Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Cavalier Reading: Examining The Problematic Nature Of Signifiers, Monique Nichelle Branscumb

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

C. S. Lewis And Satan: A Preface To Paradise Lost And Its Respondents, 1942-1952, David V. Urban

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This essay discusses C. S. Lewis’s influential and controversial chapter, within A Preface to “Paradise Lost” (1942), on Milton’s Satan. Lewis’s chapter presents itself as a response to what Lewis sees as the dominant Romantic understanding of Milton’s Satan, but Lewis oversimplifies the critical landscape both by misrepresenting Shelley’s discussion of Satan and by failing to acknowledge various post-Shelley challenges to Milton’s Satan that had appeared before Lewis’s book. Lewis’s chapter elicited various sustained critical responses in the ensuing decade. This essay analyzes those responses—most of which seek to refute Lewis’s presentation of Satan by reasserting a Romantic understanding of …

The Valiant Welshman, The Scottish James, And The Formation Of Great Britain, Megan Lloyd

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

When James VI of Scotland and I of England proclaimed himself King of Great Britain, he proposed a merger of the English and Scottish parliaments, and he looked to Henry VIII’s Acts of Union of England and Wales (1536/43) as an example for English Scottish union under one king. On the London stage after 1603 many plays paid tribute to the new king and provided a predominantly English audience a means of accepting the not so palatable ideas of Scottish power, assimilation and unity. The Valiant Welshman is distinctive among these works, as no other extant early modern English drama …

Monstrosity As A Problem Of Moral Proximity In Shakespeare’S Othello, Kyle Ward

Student Works

Abstract

In Othello, Shakespeare explores the idea of monstrosity through his titular character. This paper argues that Othello exemplifies the idea that monstrosity is not an inherent evil, but rather that it is a problem of Moral Proximity. The Problem of Moral Proximity, as it is explained in the paper, is the idea that good and evil are the moderation of or corruption of neutral traits. This paper not only argues that monstrosity is one of these neutral qualities, but also explores how Iago corrupts this monstrosity to bring about Othello's downfall.

Preface To Ssl 44.2, Tony Jarrells, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

A brief introduction to this special issue, including reference to earlier contributions on the topic in this journal.

Claimed By The Stage: Popular Dramatization And The Legacy Of The Lady Of The Lake, Mary Nestor

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses three stage adaptations of Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, by Thomas Dibdin for the Surrey Theatre, London, John Edmund Eyre, for the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, and Thomas Morton for Covent Garden, arguing that these popular melodramas shaped popular perception of how Scott's poem engaged the Highland landscape.

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‘A’ That’S Past Forget – Forgie’: National Drama And The Construction Of Scottish National Identity On The Nineteenth-Century Stage, Paula Sledzinska

Studies in Scottish Literature

Focused on dramatic adaptations of Walter Scott’s Rob Roy and Waverley for the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, by Isaac Pocock and John W. Calcraft, this essay explores "how the conflicted Lowland and Highland traditions became incorporated into the new image of the nation," offering "a theatrical reflection of the dynamic process of identity building in the nineteenth-century Scotland."

'Poetry That Does Not Die': Andrew Lang And Walter Scott’S 'Immortal' Antiquarianism, Lucy Wood

Studies in Scottish Literature

The late 19th century essayist Andrew Lang, born in the Scottish borders, shared with Walter Scott a passionate devotion for the Borders landscape, mapped and mediated by Scott’s fictions; in his introductions to the Border Edition of Scott's novels, Lang argued that, by “immortalising” national antiquities, Scott ensured that Scotland's geographical and architectural heritage would be preserved.

‘Such Editorial Liberties’: Scott And The Textual Afterlives Of Thomas The Rhymer, David Selfe

Studies in Scottish Literature

This essay discusses from his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802 etc) Walter Scott's version of the ballad "Thomas the Rhymer" (or "True Thomas") tracing the ballad's history within the social context of its reception, and then comparing Scott’s version with the orally-transmitted version "Thomas Rhymer and the Queen of Elfland",written down by Anna Gordon Brown in 1800, for differences both in wording and in punctuation choices as the “apologetic apostrophe,” to suggest how such textual traces show the changing relationship between textual form and textual function. [essay still in final proof stage]

Twilight Histories: The Waverley Novels And George Eliot’S Fictions Of The Recent Past, Camilla Cassidy

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Scott's Waverley novels on George Eliot, as novels set in recent history, drawing on Eric Hobsbawm's idea of a "twilight zone between history and memory" to examine Eliot's Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, and to argue that Eliot in reworking Scott's reimagining of this recent-historical "time-lapse" articulates a psychological experience of historical transition and modernisation.

Amédée Pichot And Walter Scott’S Parrot: A Fabulous Tale Of Parroting And Pirating, Céline Sabiron

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes the background and origin of Le perroquet de Walter Scott (Paris, 1834), by the French writer and translator Amédée Pichot, who had visited Scott (and Scott's home at Abbotsford) in 1822, discussing the complex interrelationship in Pichot's work between parody, translation, and piracy, and also considering more briefly Pichot's work as anticipating the better-known parrots in Flaubert and Julian Barnes.

Allegories Of The Heart, Fiona Robertson

Studies in Scottish Literature

"Allegories of the Heart" uses allegory (or "telling otherwise") as a means of investigating Scott’s presence in literary works which do not specifically adapt or rework his texts, arguing that this is an underexplored area of imaginative and figurative engagement with Scott’s work. Key texts are The Heart of Mid-Lothian, The Monastery, and Hawthorne’s fictions "Earth’s Holocaust" and The Scarlet Letter.

Croftangry’S Castle And The House Of Usher: Scott, Poe, And ‘Decayed And Lingering Exotics’, George S. Williams

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses Poe's reading of Walter Scott, specifically through parallels of plot, setting, phrasing and imagery, between Scott's Chronicles of the Canongate, 1st series (1827) and Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), arguing that the two works share psychological preoccupations, also present more widely in the prose works of the writers.

Walter Scott And Comics, Christopher Murray

Studies in Scottish Literature

A wide-ranging survey of the reworking of Scot's novels (and narrative poems) in comic form, in the US and UK.

Afterword: New Reworkings Of Walter Scott From Dundee Comics Creative Space, Christopher Murray

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses and illustrates a variety of approaches to the reworking of Scott novels by artists working in the Dundee Comics Creative Space, as developed for a sampler publication published by UniVerse Comics (2017), in connection with the Reworking Walter Scott project

Contributors To Ssl 44.2

Studies in Scottish Literature

No abstract provided.

The Desire To Escape And The Inability To Follow Through In James Joyce’S Dubliners, Alyssa M. Wheatley

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In my research, I will examine James Joyce’s Dubliners as a collection of stories that is unified by an ongoing theme; escape or the desire to escape. In the collection, the want or need to escape serves a major purpose throughout the characters and their lives. This thesis explores five stories that share this theme in particular: “The Sisters,” “Eveline,” “Araby,” “An Encounter,” and “The Dead.” Each story will be discussed in the context of how each story progresses from a want to an actual escape. In addition, the thesis also considers how these stories exhibit a progression towards isolation …

The Plot Thickens : Illustrated Victorian Serial Fiction From Dickens To Du Maurier, Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Lisa Surridge

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In the early 1800s, books were largely unillustrated. By the 1830s and 1840s, however, innovations in wood- and steel-engraving techniques changed how Victorian readers consumed and conceptualized fiction. A new type of novel was born, often published in serial form, one that melded text and image as partners in meaning-making.

These illustrated serial novels offered Victorians a reading experience that was both verbal and visual, based on complex effects of flash-forward and flashback as the placement of illustrations revealed or recalled significant story elements. Victorians’ experience of what are now canonical novels thus differed markedly from that of modern readers, …

Introduction: Reworking Walter Scott, Daniel Cook, Lucy Wood

Studies in Scottish Literature

An overview of Walter Scott's contemporary celebrity and evolving reputation, of scholarship on his afterlives, of the way his work has been reshaped in a variety of settings and media, and of the essays collected in this special issue.

Romantic Theology As Revelation Through Tom Bombadil And Goldberry In Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Brandon Best

Augsburg Honors Review

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Tom Bombadil initially appears to be merely an eccentric, episodic character. Yet, upon close reading his enchanting spirit embodies moral significance throughout the trilogy when members in the war against Sauron recall his spirit in moments of hope and despair. Though he only appears to the Hobbits within the Old Forest, Bombadil represents ideals present throughout the entire story. As Tolkien wrote, “[Bombadil] represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he …