Classics Commons^™

He Is The Master Of Wood, Water, And Hill: Is Tom Bombadil The True Key Keeper Of The Old Forest?, Noelia Ramos

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tom Bombadil, with his iconic singing―”Hey! Come merry doll! Derry doll and merry-o!―has captivated scholars worldwide, due to the enigmatic nature Tolkien intentionally left unexplained. This deliberate mystery has fuelled extensive debate, leading many to explore possible mythological and cultural frameworks that might decode Bombadil’s origins. Among these hypotheses, a Celtic interpretation has often been dismissed despite its potential relevance. This paper, thereby, seeks to analyse Bombadil’s function within the Old Forest and his interactions with the hobbits during their forest episode, presenting fresh insights into his role as a Celtic-inspired guide and druidic figure.

To support this analysis, primary …

The Enduring Enigma Of Tom Bombadil: From Riddlic Styling To Metaphorical Encounter, Derek Simon

Journal of Tolkien Research

Conversationalists and critics alike continue to take delight in Tom Bombadil, yet remain perplexed by his enduring enigma. Interpretive positioning appears to be determined by the semantics of the term enigma deployed and how it intersects with any of the several textual standpoints adopted. The primary contention of this article is that the enigma is intentionally both a riddle (noun) and a riddling (verb). Reading the enigma through literary features of the Old English riddle-song can yield an alternate interpretation of Tom Bombadil that has received scant attention in critical commentary. In support of this contention, I propose to read …

Cultural Memory And The Search For Identity In Victorian Fantasy Fiction, Sadie Boggs

Honors College Theses

Fantasy literature's origins can be traced through myths and folktales, medieval romances, enlightenment fairy tale fantasy, and Romanticism, before finally taking firmer root in the Victorian period and blooming into its own genre in 20th century modern fantasy. Victorian thinkers reacted to the Enlightenment’s realism and technological innovation by “rediscovering” the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, simplicity, and moral virtue. Simultaneously, Psychology developed as a recognized field of study, and theories emerged about the psychological process of memory formation and retrieval, as well as its reliability and relation to identity.

Considering these psychological theories, Victorian fantasy's cultural memory …

Fallen Kingdoms And Ancient Monoliths: The Influence Of Atlantis And Egypt In Tolkien’S Númenor, Charlotte J. Brockway

Journal of Tolkien Research

In light of the recent publication of The Fall of Númenor, my essay aims to focus on Tolkien’s, somewhat underappreciated, influences on Gondor; particularly Ancient Egypt. This essay looks at Plato's Timaeus and Critias, Ignatius Donnelly's theories, and examines the Atlantean and Egyptian motifs in Tolkien’s version of Westernesse, in particular, the remnants of Atlantean civilization survived by Egyptian colonists which mirror the Realms of Exile (Gondor and Arnor).

Dante’S Volgare And The Pastoral Presence: An Analysis Of The Concept Of Language In The Divina Commedia, Paola M. Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dante’s conception of the Italian vernacular, the “volgare illustre”, is a central concern of his work and one which catalyses and nurtures, both overtly and covertly, his creation of the Commedia. Although Dante positions himself in his writings as the continual defender and most prolific poet of the vernacular, isolating a specific linguistic use and structure, a coherent definition of what vernacular Dante privileges or what appropriate usage he adheres to, is a difficult and often confusing task. The existence of two eclogues, the only works by Dante to have been written after the majority of the Commedia had been …

Ecologies Of Medieval Latin Poetics, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The concept of literary ecology is developed as an instrument for large-scale literary study by Alexander Beecroft (2015), for whom the metaphor emphasizes the great diversity of world literatures and the possibility of organizing this diversity into cultural types, analogous to the biologist’s ecotypes. For a study of Latin poetics, the most important typological distinction is between cosmopolitan and vernacular languages. Latin acquired an articulated body of stylistic norms (“poetics”) in antiquity as a vernacular language; subsequent developments in Latin poetics were conditioned by the language’s acquisition of cosmopolitan characteristics. I explore the consequences of that shift; texts discussed include …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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Scientists As Citizens: The Role Of The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists In The Postwar Era, 1945-1949, Elizabeth Baker Given

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In mid-August 1945 the dropping of the uranium and plutonium bombs devastated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing Japanese leaders to surrender to the United States. World War II had finally come to a close. However, the manner in which the war ended also marked the beginning of a new age. The detonation of the atomic bomb prompted unprecedented challenges in controlling the destructive weapon. Manhattan Project scientists, who had created the bomb in the midst of wartime secrecy and understood its grave dangers, were deeply concerned about the future of their brainchild. In a world that had been …

The Coronation Of An Historic Process: Franco And Spanish History, 1937-1947, Patrick Moran

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

History is not a whim, Francisco Franco declared to a youth group in January 1945. "It was not chance that many centuries before other nations Spain had forged its nationality and obtained its personality, nor that the undertakings of its sons had amazed the world with their heroic deeds." Six years had not yet passed since the end of the Spanish Civil War. World War II was drawing to a close, Spain faced an uncertain diplomatic and political future as one of the last of Europe's ultra-rightist political regimes, and the Spanish dictator was choosing to open his speech to …

Examining The Early Influences On England's First Female M.D.: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Audra Bollard

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1859 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson returned home from a short vacation. At this time she made an announcement so shocking her mother cried for days in humiliation and her father declared it disgusting; she had simply informed them she was going to be a doctor. Victorian women of the upper-middle class were expected to prepare for domestic lives as wives and mothers. In mid-nineteenth century England, professional careers were unheard of for females. Although the British-born Elizabeth Blackwell had become the first female to earn an M. D. in America, where she set up a practice, measures were quickly taken …

Glasnost, Perestroika And Big Mac's: The Significance Of Mcdonald's In The Changing Face Of The Ussr, Theresa Bartholomew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Early on the morning of 30 January 1990, George Cohon, president of McDonald'sCanada, left his hotel room and drove to Pushkin Square in Moscow. Nervous about the international press that would be covering the opening of the first McDonald's in this nation and anxious to make the opening perfect, he arrived to see the streets empty in front of the fast-food restaurant except for a lone policeman. Wondering where the anticipated crowds of Muscovites were, Cohon approached the officer, concerned by the apparent lack of interest in the first McDonald's opening in the Soviet Union. After a short conversation with …

Re-Defining Thainess: Negative Identification During The Franco-Thai Border Conflict, Shane Strate

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On the night of 15 October 1940 over three thousand university students and city residents marched, torches in hand, through the streets of Bangkok to protest the latest incident in the long-standing border dispute with France. Local newspapers had organized the demonstration and a few journalists accompanied the demonstrators, standing in the back of trucks and making speeches designed to incite the crowd. The march was part of a newspaper campaign to convince the government to deliver an ultimatum to French Indochina: either return territories formerly belonging to Siam or face military retaliation. Among the banners carried by the students …

Preface, Rachel Cope

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This year the production of The Thetean has undergone significant changes. For the first time we have obtained our own equipment and are solely responsible for the publication of the journal. Although exciting, producing this work has also been a long and often cumbersome process; if things could go awry, they did! Yet despite the difficulties encountered, we have met our goals and will always remember the moments of cooperation and success we shared.

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

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A Rifle Totin' Cartoonist: In Memory Of Bill Mauldin, 1921-2003, Casey Sullivan

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In late 2002, Jay Gruenfeld, a veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II, set out on a mission to give comfort to a man who unknowingly had done the same for him many years before. During the war, Gruenfeld was an infantryman in the Philippines. In the ensuing battles, his squad was decimated with close to one hundred percent American casualties. Gruenfeld was injured and sent to a hospital to recover, where he felt alone. While there, his father sent him a copy of Up Front, a collection of cartoons by Bill Mauldin. This was the first contact …

"La Tierra No Prometida" The Jewish Colonization Association's Venture In Argentina, Jeffery Richey

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the Jewish Colonization Association undertook the most ambitious agricultural project in Jewish history. The aims of the JCA project were simple and staggering: the relocation of millions of Russian Jews to the Argentine countryside, to be effected over the course of twenty-five years. Adjudged by its own epic ambitions, the colonization effort was an epic failure. Not only did it fail in its stated intentions (the transplantation of millions of Jews), but the colonization venture also failed to provide the thousands of Jewish colonists with self-sufficiency and social well-being, the pursuit …

The Myth Of An Easy Passage To The Far East, Brenden Rensink

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The tales of North American exploration and westward expansion have often been painted in tones of manifest destiny, heroic bravery, and divine providence. While such portrayals surely prove insightful in some cases, they do not paint the whole picture. A more accurate depiction of American exploration would include the driving forces of economic gain, naive optimism, overeagerness, and the hasty acceptance of geographical misinformation. The strength of these motives and forces was so strong that for centuries adventurers continued to explore the continent despite constant disappointment and financial loss. In particular, the closely related myths of the Strait of Anian …

A Tale Of Desire And Deceit, Dallas Peterson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This essay is a narrative account of the rebellion of An Lushan and the death of Precious Consort Yang, drawn primarily from a section of Sirna Guang's Zizhi tongjian, translated by Paul W. Kroll in "The Flight from the Capital and the Death of Precious Consort Yang," Tang Studies, no. 3 (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1985). This narrative also utilizes one of the two biographies of An Lushan: Howard S. Le,y, trans., The Biography of An Lushan (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960). With these two primary sources and a few key secondary sources I have …

Changing Of The Guard In Imperial Ideology Clement Attlee Vs. Winston Churchill, Charles C. Olson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 2 February 1927, the young Labour Representative and future Prime Minister Clement Attlee found himself, much to his own surprise, on the shores of Bombay, sent to find solutions to a problem he later termed "virtually insoluble. " His ship arrived to a confused reception of both noisy protesters, waving banners of "Go Back," juxtaposed by a welcoming rain of flowers and leaves by supporters of the visit.' These polar reactions to perceived British intent in India during the late 1920s no doubt showed Attlee the energy of the debate surrounding Indian independence, which only intensified through the coming …

The Time Of Troubles Causation, Class Warfare, And Conflicting Interpretations, Jeffrey S. Hardy

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The end of a dynasty in medieval or early modern Europe was often followed by a calamitous period of conspiracy and revolt, intrigue and bloodshed. Such was the case in Russia from 1598 to 1613, the period later called the Time of Troubles. Few epochs still weigh on the collective conscience of the Russian people as does the Time of Troubles. Fears associated with this period remain to this day, as evidenced by the frequent references to it after the fall of the Soviet regime. But the Time of Troubles has not always been well understood. The chroniclers and revisionists …

"Watchman Over The Gate" Fort Snelling' S Role In Transforming Minnesota From Territory To State, 1819-1858, Nicholas Gentile

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

For nearly a century, scholars of Minnesota's history have told the story of Fort Snelling and its causal relationship with the expansion of Minnesota from a territory to a state. In 1918, Marcus L. Hansen wrote an important monograph on the outpost, entitled Old Fort Snelling: 1819-1858. His claims focused on the protection and opportunities for social interaction provided by the fort during the period of its use as the northwesternmost garrison of America's frontier defense program. Hansen's thorough work stood as an unapproachable milestone in the literature on the post for almost half a century. Evan Jones wrote the …

Freedom: The Temporary Gift Of Christmas, Suzy Bills

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In Solomon Northup's account of his years as a slave, he described "the happiest day in the whole year for the slave. . . . Happiness sparkled in the eyes and overspread the countenances of all." What was the day that caused so much delight for slaves, and what were the reasons for this joy? It was Christmas Day and, more broadly, the larger Christmas holiday that often lasted many days. Northup continued to explain that these feelings resulted because "it was to be a day of liberty among the children of Slavery. Wherefore they were happy and rejoiced." In …

"This Medley Of Religions" The Origins Of America's Free Religious Market On The Colonial Frontier, Frank K. Lambert

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

According to historians of modern revolutions, the American Revolution was hardly revolutionary. Merely a constitutional quarrel, they say, pointing out that the split with Britain left existing social and economic structures largely undisturbed. Surely any revolution deserving the name would have, at minimum, eliminated chattel slavery, the very antithesis of liberty and independence. Yet slavery remained and even flourished in the new republic. There was one accomplishment, however, that even the harshest critics agree was truly revolutionary: America's constitutional ban on religious establishment and guarantee of free exercise to all. Throughout the Old World, state religions and political regimes acted …

Preface, Julie Harris

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Historian Charles Beard aptly described writing history as an "act of faith." In preparing the following articles, each author has selected facts and chosen frameworks to describe their topics with the hope that we all can better understand some aspect of the movement of history. The Beta Iota Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, an international honors society of history, has also acted on the faith in ilie quality of its members by entrusting a small group of students, mostly undergraduates, to produce the 2004 volume of the Thetean. We as a staff hope that our final selection of articles, …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Debunking 'Pfeiffer' S Bacillus': Twentieth Century Germ Theory And The 1918 Influenza Epidemic, Conor Tyson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the midst of World War I, a scourge swept the world that proved more deadly than any military battle. Between June 1918 and May 1919, three waves of influenza struck in a worldwide pandemic. The origins of this particular influenza strain remain mysterious even today, but it spread so far and fast that only St. Helena in the Atlantic and several south Pacific islands avoided any infection of this flu. The rest of the globe witnessed a deadly killer. Scientists estimate that 50 to 100 million people died from this pandemic, far more deaths than from the five years …

To Boldly Go Where No President Has Gone Before: Why Nixon Went To China, Aaron Anderson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

President Nixon himself dubbed it "the week that changed the world." Minutes after he strode from steps to tarmac, hand outstretched to grasp Premier Chou's hand, Chou, also realizing the magnitude of the occasion, turned to him and remarked, "your handshake came over the vastest ocean in the world-twenty-five years of no communication." If we take the chief players at their word-and the chroniclers of history have done so-it is no exaggeration to say that President Richard Nixon's historic visit to the People's Republic of China in February of 1972 was one of the most significant events of the Cold …

Eisenhower, Kennedy, And America's Covert Military Operations In Laos, Russell Stevenson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Summer 1963: Roger Hilsman's plane pierced the clouds to reveal the Plaines des Jarres, a flat area strewn with the remains of age-old rock jars. The plains below showed signs of the batterings of war: slit trenches, bunkers, and a network of roads. The weather was dry and arid, and the terrain resembled a ghost town in the American West more than the "land of a million elephants"-an allusion to the tremendous war machine of a medieval Lao king.