Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Holy Estrangement: The Poetics Of Estrangement In John Donne's Divine Poems And Sermons, Anton Bergstrom

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines literary estrangement, that is the act and effect of making the familiar strange in a literary work, in the religious poems and sermons of the poet-preacher John Donne (1572–1631). My study uncovers and explores what Donne "estranges," how he achieves this, and for what purpose, as well as the practices and modes of thinking that shaped his poetics. In Donne's religious verse and prose, making the familiar and traditional tropes, images, doctrines, and events of Christianity strange forms active readers and revitalizes those elements, imbuing them with newfound interest, significance, and affective power.

My study offers a …

‘Not Shap’D For Sportive Tricks:’ Representations Of Disability In Film And Digital Broadcast Cinema Adaptations Of Early Modern Drama, Grace Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In films that feature disability, we see the recursive and discussion-limiting impulse to say “this representation is negative. Therefore, the representation should not be seen,” based on critical theories and methodologies outside the purview of film studies. Unfortunately, the overlay of an English, narratological, sociological, or medical methodology and terminology onto a film representation of disability is ultimately recursive and self-limiting; critical and advocate calls for accuracy to the lived experience of people with disabilities in on-screen representations decline to engage with the visual construction of cinematic representations of disability and the often fascinating cinematographic and thematic patterns that emerge …

Maladaptive Grief: Irish And American Experiences Of Loss, Mourning, And Trauma, Abby Hey

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Literature that responds to loss and expresses mourning, a genre referred to as the elegy, traditionally follows an adaptive pattern in which a mourner reaches consolation and comfort. In the modern period, however, mourning transformed into destructive experiences that were notably private. With this phenomenon of greater social and emotional isolation, writers like Sylvia Plath, Samuel Beckett, and Elizabeth Bishop expressed rumination and irresolution. In contrast, before the twentieth century, elegies were not only more consolatory, but there was a greater emphasis on shared feeling, and this communal type of mourning is more often adaptive. By grieving together in the …

‘...Arranged In A Fanciful Manner And In An Ancient Style’: The First Scenic Realisations Of Scott’S Work And The Desire For A New “Realism” On Scottish Stages, Barbara Bell

Studies in Scottish Literature

An illustrated essay examining the stage design and scenery in early dramatizations of Scott's fiction, specifically the designs by Alexander Nasmyth for versions of Scott's stage adaptations of Scott's The Heart of Mid-Lothian, in London in 1819 and in Edinburgh in 1820, arguing that the rise of scenic realism strengthened the relationship between the theatre and the broader population.

Oldbuck And Ochiltree: Scott, History, And The Antiquary’S Doppelgänger, John Williams

Studies in Scottish Literature

Argues that, in The Antiquary, Scott creatively explores and reworks earlier literary forms, particularly Shakespearean and Gothic tropes (double identity, hero/anti-hero, tainted familial relationships, shape-shifting), injecting a note of sober realism into Romantic self-indulgence, and contributing significantly to the evolution of subsequent European literary culture, just as his own work was reworked by others.

The Chartist Robin Hood: Thomas Miller’S Royston Gower; Or, The Days Of King John (1838), Stephen Basdeo

Studies in Scottish Literature

Walter Scott's reinvention in Ivanhoe (1819) of Robin Hood as an Anglo-Saxon freedom fihghter had a lasting impact on later portrayal's of the outlaw. Thomas Miller's novel Royston Gower (1838) reworks Scott's idea of racial conflict between Saxons and Normans to cast Robin Hood as a Saxon freedom fighter to serve the Chartist cause. Where Scott’s portrayal served a conservative agenda of reconciliation, leading to one nation under a just and benevolent king, Miller draws parallels between Norman oppressors and the early Victorian political elite, between Saxon poverty and 19^th century hunger, and between the Saxon hope of a …

Flora Annie Steel: The Walter Scott Of The Punjab?, Juliet Shields

Studies in Scottish Literature

Suggests that Flora Ann Steel Steel’s late Victorian historical novels about India, usually discussed in terms of gender, race, or postcolonial criticism, are more usefully compared to Walter Scott than to Rudyard Kipling, arguing that Steel's novels, like Scott’s about Scotland, formalize an understanding of historical change that derives from the Scottish Enlightenment.

Psychographic Persona Development In The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Melody Day

Undergraduate Honors Theses

When interviewed about his Victorian Gothic masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde once observed that “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps” (Oscar Wilde). These three characters represent widely different types of people; in light of Wilde’s words, then, what does it truly mean to be Basil, Lord Henry, or Dorian Gray? In other words, what interests, opinions, and values held by these characters determine how each of them differ from one another? In my cross-discipline …

Archibald Pitcairne's Liturgical Year, Kelsey Jackson Williams

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses a series of short Latin poems by the Edinburgh physician and Jacobite sympathizer Dr Archibald Pitcairne (1652-1713), based on the liturgical year and on special services in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer then recently legalized for use by Scottish Episcopalians.

Carlyle And Calvinism, Joanna Malecka

Studies in Scottish Literature

A survey of how critics have treated Carlyle's religious beliefs, arguing that his Calvinist upbringing needs more consideration.

Losing His Religion: The Neglected Catholicism Of A.J. Cronin, Gerard Carruthers

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reexamination of the Scottish-born bestselling novelist A.J. Cronin (1896-1981), briefly recounting his Catholic upbringing and education at St, Aloysius College, Glasgow, with primary focus on his novel about a maverick Catholic priest, The Keys of the Kingdom (1941), popularized by the film version with Gregory Peck.

A Revision Of Power: Religion In Fionn Mac Colla’S And The Cock Crew, Brooke Mclaughlin Mitchell

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the treatment of the central character, the Gaelic-speaking minister Maighstir Sachairi, in And the Cock Crew (1945), by Fionn Mac Colla (Thomas Donaldson, 1906-1975), a historical novel about the Highland clearances(the evictions of the local crofting inhabitants in the north of Scotland to make way for sheep-farming), and argues (1) that, although the novel condemns the Presbyterian clergy for colluding in the evictions and preaching submission to those evicted, Mac Colla's novel is deeply imbued with the Calvinism it might seem to reject, and (2) that the central scene, a debate between Sachairi and a Gaelic bard, is structured …

Calvinism, Catholicism, And Fascism In Muriel Spark’S The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Richard Rankin Russell

Studies in Scottish Literature

A reassessment of the intertwined roles of Scottish presbyterianism, Italian Catholicism, and the rise of fascism, in Muriel Spark's 1961 novel about an Edinburgh schoolteacher in the 1920s and 1930s.

Hearing Competing Voices In James Robertson’S The Fanatic, Alison Jack

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses critical responses to James Robertson’s novels The Fanatic (2000) and The Testament of Gideon Mack (2006), and with particular reference to the character of John Lauder in The Fanatic, arguing that, rather than the political and psychological aspects represented by other characters, the religious perspective of Lauder offers a relevant creative alternative.

Afterword: Finding Religion In Scottish Literary History, Crawford Gribben

Studies in Scottish Literature

Looks back at the author's original article on the marginalization of Calvinist beliefs in earlier Scottish literature and comments on issues raised by the contributors to the SSL symposium.

Courting Love: Comedy And Genre In Robene And Makyne, Caitlin Flynn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Observing that little critical scrutiny has been given to Henryson's shorter poems, argues that Henryson's Robene and Makyne challenges genre critics by its "seamlessness ... weaving together of courtly and country, formal and frolicking," and that the two lovers, who "embody the generic confusion marking the formal qualities of the poem," reflect "the comic instability of the generic resonances within the text," pointing to wider trends in Scottish imaginative literature of the period.

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The Poetry Of William Forbes Of Disblair (1661-1740), William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Arguing that the early 18th century Scottish poet William Forbes has been given too little attention, introduces some of the issues in settling the canon of Forbes's work, and discusses both Forbes's anti-Union political poetry, notably The True Scots Genius, Reviving (1704), and A Pil for Pork-Eaters (1705), and his later dialogue on marriage, Xantippe: or the Scolding Wife (1724), an original development from a Latin dialogue by Erasmus. An appendix gives details of the eleven published poems attributable to Forbes.

‘I Am Just As Typically Scottish’: G.S. Fraser As Scottish Poet, Richie Mccaffery

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the poetry and poetic career of G. S. Fraser (1915-1980), both in the 1940s when he was regularly identified as a Scottish poet, and later in his life, arguing that the hostility of Scottish critics to his poetry in the 1950s (when he also built a substantial reputation as a London-based critic and reviewer) was unjustified, leading to the neglect of his substantial and continuing poetic achievement, and encouraging too narrow a definition of Scottish poetry.

The Roy Manuscript Of Burns’S 'To John Syme', Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes the only known authorial manuscript of a short poem by Robert Burns, now in the G. Ross Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina, providing a collation of variants among the early texts, and discussing the reliability of the transcripts of such Burns epigrams or versicles made by Burns's friend John Syme, on which editors must rely for other Burns items.

Contributors To Ssl 45.2

Studies in Scottish Literature

Biographical information on contributors to SSL 45.2