American Literature Commons^™

Happy Valley, Robert D. Gray

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Iktomi: A Character Traits Analysis Of A Dakota Culture Myth, Marianne Sue Kastner

Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study comparing three separate English-language versions of a single Dakota cultural myth "Iktomi" presents a novel systematic approach for analyzing Native American folk tales to understand how stories function as tools of transmission of cultural information and knowledge. The method involved coding character traits according to type with regard to representation, ability, or attribute to ascertain patterns among the codes and elucidate character roles and relationships, reorganizing the coded traits into paired polarized correspondences to clarify relationships among traits, and assessing pronoun use and documenter effect pointing to gender-specific character activity. Findings revealed an encoded framework illuminating how …

Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943 (Sc 2646), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2646. Letter of Cale Young Rice, 29 December 1919, disputing a poor review of his poetry by literary critic William Braithwaite and complaining of similar criticism by others. The letter may have been directed to the Boston Evening Transcript, where Braithwaite was literary editor. Includes a note of 22 December 1919 asking that the letter be printed.

Table Of Contents

The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard & Pulp Studies

Prefatory Remarks, by Mark E. Hall

The Writer’s Style: Sound and Syntax in Howard’s Sentences, by David C. Smith

I ’n’ I A-Liberate Zimbabwe: Motifs of Africa and Freedom in Howard’s "The Grisly Horror," by Patrick R. Burger

Robert E. Howard and the Lone Scouts, by Rob Roehm

"Sword Woman," review by Charles Hoffman

"Solomon Kane and the Castle of the Devil," review by Charles Gramlich

"John Carter of Weird Worlds," review by Charles Gramlich

"Reflections on Le Fanu," review by Charles Gramlich

Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 1823-1914 (Sc 61), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 61. Manuscript poem entitled “The Censer Bowl” written by Simon Bolivar Buckner.

Operating The Silencer: Muted Group Theory In The Great Gatsby, Sarah Funderbruke

Masters Theses

This master's thesis examines gender and social roles seen in dialogue in the American classic novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The researcher conducted a coding and rhetorical analysis to determine if elements of muted group theory were in the novel. Muted group theory was developed by Edwin and Shirley Ardener after their research indicated that a culture's values and social structure were voiced through rhetoric. The theory states that dominance in certain groups mutes, or silences, others from communicating effectively. Five passages from The Great Gatsby were selected for this analysis. These passages highlighted dialogue between the …

Paschal, Mabel Fayette (Thompson), 1905-1936 (Sc 2640), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2640. Typescript copy of paper titled “Dr. John Milton Harney,” by Mrs. C. R. Paschal, written for a class at Western Kentucky State Teachers’ College. The paper gives details about Harney’s poetry, and includes a few excerpts.

Crabb, Alfred Leland, 1884-1979 (Sc 762), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 762. Letter, 20 May 1958, written by Alfred Leland Crabb, Nashville, Tennessee, to Eugenia Gerard Paxton, Bowling Green, Kentucky, responding to Mrs. Paxton’s laudatory letter commenting on his book, Peace in Bowling Green. Also poems composed by Crabb for Christmas greetings.

Murrey, Loretta (Martin) (Mss 429), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 429. Interviews conducted by Loretta (Martin) Murrey, professor of English at Western Kentucky University, with poet Joy Bale Boone. Includes transcriptions, summaries, and cassette tapes (32). The interviews emphasize biographical information and descriptions of Boone's influence as a poet and literary activist.

Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943 (Sc 515), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 515. Letter, 17 January 1926, from Cale Young Rice, Louisville, Kentucky, to Mrs. Grayot? giving permission to reprint some of his poetry in the magazine "The Club Woman." Also includes some of his comments concerning poetry.

Thoreau’S Walden: Experiential Learning And A Transcendental Walk, Adam Kotlarczyk

Early American Literature (before 1900)

Many English classes struggle with Thoreau’s dense and often ponderous prose in Walden. Classes often become mired in his text and its romantic ideals of seclusion and self-reliance. This activity rips the words of Walden off the page and puts them where they belong: outside. It compels students to move beyond basic interpretations of Walden as “connecting with nature” and “keeping life simple,” and instead to see and interpret their modern, living world through the lens of Transcendentalism, as Thoreau did.

This lesson encourages students to see and interpret their worlds as Thoreau did through a modeling-based writing experience.

On The Verge Of Change: Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding, Mallary Taylor

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis discusses the effects of war on the southern plantation lifestyle depicted in Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding. This thesis focuses on the female characters who adapt to the absence of the husbands during wartime. Wars are the catalyst for societal change in the novel, and the women must adapt to the new social changes that are encroaching upon the plantation. The chapters explore each individual reaction of female characters in the novel. The female characters in Delta Wedding represent varying wars of reacting to shifting social norms brought about by war.

Monster Quest: Background Myth And Contemporary Context Of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Conqueror Worm", Farrah Senn

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Poe's short story "Ligeia" and its companion poem "The Conqueror Worm" have garnered little critical attention, though he believed them to be his best works. Considering the archetypal image of the worm, contemporary references, and Poe's other uses of the symbol, an analysis of the poem and its context within the short story reveals the identity of the "hero" described in the final verse. This paper explores the archetypal nature of the worm by looking at snake myths from across the globe and applying Platonic/Jungian ideas to the image and its function in the poem. This work also discusses the …

Western, William Wallace, 1834-1870 (Sc 736), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 736. “Prison Pastime: A Poem,” written by William W. Western, a Memphis, Tennessee Confederate while in Canada during the Civil War. Privately printed, updated, and dedicated to Henry H. Skiles, a lawyer friend of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Includes typescripted letters of Western, written from Canada, discussing his poems and his uncertain future.

Johnson, Keen, 1896-1970 (Sc 2607), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2607. Typescript copy of the last will and testament of Fielding Lewis, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Lewis was a brother-in-law to George Washington. This document contains information about Lewis’ land, slaves, and debts.

Grafton, Sue Taylor, B. 1940 (Sc 2601), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2601. Letter from author Sue Taylor Grafton, Santa Barbara, California, to Kim Nicholson, Franklin, North Carolina, enclosing autographed bookplates (not included), and commenting on her current work on her “alphabet series” of Kinsey Millhone crime novels.

Rothert, Otto Arthur, 1871-1956 (Sc 716), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 716. Letter written to Lida (Calvert) Obenchain, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Otto Arthur Rothert, Louisville, Kentucky, in which he thanks her for a recent letter and invites her to visit him when she next comes to Louisville.

Halleck, Annie Jeanette (Ainslie), 1839-1915 (Sc 719), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 719. Letter written to Bessie Oates, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Annie (Ainslie) Halleck, Louisville, Kentucky, replying to an inquiry for information for a research paper about her grandfather, Hew Ainslie.

Obenchain, Lida (Calvert), 1856-1935 (Sc 726), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 726. Letter to Frances Richards, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Lida (Calvert) Obenchain, Dallas, Texas, an author and native of Bowling Green, stating that her publishers will send copies of two of her books for the Kentucky Library Collection. Also she relates her concern for the collection of textiles for the Kentucky Museum.

Allison, Young Ewing, 1853-1932 (Sc 723), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 723. Two letters written by Young Ewing Allison, journalist and author, Louisville, Kentucky, to Edward A. Jonas, editor, Louisville, thanking Jonas for his kind remarks.

“Roses Are Planted Where Thorns Grow”: The 2012 Lion And The Unicorn Award For Excellence In North American Poetry, Michael Heyman, Michael Joseph, Joseph T. Thomas Jr.

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Brooks, Attie Frances (Riggs), 1871-1946 (Sc 2577), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2577. Typescript copies of a few letters from Attie Riggs Brooks, Utica, Kentucky, to Gayle R. Carver, Greenville, Kentucky, enclosing typescript copies of several poems and articles as well as a short biography.

Lytle, William (Sc 2605), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2605. Bound typescript paper titled “George H. Lorimer, a Study of Lorimer, the Magnificent” written by William Lytle. Paper details the life and career of Lorimer, editor of The Saturday Evening Post.

Hays, William Shakespeare, 1837-1907 (Sc 2603), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2603. Chiefly typescript copies of letters from William Shakespeare Hays, Louisville, Kentucky, to Jess and Sue Barkley, Greenville, Kentucky, and a few selected poems. Poems include "Insured", "Sunday Morning", "Eli's Thanksgiving", etc. Also included is general biographical information about Hays.

Fox, John William, Jr., 1862-1919 (Sc 2600), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2600. Bound volume of letters chiefly from John W. Fox, Jr., New York City, to Micajah Fible, Louisville, Kentucky. Fox writes of topics including his career in journalism and mutual friends.

Averitt, Lewis H., 1812-1872 (Sc 710), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 710. Manuscript book of 30 poems written by Dr. Lewis H. Averitt physician of Caledonia, Trigg County, Kentucky, between 1840-1872. Several of the poems are about the Whig Party in Kentucky, 1842-1843.

“Bury Your Head Between My Knees And Seek Pardon”: Gender, Sexuality, And National Conflict In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Patricia A. Thomas

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In “‘Bury Your Head Between My Knees and Seek Pardon’: Gender, Sexuality, and National Conflict in John Okada’s 1957 novel, No-No Boy,” I analyze the ways in which the complexities of gendered sexuality expressed by protagonist Ichiro Yamada intersect with post-World War II and Internment-era national identifications for American nisei. I demonstrate that this apparent story of one man’s pursuit to resolve his conflict over national identity is, in reality, a tour de force of literary subversion that not only destabilizes the subterfuge that surrounded internment but also—in its deliberate failure to resolve questions of national conflict on the …

Mind The Gap: An Analysis Of The Function Of Love In The Works Of Tom Stoppard And C.S. Lewis., Jacqueline C. Lawler

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Writers C.S. Lewis and Tom Stoppard, though philosophically different, both write about love that embodies the natural law. The natural law can be defined as law that is inherent in man and can be discerned by reason rather than by revelation. Both writers use their observational style in order to reason their way to nearly identical laws of love. Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, Arcadia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Real Thing will be analyzed using the framework of C.S. Lewis’s book, The Four Loves.

Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943 (Sc 484), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 484. An autographed letter to Mr. Blodgett stating that he never saves his manuscripts, 6 March 1917, and a poem entitled “Silence,” 1 November.

Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989 (Sc 463), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 463. Photocopy of letter written by Robert Penn Warren, from France, to Addie Hochstrasser, Bowling Green, Kentucky, fulfilling her request for an inscription of his to place in a copy of his biography of Theodore Dreiser.