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Love, Violence, And Creation: Modernist Mediums Of Transcendence In Sylvia Plath's Poetry And Prose, Autumn Williams

Masters Theses

Many critics who study Sylvia Plath's works discuss the autobiographical significance of her poetry and prose, labeling her art as primarily confessional. My research shows that Sylvia Plath's awareness of and sensitivity to contemporary and historical cultural events, along with her acute sense of literary tradition, shape her art and widen the scope of critical interpretation. My study, although conceding that aspects of her writing are autobiographical, focuses on the modernist elements in her poetry and prose. By identifying her writing through the lens of modernism, I view her art in terms of its cultural, historical, political, and aesthetic qualities. …

Narrative Immediacy And First-Person Voice In Contemporary American Novels, Amy Faulds Sandefur

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study of first-person fictive narration analyzes a selection of contemporary American novels so as to understand and describe more fully a literary effect I call immediacy. I employ the term immediacy to define narrative situations in which little durational gap exists between experience and narration and in which little ideological and emotional distance is communicated between the narrating persona and the subject self. The following chapters provide a close examination of narrative techniques employed by writers in the creation of immediacy and argues that both the tone of the novels and their themes of maturation and self-identity are attributable …

Power And Empowerment In Writing Center Conferences, Kerri Stanley Jordan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores power and empowerment in writing center peer conferences. Arguing against the notion of “hierarchical” and “collaborative” conference categories, it suggests that because both participants enact power in conference interaction, conferencing power dynamics exist on a continuum. Issues of ownership are also placed on a continuum (and associated with enactments of power); this study argues against idealized notions of tutees “owning” their texts and conferencing goals. It distinguishes between empowerment in a practical sense (associated with improving writing skills) and in a political sense (associated with increasing critical awareness). The research involved ethnographic methods: it followed two peer …

Radical Dialectics In The Experimental Poetry Of Berssenbrugge, Hejinian, Harryman, Weiner, And Scalapino, Camille Martin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I focus on the work of five contemporary experimental poets - Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Hannah Weiner, and Leslie Scalapino - in order to demonstrate various aspects of a philosophical dynamic at work in their poetry. The critical debates surrounding experimental poetry often tend to be structured as a dualistic opposition with, for example, the forces of coherence, narrative linearity, and transparent referentiality on one side, and the forces of semantic disruption, narrative discontinuity, and linguistic materiality on the other. On each side, critics attempt to bolster the essential value of one term or set …

Desiring Fragmented Bodies And Texts: William H. Gass's Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife And Kathy Acker's New York City In 1979, Michael Hardin

Short Story

No abstract provided.

"Above The Noise And The Glory": Tiers Of Propaganda In Great War Literature, Margaret L. Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

"Above the Noise and the Glory:" Tiers of Propaganda in Great War Literature illuminates the literary responses of Rupert Brooke, Mary Borden, Alice-Dunbar Nelson and Willa Cather to the manner in which the threat to one's cultural community, as well as personal and physical landscape, transforms a nation's, and even a world's, people from a state of complacency or purposelessness to one of jingoistic fervor. Prompted and inspired by personal, political and cultural forces, these writers mobilized early twentieth-century private citizens' spirits of nationalistic pride and solidarity. Individual chapters place within historical and literary contexts how war propaganda, particularly British …

What Is Method And Why Does It Matter?, Michael A. Elliott, Claudia Stokes

English Faculty Research

The recent emphasis on interdisciplinary scholarship—manifest in the resurgence of institutional programs like American studies and publications in cultural studies—has relocated both the literary critic and the literary text to unfamiliar territory. This new interest in broaching disciplinary limits has proved to be exciting and invigorating. Literary critics have turned their attention to media other than the written text,and nonliterary specialists,such as historians and sociologists,have used literary texts to support their own research. This book is a response to American literary interdisciplinary and attempts to raise,and address,the inevitable questions that emerge when disciplines collaborate: What can texts tell us about …

Annotated Bibliography Of Research In The Teaching Of English, Deborah Brown, Catherine Beavis, Judith Kalman, Macrina Gómez, Gert Rijlaarsdam, Anne D'Antonio Stinson, Melissa E. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Twice a year, in the May and November issues, RTE publishes a selected bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English. Most of the studies appeared during the six-month period preceding the compilation of the bibliography (January through June 2002 for the present bibliography), but some studies that appeared earlier are occasionally included. The listing is selective; we make no attempt to include all research and research-related articles that appeared in the period under review. Comments on the bibliography and suggestions about items for inclusion may be directed to the bibliography editors. We encourage you to send your suggestions …

The Great War And Tolkien's Memory: An Examination Of World War I Themes In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines Tolkien’s experiences during World War I and typical WWI themes in his writings: the pastoral moment, ritual and romance, and the sense of national literature. Looks at how Tolkien mythologized his war experiences in his fiction.

Applicability And Truth In The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings, And The Silmarillion: Readers, Fantasy, And Canonicity, Sara Upstone

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Questions the exclusion of Tolkien’s works from “the canon,” examining various reasons why critics may exclude them and what critical theory might be more suitable for studying them.

Middle-Earth: The Real World Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Brian N. Weidner

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines The Lord of the Rings as a reflection of its historical and social context and seeks Tolkien’s intent in inventing and describing the various societies of Middle-earth.

Eng 3099g-098-099: Myth And Culture (Honors), Bonnie Irwin

Fall 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 2901-001-002: The Structure Of English, Buck

Fall 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 5061-001: Poetry And The Nature Of Language, John Martone

Fall 2002

No abstract provided.

How Does It Mean? Literary Theory As Metacognitive Reading Strategy In The High School English Classroom, Lisa J. Schade

Dissertations

In the last two decades, serious scholarly attention has been paid both to theories of teaching reading and to theories of literary interpretation. These potentially related fields have been treated as separate, focused either on teaching reading in the elementary grades or on teaching interpretation to advanced college literature students. Until very recently the relevance of either reading theory or literary theory to middle school or high school pedagogy has remained unexamined. My research, as a reflective practitioner, addresses this important gap. I focus on the teaching of literary theory in the high school English classroom as a strategy to …

Mythcon 33 - A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare And Fantasy, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon Programs

Mythcon 33's primary conference theme focuses on William Shakespeare both as an influence on modern fantasy literature and as a fantasist himself. A secondary theme for this thirty-third conference is "Coming of Age."

Anxieties Of Impotence: Cuban Americas In New York City, Christina M. Tourino

English Faculty Publications

In her paper, "Anxieties of Impotence: Cuban Americas in New York City, " Christina Marie Tourino seeks a basis for comparison between Latin American literatures and Latino literatures of the United States. Such groups have rarely been compared in the past because they are considered part of the same literary "family." However, Tourino argues that owing to the flows of capital driven by global pressures, literatures between and among Latin Americans and Latinos hail from such culturally heterogeneous sites and are made over by so many relocations that they do call for comparative projects. Instead of comparing texts across national …

Nalo Hopkinson, Gregory E. Rutledge

Department of English: Faculty Publications

For fans of science fiction and fantasy who have sought and craved non-White voices, characters, and perspectives, the small number of Black writers in these literary genres have provided them few options from which to choose. Though forty years have expired since the first Black science fiction novelist appeared, a dearth of Black science fiction and fantasy writers still prevails, and no hard science fiction writers are Black. Nevertheless, recent developments have excited Black speculative fiction and fantasy enthusiasts about the prospects for the fiction of the new millennium to reach into the future and, just as importantly, grapple with …

A Portrayal Of Gender And A Description Of Gender Roles In Selected American Modern And Postmodern Plays., Bonny Ball Copenhaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe how gender was portrayed and to determine how gender roles were depicted and defined in a selection of Modern and Postmodern American plays. This study was based on the symbolic interaction theory of gender that suggests that social roles are learned over time and are subject to constant reinforcement. The significance of this study was derived from the broad topic of gender because gender issues are relevant to a variety of fields and exploring the effects of gender in one field contributes to the understanding of gender in another field.

The plays …

Annotated Bibliography Of Research In The Teaching Of English, Deborah Brown, Catherine Beavis, Judith Kalman, Anne D'Antonio Stinson, Melissa E. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Twice a year, in the May and November issues, RTE publishes a selected bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English and related fields. Most of the studies appeared during the six-month period preceding the compilation of the bibliography (July through December 2001 for the present bibliography), but some studies that appeared earlier are occasionally included. The listing is selective; we make no attempt to include all research and research-related articles that appeared in the period under review. Comments on the bibliography and suggestions about items for inclusion may be directed to the bibliography editors. We encourage you to …

Review: Material Matters: Bodies And Rhetoric, Krista Ratcliffe

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

2002 Literary Review (No. 16), Sigma Tau Delta

The Greenleaf Review

No abstract provided.

Eng 2603-001: Mythology, Bonnie Irwin

Spring 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 2901-001: The Structure Of English, Buck

Spring 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 3099g-099: Myth And Culture, Honors, Bonnie Irwin

Spring 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 4300-001: Senior Seminar: Language And Gender, Buck

Spring 2002

No abstract provided.

Eng 3901-001: Language And Linguistics, Buck

Spring 2002

No abstract provided.

Orts 61, 2002, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

The Society was founded in 1980, seventy-five years after MacDonald's death in 1905. It exists to celebrate and promote the works of George MacDonald and provide a forum for the exchange of views and information about his life and work.

Members of the Society receive the quarterly newsletter Orts (meaning 'scraps') and the annual journal, North Wind. There are annual one-day conferences for members in varying locations throughout Britain.

The Old Man And The Sea: Hemingway, Heteroglossia, And The Hero's Voice, Carole Sue Spitler

Theses Digitization Project

In this subjective hero concept lies an intriguing aspect of Bakhtin's paradigm: A hero is not necessarily a living entity; a hero can be ideas, objects and locations. When viewed through the lens of traditional western rhetorical theory, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea appears as a monologue wherein Santiago seemingly speaks for the author about the subject of doom and man's relationship to the world.

Special Language In Shoshoni Poetry Songs, Jon P. Dayley

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

The language in Shoshoni poetry songs, called newe hupia, may differ substantially from ordinary speech in many ways, phonologically, morphologically, syntactically, semanticly [sic] and pragmatically.