Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Preface To Ssl 42:1, Patrick G. Scott, Anthony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

No abstract provided.

“Recognizable Goodness” A Response To Beversluis’ Understanding Of God’S Goodness, Emily Mccarty

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

In her rebuttal to John Beversluis’ C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, Emily McCarty makes the following arguments. Lewis maintains throughout these three works that God’s goodness is recognizable. In The Problem of Pain, what seems unlike or even not good to us, is upon reflection, good. In fact, there are similar human examples that show God’s goodness is not so very unlike our own. In “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Lewis does not empty good of meaning: rather he sources that meaning in the divine so that our morals have enduring meaning. In A Grief Observed …

Wilde's Final Act, Justine Ilissa Sha

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis examines Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, the prison-written letter to his ex-lover, as a work created with the signature Wildean dramatic conventions of composition, style, the writing process, and formal structure of which make up Wilde’s theatrical plays “Lady Windermere’s Fan” and “The Importance of Being Earnest.” This shows how De Profundis was written not as an autobiographical work, a love letter, or a portrait of a tormented, imprisoned mind, but as a performance: paradoxical play in the same style as his dramatic repertoire, and desperately intended for publication. First, the Wilde’s dramatic writing process is examined. Then, using …

Talking Some Sense Into Chaucer: Bodies In “The Miller’S Prologue” And “The Miller’S Tale”, Jacqueline Joewono

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

If there is one question that underpins the evaluation of any great literary work, it is the following: How does the text make us feel? Through affect and textural studies, the answer becomes more complicated than any old adage might readily convey, for “feeling” here becomes a matter of simultaneous tactility and sentiment. Under this lens, perhaps no historical period becomes more desirable to feel than the Middle Ages; it is here, after all, that readers’ responsibilities with texts are pluralized: readers move from listeners born from oral traditions to participants of all kinds. Feeling, then, may be found in …

“Names Portable As Alter Stones”: Nomadic Movement And Recollection In Seamus Heaney’S Poetry, Norah Toomey Hatch

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Seamus Heaney’s acknowledgement of the names of the places in his poems serve as a map, but a map that demonstrates the deterritorializing nature of memory and therefore meaning itself. The places become points of departure, places of transit, motivators of unstable memories, and catalysts for changing perspectives. Heaney’s use of location anticipates a future that is not bogged down by static meaning as the speakers in the poems face their own memories clouded by history, politics, and myth. Grappling with connotation, though, does not offer any closure from the multiplicity of meaning that the naming or visiting of certain …

An Almost Threesome: Erotic Love Triangles And Authorial Choice In Malory’S Le Morte D’ Arthur, Maria L. Avery

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

It seems to be nearly a critically unanimous consensus that when translating Chretien de Troyes’ romance of the glorious King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory, in his Le Morte Darthur, approaches the narrative of Sir Lancelot with the unwavering attitude that Lancelot must not only sustain the status of Arthur’s most revered knight and truest friend, but also be a true and ideal lover for Guenevere. This deep sense of friendship and comraderie between Lancelot and his king is also reflected in nearly all of the relationships between Arthur’s knights; which is, similar to de Troyes a very important component …

Chaucer's Collision Montage, Brandon Simmons

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of collision montage can be applied to The Canterbury Tales because Chaucer’s writing is highly visual and often unconventional. This study analyzes several portraits and tales to demonstrate Chaucer’s literary collision montage technique. The opening lines of the General Prologue present the juxtaposition of the tripartite plant and humans to suggest commoners’ social immobility. The interruption of the Miller’s Tale clashes with the Knight’s to suggest the possibility of social mobility and to challenge traditional patriarchy. The latter half of the narrator’s description in the Wife of Bath’s portrait indicates a sexualized subtext through the juxtaposition of …

Slaying Hybridity: The “Uncreated” Monstrous Doubles In The The Saga Of The Volsungs, Nibelungenlied, And Kudrun, Kyle Augustyniak

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This paper examines anxieties about gender and gender in a thirteenth-century Old Norse text, The Saga of the Volsungs, and two Middle High German texts, the Nibelungenlied and Kudrun. All three exhibit a similar uneasiness about gender performance. In these epics, fears about gender fluidity are founded on the slaying of hybrid mythological creatures (dragons and griffons) and are perpetuated by various media: blood, tears, clothing, promises, and lies. These monsters threaten the established order within the text, a patriarchal order defined by feudal society. Once the hero defeats the monster—whose very essence is simultaneously an embodiment of the perceived …

The Enclosure Of Eden: John Clare And The Politics Of Place And Past, Amanda Labriola

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Virgin Beauty Queen: Gender, Productivity, And Modernity In Martin Mcdonagh's Ireland, Hannah Green

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A Dickensian Utilitarianism, Zachary Allentuck

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This paper argues that Charles Dickens' political and world views were in sympathy with Utilitarianism, as defined by Jeremy Bentham. The Utilitarianism Dickens attacked in A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, and Little Dorrit was not real utilitarianism; it was utilitarianism appropriated by England's middle-class.

Plays And Punks; Or, Aphra Behn And The Restoration Woman, Amanda J. Thompson

Theses & Honors Papers

In many ways, the Restoration Period in England (1660-1700) is defined by its interest in sexuality. Following the Interregnum (1649-1660), sexuality became a mechanism to distinguish royalists from the “puritanical followers” of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), particularly through the emergence of the libertine (Novak 56). Libertinism “made the senses a primary source of knowledge,” which challenged “conventional morality” through ritualistic fornication, drunkenness, and adultery (Staves 20). Men, like John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) wrote bawdy poetry celebrating their sexual conquests. Libertines were also regularly featured in Restoration drama, with playwrights like William Wycherley (1640-1716) and George Etherege (1636-1692) …

The World Of The Cat's Table: Literature Through Production Design Analysis, Andrea J. Johnson

Senior Honors Projects

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje is a rich piece of literature that has a diverse set of characters confined to one pivotal location, a ship. Just as the novel builds a world around its characters, in this project I attempted to build a space around immersive design choices.

Production Design is a visual response to analytic reading. By taking a written piece or concept and creating the physical/visual atmosphere for the work, a production designer’s job is to create the overall look and tone of a creative production, be it for a film, play, or museum space. This is …

Diagnoses By Gender: The Consequences Of Treatment Of The Mentally Ill In Virginia Woolf's The Waves And Mrs. Dalloway 2016, Erika Nichole Jackson

Master's Theses

“Insanity is purely a disease of the brain…The physician is now the responsible guardian of the lunatic, and must ever remain so.” Sir John Charles Bucknill (1897)

Mental illness has consistently been and continues to be a subject that is viewed as taboo by society, especially when it comes to diagnosing a patient. Instead of acknowledging a person’s actions, thoughts, and words, society continually disregards mental illness as something that is negative and to be feared. The fact that this area of medicine can be difficult and distressing makes it all the more important to continue research. It is true …

'The Letter Killeth': The Obscurity Of Language And Communication In Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure 2016, Victoria T. Corning

Master's Theses

While the epistolary novel is a genre closely associated with 18th century England, 19th century Victorian literature also incorporates letter writing as a significant form of communication. Written messages convey what can often not be said out loud, as it is easier to hide behind a pen and paper, write in solitude, and be absent when the letter is read by the recipient. Impulsive and emotional thoughts and feelings can be written down immediately and then later edited, which makes writing an unstable form of communication. Is the author conveying true feelings or concealing true feelings? Layering multiple modes of …

Suffering In The Human Experience: An Examination Of The Book Of Job And King Lear, Allison Denton

English Department Student Scholarship

This thesis uses the Old Testament figure of Job and the Shakespearean character King Lear to examine how suffering calls us to question life and its meaning. These works were chosen because of their authors' demonstrated value of life despite their protagonists' pain. This project originated from a desire to answer questions about the meaning of life that had arisen during four years of study at the College of the Holy Cross.

Close Reading Workshop, Nida Islam

Senior Honors Projects

Close reading is an in-depth analysis of a text’s features (e.g., syntax, punctuation, tone, and vocabulary) to acquire a comprehensive understanding of a piece of literature. At the National Council of Teachers of English Conference in 2001, Robert Scholes, a retired professor of English at Brown University, voiced his concern about the lack of ability in freshly enrolled college students to engage with the intricacy of texts. Jane Gallop, Professor of English at University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, further argues the interdisciplinary benefits of close reading and attests to the consequences of students’ inability to perform intense reading of literature. As a …

Images Of The Other: Race, Gender, And The Imperial Relationship In Heart Of Darkness, A Passage To India, And Burmese Days, Samantha A. Mason

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores themes of race, gender, and the imperial relationship found in three anti-imperial novels and additional related works. In Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness the narrator Marlow and, by extension Conrad himself, systematically silences all African and female voices throughout the novel, effectively making Marlow, a white man, the only person capable of speaking about the horrors of imperialism. Marlow abhors the exploitation of imperialism, but admires the "civilizing" idea behind it, making him a problematic representative for anti-imperial sentiment. In E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India, the main perspective shifts to that of an …

When In Doubt: An Exploration Of The Role Of The Oracle In The Harry Potter Series, Emily J. Milner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The popular Harry Potter series serves as the basis for my study of the oracles that appear throughout the series. By focusing specifically on Professor Sybill Trelawney, Ron Weasley, and the Sorting Hat, I show the relationships between Harry Potter and the Oracles. I also focus on a few of Trelawney's various methods of Divination and her prophecies.

Transforming The Mundane: Juxtaposing Maria Friedman’S "High Society" With George Cukor’S "The Philadelphia Story" As An Emphasis On The Importance Of Theatre, Dana T. Speight Ms.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The subjects of film and theatre belong to an extensive hierarchical debate that has remained prominent within the realm of performing arts since the introduction of cinema in the late nineteenth century. A plethora of scholars choose to argue in favor of the former, suggesting that film surpasses theatre as superior in both aesthetics and overall execution of naturalism; however, the argument is purely subjective and cannot be applied to all films and their corresponding plays. As a counterclaim, theatre continues to thrive as a prominent source of artistic entertainment globally, not only offering a contemporary twist to preexisting texts, …