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The Poetic Response To The Paradox Of Mutability And Permanence: A Study Of Poets Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries, Catherine M. Griesel

Student Work

I have been living through a year, not merely existing in an abstraction called time. The year has meant to me participation in a cycle, the awareness of an ebb and flow, of being part of a vital and complex process…. At this moment I am standing on the threshold of a new year waiting to begin a new cycle of months forever familiar and forever new. “Seasons return”… though sooner or late each of us must add, “but not for me.” Thus, Joseph Wood Krutch, twentieth-century American naturalist, ends his book The Twelve Seasons.

The Social Quest In John Updike's Major Fiction., Patricia E. Lucas

Student Work

The choice of subject matter for this thesis has, in part at least, been prompted by the uproar caused by the publication of the Couples by John Updike in 1968. Re-viewers could not make up their collective minds about the book-whether it was exceedingly filthy and obscene because of the inclusion of irrelevant explicitness in dealing with the sexual interrelations of the couples involved, the true story of Updike and his Ipswich, Massachusetts friends, or a comment on contemporary life which is indicative of the sociological directions of middle class man. A minority of the reviewers, however, did appear to …

French And German Influences On The Horror Novels Of Lewis, Maturin, Le Fanu, And Stoker, Robert Wesley Sanderson

Master's Theses

The Gothic horror novel is a fascinating subject for study. Its development and the influences upon this development provide much opportunity for investigation and research. This thesis will examine the French and German influences on the horror novels of Matthew Lewis, Charles Maturin, Joseph Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker.

Carson Mccullers: "The Tragedy Of Spiritual Isolation", Gerald L. Fricke

Student Work

This passage, one of the most eloquent ever penned on the theme of spiritual isolation, is particularly applicable to the five novels of Carson McCullers. Her basic thesis is that love gives a meaning of life, but, paradoxically, love is doomed to failure because of a breakdown in communications resulting in spiritual isolation. Life then is a never-ending cycle; there is the struggle to achieve understanding and an identity, but the more man struggles the seemingly more complex becomes obstacles that he must surmount. Thus, the quest becomes all-important. The effort to attain identity gives substance to life, but if …

The Cycle Of The Seasons In Selected Works Of Willa Cather, Daniel J. Daly

Student Work

Willa Cather’s reputation as a coherent symbolist needs no real amplification. Starting with O Pioneers!, her novels are emphatic manifestations of her artistic use of symbolism. Cather's poems and short stories are in some cases earlier evidence of her skill in this area. Moreover, a clearly observable pattern of symbolism, motif-like in its coherency and regularity, manifests itself throughout her works. Cather, and her poetry, short fiction, and novels, exhibits a sensitivity to the seasonal cycle, an attention which exerts a strong influence upon the total meaning of her art.

A Study Of Dramatic Tragedy In The Twentieth Century, Ann D. Mactier

Student Work

Aristotle, in The Poetic, defines dramatic tragedy as “imitation of a worthy or illustrious and perfect action, possessing magnitude, in pleasing language, using separately the several species of imitation in its parts, by men acting, and not through narration, through pity and fear effecting a purification from such like passions”.

Newspaper Article, Mississippi State Introduces [Redacted] History And Literature, April 11, 1969, L. R. Mitlin

Reflector Collection, 1965-1975

In this newspaper article, Mitlin described Mississippi State's efforts to include Black contributions to American History and Literature to its curriculae. Black students welcomed these updated curriculae as a way to raise white students' awareness of Black contributions to American culture and life and advance the Civil Rights Movement's goal of integration.

The Effect Of Transformational Load On Short-Term Memory For English Sentences By Native Speakers Of Arabic, Madeline Haggan

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Use Of Light And Dark Imagery For Thematic Purposes In The Fiction Of Robert Penn Warren, Paul Anthony De Leo

Student Work

A prominent feature of the interwar period, and of that since 1945 in American literature, was the Southern Renaissance. This literary rebirth had important consequences in poetry and criticism through the work of a number of writers. Robert Penn Warren was one such writer who “sowed the seeds” for his Southern rebirth of literature. Warren, along with such American writers as Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, J. D. Salinger, and John Updike, endeavored to unearth the answer to the question of how a man should live in a fragmented and fractured society. In seeking this information, man was in turn seeking …

Diversity In The Narrative-Moralitas Relationship Of Robert Henryson's The Morall Fabillis Of Esope The Phyrgian, David M. Raabe

Student Work

Most of the recent critical comment of Robert Henryson’s The Moral Fabillis of Esop The Phrygain has been directed toward the relation between the two parts of each fable: (1) the narrative itself and (2) the moralitas, an allegorical interpretation which follows each narrative. The moralitas interpretations do not always follow expected patterns and, in fact, may seem highly artificial and contrived when compared to the more natural and familiar animal stories which make up the fables themselves. It is probably this element of the unexpected in Henryson’s interpretations of the thirteen fables that has called attention to the fable-moralitas …

Richard Wright And Ralph Ellison: Master And Protege, Emmett P. Cribbs

Student Work

Negroes from Africa have been in America since 1620 when twenty Africans were sold to the white settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Since that date, Negros have made a contribution to American history through their blood and sweat, their songs, and their cultural heritage. Yet, a peculiar institution of slavery arose on American soil, and black men and women were subjected to a subservient, second-class status.

Christina Rossetti: Medieval Attitudes And Aspects Of Her Life And Religious Lyrics, Nancy Kay Oberlander

Student Work

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 until 1901. Christina Georgina Rossetti's life span the years 1830 to 1894. Thus, she is placed, historically speaking, squarely within the Victorian age with all its attending connotations, both negative and positive. Among the traits of Victorian England that stand out: the dominance of sometimes sincere, sometimes hypocritical ideals of decency, modesty, and respectability; the tremendous intellectual ferment created by the new science, accompanied by rising philosophical and religious doubts; changing social conditions brought on by the new industrial character of England; and, in literature, a curious combination of reality and romance.

The Evolution Of The Vice Character From The Morality Plays To Renaissance Drama, Lois Joan George

Student Work

Although half a century separates the character of Matthew Merrygreek in Ralph Roister Doister from that of Othello’s Iago, these two have a great deal in common. The plays in which they participate are vastly different from each other -- Ralph Roister Doister, written between 1550 and 1553, is a carefree farce that nowhere resembles the tragic tone of Shakespeare's Othello, written early in the 1600’s. But Merrygreek and Iago are brothers in spirit nevertheless. Both of them plot, and both of them carry out their plans single-handedly.

The Mid-Century (1845-1855) Victorianism In The Poetry Of Three Major Writers, Carole Lee Abernathy

Student Work

The duty of defining a word is certainly not an easy task. This is particularly true of a word which, after many attempts, is still not defined satisfactorily. “Victorianism” is that type of word. It would seem that many of the “ism” words are so associated with connotations that precise and accurate definitions are impossible. It is, however, mandatory to define “Victorianism” in an attempt to discuss the “Victorianism” of some of the mid-century “Victorian” works of three major poets of the period: Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold.

Entropy And Death: The Cycle Of Tragedy In Nathanael West, Blake Lund

Student Work

Ever since their publication in the thirties, the novels of Nathanael West have enjoyed an obscurity that is difficult to account for. Even fifteen years after his death, few have ever heard of him, and it was not until the publication of his collected works in 1957 that he received anything resembling wide critical acclaim. Yet, even today, there are professors of literature who have never read a word he has written, and the recognition of his relevance to American literature is still in the beginning stages.

The Christian Vision Of William Styron., Gloria C. Kaslow

Student Work

In 1951 a 25 year old Virginian, William Styron, published his first novel, entitled Lie Down in Darkness. Seemingly a story of the degeneracy of a Southern family in the matter and tradition of William Faulkner, Styron's first novel won him the Prix de Rome, much critical acclaim and attention, and a significant position among The Most Promising Young Novelists of Our Generation. A year later in 1952 styron followed with a novella, The Long March, a tightly controlled symbolic account of a forced march in a reservist Marine camp. This novella seemed to reinforce the critics' opinions of Styron's …

The Dramatic Technique Of John Webster: An Intensive Analysis, Bernice Lucille Derra

Student Work

John Webster is not a simple writer to interpret and understand. In his own age he did not gain a great deal of prominence; the eighteenth century all but ignored him, since the Romantic Revival he has risen to rival Harlowe and Jonson for the prized position next to Shakespeare. There will always be readers who reject his literary efforts with moral distaste or aesthetic contempt. Webster has little to say to those who are cold to the poetry of language and action, or to those who look for the logic and stagecraft of an Ibsen. Even in the two …

The Will-O'-The-Wisp Of The Plains In Wright Morris' Works, Steve Morgan

Student Work

Today the wind rushes over the tablelands of Nebraska as it did when the Buffalo, standing knee-deep in Prairie grass and stretching farther then eye-length, turn their shaggy tails to windward. Only now corn rustles, cattle imitate the Buffalo, in the occasional grain elevator, white and monolithic, forces the wind to adjust its otherwise unrestrained course. Small towns, like islands in a sea of plain, have rooted into the soil, and the wind moves easily around them. Such a small town is Central City, and there such a writer as Wright Morris was born. This was in 1910, 20 years …

The Growth And Decline Of The Pioneer Spirit In The Nebraska Novels Of Willa Cather, Michael Harold Ward

Student Work

Willa Cather has long been considered the best novelist to emerge from the Midwestern states. Although at least one of her greatest novels, Death Comes for the Archbishop, is not located in the Great Plains area, the majority of her superior work has Nebraska as its setting.

This thesis is concerned with only four of Willa Cather's novels, termed by most critics her "Nebraska novels" or her "novels of the soil." The order of the thesis is chronological; the first chapter sets up the necessary background on the author: her life, education, writing experience, and publications up to O Pioneers! …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Rhetoric Of Two Negro Women Orators-Sojourner Truth And Frances E. Watkins Harper, Janey Weinhold Montgomery

Fort Hays Studies Series

The purpose of this study was to compare the rhetoric of two Negro women orators--Sojurner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper as shown by a critical analysis of selected speeches from 1851 to 1875.

Pre-Romantic Elements In The Satires Of Charles Churchill, E. Clark Bowerman

Student Work

Churchill commentators frequently quote line 152 of this passage from The Candidate. The poet wanted as much as many another writer to gain a place in the living tradition of English literature, and its ironic that when he is remembered as all it is for the sensational aspects of his life rather than for his poetry.

A Study Of The Religious Position Of Christopher Marlowe As Influenced By The Erasmian Humanistic Tradition, Harvey R. Leavitt

Student Work

Christopher Marlow still remains a largely undefined dramatist in the twentieth century. Scholarship in the past fifty years has shed much light on the historical facts of his life, but there has been little effort to place his dramatic output in the stream of English letters. He remains to many a curiosity, both in the style and the content of his works. The facts of Marlowe’s life, discovered by scholars, have created as many problems as they have solved. Fragmentary evidence has been utilized in an effort to prove Marlow an atheist, while other fragments have been used in an …

Theme And Symbol In Representative Early Gothic Fictions, Joanne G. Minarcini

Student Work

Few literary influences have been so prevalent through several genres (novel, short-story, drama and even poetry) for such a long period of time, are so popular, are so easily recognized by virtually everyone and defined with such difficulty by virtually everyone as the influence termed “Gothic.” This is a term that has been variously used to describe an architectural style, a literary setting, a mood and even a type of characterization, not to mention the commercial use of the term in modern paperback novels alluded to by such names as Batman Books’ “Gothic Series.” Can such a catholic term be …

Language And Law In Ethiopia, Fassil Abebe, Stanley Z. Fisher

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to introduce our readers to the problems of legal terminology in Ethiopia's codes and to explain what the Faculty of Law has been attempting to achieve in this area; second, to give some specific examples, drawn from the procedural codes, of these language problem.

The Leap Of Faith: An Examination Of The Philosophic Unity Of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam", Louis Frederick Gorr

Student Work

Throughout history men have been caught between two modes of existence. One of these modes represents a state of constant despair and destruction; the other represents a way to faith and salvation. The conflict and tension between the two states have placed many men in the position of being consistently stricken by doubt and anxiety. Men in every period of history have experienced this struggle, but perhaps those most severely torn by it were those of the nineteenth-century in Europe.

Swiss Homeland Books (Schweizer Heimatcuecher) In English

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The publisher Paul Haupt, Akademische Buchhandlung, Verlag, Buchhandlung, Falkenplatz 14, 3001 Bern, has kindly sent us the English editions of his series of "Heimatbucher" and of a few related publications for review. Here is a list of these editions:

Swiss Children's Books Published In English In The United States

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., has recently opened a special Children's Book Section. Its Head, Miss Virginia Haviland, has kindly provided us with this useful list which we offer here to our readers:

Hand Imagery As Used By William Shakespeare In Accordance With A Conjectured Formal Acting Style, Evelyn Jeanette Huehn

Student Work

Shakespeare wrote to be acted, not read. English majors and casual readers of often warned not to criticize some of the glaring errors in Shakespeare’s plays because they are not obvious on the stage. Some never get closer to an understanding that these plays were written to be acted. They would be better advised to be constantly aware of the plays’ proper place on the stage.

An Analysis Of Fusion Of Music-Hall Elements With Ritual And Dramatic Myth In Ts Eliot's Verse Plays, Margaret Seibert Swanson

Student Work

Many people think of T. S. Eliot as a type of “good gray poet.” This opinion probably results from his long and distinguished career as a critic, as well as a poet. It stems, too, from his conversion to Anglicanism and from his devotion to the theological and moral precepts of that religious persuasion. Anyone who is acquainted with T. S. Eliot’s poetry, especially that written before “Ash Wednesday,” has come, however, to expect among the sober lyric passages, intrusions of harsh and dissonant sound, jazz-like rhythms, and sordid imagery. Among such passages, for example, are the lines from “The …

Parallel Structure In John Keats's "Endymion", David Prinz Hufford

Student Work

How does Endymion communicate?

This study took pains to look not through the poem, but, inductively, at it. In the writer asked, what is Endymion? Can the variegated images, themes, and myths be classified? What is the organizing principle, if any, in the poem? Toward answering these questions, this paper examines the critical literature, attempts a synthesis of that literature in terms of ten parallel points of structure, and presents an analysis of the total structure of Endymion.