Comparative Literature Commons^™

Good Rhetoric From The Classical To The Jesuits; Or On Αγαθός Λόγος, Andrew J. Wells

The Criterion

Labeling rhetoric as ἀγαθός (good) or κακός (bad) might appear subjective. The Jesuit rhetorical tradition suggests otherwise. Once I place the pursuit of eloquentia perfecta within the context of ancient rhetoricians: Socrates, Gorgias, the author of Dissoi Logoi, and Quintillian, I attempt to find a definition for ἀγαθός λόγος (good speech/rhetoric).

Of Ivory And Eros: How Kurtz Was Corrupted By The Congo, Alexander T. Grey

The Criterion

While much ink has been spilled about the savagery and rawness of Conrad's magnum opus, Heart of Darkness, few scholars have sought to look at the softer side of Kurtz, Marlow, and the cast of characters. This essay attempts to view the work through the lens of love and the Grecian concepts of eros, philia and agape as they apply to Kurtz's tryst and what can be learned about this tormented man in the jungle when love enters the equation.

Humanity's Unlikely Heroine: Examining Eve In John Milton's 'Paradise Lost' And "Paradise Regained", Alyssa V. White

The Criterion

This essay explores the biblical world of John Milton’s poetry through the eyes of the only woman given dialogue in his most famous works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Eve has often been read with scrutiny and judgment, with many readers and scholars dismissing her character as weak and uninteresting. The paper draws on sources from several scholars, but it works primarily with the actual text of Milton’s epics themselves. The argument of this paper seeks to counter those beliefs and provide a thorough analysis of Eve’s character and development throughout Paradise Lost, as well as her impact on the …

Reading Female Identity Creation: Self-Realization In Colonial And Postcolonial African Literature, Katie Johnson Jorgensen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The thesis, Re-defining Madness: Reading Female Identity Creation and Self-realization in Colonial and Postcolonial African Literature, compares female identity creation in three novels by African female authors. It reveals how the colonial texts represent extreme female identity formation (stagnation vs. transcendent life) juxtaposed with the dynamic and interconnected identity formation represented in postcolonial writing. The analysis begins with The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria), to detail how identity stagnation results when the protagonist faces oppression in her culturally defined role as mother, yet returns to this role without further opposition. The second section focuses on Efuru by Flora …

A Comparative Examination Of The Hyperbole In Men Without Women By Haruki Murakami And Fudotoku Kyoiku Koza By Yukio Mishima, Jitsuya Nishiyama

Student Research Symposium

This presentation is on a comparative analysis of two prominent Japanese authors' works of literature. The presentation is about a comparative study of hyperbole in Men without women by Haruki Murakami and Fudotoku Kyoiku Koza by Yukio Mishima. Both authors have significant positions in the history of Japanese literature with readership overseas. The rhetoric of hyperbole seems to be significant for both Murakami and Mishima since there are many examples of hyperbole in their works. Murakami’s Men without women is a lamenting short narrative for the loved one while Mishima’s Fudotoku Kyoiku Koza is an entertaining social satire. Regardless of …

Lucian's Imagines: A Student Reader, And Pro Imaginibus: A Translation, Jesse Amar

Honors Scholar Theses

This student reader provides a complete Greek text of Lucian's Imagines (Eikones, or Portraits), with linguistic and literary commentary for the intermediate student of Ancient Greek. There follows a new translation of Lucian's Pro Imaginibus, the author's own take on his work.

Historicizing Muslim American Literature: Studies On Literature By African American And South Asian American Muslim Writers, Wawan Eko Yulianto

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to the challenge of understanding Muslim Americans in a way that highlights their integral role in the United States through literature, this research starts with two questions: 1) how should we read Muslim American literature in relation to the lived experiences of Islam in America? and 2) how does Muslim American literature contribute to the more mainstream American literature.

To answer those questions, this research takes as its foundations the theories by Stuart Hall and Satya Mohanty on, firstly, the evolving nature of diaspora identity and on the epistemic status of identity. Following Hall’s argument that every expression …

Title., Douglas Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Title is a series of drawings that explores the aspects of failed projects and the complications of representation within literary and visual practices. This series is informed by preliminary drawings, marginalia, and written notations that are inherent in the formulation processes of both visual and literary compositions. Through an investigation of the 19th Century Russian author Nikolai Gogol’s unfinished novel Dead Souls, I situate this series of drawings as a means to conflate literary theories with visual representation. In this way, the Title series presents fragmentary images, texts, and digressive narratives that demonstrate intermediaries between propositional states and reconciled …

Strong Female Characters: Jane Austen's Vs. The Mashups', Rachel Mccoy

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The comparison of Strong Female Characters in Jane Austen’s novels Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility, with the altered characters in the monster mashups by Seth Grahame-Smith and Ben Winters, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, respectively, reveals differences between the two society’s understanding and portrayal of strength and femininity. Because these texts are so closely connected – Austen is listed as a co-author of both mashups – the differences evident in the representations of women more clearly reveal the differing cultural values. Close textual analysis of the development of three primary female …

Coverings Of White In Plath's 'The Bell Jar" And "Ariel" Poems, Emma M. Kuper

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Ecofeminism In The Speculative Fiction Of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, And Margaret Atwood, Cara Williams

Honors Scholar Theses

The aim of this article is to explore the speculative fiction works of three prominent, female speculative fiction writers: Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood,and Octavia Butler through an ecofeminist lens. Ecofeminism, as first coined by Francois D'Eaubonne in 1974, is a philosophy that compares the oppression and abuse of women to that of the environment. This article notes how Le Guin, Atwood, and Butler portray women and the environment in post-apocalyptic science fiction. Specifically, this article looks at how these authors explore food acquisition and consumption in their various worlds. This article asks the question, how does our relationship …

Coming Of Age In The Disciplinary Structures Of The Catholic Church: Power And Discipline In A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man And The Land Of Spices, Rebecca Beaulieu

The Criterion

Coming of age in Ireland carries with it cultural and religious expectations drawn out from the history of Nationalism and the Catholic Church in Ireland. Using Michel Foucault’s theories on punishment and discipline, this essay looks at the way the Irish Catholic Church forms identity and conflict in characters from two different stories. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and The Land of Spices by Kate O’Brien depict the coming-of-age of two main characters struggling to create their own identity in a strict Irish Catholic Culture. Though each of the characters grow and change …

Engaging The Traumatic Past In An Apocalyptic Present, Timothy J. Jerome

The Criterion

This essay explores the necessity of confronting the underlying issues of one's history in order to heal historic wounds, despite the difficulty and immediacy of one's current struggles. I examine how Pentecostalism functions as a touchstone to the past for John Grimes and his family in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, and eventually allows protagonist John to transcend the traditional forms of self-identification in order to create a new informed model of identity within the religion.

Petticoats And Spurs: Female Armor In Spenser's "Faerie Queene" And Pope's "The Rape Of The Lock", Patrick D. Wilks

The Criterion

Both Britomart in Spenser’s Book 3, Canto 1 of Faerie Queene and Belinda in Pope’s The Rape of The Lock wear their clothes and (in Belinda’s case) makeup as their armor, both literally and figuratively. Both suffer unwanted advances, their image publicly besmirched as a result. Even though Belinda dresses to show off her beauty and Britomart dresses to conceal it, both women use their array as protection from cruel male world around them. Both feel safe, and both women have this safety violated and attack to defend their honor.

For Spenser, Chastity is a virtue to be held in …

Bilbo Baggins And The Forty Thieves: The Reworking Of Folktale Motifs In The Hobbit (And The Lord Of The Rings), Giovanni Carmine Costabile

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

The Hobbit is undisputedly influenced by Germanic sources such as Beowulf, the Völsunga Saga and both the Elder Edda and the Prose Edda. While there is no reason to deny this result of criticism, I argue that acknowledging the aforementioned sources should not constitute a reason to deny the potentiality of other sources from other cultural areas. The similarities between The Hobbit and a famous tale from the Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, offer a chance to investigate a much wider potential field wherein to look for shared motifs when only …

From Plato’S Cave To Edward Yang’S Cinema: An Examination Of Filmic Language And Its Noetic Potential, Ruochen Bo

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

Following Jean-Louis Baudry’s incorporation of Plato’s cave allegory into the analysis of cinematic apparatus, my approach engages in a philological analysis of the films to show that various film languages embody the potential to compel the audience into thought reflection about transcultural, transhistorical philosophical issues. Through a close reading of two filmic texts by Edward Yang, Yi Yi (2000) and Terrorizers (1986), I will argue that certain overlooked Asian films, especially in the field of film philosophy, not only serve as artistic sites for intercultural, political and social examinations but also present thoughtful and dialectical engagement with philosophical and metaphysical …

Women Near Tv's White House: Power, Gender, And Race On Us Narrative Television, Teresa Caprioglio

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

CBS’s drama Madam Secretary, USA’s miniseries Political Animals, and ABC’s drama Scandal all debuted between 2012-14, each with a female protagonist working closely with the executive branch in Washington-based political circles. Each displays, however, a different engagement with political activity and its relationship to personal life and relationships and to personal identity and presentation. By examining the configurations of gender and power in Madam Secretary and Political Animals, both of which portray female Secretaries of State, this thesis addresses the visual and behavioral expectations for TV women’s access to power and visibility as women and political actors, …

"Song Is The Simple Rhythmic Liberation Of An Emotion": Stephen Dedalus' Musical Martyrdom, Colleen E. Mulhern

The Criterion

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916, is Joyce’s semi-autobiographical bildungsroman centered on Stephen Dedalus’ struggle to reconcile Catholic teachings with his own artistic ambitions. In Portrait, music aids Stephen’s epiphanies. Stephen uses music to express emotions unable to be conceived of in – what Joyce calls –“cut-and-dry language.” He appreciates the ability of songs to arouse emotion and induce thought; the songs that Stephen encounters help to form his identity, first as a martyr and, later, as a creator.

Awarded The Leonard J. McCarthy, S.J., Memorial Prize for 2018

The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, And The Metaphysics Of Faërie (2017) By Jonathan S. Mcintosh, John Wm. Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review by John Wm. Houghton of The Flame Imperishable (2017) by Jonathan S. McIntosh

La Ciudad Como Espacio De La Marginalidad: Un Acercamiento Crítico A Un Oso Rojo, Mariana Pensa

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Nos proponemos realizar un análisis del film argentino Un oso rojo (2002, dirigido por Israel Adrián Caetano). Un punto de entrada para el análisis nos remite al concepto mismo de lo que es una ciudad, tal como Lewis Mumford lo expone en su canónico artículo “What is a city?”. Si la ciudad se constituye, al decir de Mumford, en espacio simbólico de “unidad colectiva”, en donde los hombres realizan sus actividades mas “útiles”, las preguntas a las que nos llevan estos conceptos serán ¿cuál es el estatuto de una ciudad recorrida por la violencia? ¿Cómo el espacio refiere y significa …