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Comparative Literature Commons

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Comparative Literature

Songs Of Ishq, Freedom And Rebellion: Selected Kafis Of Bulleh Shah In Translation, Zainab Sattar Nov 2016

Songs Of Ishq, Freedom And Rebellion: Selected Kafis Of Bulleh Shah In Translation, Zainab Sattar

Masters Theses

Abdullah Shah (1680-1757) was the birth name of the boy who would later become one of the most eminent Sufi poets of South Asia, and the master of Sufi lyrics in Punjabi—Bulleh Shah. Living during times of strife and major conflict between the Sikhs and the crumbling Mughal Empire, Bulleh Shah wrote poetry with an underlying humanist and tolerant philosophy that challenged the turmoil of his times. Blind to the bounds of religion and caste in an increasingly divided India, Bullah’s spiritual philosophy and his message of equality found voice in his kafis—a genre of poetry indigenous to the …


Cosmopolitan Christians: Religious Subjectivity And Political Agency In Equiano's Interesting Narrative And Achebe's African Trilogy, Joel David Cox May 2013

Cosmopolitan Christians: Religious Subjectivity And Political Agency In Equiano's Interesting Narrative And Achebe's African Trilogy, Joel David Cox

Masters Theses

The primary texts featured in this study—the Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano and two novels of Chinua Achebe’s so-called African Trilogy—each constitute responses to a sly and exploitive Christian modernity, responses which, borrowing from theories of intersubjectivity articulated by Kwame Anthony Appiah and others, might be called two cosmopolitanisms: for Equiano, a Christian cosmopolitanism, which works within available theological structures to revise Enlightenment-era notions of shared humanity; and for Achebe, a contaminated cosmopolitanism, which ironically celebrates the modern inevitability of cultural admixture. Despite their separation by time, space, and even genre, and even more than their common …


Don't Take Orpheus Without The Lyre: The Intricacies Of Using Pagan Myths For Christian Purposes In The Divine Comedy And Paradise Lost, Rebekah J. Waltmann May 2012

Don't Take Orpheus Without The Lyre: The Intricacies Of Using Pagan Myths For Christian Purposes In The Divine Comedy And Paradise Lost, Rebekah J. Waltmann

Masters Theses

Because of their universal and artistic nature, the classical myths lend themselves well to use in literature, especially poetry. When used properly, as by Dante and Milton, the myths have the ability to enhance the work; when used poorly, they become gaudy ornamentation. It was, and is, this ability to enhance both the artistry and function of literature that pulled so many poets to the myths, despite the difficulties that could arise when the pagan myths did not quite match the Christian setting. My purpose in this thesis is not to explicate every use of myth within The Divine Comedy …


Roethke’S "Meditations Of An Old Woman": A Myth And Ritual For Dying, Christopher K. Bennett Dec 1980

Roethke’S "Meditations Of An Old Woman": A Myth And Ritual For Dying, Christopher K. Bennett

Masters Theses

In "Meditations of an Old Woman," Theodore Roethke poetically encountered death, speaking through the persona of an old woman approaching the end of life. The pattern she follows, wandering through her memory in search of the maiden she once was, is also found in the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which was ritualized in the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece. The poem, myth, and ritual taken together reflect a single archetypal pattern for approaching death; comparing them will reveal the essence of each. Through recollection, the old woman finally unites with her lost youthful self in an epiphany similar to …