Arts and Humanities Commons^™

An Examination Of The Conclusions To Browning's Dramatic Monologues, Charlotte Hudgens Beck

Masters Theses

The most important inference to be drawn from this study of Browning’s conclusions is that they are not only extremely interesting but are vital to the success of each poem. These conclusions, as it were, produce the taste that remains with the reader, the aftermath of the dramatic poem. That the poet realized this is reflected in the originality of his endings and his obviously careful attention to them as an important device in the overall plan of the monologue. It is therefore, Browning the artist and craftsman that emerges.

William Faulkner And The Southern Gentleman, James Hayes Clemmer Jr.

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study has been to demonstrate that a broad concept of the Southern Gentleman is implicit in Faulkner’s pre-Snopesian male characters. The fundamental assumption carried through the study has been that the only common denominator which can successfully be used to relate the highly legendary and relatively intangible concept of the Southern Gentleman to the historical tradition of gentility is the idea of excellence. The superior men of the short-lived Old South were the gentlemen of the Old South, regardless of whether their superiority lay in an embodiment of the puritanical and pioneer values the South appreciated …

Robert Browning As A Literary Critic, Carolyn Louise Blair

Masters Theses

Edgar Allan Poe once remarked that the "justice of a critique upon poetry" was commensurate with the poetical talent of the critic.l The history of English criticism contains the names of many noted poets : Sidney, Jonson, Pope, Dryden, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and, in our own century, T. s. Eliot. Browning obviously did not write enough criticism to warrant his inclusion on this list.

Yet his poetical talent and the numerous critical comments found throughout his writings make essential sorne evalua­tion of his contributions as a critic.

It is natural that criticism as spontaneous and informal as Browning's would be …

The Social And Economic Background Of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, James R. Gray

Masters Theses

On May 26, 1770, Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted Village was published. This poem, which has been subjected to repeated attacks by those who claim that it contains more sentimentality than sense, is Goldsmith's best known, most often quoted, and most highly regarded work. Even when the poem is considered alongside such other familiar Goldsmith works as The Traveller (1784), The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), and She Stoops to Conquer (1773), it remains the single achievement that did more to enhance Goldsmith's reputation than all his other works combined. The poem's central argument is that the accumulation of wealth in England's middle …

Conventions And Modern Poetry: A Study In The Development Of Period Mannerisms, Jacob P. Blumenfeld

Masters Theses

Any review of the conclusions reached in this study must be made in the light of the limited selection of the material and the proposed scope of the investigation as set forth in Chapter I. These conclusions about Modern Poetry are based on an examination of approximately 1500 poems contained in Volumes I, II, XXX, and XXXI of Poetry magazine and in the three anthologies referred to throughout the text: Chief Modern Poets of England and America; A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry; and New Poems, 1942. Such a selection is wide enough and extends over a sufficient period of …

Regii Sangvinis Clamor Ad Coelum, By Dr. Peter Du Moulin The Younger (1652), Translated Into English And With An Introduction, Harry G. Merrill Iii

Masters Theses

(From the Introduction)

The beheading of Charles I on the black-draped scaffold outside Whitehall on 30 January, 1649, horrified the monarchs of Europe, for on that planking by the palace banquet room had been taught the most sanguine of all lessons concerning the relative effectiveness of Divine Right and popular will. The dismal negotiations to end the eight years of the English Civil War had aroused the fears of the Continental princes, and Charles' execution confirmed them; this baneful tide of successful rebellion, refuted by theory and hedged by arms, against despotism must be halted at the Channel …

A Survey Of Published American Radio Drama, Kenneth D. Wright

Masters Theses

(From the Introduction)

Radio broadcasting is a product of the twentieth century, taking its place beside the automobile, the airplane, two world wars, and now television as an influence upon the people of the world. Radio has had a short but colorful life, a reign studded with court fights, money-making, good and bad drama, music and showmanship, and a fair share or public acceptance and criticism.

Radio broadcasting is a composite or music programs, news reports, dramatic programs, commercial announcements, and comedy features. The American people listen to all of these programs at various times. Radio has become …

Keats And The New Critics, William Harold Hunter

Masters Theses

(From the Introduction)

The term "New Criticism" has been applied to the work of critics before our time, but in its current use it brings to mind a body of work that originated with T. S. Elliot and I. A. Richards. John Crowe Ransom first employed the term in the present sense; it now applies to such critics as Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, Kenneth Burke, R. P. Blackmur, and Ransom himself in America, and to William Empson, L. C. Knights, G. Wilson Knight, and F. R. Leavis in England.

Two elements distinguish the New Criticism …

The Fiction Of Sarah Barnwell Elliott, Charles V. Flowers

Masters Theses

(From the Conclusion)

In a final consideration of the significance of Sarah Barnwell Elliott, it is necessary to compare her with other writers of the period, and to estimate her achievement in relation to those writers. First, it must be understood that in the latter half of the nineteenth century realism was a growing genre in serious literature, replacing the romantic and the sentimental in critical approbation. The trend toward realism resembled the earlier romantic movement, with its successful opposition to the artificiality of corrupt eighteenth century neo-classicism. Both reforms sought to re-emphasize the real, as against the …

The Influence Of Shakespeare Upon Wordsworth, Mary Weaver Sweet

Masters Theses

Many notable influences are apparent in the writings of William Wordsworth, as, indeed, in the works of many creative artists. Arnold, Grierson, De Selincourt, Legouis, Havens, and other Wordsworth scholars have written much concerning the influence of Milton upon Wordsworth. Certainly his poetry has many "Miltonic echoes" which testify to the "completeness with which he had absorbed his master." His early poems, "Descriptive Sketches" and "Evening Walk," bear "painful witness" to the influence of the minor eighteenth-century writers: Warton, Thomson, Gray, Collins, and others. Seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century philosophers influenced his thinking in his search for a metaphysical basis of his …

Louis Napoleon In Browning's Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau: A True Portrait Of A Double Personality, Etta Culbertson Kennedy

Masters Theses

The following study consists of an attempt to show that Robert Browning has drawn a reliable portrait of Louis Napoleon, the last Emperor of the French, in the poem Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society. The study is divided into four parts. Chapter I is concerned with the questions of whether Browning has allowed his artistic ability to prevent him from presenting the true portrait of Louis Napoleon and whether Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau deserves to be called a poem. Chapter II traces the development of Browning's interest in Louis Napoleon and states why the poet wrote the self-apology of the Emperor's life. …

A Southern Journal Of 1838: Its Historical, Social And Literary Backgrounds, Emmie Delle Mullen

Masters Theses

(From the Introduction)

The discovery and study of a journal of considerable age is not unique. Journals, both published and unpublished, written alike by the famed and the obscure, are legion. A recently compiled bibliography of American diaries before 1861, which includes only the published diaries, is a substantial volume. It is, therefore, with some trepidation that I undertake for my thesis the study and editing of the journal of an almost completely unknown Southern woman who wrote it more than a century ago.

Thackeray's Reading, Mary H. Jenks

Masters Theses

Introduction: Before one can hope to gain an understanding of any author's work, and certainly before one can make any valid criticisms or interpretations of his writings, one should learn as much as possible about his life and his literary backgrounds. In studying the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, one observes that the tremendous amount and variety of his reading had a proportionate influence on the quality and range of his work. To date no serious study has been made of Thackeray's reading, although there have been numerous publications on his style, critical ability, humor, satire, travels, and personal life.

The Personal Religion Of Five Representative Eighteenth-Century Poets, Florence G. Marsh

Masters Theses

Preface: This thesis had its inception in a study of the personal religion of Samuel Johnson, done in the fall quarter of 1942 for Dr. Emperor's seminar. That study, which forms the second chapter here, was extended to include the personal religion of Thomas Gray, James Thomson, Edward Young, and William Shenstone because of my interest in the subject. The selection of the men to be studied was largely arbitrary; five seemed to be all that the scope of a thesis would permit me to treat adequately.

Hoxie Neale Fairchild's Religious Trends in English Poetry, I am sorry to …

Moliere's Influence On Congreve, Mildred Atkins Stern

Masters Theses

Conclusion:

Congreve owes a debt to Moliere - a debt which varies with the different plays but which can be traced in all four comedies. Plots, characters, and dramatic style recall Moliere. Many of the similarities between Congreve and Moliere may be accidental and allowances must be made for these. But after all allowances are made, the great indebtedness of Congreve to Moliere is evident. We may conclude with Swinburne that "a limb of Moliere would have sufficed to make a Congreve" and yet that "no English writer, on the whole, has so nearly touched the skirts of Moliere."

The Ciris And Ovid: A Study Of The Language Of The Poem, Richmond Frederick Thomason

Masters Theses

Introduction:

Some twenty-five poems, known as the Vergilian Appendix, and attributed by the ancients to the youthful Vergil, have come down to us in inferior manuscripts, but not in the great Vergilian codices. Among the best known of these poems are three short epics, the Culex, the Aetna and the Ciris. For centuries scholars have been agreed that all the poems of the Appendix are spurious, with the possible exception of one or two very short pieces which are contained in the Catalepton and which purport to give certain personal details. [Note. The present study has been prepared in cooperation …