English Language and Literature Commons^™

Angel Island Poetry: Reading And Writing Cultures, Adam Kotlarczyk

Understanding Poetry

Object of a darker chapter in American history, the Angel Island Poems (as they have become known) are a recently discovered body of over 135 poems, written primarily in Chinese. These were literally carved into the walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station, where Chinese immigrants were detained, sometimes indefinitely, between approximately 1910-1940.

This lesson demonstrates how history and culture can be integral to our understanding of poetry, even poetry that is deeply reflective and personal in nature; by requiring students to model and produce their own poetry, it also makes evident that writing poetry is a creative instinct and …

Imitism: Learning Imagism Through Imitation, Nicole Trackman

Understanding Poetry

Students will learn the components of Imagism through works of William Carlos Williams and D.H. Lawrence. As authors, students will demonstrate their understanding of this poetic movement through an imitation of either Williams’ poem “This is just to Say” or Lawrence’s poem “Green”.

Determining The Tone In A Poem, Erin Micklo

Understanding Poetry

This lesson instructs students how to do a close reading of a poem, using clues within the poem to determine the tone of the poem.

Explicating Poetry: Shakespeare's Sonnet 46, Adam Kotlarczyk

Understanding Poetry

The term “explication” comes from a Latin participle of explico, which means to “unfold” or “disentangle.” The term is often applied to philosophy and to literature; in literature, it has become a procedure very important to New Criticism. In the process of explication, a reader forges a detailed analysis of the structural and figurative components within a work, focusing on ambiguities, multiple possibilities of interpretation, and interrelationships between various elements of the text.

This lesson introduces students to explication through the reading of a complex poem, practice explicating it as a class, and reading a model explication about the poem. …

Performing Poetry: Managing Tone, Pitch, Volume And Rate, Erin Micklo

Understanding Poetry

This lesson teaches students the importance of varying the tone, pitch, rate and volume of their voices when performing a poem. Emphasizing different words and varying the delivery will alter the meaning of the poem that the students are reading. This is in preparation for the Poet Laureate presentations, when they will read aloud their poet’s poem, reflecting their group’s interpretation of the poem.

My Mark Twain: Old Man River, Amelia Tatum Grabowski

Student Publications

Flowing across his pages, the Mississippi River inextricably winds itself through Mark Twain’s canon. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that my image of Clemens, my Mark Twain, is as a personification of his beloved river. Twain draws his readers to the water’s edge, seduces readers to stare into his depths, and reflects the achievements and failings of humanity. Furthermore, like the Mississippi River, Twain embeds himself in the American psyche.

A Seat At The Table: William Lisle Bowles And The Development Of Romanticism, Jeremy B. Savage

Lawrence University Honors Projects

A study of the Romantic poet William Lisle Bowles. I challenge the modern critical perception of Bowles in order to argue that his place in the study of Romanticism has been drastically understated. It is my assertion that by reading Bowles thoroughly, paying specific attention to his influence on the beginnings of Romanticism, to his particular influence on Coleridge and to the critical advancements represented by the amalgamation of his actual poetry with his later critical reflections, affords us not only an understanding of Bowles’s active role in the development of Romanticism as it has traditionally been understood, but also …

June 7, 2012: Dan Mancilla Wins 2012 Flash Fiction Award., Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Virgin's Kiss: Gender, Leprosy, And Romance In The Life Of St. Frideswide, Gary Stephen Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

The longer thirteenth-century Middle English verse life of Saint Frideswide found in the collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary (SEL) narrates an event unique to medieval hagiography. In the poem, a leper asks the virgin saint to kiss him with her "sweet mouth," which she does in spite of her feelings of considerable shame, and the leper is healed. The erotic nature of the leper's request, Frideswide's reluctance to grant it, and her shame throughout the incident represent a significant departure from the twelfth-century Latin texts on which the SEL version of the saint's …

June 4, 2012: New Issue Of Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Urban Place-Conscious Education: Pride In The Inner City, Tamara A. Zwick

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many educators are turning to place-conscious education as a means of making students’ education relevant and meaningful, as well as encouraging them to contribute to their local communities in positive ways. While many scholars focus their research on place-conscious education on rural areas, a growing body of scholarship examines how place-conscious principles can be applied in inner city schools. Differences in emphasis and approach exist between the rural and urban scholarship, however. This work analyzes some key differences as well as examining why they might exist. Urban students’ relationship with place is complicated by societal messages which make fostering a …

June 2, 2012: Tea & Mystery W/Beth Amidon, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Computer-Assisted Language Learning: An Integrated Approach To Effectiveness Research In Call (Review), Deborah J. Crusan

English Language and Literatures Faculty Publications

Since its inception, the field of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has suffered from skeptics questioning whether technology and multimedia have anything to add to language learning. These uncertainties clearly illustrate a need for a comprehensive evaluative model of CALL. In Evaluating Computer-Assisted Language Learning: An Integrated Approach to Effectiveness Research in CALL, Jonathan Leakey asks readers to consider important matters about the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). His purpose for the book centers on gathering evidence for the computer’s impact on language learning. He argues for an integrated approach to the evaluation of CALL and constructs a prototype for …

A Clock And A Companion Poem To Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress', Matthew Harkins

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alchemical Transformation And The Grief-Threshold In H.D.'S Helen In Egypt, Eliza C. Bennett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In H.D's lyric epic, Helen in Egypt, Helen of Troy experiences a phenomenological transformation in the brazier of the heart, which burns both on the beach of her new home in Egypt and in the depths of her psychic life. I have envisioned a process by which Helen psychologically enters into the brazier's flames to begin an alchemical process, so that she might see the beauty of the earth emerge and understand the rhythmic significance of the heart's perception. I call the brazier's (or the heart's) place of alchemical transformation the grief-threshold, which balances Helen on the edge …

Reconciling Eros And Agape: The English Catholic Artistic Response To Reforms, Nicole M. Coonradt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the English Catholic artistic response to reforms--reforms being both internal and external to the Catholic Church--as part of the Catholic Reformation. "Response," for the purposes of this project, may be defined in terms of an "answer" in an ongoing dialogue about the Catholic position and may be seen as both conciliatory and apologetic in nature. Understanding this response is useful when we consider the role of rhetoric and poetry in society and the attendant contemporary theories thereof, in their historical context, especially the duty of the poet. The recent "revisionist" history is central to understanding art contextually. …

"This Was A Man!": A Memorial Tribute To Felix Emeka Okeke-Ezigbo (October 14, 1944-June 25, 2012), Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

A memorial tribute to one of the leading members of the the Biafran war generation of Nsukka poets. Dr. Felix Emeka Okeke-Ezigbo, October 14, 1944 to June 25, 2012.

Reanimating The Nation: Patrick Mccabe, Neil Jordan, And The Bog Gothic, Ellen Scheible

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

C.S. Lewis's Lost Arthurian Poem: A Conjectural Essay, Joe R. Christopher

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

C.S. Lewis aficionados know his unfinished "Launcelot," collected in Narrative Poems; but fewer know that he wrote an Arthurian poem intended for his first book, Spirits in Bondage, which was rejected by his publisher. The manuscript has since been lost, but a few things can be known or reasonably conjectured about the poem. This paper will cover the following topics:

(1) Lewis's mention of the poem in his correspondence with Arthur Greeves,

(2) its title,

(3) its date of composition,

(4) its source (quoted),

(5) its probably application for Spirits in Bondage, and

(6) the loss of …

Ethics And Afterlife: The Moral Instruction Of Thomas Aquinas And C.S. Lewis, H. Dennis Fisher

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

C.S. Lewis's view of moral values and life after death flowed from both Scripture and his medieval sensibilities. This paper will compare and contrast medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas' views of ethics and the afterlife with those of C.S. Lewis. Special attention will be given to the controversial doctrine of purgatory. In today's postmodern world, ethical teaching is often relative and subjective. This paper will seek to find commonalities between Aquinas and Lewis to provide a viable basis for moral decision making in the 21st century.