American Literature Commons^™

Existential Elements In The Works Of Ernest Hemingway, Carl Klemaier

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Recapitulation And Alteration In Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy, Elizabeth Anne Shapland

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

George Willard's Progress Toward Maturity In Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Patrice Grassinger Spencer

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

You Can't Go Home Again: James Baldwin And The South, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

James Baldwin, like innumerable other Black artists, has found that in his efforts to express the plight of the Black man in America, he has been forced to deal over and over again with that inescapable dilemma of the Black American - the lack of a sense of a positive self-identity. Time after time in his writings he has shown an awareness of the fact that identity contains, as Erik Erikson so accurately indicates, "a complementarity of past and future both in the individual and in society." Baldwin wrote in "Many Thousands Gone," "We cannot escape our origins, however hard …

Contemporary Militant Black Humor, Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Witnessing the continued plight of their black brothers in America, noting the continued strength of racism in this country, and discouraged by the slowness and ineffectiveness of integration, they have become frustrated and completely disillusioned with the promise of American democracy. If Paul Laurence Dunbar might be said to reflect in some of his works the accommodationist views of the leading black spokesman of his times, Booker T. Washington; and if Langston Hughes might generally be viewed as advocating the thoughtful, rational methods of Martin Luther King and the N.A.A.C.P. with their disciplined social protest and their optimistic faith in …

Samuel Hopkins Adams, His Novel, Revelry, And The Reputation Of Warren G. Harding, Robert W. Coren

The Courier

In November 1926, Samuel Hopkins Adams's novel of Washington politics, Revelry, appeared. Since its central character is an American President easily identifiable as the late Warren G. Harding, it created a great stir. Adams's characterization of Harding was sympathetic, but also uncomplimentary, suggesting several negative personal attributes. A controversy over the appropriateness of Adams's behavior ensued. In the press, Adams was either lauded for telling the truth about Harding or condemned for his bad taste in maligning the President, who died in 1923.

Papers of Samuel Hopkins Adams preserved in the Bird Library of Syracuse University, reveal that the author …

George Frederick Ruxton, Neal Lambert

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

In the spring of 1847 at Fort Leavenworth on the Indian frontier a group of United States Dragoons stood staring at a remarkable frontier figure with a “Mahogany-coloured face” and dressed in “the pride of fringed deerskin and porcupine quills.” The costume was creating "no little difference of opinion amongst the troopers” as to which Indian tribe the figure might belong to.

My State Of The Union Speech, James Hearst

James Hearst Documents

The typescript of a talk given by James Hearst sometime in the mid-1970s.

Washington Irving: The Western Works, Richard H. Cracroft

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

Early in the fall of 1832, while steaming down the Ohio River toward its confluence with the Mississippi, the steamboat Illinois, en route to St. Louis, collided with the Yellowstone with such force that the Illinois was nearly sunk. The accident, though minor, has symbolic value in a study of Washington Irving as a Western writer, for Irving was aboard the Illinois, traveling toward Independence, Missouri, where the famous author would begin a month-long tour on the prairies of Oklahoma—the Southwest. Aboard the Yellowstone, a packet belonging to the American Fur Company, were fur traders and trappers …

H.L. Davis, Robert Bain

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

“Ex-Cowboy's Novel Wins Harper Prize" announced the New York Times in August of 1935 when H. L. Davis’ Honey in the Horn won the $7,500 Award. Davis received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1936 and established himself nationally as a Western writer of talent and consequence. During the next twentyfour years, he published seven books—four more novels, a collection of poems which he had written between 1919 and 1933, a volume of stories and sketches which had been published in magazines between 1929 and 1941, and a series of essays about the Northwest.

Frederick Manfred, Joseph M. Flora

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

Alan Swallow has designated Frederick Manfred, along with other writers of the American West, a maverick. The mavericks are serious writers who have pursued their themes without much recognition from the Eastern press, partly, Swallow felt, because the Eastern press has not understood the Western themes or techniques or has been too contemptuous to make the effort. The truth of Swallow’s contention of prejudice is difficult to assess. But there is, in any event, a group of Western writers who have gone on—sometimes with little recognition—pursuing their themes, meditating on the West, writing their books. Alan Swallow was friend to …

Freudian Dream Symbols In Q.E.D., Melanctha And Ida, Victoria M. Davis

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Whitman's And Melville's Civil War: A Comparison Of Drum-Taps And Battle-Pieces, Martha M. Gower

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Innocent Character In Twain's Public Scenes, Connie J. Link

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Wide World Of Jack London, Howard Lawrence Lachtman

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The high apostle of the adventure tale in the Strenuous Age, Jack London has never really relinquished the popularity which made him before his death one of the best known and, most widely read writers in the world. It is true that more than one pontiff of literary taste has consigned him to the same, "obsolete" file that contains the remains of Richard Harding Davis, David Graham Phillips, William Sidney Porter, but such reports of London's demise have undoubtedly been premature. Indeed, the contemporary momentum of Jack London studies affords excellent evidence of the critical rediscovery of an American legend. …

The Possibility Of Evil: The Fiction Of Shirley Jackson, John Gordon Parks

American Studies ETDs

The dissertation is a critical study of the fiction of Shirley Jackson. It uses a story published shortly after her death in 1965 to express the key to the main themes and concerns of her fiction: "The Possibility of Evil." It is the thesis of the study that Shirley Jack­son's fiction portrays the many incognitoes of evil and the demonic in contemporary life. Through the use of gothic conventions Jackson re­veals the contours of human madness and loneliness in a disintegrating world generally bereft of the meliorating power of love and forgiveness.

Each of her six novels is treated fully: …

Poe's Humor In Theory And Practice, Celinda V. Claxton

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Faulkner's Concept Of Innocence: A Study Of Horace Benbow, Thomas Sutpen, And The Convict In The Wild Palms, Sandra Sayre Moll

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Anti-Calvinism In Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie And An American Tragedy, Sandra Compton Thornburry

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A monograph presented to the faculty of the Graduate School at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Sandra Compton Thornbury in August of 1973.

The Relative Striking Power, Duration, And Intensity Between The Metaphor In Hawthorne And The Flat Imagery In Hemingway, Shirley Ruth Sigley

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A monograph presented to the faculty of the Department of English at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Shirley Ruth Sigley in June of 1973.

Black Autobiography, Dianna Lane Davis

Student Scholarship

This study explores Black autobiography as a significant literary genre that provides a foundation for a unique system of Black literary criticism. Rather than viewing these works merely as sociological or historical source material, the author argues that they are imaginative human expressions and works of literary art. By analyzing various narratives, the research identifies how Black autobiography presents a multifaceted picture of culture and experience that resists white aesthetic limitations. 

A primary focus of the analysis is the Black family, which served as a stronghold for human worth and a world apart from white society. The study distinguishes between …

Walter Van Tilburg Clark, L. L. Lee

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

In October 1950, Walter Van Tilburg Clark said of The Track of the Cat that it was "another step forward in my constant effort to personalize the land and put the human tragedy back into its natural setting" (N.Y. Herald Tribune Book Review, Oct. 8, 1950, p. 18). Here, in a few precise words, is the essence of Clark's intention and of his vision, for his work, as different as his novels and his short _ stories might be from one another on the surface, was built upon· that simple and yet intricate vision of man in relationship …

The Westcotts And David Harum, Richard G. Case

The Courier

In the 1890's, the Westcotts lived at 826 James Street, Syracuse. The man of the house was an occasional clerk, banker, and stock broker who worked for the Syracuse Water Commission. When he died, the obituary writer of a Syracuse newspaper described Edward Noyes Westcott as a "clerk," and added, "Mr Westcott was facile with a pen but never indulged himself in writing to any great extent."

Today, few of us recognize the name Edward Noyes Westcott, although we probably know the book he wrote, David Harum, A Story of American Life, which is, by almost any standard, fairly called …

Metaphorical Metaphysics: The Doctrine Of Reincarnation In The Works Of Herman Melville, Ruth A. Riegel

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Donald Barthelme: A Twentieth-Century Fabulator, Karen A. Tolin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Donald Ba.rthelme (1933- ) has been writing significant, experimental fiction for over a decade now. Other than numerous magazine publications, he has four longer published works, ~ Ba.ck, Dr. Caligari (1964)1 ~ White (1967), Unspeakable Practices, Unna. tural ~ ( 1968) J am City Life ( 1970) J and a children's book, The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine .2£ the Hithering Thithering Djinn (1971). City Life was selected by The New York Times as one of the twelve outstaming books of 1970, am The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine was the 1971 National Book Awards winner for the children's book prize. Yet, …

The Role Of Love In The Fiction Of James Baldwin, Douglas Wayne Wright

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of English at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Douglas Wayne Wright in April of 1972.

Political Concepts In The Novels Of Carson Mccullers, Ronald Flowe

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Richard Brautigan: Youth Fishing In America, Cheryl Walker

Scripps Faculty Publications and Research

Richard Brautigan is an epiphenomenon in American literature. He seems to represent some sort of insubstantial alternative. While the academy of letters reads Beckett, Borges, and Nabokov, the kids read Brautigan...His appeal consists primarily in an irrepressible optimism (probably the brand of a woodsy Pacific Northwest background), a style flashing with artifice, and a total disregard for effete university culture. Mr. Brautigan is not himself the product of American higher education or of much formal training of any kind. Furthermore, his fund of simplicity and optimism is a relief for some from the profound despair of writers like Beckett. To …

Bret Harte, Patrick Morrow

Western Writers Series Digital Editions

Bret Harte is well known as the first internationally famous writer of short stories about the West. “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” “The Outcasts of Poker Flat," and “Tennessee’s Partner,” all published in the late 1860's, earned Harte the recognition of the nation's popular audience and approval by Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Howells, and other leading literary men of the day. In 1870 Harte, then editor of the San Francisco-based Overland Monthly, published “Plain Language from Truthful James,” better known as “The Heathen Chinee.” Hawked on the street corners, endlessly reprinted, the poem created a national sensation. Soon afterwards, Harte …

The Whole Of Harmonium Music In Relation To The Poetry Of Wallace Stevens, Mary Alice Hollowell

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.