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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy
Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
William Blake is an exemplar of Romantic poetry characterized by depictions of the occult, the divine, and human nature. Despite Blake’s reputation as a Romantic poet, many critics claim that there is not sufficient evidence to consider him a nature writer. As a result, Blake’s name is frequently omitted from ecological discussions; some scholars go so far as to claim that Blake’s poetry demonstrates a disregard for nature altogether. This article argues that an eco-critical analysis of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience reveals nature to be Blake’s continual source of inspiration. Within this collection, nature represents the struggles …
Withholding In Shakespeare: An Analysis Of King Lear And As You Like It, Nylene R. Ward
Withholding In Shakespeare: An Analysis Of King Lear And As You Like It, Nylene R. Ward
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Shakespeare is a name familiar to most people who have had the opportunity to study beyond the third grade. Withholding is a practice that isn’t as well known to us until we reach teenage and young adult years. This essay examines both of these topics, exploring the causes and effects of withholding in King Lear and As You Like It while comparing them to real-world definitions and findings. No concrete resolution is formed, instead leaving the outcome to readers as they consider the ethical, relational, and logical implications of the adult hide-and-seek that is withholding.
“Our Experience Is Fragmentary”: Partial Redemption In Marilynne Robinson’S Gilead Tetralogy, Zachary Stevenson
“Our Experience Is Fragmentary”: Partial Redemption In Marilynne Robinson’S Gilead Tetralogy, Zachary Stevenson
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Although the characters and thematic throughlines vary across the four books in the Gilead series, each book takes an interest in the reality of division and considers ways of negotiating and healing that division. Whether the divisions are theological, familial, socioeconomic or racial, their presence haunts the text and the question of their resolution always hovers near the surface. Taken together, these considerations of difference across the four books demonstrate that Robinson populates her novels with chasms that her characters bridge, but only partially so. This coexistence of alienation and reconciliation allows Robinson to articulate a vision of Christian community …
“Viewed In Prospect Or Retrospect”: Dorothy Wordsworth’S “Revisiting” On The 1820 Continental Tour, Eve Dixon Fennimore
“Viewed In Prospect Or Retrospect”: Dorothy Wordsworth’S “Revisiting” On The 1820 Continental Tour, Eve Dixon Fennimore
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
This paper argues that Dorothy Wordsworth, in her often overlooked Journal of a Tour on the Continent, was essentially “revisiting” places that she was viewing for the first time, as she had visited them secondhand through William's stories and writings about them. In 1820, Dorothy, William, and Mary Wordsworth embarked on a tour of the continent in the inverse direction of William’s youthful 1790 trip. For thirty years, Dorothy had heard stories and read about his experiences, building up an image in her mind of what the Continent would be like which changed her own exploration of the sights. …
Painted As Political: The Cultural Significance Within Zitkala-Ša’S Boarding School Narratives, Toni Aguiar
Painted As Political: The Cultural Significance Within Zitkala-Ša’S Boarding School Narratives, Toni Aguiar
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Zitkala-Ša was a Dakota writer, educator, and political activist who was and is widely influential within and outside of Native American communities during the twentieth century. As a child, Zitkala-Ša was sent to school at White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute, which spurred her writings in “School Days of an Indian Girl” recounting her experiences at the school and the struggles she faced. Though many scholars debate the activist choices she made in her later life as either pro or anti assimilation, some also extend this political criticism into her childhood experiences. My paper argues an alternative reading of these boarding …
Community As A Force Of Action In Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs", Lily Jensen
Community As A Force Of Action In Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs", Lily Jensen
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
This paper explores Hansberry’s philosophy of community in her 1970 play, Les Blancs. The paper analyzes Hansberry’s use of complex characterization in this text to show the wide reach of the colonial power structure and to show what is required of a community to push for effective action. The paper also analyzes the National Theatre’s 2016 production of Les Blancs, and how this production incorporates and enhances Hansberry’s philosophy of community through the characteristics afforded through theatre as a medium.
The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue In The Man Of Law’S Tale, Lucy Esplin
The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue In The Man Of Law’S Tale, Lucy Esplin
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
In the late fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterwork, The Canterbury Tales, a satirical frame narrative centered on English society. The tales follow a group of pilgrims spanning a wide range of English society, who engage in a storytelling contest as they embark on their pilgrimage. One story is the “Man of Law’s Tale,” a crusader romance that follows the pious Constance in her missionary-like journeys. She first travels to Syria to marry a Sultan, after negotiations between the Roman and Syrian rulers demanded the Sultan be baptized and control over Jerusalem would be handed over to Christians (Chaucer …
Cover And Front Matter
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
No abstract provided.
From "Pictures Of Perfection" To "No Ideal Expression": How Jane Austen Reimagines And Reinvents Eighteenth-Century Heroines, Gretchen Picklesimer Kinney
From "Pictures Of Perfection" To "No Ideal Expression": How Jane Austen Reimagines And Reinvents Eighteenth-Century Heroines, Gretchen Picklesimer Kinney
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
No abstract provided.
Gender And Orality In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Nessa Ordukhani
Gender And Orality In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Nessa Ordukhani
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
This essay explores the intersection of postmodernism and multiculturalism in Toni Morrison's novel, Song of Solomon. It delves into the destabilization of historical metanarratives by postmodernism through the theories of Jean-François Lyotard, which challenges the notion of a singular truth and questions who constructs popular historical narratives. The essay discusses the role of the victors, particularly white males, in shaping history and the process of legitimation through which historical facts are determined. It examines how Morrison's novel offers an alternative history that highlights African American perspectives and challenges the dominant white narrative. Additionally, the essay explores the tension between multiculturalism …
“Creating And Maintaining Black Life-Worlds”: The Black Aesthetics Of Bernardine Evaristo’S Blonde Roots And Girl, Woman, Other, Sharanya Dg
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Black Aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into the objects and practices of expressions coming from people who have been racialized as black. These expressive practices then lend to the creation of the life-worlds of people subjected to racist discourses. One such author in the contemporary English society, Bernadine Evaristo, responds to anti-black racist discourses by exploring the cultural plurality of British black life-worlds. This paper is a textual and formal analysis of two experimental novels of Evaristo to study how they distinctly present the quotidian lives of various characters in their racialised bodies to reflect on the sociocultural and political …
Milton, Immortality, And Obtaining Eliot's "Significant Emotion", Aaron By Gorner
Milton, Immortality, And Obtaining Eliot's "Significant Emotion", Aaron By Gorner
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
In his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent, T. S. Eliot famously asserts that very few can actually access "significant emotion" in poetry, and do so by understanding where relics of the classical tradition assert their immortality. In my article, I support Eliot's claims by demonstrating two (previously undiscussed) occasions where Milton, via Paradise Lost, inserts Christianity into the classical world: Satan and Abdiel alluding to Virgil's Remulus and Ascanius, and then Eve and Adam with Virgil's Nisus and Euryalus. Ultimately it will be apparent that not only does Milton's poetry obtain Eliot's "significant emotion" and its associated immortality, …
The “Fruit” Of Success: Christina Rossetti’S “Goblin Market” As An Allegory Of The 19th Century Literary Marketplace, Priyodarshini Ghosh
The “Fruit” Of Success: Christina Rossetti’S “Goblin Market” As An Allegory Of The 19th Century Literary Marketplace, Priyodarshini Ghosh
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” is probably her most critically acclaimed literary masterpiece. It has been accepted undoubtedly as an allegory of something, but critics have not been able to come to a unanimous conclusion as to what. Some have tried to establish it as a Christian allegory of Fall and Redemption, while others as an allegory of sexual temptation. Certain critics have hinted that this poem could be an allegory of the literary marketplace during the 19th century, which was wholly dominated by men, women’s entry into that marketplace being either restricted or marked by insurmountable obstacles. Following the …
Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn
Beyond "His Native Town": Travel And Alienation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Erin G. Quinn
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein features a surprisingly extensive variety of locations through which Victor Frankenstein travels, ranging from the vibrant cities of London and Oxford to the isolated Orkney islands and Arctic lands. Scholars have analyzed the roles which some of these settings, namely, the Alps and the Arctic, play in the novel, and many have noted the importance of travel to the text. However, little scholarship exists assessing how Victor’s travels as a whole impact him, as well as their collective purpose within the story. Given the prominence of travel in Shelley’s text, as well as the fact …
The Art Speaks For Itself: Aura And Corruption In Cuarón’S Children Of Men, Colby Orton
The Art Speaks For Itself: Aura And Corruption In Cuarón’S Children Of Men, Colby Orton
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
In the world of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, the audience comes face to face with many scenes and shots that are filled with symbolism that it may become difficult to pick up on all the excellent directional moves made by Cuarón. This essay will closely analyze not only the clever placement of art but the heavy symbolic nature that each of these art pieces possess; furthermore, I will analyze the implications that these symbolic references bring to the film and how these implications complicate the film while furthering the difficult themes proposed by Cuarón. To achieve the highest understanding …