Digital Commons Network^™

I Am: Identity, Maturation, And The Ideal Woman In Bronte’S Villette, Malissa Brennan

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Although many individuals may be familiar with Charlotte Brontë’s works—Jane Eyre has become somewhat of a literary staple—many others may not be as familiar with Villette, Brontë’s last and most autobiographical novel. Regardless of mixed reviews, Villette’s themes, characters, and underlying premises create a literary work that is exponentially more valuable in the Brontë literary canon than any work of any Brontë sister. The literary merit of Brontë’s novel, which documents one woman’s journey towards self-discovery and maturation, is infinitely invaluable; its passion, intensity, and discovery far surpasses the literary fame of Jane Eyre and Rochester. Villette showcases a woman’s …

Implicit Response : Instructor Values And Social Class In The Literacy Narrative Assignment., Kara Poe Alexander

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation examines instructor responses to a popular personal writing assignment, the literacy narrative. Previous studies have shown this assignment to be popular with instructors because of the reflection it is thought to generate; however, nobody has yet looked at what instructors really mean by reflection. This study investigates what features of student texts instructors recognize as reflection. I collected literacy narratives and demographic questionnaires from students and surveys, assignments, think-alouds, and follow-up interviews from instructors. Personal writing, and the literacy narrative assignment in particular, can best be taught by highlighting the rhetorical capabilities of this genre. The results of …

Allusive Mechanics In Modern And Postmodern Fiction As Suggested By James Joyce In His Novel Dubliners, Kynan D. Connor

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

James Joyce in his novel Dubliners conducts a series of narrative experiments with allusion, and in doing so suggests a new literary criticism based upon the allusive process. This new criticism of allusive mechanics considers the text in terms of its allusive potential for character—that is, the character is treated as capable of signification. Because Joyce can mimic the process of signification, it repositions the author to the act of writing and the reader to the act of reading. Character is greatly expanded through allusive mechanics because narrative elements like allusion in a text are treated as having a character-oriented …

The Corporate Body, David Nutt

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Artistic Expression, Intimacy, And The Primal Holon: Sam Shepard's Suicide In B-Flat And The Tooth Of Crime, William S. Haney Ii

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

"The Golden Key": A Double Reading, Bonnie Gaarden

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

Discusses the significant differences of the paths Mossy and Tangle take through the story.

Reimagining Rose: Portrayals Of Tolkien's Rosie Cotton In Twenty-First Century Fan Fiction, Amy H. Sturgis

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

A study of fanfiction and what it has to say about how an author’s works are appropriated and reimagined by his or her readers, looking specifically at several types of fanfiction about Rosie Cotton.

Forbidden Forest, Enchanted Castle: Arthurian Spaces In The Harry Potter Novels, Alessandra Petrina

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

Examines the influence of the landscape and structure of Arthurian legends on the world of Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

Hermeticism And The Metaphysics Of Goodness In The Novels Of Charles Williams, Scott Mclaren

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

Examines metaphysical symbols in three novels by Charles Williams: the Holy Grail in War in Heaven, the Stone of King Solomon in Many Dimensions, and the Tarot deck in The Greater Trumps.

Self-Discovery Journals In The College Composition Classroom, Heather Mcallister

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

What is it that makes writing so enjoyable to some people, and such a troublesome task to others? What, if anything, can teachers of composition do to promote an enthusiasm for writing? As I have found examination of my past experiences a key to answering these questions, I am persuaded that the key to enthusiastic writing lies in the opportunities students have to explore themselves as individuals within their writing. As Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus states above, we write well when we know the truth about that which we are writing. Providing students the occasion to write about themselves will …

"A Strange Opposition": The Portrait Of A Lady And The Divorce Debates, Melissa J. Ganz

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Digital Storytelling: The Application Of Vichian Theory, Karen Pierotti

Theses and Dissertations

Storytelling is often looked at as something archaic or something that simpler cultures engage in. However, in our sophisticated and highly technological world storytelling swirls about us though we may not always recognize it. This thesis looks at the phenomenon of digital storytelling that functions to create community on the Internet. In order to ground this phenomenon in theory, I examine the works of Giambattista Vico, the 18th-century Neapolitan philosopher/rhetorician, who lived on the cusp of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Furthermore, as a teacher of rhetoric to youth, Vico admonished young people to study the arts of …

The Finest Entertainment: Conscious Observation On Film In Adaptations Of Henry James' The Portrait Of A Lady, The Wings Of The Dove, And Washington Square, Rachael Decker Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

The works of Henry James are renowned for their dense sub-text and the manner in which he leaves his reader to elucidate much of his meaning. In the field of adaptation theory, therefore, James presents somewhat of a problem for the film adaptor: how does one convey on screen James' delicate implications, which are formative to the text without actually existing on the printed page? This project not only works to answer that question, but it also addresses a more serious question: what does adaptation have to offer to the student of literature? In the case of Henry James, the …

From Caricature To Character: The Intellectually Disabled In Dickens's Novels (Part 1), Paul Marchbanks

English

No abstract provided.

Bel-Imperia: The (Early) Modern Woman In Thomas Kyd’S Spanish Tragedy, Ann Mccauley Basso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At the heart of Thomas Kyd's revenge tragedy The Spanish Tragedy lies an arranged marriage around which all of the other action revolves. Bel-Imperia of Spain has been betrothed against her will to Prince Balthazar of Portugal, but she is no ordinary woman, and she has plans of her own. Bel-Imperia's unwillingness to participate in the arranged marriage is indicative of the rise of the companionate marriage; it represents a rejection of the arranged marriage that dominated upper class society in earlier years.

This study seeks to throw light upon early modern attitudes towards marriage, focusing particularly on the arranged …

Review Of The Salt Roads By Nalo Hopkinson, Gregory E. Rutledge

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Although Samuel R. Delany, Jr. has been publishing sci-fi /fantasy since the 1960s and Octavia E. Butler since the 1970s, and both were included in and thus canonized by the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1999), still only a handful of Black novelists work the field. Not withstanding their canonization, their studied interpolation of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation into their novels, and the potential the genre has for shaping our hypertext, Internet-driven world, this state of affairs still obtains. Nevertheless these are heady times, as the other Black sci-fi novelists such as Jewell Gomez, Stephen Barnes, and …

Sylvia Plath And The Crisis Of The Self: A Feminist Reading Of The Late Poetry, Rania Salah Mohamed

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The study of Sylvia Plath's poetry sheds light on the various approaches that can be used to read the crisis of the self in Plath's poetry. It reveals the latent power and talent of a woman poet who fought against the male tradition to express her voice and demand full recognition. Plath's late poems can be approached in different ways. The thesis examines the existential dilemma of the modern poet in a world of confusion and the psychology of defense against death and suffering in the feminist struggle against the other. These approaches are used to account for the richness …

Eng 3803-001: Renaissance & 17th Century Literature, William J. Searle

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 1002g-013-034-052: Composition And Literature, Lucinda Berry

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 3901-001: Language And Linguistics, Buck

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 3009-006: Myth And Culture, Susan Bazargan

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 5006-001: Literature Of Empire, Zahlan

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 3808-001, Ruth Hoberman

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 3009-003: Myth And Culture, Ashley Tellis

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 2091-099: Literature, The Self, And The World: Fiction, Zahlan

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Eng 1001-010: Composition And Language, Ned Huston

Spring 2006

No abstract provided.

Literary Love Making In Nicholas Sparks Novels: Finding The Balance Between The Writer's Life And Writer's Work In Bestselling Romantic Love, Ryan Spanich

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

For almost a decade now Nicholas Sparks has been writing love stories. Not only has he been publishing his stories, but they have received high acclaim in each of their installments. Several of his novels have been made into major motion pictures and increased his popularity quite significantly. His status as a successful romantic fiction writer is undeniable, but the question is, why? What is it about Nicholas Sparks that makes his novels so engaging, and personally, what do I need to do as an aspiring novelist to try and acquire the same literary status? Sparks’s novels reach readers at …

‘That Really Too Anxious Protestation’: Crisis And Autobiography In Milton’S Prose, Brooke Conti

English Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Angling For Dolores, Nick Norwood

Faculty Bibliography

No abstract provided.

Christina Rossetti, Sarah Grand, And The Expression Of Sexual Liminality In Nineteenth Century Literature, Jennifer Persinger Adams

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study defines sexual liminality as a transient, threshold moment in which textual characters explore not only their sexual desires, but also their gender identities. During the nineteenth century, social critics reveal that sexuality and gender play a vital role in laws, social practices, and family structure. Thus, when authors such as Christina Rossetti and Sarah Grand produce characters that embark upon introspective journeys of their sexualities against the background of social expectation, one clearly identifies the influence of life upon art. Rossetti’s Prince in The Prince’s Progress and Grand’s Angelica in The Heavenly Twins enter into the realm of …