English Language and Literature Commons^™

Early Modern Evil Genius: Hyperconformity And Objectivity In Sixteenth And Seventeenth-Century English Literature, Christine Hoffmann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies the response among early modern and postmodern audiences to the experience of information overload, and suggests that the most appealing response to living in a communications network that appears both systematic and random is to use a rhetoric of struggle that is ambiguous in the same way. >The reasons for this appeal are twofold: firstly, the rhetoric of struggle is a way to cope with the difficulty of situating oneself within a system of circulating information that operates according to its own arbitrary rules. Mimicking that arbitrariness is a way of finding aesthetic synchronicity between how one's …

Nabokovilia: References To Vladimir Nabokov In British And American Literature And Culture, 1960-2009, Juan Martinez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The dissertation examines allusions to the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov in the work of 147 contemporary cultural producers and – through this filter – the way in which allusion functions as symbolic capital in the field of cultural production. Critics have traditionally considered allusion a strictly localized phenomenon, but this approach – which draws upon the work of sociologists of literature such as Franco Moretti and Pierre Bourdieu, as well as the poetics of Gérard Genette – considers how a Nabokov allusion operates as an intra-authorial calling card, where Nabokov appears as an idealized, intransigent autonomous authorial figure in the …

Woman Or Warrior? How Believable Femininity Shapes Warrior Women, Jessica D. Mccall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My dissertation is an exploration of how femininity is constructed in the characters of warrior women. I define and apply my theory of believable femininity: the notion that in order for characters gendered female to be accepted by an audience, specific textual markers must render them submissive to a dominating male figure. I examine the following warrior women at length: Britomart and Radigund from Spenser's The Faerie Queene; Christine de Pizan's treatment of Amazons in her Book of the City of Ladies and Hippolyta's specific portrayal by de Pizan in comparison to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and the …

Chaucer’S Reading List: Sir Thopas, Auchinleck, And Middle English Romances In Translation, Ken Eckert

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Middle English romance has never attained critical respectability, dismissed as ―"vayn carpynge" in its own age and treated as a junk-food form of medieval literature or kidnapped for political or psychoanalytical readings. Chaucer‘s Tale of Sir Thopas has been explained as an acidly sarcastic satire of the romances‘ supposedly clichéd formulas and poetically unskilled authors. Yet such assumptions require investigation of how Chaucer and his ostensible audience might have viewed romance as a genre. Chaucer‘s likely use of the Auchinleck manuscript forms a convenient basis for examination of the romances listed in Thopas. With the aid of a modern translation, …

Metaphasia: Shelley And The Language Of Remoter Worlds, Michael Andrew Howell

Master's Theses

The aim of this project was to trace the evolution of Percy Shelley's metaphasic narrative, or language of the dead, chronologically through the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mont Blanc, and Prometheus Unbound. Proceeding from Earl Wasserman's detailed map of Shelley's mythopoeic structure, I charted this evolution while identifying a fifth discrete entity within the mythological hierarchy of what Harold Bloom has characterized as a "mythopoeic trilogy" (36). Concurrently, I examined the ongoing debate concerning Shelley's influences, as well as the early formation of his personality, as it pertains to the poems in question, and his fascination with worlds beyond the …

When Men Cry: Male Demonstrations Of Grief In Beowulf, The Song Of Roland, And Sir Orfeo, Lindsey Beth Zachary

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Frequently in medieval texts, writers make mention of men who cry, wail, and faint. However, in modern scholarship, these records of men who cry are often overlooked, and masculine mourning is a largely neglected feature. My purpose in this thesis is to explore some of the reasons for male tears and displays of grief in three works of medieval literature. While male mourning appears in hundreds of medieval texts and is a topic worthy of extensive exploration, I have narrowed my focus to three works: Beowulf, The Song of Roland, and Sir Orfeo. Although the three tales are written in …

Of Milton’S First Disobedience And The Fruit Of The Tree: “Ad Patrem” As Prologue To Paradise Lost, C. Macaulay Ward Jr

Interdisciplinary Perspectives: a Graduate Student Research Showcase

In Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, John Milton assumes the role of God’s advocate to make the case that God’s decrees are beyond reproach; humankind’s eternal death sentence and the banishment from Eden, issued as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, are not excessive punishments. Twelve books and nearly ten thousand lines later, however, Milton’s argument seems to contradict itself. The Archangel Michael tells Adam that in the fullness of time, a new Paradise will be established as a place of joy and wonder far superior to the original Eden; and ironically, this wondrous ending is an …

"'Ic Paet Secgan Maeg, Hwaet Ic Yrmpa Gebad'": Christian Scribes' Condemnation Of Blood Feud And Its Effect On Women In Anglo-Saxon Society, Tara Seate-Beck

Theses & Honors Papers

In preserving The Wife 's Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, and Beowulf's battle scene with Grendel's mother, Christian poets and scribes preserved much more than just the literature of Anglo-Saxon England. They recorded the feminine voice, a rare perspective emerging from a society founded principally on the fundamentals of warfare and male dominance. The women's songs stand as testaments to the strife and discord women suffered as a consequence of their husbands' participation in blood feud. Their stories are not merely recounted as third person narratives, as much of the other extant texts from the period are; in the elegies, these …

Heckscher, Robert Valantine, 1883-1928 (Sc 2444), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2444. Letter of English poet Robert Valantine Heckscher, postmarked 5 January 1914, to Curtis H. Page, a professor of English at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He thanks Page for praise of his book of poems, Rose Windows, and contrasts its favorable reception by the public and literary community with that of the general press.

Trevelyan, George Otto, 1838-1928 (Sc 2436), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2436. Letter of George Otto Trevelyan to Joseph H. Choate, 18 March 1912, written on the publication in the United States of Trevelyan’s book George the Third and Charles Fox. Trevelyan remarks on the book’s favorable reception in Britain and gives news of his family.

Book Review: Women And Ireland As Beckett's Lost Others, Jennifer Jeffers

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Realization Of The Romantic In "Adonais", Grace Cao

2011 Spring Semester

In every life, there comes a moment when one wonders if a greater meaning exists beyond this mundane, often sordid world. Is man merely the sum of countless inane struggles, or is there a loftier purpose towards which he can strive? Romanticism is an attempt to answer this question, and is shaped by the belief that there is indeed a more perfect plane which humans yearn to reach. Few works embody the spirit of this movement as well as Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1821 elegy for John Keats, “Adonais.” By alluding to a Platonic world, idealizing nature, and expressing an attraction …

Escaping To The Sickbed: Illness In Frankenstein, Eleanor Cory '12

2011 Spring Semester

Illness tends to lead to separation from society. Becoming sick has always been a reason for someone to stay home to avoid spreading the disease to other people, and because continuing to work rather than resting may cause the one’s condition to get worse or, at the very least, take more time to improve. Throughout Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the main character falls sick very often, regularly separating himself from society. His deteriorating physical state appears to be linked to the monster he creates, as he usually succumbs to illness immediately after a traumatizing confrontation with it. The character of …

"The Stuff Of Thought" : Virginia Woolf's Object Lessons, Sam Mitchell

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Piracy, Slavery, And Assimilation: Women In Early Modern Captivity Literature, David C. Moberly

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines a hitherto neglected body of works featuring female characters enslaved in Islamicate lands. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Englishmen and women were taken captive by pirates and enslaved in what is now the Middle East and North Africa. Several writers of the time created narratives and dramas about the experiences of such captives. Recent scholarship has brought to light many of these works and pointed out their importance in establishing what was still a young, unsure, and developing English identity in this early period. Most of this scholarship, however, has dealt with narratives of the …

Mars And Venus: Symbols Of The Chaotic And Conflicted Human Passions And The Reestablishment Of Order In “The Knight’S Tale.”, Olivia L. Blessing

Senior Honors Theses

During the Middle Ages, Europe experienced a period when philosophers attempted to separate and analyze the passionate and rational elements of the soul.  Some supported strict reason as the sole moral basis for living, while others looked to the tempestuous passionate emotions.  Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” portrays this conflict between reason and the passions through the depicted relationship between Mars and Venus and the uncontrolled passions of Arcite and Palamon.

Determining that a world controlled by passions results in chaos, Chaucer offers three different solutions—negating the passions, subjugating the passions to reason, and a balance between passion and reason. …

Technoromanticism: Creating Digital Editions In An Undergraduate Classroom, Katherine D. Harris

Faculty Publications, English and Comparative Literature

No abstract provided.

Horne, Richard Henry, 1803-1884 (Sc 2424), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2424. Letter from Richard Henry Horne, English poet and dramatist, to poet, novelist and playwright Algernon Charles Swinburne. Home discusses Swinburne's reaction to his work "King Nihil's Round-Table" and offers to let Swinburn quote from his comic verses written fifty years earlier, as part of Swinburne's work on Elizabethan drama.

Oral Narrative And Disembodied Language In Othello And Hamlet, Michael Ferut

Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing

No abstract provided.

The Seduction Narrative In Britain By Katherine Binhammer. (Review), Rachel Carnell, Katherine Binhammer

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Orts 72, 2011, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

MacDonald on BBC Television

George MacDonald received welcome publicity on BBC Television’s popular Sunday afternoon religious programme Songs of Praise on 16th January this year when I was interviewed about his life and work in a programme broadcast from Arundel in West Sussex. Songs of Praise, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is centred around hymns chosen by local people and sung in a cathedral or large church, but also includes interviews with local people and others about matters of interest.

Samuel Butler's Life And Habit And The Way Of All Flesh: Traumatic Evolution, Danielle Nielsen

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Samuel Butler’s seminal evolutionary text Life and Habit (1878) and semiautobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh (1903) instill in modern readers a sense of the social discord of the late-Victorian period. The more well-known novel advocates a break with Victorian morality as professed through the Anglican Church and explores the inability to exercise the free will Butler believed people experienced because of the repressive religious culture and, more interestingly, genetically inherited habits and dispositions. The novel also illustrates Butler’s belief in the need to break away from one’s past and family to obtain personal happiness. A joint reading of …

Schwartz's "C.S. Lewis On The Final Frontier: Science And The Supernatural In The Space Trilogy" - Book Review, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

"Sit Back Down Where You Belong, In The Corner Of My Bar With Your High Heels On": The Use Of Cross-Dressing In Order To Achieve Female Agency In Shakespeare's Transvestite Comedies, Heather Lynn Wright

MA in English Theses

In taking on their male disguises, Viola (Twelfth Night ), Rosalind (As You Like It ), and Portia (The Merchant of Venice ) are able to transcend the confines of their social roles and achieve agency and voice as both females and males. With their male disguises, they gain power and agency as lower-class males and as aristocratic females. This power correlates to the fact that they are not fully male. Their female attributes, ideas, and nature (the essence of their femininity) still come through. They are limited and marginalized as women not because of their intelligence …

Science Fiction And Lyric Poetry, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This piece explores connections between science fiction and lyric poetry.

Film Review: Gulliver's Travels, Karen Gevirtz

Department of English Publications

No abstract provided.

To Speak Or Not To Speak: The Implications Of Silence In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Margaret Rose Jones

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis explores the function and importance of silence throughout William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Along with analysis of Shakespeare's text, this thesis also reviews and analyzes three film versions of the play: Laurence Olivier's 1948 production, Kenneth Branagh's 1996 production, and Michael Almereyda's 2000 production. All of these showcase various depictions of silence while working with the same Shakespearian text and plotline. Throughout the text and film analyses this thesis explores three areas in which silence plays an important role: refusal to join a conversation, emotional distress rendering someone silent, and societal limitations placed on the individual. This thesis attempts …

Acting Virtuous: Chastity, Theatricality, And The Tragedie Of Mariam, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Given the interrelation of female chastity and female theatricality in early modem discourses, it comes as no surprise that both figure importantly in what is believed to be the first original English drama to be written by a woman. As Elizabeth Cary explores a Jewish queen 's sexual purity in The Tragedie of Mariam, she does so by concentrating on questions of performance. Cary's title character explicitly abjures theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always an act.

Dickens And Shakespeare’S Household Words, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Though Dickens' Shakespearean qualities have often been noted, less attention has been paid to the way that Dickens constructed the terms of his comparison to Shakespeare, scripting the response he received from critics from the nineteenth century to the present and shaping Shakespeare's reception as well. Focusing on The Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in the context of their Victorian reception, this essay shows how Dickens used Shakespearean quotation to market his characters' quotability, turning them into household words and popularizing Shakespeare's sayings in turn, even as he challenged the universality of quotable phrases.

Review Of Victorian Biography

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

No abstract provided.