus Christi cycles as coherent works of religious dramatic art.

Of the four English cycles extant in manuscript---from Chester, York, Wakefield, and Lincoln·-- the cycle at Chester, though considered by some to be crude and simple, is widely regarded as the most …

Conrad's "Nostromo" And The Imagery Of Despair, Terry Lane Kimble

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Conrad ' s significance as a major novelist having been well established by the present time , one may justly turn attention to a consideration of whether Nostromo, his masterpiece, deserves the paradoxical ranking critics generally accord it as a flawed and essentially inexplicable work of genius . Nostromo is the focus of the present study, which establishes by extensive analysis that Conrad employs a complex imagistic technique, manifesting thereby not only thematic content but also compositional method. Basic to this technique is the tend ency to view a subject in terms of polarities , around which to cluster images …

Transformational Technique In Gabriel Fielding's "In The Time Of Greenbloom", May Grant Robbie

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Gabriel Fielding's In the Time of Greenbloom is a major twentieth century novel that has received literary critical attention. With its dramatic plot and colorful characters, it has an immediate surface appeal for most readers. The novel requires deeper, symbolical reading in order to reach its central theme, man's potential for transformation.

John Blaydon, the protagonist, is a very different young man at the end of the novel from the child he is at the beginning. His activities, the narrative base of the novel, reveal more than the external events of his life. Fielding uses them as objectification of confrontations …

The Indian Captivity Narrative: An American Genre, Richard Van Der Beets

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The vast body of Indian captivity narratives is known mostly to historians, anthropologists, and collectors of Americana. In the rare instances where informed scholarship has turned its attention to the narratives, emphasis has been upon the historical and cultural rather than the literary value of the tales. The Indian captivity narrative has been most commonly viewed as but a thread in the loose fabric of American cultural history, consisting of several "popular," sub-literary genres shaped and differentiated largely by the society for which the narratives were intended. The intention in this study is not so much to overturn that view …