English Language and Literature Commons^™

Melville's America : Democratic Brotherhood, Nancy Yeager Bailey

Master's Theses

Herman Melville had a deep faith in his fellow man. He felt that man's devotion to other men, a feeling of brotherhood between men, was the essential bond of humanity. Men had to acknowledge their responsibility to their own kind in order to achieve order and happiness in the rapidly changing, ambiguous world of the mid-nineteenth century. He rejected transcendental philosophy because each man had to achieve his own convictions and peace of mind through personal contact with nature, which led to the isolation of the individual. Melville believed that men could not live together in a society by cultivating …

The Contributions And Effects Of The Drama On Paradise Lost, Robert Elliott Bayliss

Master's Theses

Upon reading John Milton's Paradise Lost, one cannot help but notice that its tone, its moving scenes and confrontations, and its moments of psychological and cathartic impact all help to shape what one might call the poem's total effect -- the impressions it leaves with the reader. Upon close examination it becomes obvious that Milton was consummately adept in his adaptation of the dramatic element in his great epic. What is generally unrecognized, yet surprisingly evident, is that the dramatic element plays a unique and singularly important role in building the poem's grandeur. This dramatic element, more than any of …

Reason, Time, And Redemption In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Diane S. Bonds

Master's Theses

When Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 appeared in 1961, it met with extreme reactions from reviewers. Those who attacked the novel did so with fervor. An anonymous reviewer in Daedalus summed up many unfavorable criticisms of the book by charging that Catch-22 wa s not "written"; that it had no story or real characters; that it was repetitive and formless; finally, that it was an example of the most "destructive and immoral" kind of literature--a novel which spat "in-discrimimitely at business and the professions, at respectability, at ideals, at all visible tokens of superiority." Favorable reviews focused mainly on the brilliance …

The Protagonists Of John Updike, Charles Monroe Cock

Master's Theses

My purpose in this paper is to show that the protagonists of Updike can be categorized into groups and that these protagonists are as real for me as they are for Updike. It is because of these protagonists that the works of Updike will live for many years to come.

Images Of Creation And Destruction In The Early Poetry Of Dylan Thomas, Willard Liston Rudd

Master's Theses

The intent of this thesis is to examine the two major categories into which Dylan Thomas' images seem to fall: images associated with creation and images associated with destruction.

Symbol And Mood In Tennyson's Nature Poetry, Margery Moore Taylor

Master's Theses

The purpose of this paper is to show Tennyson's preoccupation with nature in his poetry, his use of her as a projector of moods and symbolism, the interrelation of landscape with depth of feeling and narrative or even simple picturesqueness. Widely celebrated as the supreme English poet and often called the Victorian Oracle, Tennyson may well be considered the best exemplar of the nineteenth century. T.S. Eliot acclaimed his poetic greatness because of his "abundance, variety, and complete competence." In addition to these positive attributes he displayed elements typical of the Victorian Age, dignity, seriousness, industrious application. More importantly, Tennyson …

The Comic Vision Of Samuel Beckett, James Ambrose Walsh

Master's Theses

The twin poles of eating and excreting which he mentions point up Beckett's preoccupation with the physical over the spiritual, an interest which stands as a clue to tho understanding of his comic vision, the one element which remains constant and at the heart of his writing throughout bis career. At the center of this interest is a theory of comedy best investigated through his relationship to Henri Bergson, the French philosopher and author of Laughter, a theory of the comic. Though there is no concrete evidence of any direct influence on Beckett from Bergson, the incredible similarities in their …

Sherwood Anderson : An Experiment In Journalism, Carol Senell Ware

Master's Theses

James Schevill in his Sherwood Anderson His Life and Work describes Anderson's plunge into journalism as "an episode unique in American newspaper history, the first time a mature writer of important stature had been completely responsible for the contents of two country papers." Although it ha s bee n generally acknowledged that Anderson's journalistic experiments are unique and make a significant contribution to the history of American journalism, these areas have never been analyzed in any detail by students of his work. This thesis will explore in depth the nature of Anderson's journalistic experiments and evaluate his achievement in the …

Case Relations Of The Two Part Verb In English, Lester Gould Woody

Master's Theses

This paper attempts to explore one relatively small phenomenon of language. Linguistics is what might be thought of as a discipline in its infancy. Men have studied language for thousands of years: Dionysius Thrax of Alexandria codified the grammar of Greek in the second century B.C. But it has been only in the last thirty to forty years that scholars have studied language as it is spoken, as the living tool for symbolization that more than anything else distinguishes man from the lower animals. Linguists try to describe and to explain language, not to prescribe how it should be used. …

The Barren Soul : A Study Of Ellen Glasgow's Religious Revolt, Reva May Jenkins

Master's Theses

He stared in amazement. "You're writing on Ellen Glasgow, on her religious beliefs! Did she have any?"

The time, the speaker, and the words changed but never the question. This paper is my answer. It is the study of five rather different aspects of a religious philosophy. All of Miss Glasgow' s writings were examined. However, since all the fictional writings could not be properly studied in a paper of this size, examples were taken mainly from seven novels selected as representative. These include the following: the first two published novels, The Descendant and Phases of an Inferior Planet; …

James Branch Cabell : Laughing Existentialist, George R. Hazelton

Master's Theses

In the history of American literature, there have been numerous authors whose popularity and critical acclaim were long in coming often delayed long past their deaths. Melville, for example, comes immediately to mind. Others have enjoyed a brief notoriety and have then slipped into oblivion for years until their "rediscovery."

One of the prime vehicles for renewed interest in ignored American authors has been the critical consideration of American humorous literature that has flowered during the 1940's, 50's and the 60's, This criticism, given impetus by Walter Blair's Native American Humor (1937)has made Seba Smith, Edgar Wilson Nye, and Finley …

The Thematic Relationship Of Laurence Sterne To David Herbert Lawrence, Frederick Thornett Hardy

Master's Theses

Among the pioneer novelists of the eighteenth century, Laurence Sterne stands out as an unexplained curiosity. In many ways the most modern of the early novelists, he is regarded as the first stream-of-consciousness author, and thus the forerunner of the most significant school in today's fiction. Sterne constructed his original style from ideas derived from the seventeenth century philosopher, John Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A less obvious but equally defendable fact is that this philosophical work provided Sterne with a thematic as well as stylistic bridge into the twentieth century. The clearest illustration of this relationship is …

Shakespeare's Treatment Of Kingship In The Lancastrian Tetralogy, June Stemen Allman

Master's Theses

The English history play reached its highest peak of development between 1595 and 1599, for it was during these years that Shakespeare wrote the set of four plays covering the historical period from Richard II to Henry V. Each of the plays is a single entity, but in their entirety, they constitute a unified tetralogy concerning the rise of the house of Lancaster. Through the illegal seizure of the crown by Bolingbroke from Richard II to the glorious reign of Henry V, Shakespeare, as an intensely political writer, examines the facets of kingship and its inherent power and authority.

Ring Lardner As Dadaist, Buford Donald Fisher

Master's Theses

This thesis is not a history of Dada, nor does it attempt to trace any direct influences that Ring Lardner may have on current literature. What it does strive to achieve is proper understanding of one facet of Lardner's work.

During the period that the Dad ists were actively trying to establish a new order by destroying the old (and theoretically, Dada itself), Lardner was creating nonsense playlets . His critics, for the most part, could not comprehend his intentions, so this aspect of his work was relegated to obscurity.

Half a century later, Dada has become more relevant historically; …

An Examination Of The Influence Of August Strindberg Upon Eugene O'Neill, Mary Emily Parsons Edwards

Master's Theses

Eugene O'Neill made no effort to hide the names of those writers and literary works which were important to him, and most of his biographers cite the fact that from the commencement of his playwrighting [sic] career O'Neill was influenced by the Swedish writer August Strindberg. O 'Neill himself was, in fact, one of the first to call attention to the kinship between his work and that of his "Master." In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he indicated that he was delighted to have an opportunity to discuss the debt Ameri­can drama owed to the modern drama of Europe, and, …

The Role Of The Peripheral Narrator In Moby-Dick, Heart Of Darkness And The Great Gatsby, Erana Leiken

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the unique role of the peripheral narrator in Moby-Dick, Heart of Darkness and The Great Gatsby. Each narrator's point of view is unique in that, though he is a character within the story, his participation in the action is restricted by his peripheral status which allows him to witness and evaluate the other characters, particularly the pro­tagonlst. The distinguishing characteristic of this narrative frame necessitated by the use of such a narrator is that the author surrenders his omniscience regarding his other characters by letting his narrator tell the reader only what …

Violence In Elizabethan And Jacobean Drama, Linwood Clay Powers Iii

Master's Theses

Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy contains some of the most violent scenes in the history of English drama. Different playwrights treat their potentially violent themes in different manners; therefore, this paper will examine the types of violence employed by the different dramtists.

A Critical Study Of The Seven Major Victorian Pessimistic Poets, Frank W. Childrey

Master's Theses

The following thesis is a critical study of seven sig­ nificant Victorian pessimistic poets. Having as its basis a seminar paper for Dr. Lewis F. Ball in which four of the Victorian pessimists were discussed, the original study was expanded in order to include the remaining three.

In this critical study, the emphasis has been placed mainly upon the themes characteristic of these pessimistic poets, and the poems that I consider to be the best examples of their various attitudes have been incorporated, either partially or in full, into the text of this thesis. Fur­thermore, though these chapters are not …

The Masque, A Courtly Entertainment, Kenneth Bailey Blanks

Master's Theses

In tho Courts of the Tudors and the Stuarts flourished a form of entertainment known as the masque . This exclusive pastime was characterized by gorgeous costumes, ingenious sets, imaginative scenery, music, dialogue, and dancing. Dancing was the most important element. It is said that "from the beginning to the end of its history, the essence of the masque was the arrival of certain persons visored and disguised to dance a dance or present an offering," often in the form of a compliment to the monarch. Dancing established a close intimacy between the masquers -- the disguised performers in the …

The Mail Of Anguish: The Humor Of Emily Dickinson, Marian Hoffman Myers

Master's Theses

Because Emily Dickinson's intellectual humor gleamed through the more permeating emotional intensity of many of her poems, I undertook to discover the persistence of this facet of her poetic art and its relation to the humorists of her time and place. The research has been rewarding.

French And German Influences On The Horror Novels Of Lewis, Maturin, Le Fanu, And Stoker, Robert Wesley Sanderson

Master's Theses

The Gothic horror novel is a fascinating subject for study. Its development and the influences upon this development provide much opportunity for investigation and research. This thesis will examine the French and German influences on the horror novels of Matthew Lewis, Charles Maturin, Joseph Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker.

Moral Basis In Fielding's Irony, Roger Paulson Hailes

Master's Theses

There rarely has been publishecl a book in any language which is lighter, brighter or more "mirthfully ironic" than Tom Jones . Yet, the modern emphasis on Fielding's serious concern for moral values tends to obscure the nature of his comedy. This comedy is an agent through which he shows his reader mankind's shortcomings. Specifically through the use of all types or irony, we are made to see the ridiculous nature of many of our actions as well as the necessary methods of correction.

Blood-Knowledge And The Plumed Serpent, Steven Mark Schwartz

Master's Theses

The intent of this paper is to study D. H. Lawrence's theme of blood-knowledge as it is found in a selection of his fictional works. The most outstanding work which concerns itself with this theme is The Plumed Serpent, a novel which centers around the re-birth of the ancient Mexican religion of Quetzalcoatl.

The Significance Of Nicholas Jenkins In Anthony Powell's A Dance To The Music Of Time, Michael George Gaspeny

Master's Theses

During a time in which scholarly examinations of novels both major and minor abound, it seems remarkable that such an intricate and ambitious series as Anthony Powell' s Dance to the Music of Time has not generated more extensive and thorough critical attention. Resulting in part from the singularity of Powell' s art, this neglect can be attributed primarily to the nature of the series itself. Thus, as Anthony Burgess has pointed out, Powell has undertaken the writing of a roman fleuve. In such a work, of course, the novels are basically uniform in style, structure, and theme, and are …

Evan Harrington : George Meredith's Use Of Comedy As A Corrective To Sentimentality, Joyce Stanley Scott

Master's Theses

Because it leads an individual to increasing loss of perspective, George Meredith considered sentimentality a real tragedy. The deluded sentimentalist convinces himself that all his efforts and attitudes bear him steadily down the road of spiritual progress, when actually he is using his ideals of society as an excuse for willful blindness, a shifting of responsibility, and self-deception. The sentimentalist's primary concern is to cushion himself against hard fact instead of training himself for encountering it, and he accomplishes this by drugging himself against the perception of truth.

Thematic Development In Four Becket Plays, Richard Arnold Bell

Master's Theses

It shall be the purpose of this paper to treat the development of the major historical themes within the Becket plays of Darley, Tennyson, Eliot, and Anouilh.

Ernest Hemingway's Impressionistic Style., Larry Cole Thompson

Master's Theses

This thesis is in one sense an attempt to explain to what extent, if any, the fluctuations in critical and popular evaluation throughout, and even after, Hemingway's lengthy career are due to his impressionistic style. The purpose and method of this thesis is therefore twofold:

1. To arrive at a workable definition of Impressionism, and, using this definition, to delineate those portions of Hemingway's work which are written in this manner.
2. To determine if Impressionism may be used as a critical gauge in assessing Hemingway's fictional works and perhaps explain the aforementioned fluctuations in his work.

Some Descriptions And Textual-Dramatic Criticism Of Shakespearian Plays In The British Dramatic Periodicals, The Period - 1850-1875: An Objective Report, John J. Ahern

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

An Approach To Imagery In The Poetry Of Theodore Roethke, Barbara Bubon Steinbeigle

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Milton And Cambridge : A New Look At An Old Attitude, Roy S. Riner

Master's Theses

From the insights cleaned from current research into John Milton's years as an undergraduate and a graduate student at Cambridge University, this writer has found an overwhelming amount of material dedicated to pointing out Milton's total lack of affection for that university. For the most part, those statements bearing on Milton's dislike for Cambridge are unequivocal. For example, one scholar has remarked that John Milton departed from the University in 1632 "weary and disguised" with the medieval, unbearable antiquated methods of the place. That same scholar continues with the statement that Milton's attitude toward Cambridge was "uniformly unfriendly" and that …