Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Orbic Bards: Religious Liberalism And The Problems Of Representation In The Postbellum Works Of Walt Whitman And Herman Melville, Anthony Gus Cohen

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In an attempt to reconcile the critical camps that attempt either to christianize or otherwise, "scripturize" nineteenth century literary texts with the converse, which attempts to paint them cynically as "infidel countertexts" this project seeks to find a middle ground. The works of Herman Melvile and Walt Whitman steeped in the increasingly liberal religious atmosphere of New York City following the Civil War, both strive to offer up an impressively accurate historical and poetical record, free from the problems of hearsay that nagged the deists and transcendentalists, and instead attempted to offer something that instead was nearer to reason, and …

Ethical Dilemma And Nihilism In Munro's "Passion", Xiying Liu, Hongbin Dai

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Ethical Dilemma and Nihilism in Munro's 'Passion'" Xiying Liu and Hongbin Dai discuss ethical issues in Alice Munro's short story "Passion." When attempting to escape the shackles of multiple ethical identities, the short story's protagonist Grace encounters dilemmas and in consequence makes wrong decisions with regard to the principle of ethics. The other protagonist of the story, Neil, commits suicide demonstrating that he breaks off all relationship with the world. Liu and Dai argue that Neil's death deconstructs Grace's ethical dilemmas and thus the narrative constructs a sense of nihilism. Liu and Dai posit that Munro's short …

Ethics Of Counter Narrative In Delillo’S Falling Man, Qingji He

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethics of Counter-Narrative in DeLillo's Falling Man" Qingji He analyzes Don DeLillo's counter-narrative in his post-9/11 novel Falling Man. The objective is to show how ethical dimensions function fundamentally in formulating an appropriate counter-narrative and why DeLillo's counter-narrative echoes views expressed in his "In the Ruins of the Future." He argues that DeLillo's counter-narrative entails the necessity of ethical consciousness and responsibility. It is Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings instead of media representation that become pivotal in Lianne's transformative and redemptive process after the terrorist attack. Similarly, David Janiak's performance art and Richard Drew's picture …

“Beauty Joined To Energy”: Gravity And Graceful Movement In Richard Wilbur’S Poetry, Elizabeth Lynch

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout his work, Wilbur maintains a thematic and aesthetic fascination with kinetic energy, especially insofar as this graceful movement often seems to defy the world’s gravity. Wilbur’s energetic verse and imagery invites readers to delve into the philosophical and spiritual meditations of his poems, as well as to notice the physical world anew. The kinetic aspects of Wilbur’s subject matter, wordplay, wit, and figurative language elucidate the frequent tempering of gravity with levity within his work. Many critics have studied Wilbur’s philosophy, Christianity, metaphors, wordplay, and approach to language as found in his poetry, but this essay attempts to use …

T.S. Eliot: A Never-Ending Exploration, Kristina Krupilnitskaya

Honors Thesis

The following thesis explores the work of T.S. Eliot before and after his conversion to the Anglican Church. While the paper explores the stylistic qualities of Eliot's poetry, the main focus of the essay lies in bridging the pre and post conversion works together in order to show that both of the periods were significant in the poet's life. While many critics viewed Eliot's early poetry as a lot more exploratory and challenging, calling his later poetry banal and bland, my essay aims to show that even though the poetry had shifted in its content, its significance, complexity, and experimentality …

Characters Through Time, Alyssa Venezia

Honors Thesis

T. S. Eliot once wrote that we “often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [an author’s] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (Eliot 37). By focusing on character adaptations, one comes to understand how authors of children’s books are able to adapt classic literature into age-appropriate texts that retain the merits of the original. Five sets of characters shall be analyzed to demonstrate the success of the adaptations presented in children’s literature. In the first, Sir Bedivere from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur …

"Ushering" In The Fulfillment Of Prophecy, Alison M. Pulliam

Aidenn: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal of American Literature

During the 19^th century, a phenomenon known as “Holy Land mania” was sweeping the United States. Americans were intrigued by the state of the Holy Land and whether or not this state matched the images described in biblical prophecy (Robey 62). Interest in Israel’s condition invaded many aspects of American life, including literature. Looking through the lens of historical criticism, it is easy to see how authors of this time period fed on the “Holy Land mania” to include references to prophecy and the Middle East in their writings. In particular, critic Molly K. Robey accurately points out in …

"Pitiful Creature Of Darkness": The Subhuman And The Superhuman In The Phantom Of The Opera, Jessica Sternfeld

Music Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter focuses on The Phantom of the Opera, the megamusical that perhaps most boldly faces the idea of disability head-on, as it stars a character whose face, as one journalist described it, looks 'like melted cheese' (Smith, 1995). The musical's approach to the Phantom's disability is remarkably layered and inconsistent; the Phantom is portrayed in numerous ways (monster, criminal, genius, god, ghost) and his physical disability blurs regularly with his 'soul;' which is where numerous characters locate the origin of his problems. His face and its famous mask covering are both feared and thrilled over, but with a reassuring …

Review Of Joyce Carol Oates's The Lost Landscape, Eric K. Anderson

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Review of Joyce Carol Oates's memoir The Lost Landscape, focusing on how the author's experiences have influenced her writing.

Glycemic Control Among Type 2 Diabetics, Abdi H. Nur

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between diabetics’ socioeconomic status, self-efficacy, education levels, gender, and ethnicity and their medication and physical activity (i.e., healthy exercise) adherence regarding to their physicians and health educators’ counsels. Also, the study investigated whether or not the respondents adhered to medication prescription and physical activity routines. The study used a non-probability convenience sampling technique to recruit 102 type 2 diabetics (female, n = 65 and male, n = 37) from Indiana and Illinois Counties surrounding Vigo County, Indiana. The respondents reported their self-care activities throughout the seven days prior to …

Tobacco And Tar Babies: The Trickster As A Cultural Hero In Winnebago And African American Myth, Catherine Squibb

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the trickster character through the lens of his role as a cultural hero. The two characters that I chose to examine are from North American myth, specifically Winnebago Hare and Brer Rabbit. These two characters represent the duality of the trickster while simultaneously embodying the lauded abilities of the hero. Through their actions these two characters shape culture through the very action of disrupting societal norms.

Home And Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America (2013), Shaun O’Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the 2013 Editor's Note by Padraig O'Malley: Shaun O’Connell has lost none of his touch. In “Home and Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America,” O’Connell juxtaposes two novels: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy (1998) and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (2009) and reveals the parallels and contrasts that enrich the discussion of Irish and Irish American identities. Toibin, an Irish writer, would have us see an America, land of the free, as an open, inviting place but exacting in redeeming promises made; McDermott, an American writer, portrays an Ireland that is magical, a little bit of heaven, but finally a closed and bitter …

An Evening With Emily Dickinson, Meryl Altman

English Faculty publications

No abstract provided.

Theory At Yale: The Strange Case Of Deconstruction In America [Table Of Contents], Marc Redfield

Literature

This book examines the affinity between “theory” and “deconstruction” that developed in the American academy in the 1970s by way of the “Yale Critics”: Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, and J. Hillis Miller, sometimes joined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

With this semi-fictional collective, theory became a media event, first in the academy and then in the wider print media, in and through its phantasmatic link with deconstruction and with “Yale.” The important role played by aesthetic humanism in American pedagogical discourse provides a context for understanding theory as an aesthetic scandal, and an examination of the …

"Casting Aside That Ficticious Self.": Deciphering Female Identity In The Awakening 2015, Anne L. Dicosimo

Master's Theses

Kate Chopin’s female protagonists have long since fascinated literary critics, raising serious questions concerning the influence of nineteenth-century female gender roles in her writing. Published in 1899, The Awakening demonstrates the changeability of the various representations of woman. In the nineteenth century, the subject of women may be divided into two categories: the True Woman and the New Woman. The former were expected to “cherish and maintain the four cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (Khoshnood et al.), while the latter sought to move away from hearth and home in order to focus on education, professions, and political …

Daisy And Frederick: An Exploration Of Innocence And Its Consequences In Henry James' Daisy Miller: A Study 2015, Mark Andrew Meyer Ii

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

"Carried Away": Love, Bly, And Secrecy In Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw 2015, Natalie G. El-Eid

Master's Theses

The function of the prologue in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is decidedly ambiguous, as the characters in the prologue, much like the uncle of the main text, are seemingly never seen again. For this reason, the purpose of this prologue is much debated.1 As Rolf Lundén states in his article “‘Not in any literal, vulgar way’: The Encoded Love Story of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw,” “The openness of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has invited more analytical attempts, and more critical controversy, than most literary texts” (30). Lundén summarizes four schools of …

“Inhumanly Beautiful”: The Aesthetics Of The Nineteenth-Century Deathbed Scene, Margo Masur

English Theses

Death today is hidden from our everyday lives so it cannot intermingle with the general public. So when a family member dies, their body becomes an object in need of disposal; no longer can they be recognized as the familiar person they once were. To witness death is to force individuals to confront the truths of human existence, and for most of us seeing such a sight would fill us with an emotion of disgust. Yet during the nineteenth century, the burden of care towards the sick or dying was shared by a community of family, neighbors, and friends; the …

Tales Of Anti-Heroes In The Work Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Phillip Joe Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

Article in Mythlore 34.1, Fall/Winter 2015.

Metafiction As Genre Fiction, Jeremy A. Levine

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Realism, the genre in which literature is expected to reflect reality, tends to act as the default setting for establish- ing the worth of a given piece. This paper contends that metafiction, a post-modern genre characterized by a work’s awareness of its own fictional nature, has been damaged by realism’s standards. Using a case study of two metafic- tional works, John Barth’s “Life-Story” and David Foster Wallace’s Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way against a historical and theoretical backdrop, the paper both isolates metafiction from realism while describing its deliberate artistic mission. This identity is based on open …