English Language and Literature Commons^™

Wee Malkies Abroad: Scottish Literature Seen From The United Arab Emirates, Manfred Malzahn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the recent Scottish Referendum in relation to concepts of national identity in the United Arab Emirates and explores the ways in which Scottish authors and literary works can be of interest to students in UAE, drawing also on previous experience teaching in Tunisia, stressing the interest of shorter, contemporary Scottish texts, but noting also the continuing resonance of a few older Scottish texts, including works of R. L. Stevenson.

Assimilation, Hybridity, And Identity: A Visitor During Indyref, Evan Gottlieb

Studies in Scottish Literature

Recounts the experience of growing up as a Jewish kid among Scottish-Canadians and of being in Scotland during the Referendum in 2014, expressing admiration for the level and character of informed debate among voters.

'Singing Of Psalms Of Which I Could Never Get Enough': Labouring Class Religion And Poetry In The Cambuslang Revival Of 1741, Elspeth Jajdelska

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and discusses the nature and uses of poetry by Scottish labouring-class participants in the revival at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, in 1741, drawing on the manuscript account of the revival collected by the parish minister, William McCulloch; setting the poems in the context of recent scholarly reconsideration of 17th and 18th century Scottish religious culture; relating the poems to the Scottish use of metrical psalms in kirk services and domestic devotions; and commenting in detail on poems by Alexander Bilsland and George Tassie, and a report on religious poetry reading by Ann Wylie.

Ossianic Telegraphy: Bardic Networks And Imperial Relays, Eric Gidal

Studies in Scottish Literature

Relates James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760) and other Ossianic poems to evolving Scottish networks of commerce and communication, especially commercial telegraphy and the postal system, and posits associations also with comments in Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence and Theory of Moral Sentiments, to suggest that Macpherson's remediation of oral poetry asserted ideas of authorial identity and readership as "relays" in a new imperial network.

Burns's Politics 'In Another View': Late 1792/Early 1793, Robert P. Irvine

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents a reconsideration of Burns's political views in 1792-1793, examining in detail the original performance context of his poem "The Rights of Woman," in the Dumfries Theatre in November 1792, and the political context of his song "Why should na poor people mow," as first sent in letters to Robert Cleghorn in December 1792 and to Robert Graham of Fintry in January 1793, arguing that such "political" poems might be read less in terms of French or metropolitan revolutionary politics than in terms of major cultural and social changes in the Scottish community and networks to which Burns belonged.

Radical Attribution: Robert Burns And 'The Liberty Tree', Corey E. Andrews

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the political symbolism of liberty trees in the American and French revolutions, and in Scotland in Burns's period, as background to reconsidering the song "The Liberty Tree," first printed among Burns's work by Robert Chambers in 1838, the authorship of which has remained a subject for debate among Burnsians; examines the song closely in terms of phrasing to argue that it is unlikely to be by Burns; and draws a distinction between attributing the song to Burns and its evident reliance on his iconic standing both in his own time and among later Scottish radicals.

Sir Walter Scott's The Monastery And The Representation Of Religious Belief, Chad T. May

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines Sir Walter Scott's novel The Monastery, written while he was also working on his better-known medieval novel Ivanhoe, and discusses its representation of the historical religious transition of Scotland from a Catholic to a Protestant country; focuses especially on Scott's treatment of the supernatural, in the figure of the White Lady, and argues that Scott uses her to allow representation of a personal religious experience or religious vision that otherwise fitted uneasily with his generally secular project for historical representation in fiction; and concludes by briefly sketching the significance of this atypical, transitional novel for understanding religious …

John Stuart Blackie's Altavona: A Late Victorian Reaction To The Highland Clearances, Brooke Mclaughlin Mitchell

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reviews the career of John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), poet, professor successively of humanity in Aberdeen and of Greek in Edinburgh, and a tireless advocate for the Scottish Highlands and Celtic culture; sketches his growing criticism of Highland landlords and the eviction of crofters from Scottish estates, in relation to more recent perspectives; and discusses his successive literary treatments of the Clearances in his "Highland Sonnets," his long poem "The Highlander's Lament," and, most fully, in his 'novel' or mixed-genre prose work Altavona: Fact and Fiction from My Life in the Highlands (1882), commenting also on Blackie's revisions to the book …

John Byrne's The Slab Boys: Technicolored Hell-Hole In A Town Called Malice, William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents a detailed discussion and appreciation of the Slab Boys tetralogy, a sequence of four plays by the Scottish playwright and painter John Byrne, beginning with The Slab Boys (1978), focused on a group of apprentices in the color-mixing room of a Paisley carpet-factory in the 1950s, and then tracing the divergence of their lives through three later plays, The Loveliest Night of the Year (1979, later titled Cuttin' A Rug), Still Life (1982), and Nova Scotia (2008); examines Byrne's characterization, "excoriatingly destructive wit," and "rambunctiously demotic language"; analyzes the tetralogy's continuing major themes of the relation between art …

Back To The Future: Remembering The 1707 Act Of Union In The 2014 Referendum Campaign, Leith Davis

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the political rhetoric , imagery, and arguments, used in the debates over the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England, and traces their reuse in the debates that preceded the Scottish Referendum on independence in September 2014, depicting the 1707 act, not as an historical inevitability, but as "an anomalous success" after a century of earlier attempts at an incorporating union and as "a site of contestation long after its ratification."

'I Am Not Writing Anything Just Now': A Letter From Walter Scott To Sarah Smith, February 13, 1814, John T. Knox

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and reproduces a letter written by Sir Walter Scott to the actress Sarah Smith (later Mrs Bartley), in February 1814, in which he tells her shortly before the anonymous publication of his novel Waverley that "I am not writing anything just now"; discusses Scott's interest in Smith's career, his brief comments on the dramatist Joanna Baillie, and the extent to which Smith was in his confidence about his writing.

Notes On Contributors To Vol. 41

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief biographical entries on the 25 scholars who have contributed to this volume.

The View From Elsewhere: A Response, Andrew Hook

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reviews and responds to the symposium contributors, recounting briefly growing up as a Scot in England and Scotland, and doing National Service, and drawing on 60 years experience studying, researching, and teaching in both Scotland and the United States, commenting that while Scottish studies in the 1960s was primarily concerned with traditional culture and reclaiming a folk tradition, its future probably lies in interdisciplinary study focused on contemporary Scotland and modern Scottish writing.

'Epitaph' On Grizzel Grim: A Newly-Discovered Manuscript In The Hand Of Robert Burns, Jonathan Henderson, Pauline Mackay, Pamela Mcintyre

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and reproduces a newly-discovered Burns manuscript, with notes and numerical calculations relating to his work as an Excise Officer, and the four-line 'Epitaph' on Grizzel Grim (Kinsley II:926); discusses its publication history, attribution to Burns, and relation to Burns's ballad of similar title; gives a collation of variant readings; and transcribes related notes about the manuscript from the Craufurdland Castle papers.

Living Between The Lines: Intersectionality And Self-Actualization In Shakespeare's Plays, Morgan L. Green

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

More than four hundred years after his death Shakespeare is still the most performed playwright in the English-Speaking World, and even in some cultures vastly different from Shakespeare’s England. Theatre companies continue to make him relevant by exploring new themes and tailoring the productions to the social mores of contemporary audiences. One particular theme being examined more and more by both scholars and theatre artists is diversity and the role of identity in Shakespeare’s works. Three works in which this can be easily examined are Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello with particular attention paid to …

The Narrative Of Traumatic Memory In Postcolonial Irish Fiction, Kayla Mccarthy-Curtis

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Robert Frost’S New Hampshire, Philip Larkin’S England, And Seamus Heaney’S Ireland: Non-Urban Place And Democratic Poetry, Faisal I. Rawashdeh

Dissertations

In Anglo-American Modernist poetry, place is reduced to an analogue for the cultural degradation brought forth by the disruptive experience of modernity. This demotion stands in sharp contrast to the representation of place as a center of value in the poetry of Robert Frost, Philip Larkin, and Seamus Heaney. In this dissertation, I shall explain this value in terms of its connection to a particular cultural substance which Frost, Larkin, and Heaney deem foundational for their non-ideological terms of belonging to place. Frost embraces New England vernacularism first as the basis for his egalitarianism and second as the core substance …

A Supplication For The Beggars: The Arguments Of Simon Fish And The Cultural Relevance Of His Writing In Sixteenth Century England, Charlotte Mcfaddin

Student Research

No abstract provided.

The Lawrentian Woman: Monsters In The Margins Of 20th-Century British Literature, Dusty A. Brice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite his own conservative values, D.H. Lawrence writes sexually liberated female characters. The most subversive female characters in Lawrence’s oeuvre are the Brangwens of The Rainbow. The Brangwens are prototypical models of a form of femininity that connects women to Nature while distancing them from society; his women are cast as monsters, but are strengthened from their link with Nature. They represent what I am calling the Lawrentian-Woman.

The Lawrentian-Woman has proven influential for contemporary British authors. I examine the Lawrentian-Woman’s adoption by later writers and her evolution from modernist frame to postmodern appropriation. First, I look at the …

At Home In Exile: Ezra Pound And The Poetics Of Banishment, Andy Kay Trevathan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ezra Pound is one of the most important poets, critics, and writers of the 20th century. Through his literary efforts, and his work on behalf of many other writers, Pound changed the way we read and write poetry today. His cultivation and support of other writers and poets like T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, etc. created the basis for what we refer to as Imagism, Modernism, and other important literary movements of the early 20th century. Pound’s use of fragmentation, pastiche, and bricolage laid the foundation for post-modern writers of the latter half of the 20th century, …

Revised Emblems Of Erin In Novels By John Mcgahern And Colum Mccann (2015), Shaun O’Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

In “Cathal’s Lake,” a 1996 story by Colum McCann, “a big [Irish] farmer with a thick chest” lives by a lake, “which in itself is a miniature countryside—ringed with chestnut trees and brambles, banked ten feet high on the northern side, with another mound of dirt on the eastern side, where frogsong can often be heard.” In By the Lake, a 2002 novel by John McGahern, an aging Irishman also lives by a lake, another enclosed space of tranquility, as is suggested in the opening lines: “The morning was clear. There was no wind on the lake. There was …

Home And Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America (2013), Shaun O’Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the 2013 Editor's Note by Padraig O'Malley: Shaun O’Connell has lost none of his touch. In “Home and Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America,” O’Connell juxtaposes two novels: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy (1998) and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (2009) and reveals the parallels and contrasts that enrich the discussion of Irish and Irish American identities. Toibin, an Irish writer, would have us see an America, land of the free, as an open, inviting place but exacting in redeeming promises made; McDermott, an American writer, portrays an Ireland that is magical, a little bit of heaven, but finally a closed and bitter …

Frankenstein In The Twenty-First Century, Haley C. Ochs

Honors Program: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Analyzes the science and ethics of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It utilizes historical and literary analyses, as well as a close reading of the text, to demonstrate the impact of eighteenth century science and how it leads to Frankenstein's immorality.

Genre-Savvy Sonnets: Shakespeare’S Subversion Of Problematic Conventions Of Courtly Love, Kelly Kramer

The Kabod

In an analysis of Shakespeare's 130th Sonnet, Kramer finds that the Bard champions a better way to love rather than the idealization of another that is the convention of courtly love. Actually knowing and loving someone's flaws and oddities is more constructive and enduring in contrast to the courtly love tradition which Shakespeare implies is harmful and misleading in its teaching to value the wrong thing in another.

Shylock Celebrates Easter, Brooke Conti

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"At Whigham's Inn": Mrs. Provost Whigham's Lost Kilmarnock, The Allan Young Census, And An Unexpected Discovery, Patrick G. Scott

Faculty Publications

Reports the recent acquisition by Princeton University Library of a long-lost copy of Robert Burns's first book Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1986), formerly owned by Burns's friend Edward Whigham; describes the later transcript it contains of the short poem "At Whigham's Inn," long attributed to Burns; and reassesses the sources and authorship of the poem.

“Inhumanly Beautiful”: The Aesthetics Of The Nineteenth-Century Deathbed Scene, Margo Masur

English Theses

Death today is hidden from our everyday lives so it cannot intermingle with the general public. So when a family member dies, their body becomes an object in need of disposal; no longer can they be recognized as the familiar person they once were. To witness death is to force individuals to confront the truths of human existence, and for most of us seeing such a sight would fill us with an emotion of disgust. Yet during the nineteenth century, the burden of care towards the sick or dying was shared by a community of family, neighbors, and friends; the …

The Dale Spender Collection At The Women's College, University Of Sydney, Olivia Murphy

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Notice of the opening of the Dale Spender collection of books relating to feminism; Australian women's writing; and women's writing in English of the long nineteenth century.

Review Of Peggy Thompson, (Ed). Beyond Sense And Sensibility: Moral Formation And The Literary Imagination From Johnson To Wordsworth, Elizabeth A. Dolan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.

Chawton Novels Online, Women’S Writing 1751-1834 And Computer-Aided Textual Analysis, Anne Bandry-Scubbi

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Using Chawton House Library’s “Novels Online,” several corpora have been set up for a computer-aided textual analysis of the use of vocabulary by women writing “domestic novels” from 1752 to 1834. This corpus stylistics approach makes it possible to map texts according to their word usage and to identify quantitative keywords which provide vocabulary profiles through comparison and contrast with contemporary male and female canonical texts. Items identified include pronouns, markers of dialogue and of intensity; others can be grouped into specific lexical fields such as feelings. One text from the collection then forms the object of a …