English Language and Literature Commons^™

Surprised By Similarity: C.S. Lewis And Thomas Merton On The Self, John M. Gillespie

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Although they never corresponded, and they never met, the Anglican professor C.S. Lewis and the Trappist monk Thomas Merton nevertheless wrote in strikingly similar terms of the “true self,” or a person redeemed by Christ, and a “false self,” the rebellious person one believes themselves to be, but is not. There is very little academic work on the confluence of Lewis and Merton, and none thus far that specifically addresses their shared concept of the self. The aim of this paper is to address this gap in scholarship and, through an intertextual investigation of each man’s major works, fill it. …

An Astrological Look Into H.P. Lovecraft’S “The Call Of Cthulhu:”A Celestial Telescope For Literary Analysis, Arianna C. Mayorga

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

University students often acquire a knowledge of a slew of literary criticisms for deeper exploration of compositions. Few, if any, literary criticisms can be applied with room for speculative scientific philosophical ways of thought. This brings the creative nature of analysis to a screeching halt– for what is more creative than a speculative-science? In this thesis I will give an introduction to key astrological ideologies. This paper will also work through how those ideologies could be applied analytically, academically, and professionally to literature. My aim will be to use one of H.P. Lovecraft’s main mystically- connotative works, “The Call of …

Revolting Delight: Posthuman Subversion In The Work Of Leonora Carrington, Jacob Breeding

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the posthuman implications of Leonora Carrington’s writing, painting, and other works. Carrington’s is a remedial project, one that points to a healthier potential future beyond the conceptual limits of humanism. Her body of work disorders the projected/created order of human society (with its arrogant philosophies and systems of knowledge) and supplies a sublimely recombined “order” of its own—one that, in its very grotesquerie, defies human hubris and solipsism and celebrates everything else besides. In spite of the undermining inherent in her work, Carrington provides a positive alternative to some of the “-isms” that spring from humanism and …

Interpretation Of Dog Image In Badoe'u-L-Bidoya, Laylo Khasanova

Mental Enlightenment Scientific-Methodological Journal

This article is a scientific observation about the image of a dog in Alisher Navoi lyrics and its textual meaning. The mystical meanings of the image of the dog in the poet's work are explained on the basis of examples.

The Unlimited Absorbs The Limits: Analyzing The Religious And Mystical Aspects Of Virginia Woolf's Work Through The Lens Of William James, Zachary J. Beck

MSU Graduate Theses

Commentators on the work of modernist author Virginia Woolf have frequently remarked upon the “religious” and “mystical” aspects that appear throughout Woolf’s oeuvre, but have found it difficult to reconcile these aspects of Woolf’s work with her self-expressed atheistic beliefs. For those who have sought to resolve the tension between the “religious” and “mystical” features of Woolf’s work and Woolf’s (lack of) personal religious beliefs, the work of American psychologist and philosopher William James has proven to be a starting point for investigations into selections of Woolf’s oeuvre that seem to exhibit “religious” and “mystical” characteristics. There continues to exist, …

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism In Romantic And Victorian Literature, Timothy M. Curran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature posits religious medievalism as one among many critical paradigms through which we might better understand literary efforts to bring notions of sanctity back into the modern world. As a cultural and artistic practice, medievalism processes the loss of medieval forms of understanding in the modern imagination and resuscitates these lost forms in new and imaginative ways to serve the purposes of the present. My dissertation proposes religious medievalism as a critical method that decodes modern texts’ lamentations over a perceived loss of the sacred. My project locates textual moments in …

"'Dying To Live': Remembering And Forgetting May Sinclair”, Suzanne Raitt

Suzanne Raitt

Encountering The Phantasmagoria: Pre-Raphaelite Aesthetics As The Antidote For Victorian Decadence In Robert Browning’S “My Last Duchess”, Matthew K. Werneburg

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” engages with ‘the problem of Raphael,’ a Victorian aesthetic debate into which Browning enters in order to address Victorian society’s spiritual impotence, which he connects to the societal emphasis on external appearances of virtue and nobility. This emphasis on appearances is reflected in Raphaelite aesthetics, for Victorians understood Raphael’s paintings as representational pictures intended to cause viewers to contemplate spiritual states. The Raphaelite school of aesthetics saw Raphael’s works as the pinnacle of the Christian visual art tradition, while the pre-Raphaelites sought to dissolve the distinction between sacred and secular, painting human bodies as they …

Leonard Cohen's New Jews: A Consideration Of Western Mysticisms In Beautiful Losers, Alexander Lombardo

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the influence of various Western mystical traditions on Leonard Cohen’s second novel, Beautiful Losers. It begins with a discussion of Cohen’s public remarks concerning religion and mysticism followed by an assessment of twentieth century Canadian criticism on Beautiful Losers. Three thematic chapters comprise the majority of the study, each concerning a different mystical tradition—Kabbalism, Gnosticism, and Christian mysticism, respectively. The author considers Beautiful Losers in relation to these systems, concluding that the novel effectively depicts the pursuit of God, or knowledge, through mystic practice and doctrine. This study will interest scholars seeking a careful exploration …

The Enchanter's Spell: J.R.R. Tolkien's Mythopoetic Response To Modernism, Adam D. Gorelick

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

J.R.R. Tolkien was not only an author of fantasy but also a philologist who theorized about myth. Theorists have employed various methods of analyzing myth, and this thesis integrates several analyses, including Tolkien’s. I address the roles of doctrine, ritual, cross-cultural patterns, mythic expressions in literature, the literary effect of myth, evolution of language and consciousness, and individual invention over inheritance and diffusion. Beyond Tolkien’s English and Catholic background, I argue for eclectic influence on Tolkien, including resonance with Buddhism.

Tolkien views mythopoeia, literary mythmaking, in terms of sub-creation, human invention in the image of God as creator. Key mythopoetic …

Ambivalent Kabbalah: Myla Goldberg's 'Bee Season' And The Vicissitudes Of Jewish Mysticism, Paul Eisenstein

English Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transcendental Exchange: Alchemical Discourse In Romantic Philosophy And Literature, Elizabeth Olsen Brocious

Theses and Dissertations

Alchemical imagery and ideology is present in many Romantic works of literature, but it has largely been overlooked by literary historians in their contextualization of the time period. The same can be said for mysticism in general, of which alchemy is a subset. This project accounts for alchemy in the works of transcendental philosophers and writers as it contributes to some of the most important conversations of the Romantic time period, particularly the reaction against empirical philosophy and the articulation of creative processes. The transcendental conversation is a transnational one, encompassing Germany, Britain, and America, with its use of alchemy …

Mystics Of Desolation: Craig Childs And Ellen Meloy, Jan Wellington

Jan Wellington

No abstract provided.

God In The Darkness: Mysticism And Paradox In The Poetry Of George Herbert And Henry Vaughan., Elizabeth Anne Acker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While aspects of mysticism appear in the poetry of both George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, the general consensus among critics has acknowledged the mysticism of Vaughan while ignoring its roots in Herbert's writings. Among the leading authorities on the poetry of Herbert, there has been a general tendency to dismiss, ignore, or explain away mystical elements. A study of representative works by prominent critics to ascertain their positions on this issue reveals not only what can be known for certain about Herbert's theology, but also the interpretations that have been offered for his most famous poems. While these interpretations are …

Natural Mysticism In Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows, J. R. Wytenbroek

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This paper explores the use of Pan as the medium for an intense mystical experience in “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, and how this mystical passage fits in with the rest of The Wind in the Willows. The author also explores possible influences on Grahame from writers of the nineteenth century who had mystical emphases in their books. The “Piper” is one of the most beautiful passages of natural mysticism in twentieth-century literature, but one rarely discussed: the author hopes this paper will begin to fill this critical gap.