Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

"You Have Witchcraft In Your Lips": Sensory Witchcraft In Shakespeare's Antony And Cleopatra And Macbeth, Hannah Kanninen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Scholarship on witches and witchcraft within Shakespeare’s plays has been a popular subject for many scholars. But one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters has not yet been integrated into this scholarship: Cleopatra from Antony and Cleopatra. Although scholars have often noted her “witchiness,” none have argued for an interpretation of Cleopatra as a witch. This is because traditional definitions of witchcraft have not been able to include Cleopatra. In comparison, Lady Macbeth from Macbeth has often been cited as the fourth witch in the play. But this interpretation relies upon examining Lady Macbeth’s perceived masculinity, which subsequently also makes her …

The George Eliot Archive: Current Reception & Comparison Of Dh Projects 2020, Mackenzie Burch, Beverley Rilett

UCARE: Research Products

• Current legal gray area for digital collections: An exception for public libraries and archives as educational tools exists for copyright infringement, but digital archives are not currently protected by this exception unless they can prove that the content is transformative.

• Benefits of archiving scholarship together: Grouping like scholarship together regardless of genre or authorship allows for unique cross-purpose or interdisciplinary connections to be drawn from the collection.

• Humanists of today must devote time and resources to the educational tools and platforms of tomorrow: Without the successful building and completion of means to ensure digital archives can be …

Book Review: The Lion In The Waste Land: Fearsome Redemption In The Work Of C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, And T. S. Eliot By Janice Brown, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Readers of scholarship about C. S. Lewis are familiar with studies that discuss his work and life in the context of his fellow Inklings: Tolkien, Williams, and Barfield. Janice Brown’s decision, however, to treat C. S. Lewis alongside two of his contemporary writers, both non-Inklings—Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot—does demand an explanation. Brown must have recognized as much since she begins The Lion in the Waste Land by building a case for considering these three authors together, citing British historian Adrian Hastings, who identifies a “re-appropriation of Christian faith” during World War II and attributes this revival …

“Thus Seyden Sadde Folk”: Chaucer’S Oxford Clerk On Theological Controversy In The 14th Century, Molly Kluever

CSB and SJU Distinguished Thesis

Among the most disturbing of The Canterbury Tales, the Oxford Clerk’s story of the submissive Griselda and her husband-cum-tormentor Walter has, despite its categorization as one of Chaucer’s “religious tales,” resisted most, if not all, theological readings with its lack of a clear moral. I attempt to address this ambiguity by focusing on the teller himself. As an Oxford-trained cleric, the Clerk is uniquely qualified to juggle the interrelated but conflicting discourses of two significant theological controversies of the late fourteenth century: the ongoing realist-nominalist debate within medieval universities and the rising Wycliffite/lollardy reform movement among all levels of …

Twinship And Marriage In The Comedy Of Errors, Kent R. Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

This article proposes that Shakespeare uses twinship and marriage in The Comedy of Errors to reflect on the importance of individuality and interrelation in the formation of identity. Specifically, this article shows how The Comedy of Errors sets the twin relation against the marital relation, ultimately implying that marriage—imperfect, everyday marriage—has as much subjective impact as the extraordinary bond between identical twins. As amazing as it might be to see two persons sharing "one face, one voice, one habit," The Comedy of Errors suggests that the twin relation does not surpass in significance the equally marvelous relation whereby husband and …

Hamlet As Music: A Study In The Semantics Of Symphonic Poetry, Mckenzie C. Alons

Selected Honors Theses

Symphonic poetry, a widely overlooked genre in musico-literary scholarship, provides a unique focal point into the relationship between music and extramusical texts. Invented by Franz Liszt in the mid-19th century, symphonic poems (or ‘tone poems’) interpret literary texts or ideas through short orchestral works. Thus, the symphonic poem invites close analysis of the semiotic relationship between music and literature. Using Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Liszt’s Symphonic Poem No. 10 (“Hamlet”), this thesis examines the relationship between the Shakespearean tragedy and Lisztian symphonic poetry. This focus is a microcosm for the musico-literary relationship and, henceforth, an undiscovered niche that involves disciplines as …

Cosmological Models And The Christian Faith In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Jacob R. Taylor

Tenor of Our Times

In this work the author argues that John Milton justifies the intelligibility and priority of Christian faith against modern revolutions of science in his epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton argues against scientists who choose to believe modern astronomy over cosmology. He argues that Christian faithfulness stands firm despite the crumbling of its medieval cosmological basis. This endurance of the faith is the primary scientific theme of the epic English poem.

"Founding Its Empire On Spells Of Pleasure": Brunonian Excitability, The Invigorated English Opium-Eater, And De Quincey's "China Question", Menglu Gao

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

What light can De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) shed on its author's later advocacy of the First Opium War? To what degree did De Quincey's and other contemporaneous accounts of opium use in Britain influence metaphorical connections between bodily energy and national power in the 1830s and 1840s? Placing Confessions alongside John Brown's 1780 treatise, Elements of Medicine, this essay argues that De Quincey "nationalized" opium-eating by transforming mental exceptionality in British Romanticism into a medical body's connection with internal energies and external stimuli from China and "the Orient." The essay concludes that opium serves in …

The Narrative Of Courtship: Literary And Biological Constructions And Their Impact On Women, Drew Harris 20

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

An Architectural Reading Of Kristeva, Woolf, And Shakespeare, Bailey M. Graham

English Literature Student Projects and Publications

Julia Kristeva’s seminal theories of the signifying process and the abject illuminate texts that challenge readers’ expectations. Kristeva’s psychoanalytic and linguistic ideas build analytic links between texts as seemingly disparate as Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando and William Shakespeare’s late 1590s play Titus Andronicus. In this portfolio, I will apply Kristeva’s distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic to elucidate the multiple meanings of nature in Woolf’s Orlando, as well as utilize Kristeva’s notion of the abject to analyze the narrative breakdown of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. In doing so, I will trace the development of Kristeva’s ideas …

The White Album As Neo-Victorian Fiction Of Loss, Lucas Kwong

Publications and Research

Although much has been written about the Beatles' celebration of Victorian culture on the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, little scholarship, if any, has focused on the White Album’s relationship to the late Victorian period. This paper examines the White Album through the lens of what Victorian studies scholar Stephen Arata has called “fictions of loss,” a body of late Victorian texts depicting intertwined processes of “national, biological, [and] aesthetic” decline. Through examining songs like "Helter Skelter" and "Revolution Number 9," I argue that the White Album deserves consideration alongside Dracula and She as a “fiction of loss,” …

Friend Or Foe: Chaucer’S Depiction Of Women In Troilus And Criseyde, Vanessa Balis 20

Honor Scholar Theses

Often considered the father of English poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340s-1400 CE) produced a number of famous poems during his lifetime, the most famous arguably being The Canterbury Tales. But another of his works, Troilus and Criseyde, is often considered the best example of both his poetic ability and his creative use of sources.1 In this thesis, I will be considering whether Chaucer supports or subverts a patriarchal social structure, specifically by looking at his representation of women in Troilus and Criseyde in comparison to his source Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato. Instead of resorting to the assumptive rhetoric of …

“Is [He] A Man? If So, Is He Mad? And If Not, Is He A Devil?”: The Influence Of Culture Versus Experience On The Brontë Sisters’ Perception Of Mental Illness, Catrina May Mehltretter

Masters Theses

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë each presented a different perspective on mental illness within their novels. The primary reason for this difference in perspective can be found in their different responses to their brother Branwell’s poor mental state. As Branwell’s health deteriorated mentally and physically, his sisters ended up becoming his primary caregivers, giving them a unique insight into mental illness that would have been unusual for the time period, given the tendency to send any mentally ill family members away to asylums. Still, this shared experience impacted each of the sisters differently, likely due to the different relationship each …

Tolkien's Lost Chaucer (2019) By John M. Bowers, Nelson Goering

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review by Nelson Goering of Tolkien's Lost Chaucer (2019) by John M. Bowers

Introducing Gower Shorts, Eve Salisbury, Georgiana Donavin

Accessus

This essay provides an introduction to a special issue of Accessus, entitled "Gower Shorts," slightly expanded and revised versions of conference papers presented at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo in 2018-19 and the Modern Language Association Conference in Chicago in 2019.

The Friendly Monster And The Complacent Queer: Assimilationist Approaches To Modern Adaptations Of Frankenstein's Creature, Cassandra Karn

Women's and Gender Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Monsters have been representations of othered communities since before the creation of the novel, so the Creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein should be no exception. The Creature defies binaries and rages against social injustice, making him a queer figure of resistance. However, modern adaptations of the Creature attempt to assimilate the Creature into the larger culture, removing both its queerness and its resistance. This unqueering brings into question how othered populations become accepted, and the cost paid for such acceptance.

On Ways Of Studying Tolkien: Notes Toward A Better (Epic) Fantasy Criticism, Dennis Wilson Wise

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article examines major academic approaches used in the study of J.R.R. Tolkien. It argues that certain themes from political philosopher Leo Strauss, by helping us to develop a new theoretical lens, can elucidate several politically salient aspects of Tolkien's work, including thymos and his dialectic between ancient and modern. Four previous (though flawed) Straussian interpretations of Tolkien are highlighted. Finally, by analyzing the tensions that arise when pairing critical theory and its attendant bias against nature with Tolkien and epic fantasy, this article argues for the timeliness of a Straussian lens for studying fantasy and Tolkien alike.

Fire And Snow: Climate Fiction From The Inklings To Game Of Thrones By Marc Dipaolo, Jamie Campbell Martin

The Goose

Review of Fire and Snow: Climate Fiction from the Inklings to Game of Thrones by Marc DiPaolo

"Members One Of Another": Heteroglossic Utterances As Critiques Of Injustice In Charles Dickens’S Bleak House, Cale Baker

Masters Theses

Charles Dickens often dealt with societal injustice within his work, and he often used the different languages—the language of the poor, the rich, the religious, the political—of various social strata to expose the disparity between the high and the low social classes. Within Bleak House, Dickens inserts different voices common to Victorian London through his third-person narrator to highlight the upper class oppression of the poor. To see Dickens’s insertion of these different voices, I use Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on heteroglossia and dialogism as a framework for understanding how Dickens inserts these different voices to specifically expose injustice. Additionally, I …

A Comparative Genre Analysis Of Malaysian And English Court Of Appeal Judgements, Chamil Ahmad Zaki

Student Works (2020-2029)

This genre-based research examines and compares the rhetorical structures of Malaysia and England and Wales Court of Appeal judgements. This comparative genre study is motivated by a statement by the former Malaysian Judge of the High Court, Dato’ Syed Ahmad Idid and Umar A. Oseni (2011) in a writing guide book that presents a standard model to write legal judgements that can be adapted to all legal jurisdictions across the world. Normativity statements about the dos and don’ts on how to write judgements are valid and essential to the legal practices but this normative approach does not necessarily describe the …