Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The "Double Sorwe" Of Troylus And Criseyde: An Analysis Of Chaucer's Dramatic Tragedy, Suzanne Renae Mclaughlin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Americans Define Themselves In The New World, Judith Richards

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to show how the different groups who settled in the English American colonies which later became the United States described themselves during the colonial period. The focal work is Letters from an American Farmer by Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. In his chapter "What is an American?" Crevecoeur goes into detail in his descriptions of settlers living in the American colonies just before the Revolutionary War.

Crevecoeur's descriptions are compared with those of earlier writers who wrote at the time of settlement. These writers are selected to be representative of their colony or region. …

The Perpetual Journey: Jonathan Edwards' "Personal Narrative" And Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Pamela A. Masden

Masters Theses

Scholarly readers seem to have avoided a comparison of the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) and Benjamin Franklin (1706-90). Although they were born three years apart, they are rarely represented in anthologies as having been contemporaries, primarily because Edwards was a Puritan preacher and Franklin was an "Enlightenment" politician and inventor. However, when we disregard these critical constraints and assumptions, we find that as writers and thinkers, they have a great deal in common.

In my thesis, I have examined the autobiographies of these contemporary works: Edwards' "Personal Narrative" (c. 1739-42) and Franklin's Autobiography (1771-88). The theoretical approaches of Jane …

Destination Zero: A Play In One Act, Deborah L. Muller

Masters Theses

While there have been a few creative theses written in the English department, those written up till now have consisted of collections of short stories and poetry. This is the first play to have been conceived and written for a Master's Thesis at Eastern Illinois University. The Thesis is comprised of two major parts: an introduction and the play, itself.

The introduction deals with what the goals of writing the Thesis were, what research went into reaching these goals, what the characters in the play were attempting to communicate to the reader/audience, and whether the resulting play deviated from the …

A Study Of Baudelaire's Symbols Of The Feminine In Les Fleurs Du Mal, M. Allison Harris

Masters Theses

Using French and American feminist theory, I analyze Charles Baudelaire's symbols in Les Fleurs du Mal in an attempt to come to terms with symbolic representations of the female that are at once traditional and transgressive.

By examining the images of solids (statues, jewels, metals), lesbians and woman's hair which appear frequently in Baudelaire's text, I reveal Baudelaire's desire to eliminate a woman's generative power and her association with the procreative cycle of nature. His desire for a preoedipal union with the maternal female becomes evident in his early poems and his poems on the subject of a woman's hair. …

Killer Trees And Homicidal Grass: The Anthropomorphic Landscape In The American Prose Narrative Of The Vietnam War, Timothy F. Poremba

Masters Theses

Reading the landscape of Vietnam (the climate, the jungle, the topography) as an anthropomorphic character in the American prose narrative of the war provides a unique insight into the inner landscapes of the men who fought there and now write about it. William V. Spanos writes that the urge to name--to anthropomorphize--is man's method for dealing with the existential nothingness of being. Zohreh T. Sullivan, in discussing the landscape of Joseph Conrad, perceives landscape as a projection of the author's own psychic turmoil. Furthermore, Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space recognizes the imaginative value that man places on space, …

Female Fantasists: Re-Visioning The Archetypal Warrior, Tammy M. Bear-Tibbs

Masters Theses

This thesis discusses female archetypal warriors in several fantasy novels written for children and adolescents. The novels examined include A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle; The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley; Dragonflight, Dragonguest, The White Dragon, Dragonsong, and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey; and The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. The thesis argues that, by expanding gender roles and portraying their female characters as strong archetypal warriors, these authors force a rethinking of existing archetypal criticism. Using …

The Relationship Between Elements Of Symbolism In Drawings And Language, Sarah Lynn Williams

Masters Theses

A relationship between the development of drawing skills and overall development has been well documented. Furthermore, a relationship between language development and drawing development has been suggested by a number of research findings. The research goal of this project is the following: to determine whether there is a predictable relationship between the elements of symbolism in drawing and language development.

Twenty-six children were given a standardized language assessment and a drawing assessment. The children were divided into two groups according to age. Language scores for Group 1 included the following Test of Language Development-Primary subtests (Newcomer & Hammill, 1982): picture …

An "Avowed Contradiction": Gender And Historical Instability In Clarissa, Jennifer C. Berkshire

Masters Theses

As one of the first novels written, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa serves as an important social text with which to examine the eighteenth century. Most theoretical studies of the emergence of novelistic discourse have interpreted the rise of the new genre as a reflection of other broader socio-economic changes. This study focuses on the role of the novel in bringing about such changes--in articulating particular attitudes, beliefs, and opinions that have come to be associated with the middle class. The study involves an examination of Clarissa, Lovelace, and the Harlowe family as representatives of particular ideologies, or understandings of history, with …

The Rhetoric Of Documentation: Two Approaches, Walt Wisnewski

Masters Theses

In an attempt to clarify how a beginner who has not yet mastered a software program is to learn to use word processing programs, this thesis examines two examples, WordPerfect and W.W. Norton's TEXTRA from the standpoint of their documentation. Software developers have adopted conflicting rhetorical strategies in their documentation: some have sought clear instruction via a rule-based rhetoric with a reliance on jargon-free standard English, and others have pursued an inferential rhetoric. These two strategies parallel two models in modern communications theory: a decoding model and an inferential model. WordPerfect seems to follow a decoding (rule-based) approach and TEXTRA …

The Private Renaissance Of J.J. Reeves, Alma J. Watson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Concerto For Oboe And Orchestra, Roseane Yampolschi

Masters Theses

In one movement, the "Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra" is divided into five sections and a cadenza. It proposes to question the classical predominance of the solo instrument over the orchestra. A thoughtful distribution and diversification of roles performed by the soloist and the orchestra offers, as an alternative, a balanced interplay between these two protagonists.

Sections A and B supply material used in the other sections. Their main parameters are the predominance of some pitch intervals and the simultaneous use of different rhythmic organizations forming distinct textures. Section C stands quite freely from sections A and B for its …

My Strongest Man, Robert A. Zordani

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Comprehension And The Breakdown Of Consensus In Restoration Herefordshire, Newton Key

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

My Strongest Man, Robert Zordani

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The White Witch: Emily Dickinson And Colonial American Witchcraft, Amy M. Sparks

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Sonnet Is Alive And Well- A Study Of The Sonnets Of Richard Wilbur, John Berryman, And Gwendolyn Brooks, Michael Krenz

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Politics And The Narrative In Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, Richard Morris

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Zen Of Stevens, Rebecca Dickens

Masters Theses

Using comparative studies as background, I develop a Zen model for reading Stevens, arguing that his poetry works in the manner of Zen anecdotes and that it can be understood better by understanding Zen. Three critical studies of Wallace Stevens and Zen assert the Zen-like qualities of Stevens' poetry. Stevens has affinities with Zen writers in three areas: use of language, explorations into the nature of thought, and the structure of anecdotes and poems.

I develop a terminology in order to construct my model, giving attention to the definitions and interrelations of terms such as logical thought, figurative thought, paradox, …

David Copperfield And Great Expectations: A Comparison Of Dickens' Bildungsromane, Donald R. Price

Masters Theses

Charles Dickens wrote two autobiographical novels which are developed in the Bildungsroman genre. Although the self-formation of the two young heroes, David in David Copperfield and Pip in Great Expectations, are very similar, reflecting the struggles in Dickens' own development, there is an important and interesting difference in the forces that influence each young hero. This difference evolves from Dickens' responses to forces affecting his life at the time he wrote David Copperfield in 1849-50 and Great Expectations in 1860.

This thesis addresses the internal forces influencing David's development, contrasting them with the external forces to which Pip must …

Selective Methods Of Teaching Secondary English: The Scarlet Letter: A Study And Application Of The Collaborative And Mastery Learning Methods, Janine M. Kardas

Masters Theses

This study is about the relationship of content in teaching to the process in teaching for the purpose of helping students to become better readers of literature. This study investigates two selected teaching strategies supported by research to be effective, and applies them to the teaching of a canonical piece of literature, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This study employs literary theory in the development of the objectives and applies both cooperative learning and mastery learning methods to the teaching of this novel. Two sets of lesson plans are developed from the objectives and subsequently analyzed for their effectiveness …

"I Belong To Me": Toni Morrison's Novels As Bildungsroman, Angela L. Jones

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Voices Of Protest In Uncle Tom's Cabin And Native Son, Tim M. Ipema

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Tristram Shandy And The Editors: A Question Of Reading Perspective, Karen Whisler

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

"For Though It Swam In France, It Might Have Sunk In England": A Comparison Of John Vanbrugh’S The Confederacy With Its French Source, Les Bourgeoises À La Mode, Diane T. Harris

Masters Theses

In the summer of 1705, as Sir John Vanbrugh was casting about for dramatic source material which might play successfully at the new Haymarket theatre, he rediscovered Florent Dancourt's Les Bourgeoises à la Mode and, in the manner of Restoration theatre playwrights, created an adapted version in many respects quite different from the original. This adaptation, known as The Confederacy, is considered by many Vanbrugh scholars to be one of the English author's best works.

This paper is essentially a comparative study of the two plays. It begins with a plot summary of the play Vanbrugh used as the …

West Germany's Ostpolitik And Relations With The United States Under Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, And Helmut Kohl, David J. Bollmann

Masters Theses

Many questions arose during the late 1970s and early 1980s about the reliability of West Germany's relationship with the United States. This thesis was written to examine the relationship between the United States and West Germany during the post-war years, especially during the Chancellorships of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl.

The initial phase of U.S.-FRG relations was marked with a great deal of harmony between the two countries. The United States placed a great deal of emphasis on West Germany as part of its evolving containment of communism strategy. The FRG was recognized as a nation in 1949 …

Causes Of Political Revolution, Alazar Gebil

Masters Theses

This essay is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in political science at the graduate school of Eastern Illinois University. The essay intended to elaborate the basic definitions, theories, ideologies and causes of political revolution.

This thesis relates historical facts and events of the American, Russian, Cuban and Iranian Revolutions to the causes, definitions, theories, and ideologies of general revolutions. The main theme is that governments' failures caused the continued social unrest such as demonstrations, strikes and upheavals. When an opposition group was well organized and represented by intellectuals equipped with political …

Brotherly Love In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Robert Welsh

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Two Halves Into The Water, Michael Kuo

Masters Theses

In my introductory essay (“The Dying Star: Character in Contemporary Fiction”) I argue that the contemporary fiction writer views character in a new way, breaking with traditional fiction theory and its dependence on the Cartesian division of Self and Other. The contemporary writer “finds Descartes’ division of Self and Other impotent, turning instead to a vision of character in which there are no certainties; a character in contemporary fiction cannot necessarily come to ‘know herself’ or the world around her.” I trace the influence of Descartes in a wide variety of traditional fiction and theory, and then propose a new …

Chaucer's Troilus And Shakespeare's Troilus: A Comparison Of Their Declines, Laura Devon Flesor

Masters Theses

Only in the last ten years have critics worked to establish a more than superficial link between Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. Part of the problem in this area of study was that scholars had ignored textual evidence proving that Shakespeare’s main source was Chaucer’s great poem. Current source-studies, outlined in the opening pages of this thesis, validate comparative treatments of the two texts.

This thesis steps beyond the issue of indebtedness into the realm of characterization, particularly the elements of Chaucer’s characterization of Troilus that Shakespeare chose to present to his Elizabethan audience and …