Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Diverse Possibilities Of Shakespeare: Teaching Twelfth Night Through A Queer Lens, Julia Ritzler

Honors Projects

This project seeks to understand the ways in which Queer Theory can be applied to secondary language arts education to enhance students' understanding of identity and gender in literature. For the purposes of this project, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is being used as a case study text. This project includes a thorough analysis of Twelfth Night through a queer lens, a literature review of Queer Theory and educational pedagogy, a block plan and related instructional and assessment materials, a rationale for the block plan, and project limitations and implications for future research. By analyzing scholarly texts and applying the theories within …

‘Fiery The Angels Rose’: The Romantic Prometheanism Of Tolkien’S Diabolical Characters, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

Milton’s Satan in the seventeenth century was hardly viewed as heroic, yet in his resistance to supreme authority and bold transvaluation of values (“Evil, be thou my Good”) he emerges as a sort of tragic hero for many Romantics such as William Blake or later Herman Melville. Like Prometheus, the subject of Percy Bysshe Shelley great poetic drama, Satan is a figure of noble rebellion against omnipotent force. Tolkien’s more ‘satanic” characters, such as Melkor, Sauron, and perhaps even Saruman, do not often strike readers as heroes, yet there is a sort of Prometheanism in each of them. Viewed from …

The 'Biographer' And Her 'Subject': Vita Sackville-West's Influence On Virginia Woolf, Sydney Sherman '28

Best First-Year Seminar Writing

Woolf and Sackville-West's relationship has been scrutinized and celebrated since its beginning. While deeply affectionate, their bond also blurred boundaries between personal intimacy and artistic exploitation. Woolf immortalized Sackville-West in her 1928 novel Orlando, a work both heralded as a groundbreaking exploration of gender fluidity and critiqued for its appropriation of Sackville-West's life and identity. Orlando, The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, and Portrait of a Marriage serve as unique lenses to observe the relationship between Woolf and Sackville-West. Orlando is a testament to the true love between a biographer and her Orlando, but as an artist, Woolf's …

The Vision Of The Inklings: Mythopoeia And Modern Christian Literature, Emmalene Sotomayor

Senior Honors Theses

The Inklings wrote with the intention to convey truth through myth. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and their friends developed stories to point readers to something greater—very often God. Christian creators now can look to their example while writing their own works of art. Currently, Christian fiction is in a sad state, known for mediocre romance novels that hardly portray faith in a moving or truthful manner. Believers can use the wisdom of Tolkien and Lewis to develop their own excellent works. Lewis and Tolkien’s beliefs in myth pointing to God, hope against adversity, and good resisting …

“The Wonderful Improvement”: Landscape And Morals In Jane Austen’S Mansfield Park, Montanah Middleton

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Jane Austen uses depictions of landscapes and estates in her novel Mansfield Park to explore questions of morality, comment on society, and explore humanity's relationship with the natural world. While previous scholarship has analyzed Austen's symbolic use of places like Sotherton and Mansfield Park itself, this study provides a more comprehensive investigation by closely reading the descriptions and judgments passed on two other estates featured in the novel not analyzed by the scholarship explored. Developing a nuanced definition of "landscape,” the analysis is grounded in Austen's verbal depictions that imbue the physical settings with moral significance. …

Cultural Memory And The Search For Identity In Victorian Fantasy Fiction, Sadie Boggs

Honors College Theses

Fantasy literature's origins can be traced through myths and folktales, medieval romances, enlightenment fairy tale fantasy, and Romanticism, before finally taking firmer root in the Victorian period and blooming into its own genre in 20th century modern fantasy. Victorian thinkers reacted to the Enlightenment’s realism and technological innovation by “rediscovering” the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, simplicity, and moral virtue. Simultaneously, Psychology developed as a recognized field of study, and theories emerged about the psychological process of memory formation and retrieval, as well as its reliability and relation to identity.

Considering these psychological theories, Victorian fantasy's cultural memory …

Navigating The Anglo-Irish Landscape: Imaginative Geographies In Bram Stoker And Elizabeth Bowen's Novels, Natalie Pearson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

There has been great work done by scholars of Anglo-Irish Gothic tradition to assess the place of classic fictional characters within that tradition. Could a character’s identity contain an Irish dimension? Could they be, perhaps, an allegorical embodiment of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy or native Irish peasantry? All excellent questions; however, this present study looks to explore a different perspective by considering “place” itself across four Anglo-Irish Gothic novels: that of Bram Stoker’s The Snake’s Pass (1890) and Dracula (1897) and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September (1929) and Bowen’s Court (1942). I seek to highlight the physical landscape in each …

“We Are As We Are, And Ye Are As We Find You” (Or, Finrod Elfsplains The Gift Of Ilúvatar): The ‘Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth’ As Core Text In Tolkien’S Legendarium, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

The "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" is a highly problematic text that directly challenges, if not overturns, the eschatology of Tolkien’s legendarium. In combination with the "Tale of Adanel," we are confronted with the possibility that, in the beginning, the Atani were also deathless and that mortality was a punishment, calling into question the nature of the ‘gift of Ilúvatar’.

Chaucerian Echoes: Chivalric Tradition And Gender Construction In George Eliot's Middlemarch, Gillian Guy

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

George Eliot’s Middlemarch critiques Victorian social and gender norms through characters' relationships with each other and with horseback riding. This paper argues that Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde informs the symbolism and literary tropes Eliot uses in crafting her narrative. Analysis of Chaucerian tropes of courtly love and medieval codes of chivalry reveals how characters either maintain or undermine traditional Victorian conventions of masculinity and femininity; these dynamics are primarily seen through horse ownership and horseback riding. One protagonist in particular, Will Ladislaw, is examined in this paper as representing ideas of androgyny through his unconventional relationships with horses and …

Revisiting Paradise Lost Through K-Pop: A Global Approach To Teaching Writing, Nayoung Bishoff

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The short film series Wings (2016) by the Korean musical group BTS (Beyond the Scene) revisits John Milton’s Paradise Lost. BTS reinterprets Adam and Eve’s leaving of Eden as youths’ self-discovery process, overcoming a binary mindset. BTS emphasizes how experiences—trials, pains, and the struggle of youths to walk out of black-and-white perspectives—turn out to be “all so beautiful” as resources to grow. Wings demonstrates how the themes and elements in Paradise Lost can be used as a tool not only to explore Biblical concepts, but also to understand what pedagogical environments youths need to fully express themselves as writers. …

Applications In The Classroom: The Potential Of Scholarly Studies In Harry Potter In Higher Education, Anne Collins Smith

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Of what use is a book about the Harry Potter series that was published before the series was complete? Having taught an upper-division college course on Philosophy in Harry Potter multiple times, I believe that the early publication of Scholarly Studies in Harry Potter actually increases its potential utility in the classroom. Not only does this book include thoughtful and insightful scholarship, but it is also pedagogically valuable. It raises thought-provoking topics that can serve as the basis for research papers and class presentations, as well as providing important resources for students to use while conducting such research.

Applications In The Classroom: Hardly Elementary—Frontiers For Freshman Composition With Conan Doyle’S A Study In Scarlet, Kate M. Donley

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Three recent television and !lm adaptations testify to the continuing popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. The fast-paced novella that introduces detective duo Holmes and Watson, A Study in Scarlet involves some astonishing elements, and not just in the plot. With just a little probing, collegiate readers may wonder whether Conan Doyle plagiarized his most famous character, invented forensic science, despised Mormons, and accidentally wrote a Western.

The novel was adapted as A Study in Pink, the !rst episode of the BBC’s series Sherlock created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Their vision of Holmes set …

Reflection: The Twenty-Line Trap? Shakespeare Enacted By Young Women, Shannon Reed

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Professional actors assemble a toolkit of monologues with an obligatory “Shakespearean monologue” of around 20 lines. But female actors are at a disadvantage, with less than 150 women in a repertoire of over 1,100 characters in Shakespeare’s 37 or more plays. Young female actors (18-22 years old) are even more at a loss, if the powerful and complex older female roles are removed, leaving only a few dozen appropriate speeches. What effect does this limited canon have on such actors? Here, I reflect upon my own participant observer experience as a young woman actor, who received the bulk of my …

You Want Me To Do What? But I Can’T Read That... Cataloging Soviet Russia Space Exploration Books, Katherine Loving, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

The Al Harris Library received a donation of the archive of retired astronaut General Thomas P. Stafford. The continually growing collection includes over 200 boxes containing NASA reports, professional and personal pictures, videos, and more. Part of the collection is the approximately 700 books used for research by Stafford and his co-author Michael Cassutt to write the memoir We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race (2002). Half of these books are a collection of Soviet-era Russia (USSR) space program books and periodicals written in Russian. Michael Cassutt has characterized the books as the most comprehensive collection about the …

Rimmo Nín Bruinen Dan In Ulaer!: Waters Of Wisdom And Wonder In Tolkien’S The Fellowship Of The Ring (1954), Noelia Ramos Soria

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien's profound and enigmatic incorporation of water elements has captivated not only Tolkien enthusiasts but also scholars from various academic fields, positioning this elemental motif as a significant focus in contemporary literary studies. Although environmental themes in Tolkien's works have been widely researched, the specific role of water in Elven realms—and its possible Celtic cultural connotations—remains largely overlooked. This paper examines J.R.R. Tolkien's engagement with Celtic influences in The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), focusing on the motif of water in elven realms. Despite critiquing Milton Waldman’s idea of “Celtic Things,” Tolkien paradoxically integrates Celtic mythology, creating complex aquatic landscapes …

Remembering And Forgetting: National Identity Construction In Tolkien’S Middle-Earth, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

The medieval period in Europe saw the development of vernacular literatures, grown out of oral tradition and classical mythology, in which epic poems were a means of preserving culture, sharing a moral code, and offering solace in times of hardship. These epic poems, usually transcribed or translated in monastic scriptoria, were passed down through generations and enabled the sharing of memory via storytelling. In many ways, this early literature, rooted as it was in both the religious and the secular aspects of life in this time, was as much a part of the identity of the various European peoples as …

Tolkien's 'Beloved' _Pearl_, Jane Beal Phd

Journal of Tolkien Research

Abstract: This essay explores Tolkien’s life-long engagement with the fourteenth-century, Middle English, dream vision poem called Pearl. It examines the inspiration he took from the poem through reading, reciting, copying, editing, translating, and teaching it to undergraduate students at the University of Leeds and Merton College, Oxford University. Milestones in Tolkien’s work on Pearl include his edition of it, produced with E.V. Gordon and Ida Gordon for Oxford University Press (1953), and a metrical translation of it that he worked on from 1920s onwards, which was published with Allen & Unwin in London and Random House in New York …

Tolkien’S _Beowulf_-Poet And His Dantean Tower, Michael David Elam

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s tower metaphor in “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” shows significant affinities with views of the sea presented in Dante’s Purgatorio. These affinities combine with relevant similarities between Dante and Tolkien’s view of the Beowulf-poet to show an underlying preoccupation Tolkien has about the purgation of source material and the sanctification of authors. Ultimately in Tolkien’s perspective, the Beowulf-poet’s view from the top of his tower looks ahead to the hope of eternal life promised to the Chrisitan elect.

Tolkien And Laʒamon, Deidre Dawson

Journal of Tolkien Research

In this essay I argue that the Arthurian poem that had the greatest influence on The Lord of the Rings was Laʒamon’s Brut. In a Letter to editor Milton Waldman from 1951 Tolkien expressed his regret that England lacked a mythology and stories of its own that were “bound up with its tongue and soil, ” explaining that the Arthurian world was “associated with the soil of Britain but not with English,” and that “its ‘faerie’ is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive.” Perhaps to rectify these deficiencies in the Matter of Britain, Tolkien began writing his own …

“‘And Númenor Went Down Into The Sea’: Tolkien, Beowulf, And The Masochistic Jouissance Of Westernesse”, Christopher Vaccaro

Journal of Tolkien Research

In Tolkien, Enchantment and Loss, John Rosegrant avers that Tolkien wrote of the downfall and destruction of Númenor in order to release a personal emotional complex (John Rosegrant, Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss, 118-20). In this essay, I examine in greater detail the emotional power of this story and relate it to the psychological notion of primary masochism (Freud, Deleuze, Bersani) and the pleasures connected to the dissolution of the self. The Beowulf poem renders conspicuous the dependency of heroic Anglo-Saxon male subjectivity on experiences of masochistic desire and the Death Drive, the desire to be unburdened of great …