English Language and Literature Commons^™

Wordsworth's The Prelude: Critical Tradition And Beyond, Manuela Mourao

Masters Theses

The argument presented in this thesis explores the traditional readings of The Prelude as an autobiography, as an epic, and as a poetics, and proposes that they be considered the starting point to a whole new reading of the poem in the light of Gerard Genette's theory of textuality.

To provide the basis for the proposed new reading I discuss (in Part I, II, and III) the traditional readings of the poem and provide textual evidence of their legitimacy.

I then introduce Roland Barthes' notion of "poietics" and demonstrate how The Prelude fits it, since it is a text that …

E. Taylor's Use Of Canticles, Clella J. Camp

Masters Theses

In Sermon IV of the Christographia Edward Taylor makes the following statement.

Man, the last in the creation, is the glory of all elementary nature. The image of God in man, the last draught of God upon him, is the glory of Man. Come to artifical instinces, and here it holds; All things of less considerations are first touched on, but that which is last entered on is of the greatest concern…And so it is in the things of God!

Because those things that are constantly fixed in “the last place” are the most complete and the most valued of …

Nature Vs Society In The Works Of Stephen Crane, Rodney R. Parker

Masters Theses

The five works of Stephen Crane I chose to discuss in this thesis are: "The Open Boat," "A Mystery of Heroism," "The Blue Hotel," Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, and The Red Badge of Courage. All of these works are representative of the fictional vision of Stephen Crane. A persistent theme that Crane uses in virtually all of his stories is the relationship between the human and the natural worlds. The world of nature is one of indifference. It shows no interest in the activies of mankind, and is, in fact, incapable of doing so. But Crane's …

Time In John Cheever's The Housebreaker Of Shady Hill, Charles M. Elliott

Masters Theses

The problem of time is a central concern in John Cheever's short story collection The Housebreaker of Shady Hill. The characters in these stories--upper-middle class suburbanites--live in a sometimes chaotic and disconnected world in which they find it difficult to attain some sense of continuity in their relationships with time. In trying to come to grips with their time and space, many of Cheever's characters express an immoderate devotion to their past, present, or future and neglect to see the bits and pieces of their experiences as interrelated. The characters who are happy and whole in these stories, however, …

"Training" And Twain's Discovery Of Its Role In His Major Novels, Gary Dale Ervin

Masters Theses

Twain's career as a novelist began with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Before that time he wrote pieces for newspapers and magazines and short stories. The success of Tom Sawyer inspired Twain to write further novels. The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn took seven years to compose, During that time, Twain was forced to face several pitfalls that often confront a writer. One of those pitfalls was a concept he called "training."

The training of an individual in effect is the raising of that individual--the instillation of values and beliefs in a person as he is raised. The process applies …

A Light Amid The Darkness: An Analysis Of Sin And Its Effects On The Individual In The Scarlet Letter And The Marble Faun, Tina L. Townsend Winings

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Chaucer's Pandarus: His Character, His Actions, His Motives, Zita Cobble

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Freedom At Midday: Elements Of Existentialism In The Works Of Ambrose Bierce, Sharon A. Winn

Masters Theses

Ambrose Bierce exhibited a number of elements of existential thinking both in his life and in his writing. But he was ambivalent about his philosophical stance, and it is difficult to know whether he was the utter pessimist he has been called, or whether his attitude toward the universe admitted a certain optimism.

Much of Bierce's thought parallels modern existentialism, which has three main tenets: a belief that there is no God and the universe is, therefore, irrational; a descent into despair; and a choice of life or death.

Bierce insisted that the universe is irrational, and he repeatedly discussed …

The Perception Of Coincidence: Artistic Symmetry In The "Wandering Rocks" Episode Of James Joyce's Ulysses, James A. Scruton

Masters Theses

James Joyce's Ulysses, the most influential novel of the twentieth century, has often been criticized for its fragmentation and complexity. Impenetrable to some readers, misunderstood by others, Ulysses bears within its eighteen episodes a symmetry of subject and form that at once clarifies and multiplies the meanings to be found there. Richard Ellmann calls Joyce's theory of art "the perception of coincidence," a theory best exemplified by "Wandering Rocks," the central episode of Ulysses. The use of "symmetrical coincidence" in ''Wandering Rocks" can be seen in two ways: 1)the internal structure of the episode, and 2)its location among …

Charles Simic: Trends Toward An International Poetry, Denise Clark

Masters Theses

In his article "Wrong Turning in American Poetry," Robert Bly believes that American poetry has been lead astray by the likes of Eliot, Pound, Moore, and Williams. He feels that the main failing of American poetry is its lack of inward, spiritual life. It is the Spanish speaking poets that Bly looks to as the true path-finders of spiritual poetry. If Bly believes that poets like Eliot and Williams were responsible for steering American poetry down the wrong path, it is a foreigner, Charles Simic, who will give American poetry the right turn it needs.

What Simic has been able …

The Family In Modern Northern Irish Drama, Ray Wallace

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to show the plight of the family in Northern Ireland. The four plays which are the subject of this study--Within Two Shadows by Wilson John Haire, The Flats By John Boyd, Nightfall to Belfast by Patrick Galvin, and The Death of Humpty Dumpty by J. Graham Reid--deal with this innocent faction and highlight three principal effects of the troubles on their family lives. First, the families suffer internal division. They are alienated by religious/political differences which are as inseparable in these dramas as they are in Northern Irish life. Socialist doctrine opposes Christian …

The Treatment Of Women In The History Of Rasselas, Prince Of Abyssinia, Cindy Fritz

Masters Theses

Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the most prolific and profound contributers to the English language, is, unfortunately, better known for his life and his anti-feminist point of view. James Boswell, in his book The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., provides many pieces of Johnson's conversations which attempt to illustrate the doctor's belief that women were unable to understand the complexities of anything beyond their domestic duties, a belief widely supported among the classes throughout the seventeenth century until the middle eighteenth century. However, this paper, using historical and biographical evidence, demonstrates that Johnson's attitude towards women, specifically in his …

There's No Place Like Home: The Haunted House As Literary Motif, Mary Catherine Mcdaniel

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the development of the haunted house in British and American literature and covers a time span of roughly two hundred years. Its approach is chronological: beginning with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, it examines the use of the Bad Place as a literary motif, emphasizing the consistencies in its development while noting the inconsistencies as well. From Walpole to Stephen King, we see that the haunted house has continuously represented two things. On one hand, it may serve as a repository for unexpiated sin. The traditional haunted house, in fact, is nothing more than the …

A Room Of One's Own: The Women's Room, Lou Ellen Crawford

Masters Theses

The recent resurgence of feminism has been accompanied by the development of feminist fiction. Identifying those characteristics by which feminist fiction adds to the American novel a new and valid perspective, feminist criticism has also flourished. Feminist critics agree that fiction with a new perspective demands critical evaluation from that same perspective; and Cheri Register provides a concise, thorough list of five elements which comprise effective feminist fiction. Of Register's five criteria, Carol Heilbrun stresses the equalizing, conciliatory influence of androgyny. Recent feminist authors have written many novels which perform one or more of the functions prescribed by Register. Three …

Virginia Woolf: A Study In Style, Gregory Lee Manifold

Masters Theses

Virginia Woolf is one of the eminent stylists of the twentieth century. This paper, "Virginia Woolf: A Study in Style", is an exploration of the use of stylistic technique in Mrs. Woolf's two most outstanding novels, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. The basic assumption of the paper is that the meaning of a work, especially the works of Mrs. Woolf, is as accessible through the study of style as it is through the more traditional study of content. Taking its cue from the works of Norman Holland and his "reader-response" criticism, the paper details four techniques of style …

Infinite Intellectual Leap-Frog: Tracing Three Character Voices Through Four Of Tom Stoppard's Works--Lord Malquist And Mr. Moon, Albert's Bridge, Jumpers, And Dirty Linen, Judy Laurene Donaldson

Masters Theses

Tom Stoppard (1937- ), British playwright, creates in his Absurd novel Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon (1966) three character voices that begin a debate on man's reason for existence. Instead of resolving the debate at the end of his novel, Stoppard, using the same character voices in various combinations, continues the debate in three of his later works: the plays Albert's Bridge (1968), Jumpers (1972), and Dirty Linen (1976). The three character voices include the realist's, who ties to make some sense out of the disorder of the world and to find his place in it; the manipulator's, who ignores …

The Pessimistic Themes Of The Mysterious Stranger As Reflected In Mark Twain's Previous Novels, Judy Dale Hill Walker

Masters Theses

The purpose of the thesis is to demonstrate that the pessimism exhibited in the themes of The Mysterious Stranger is evident in the themes of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1874-1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1877-1882), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1876-1885), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1888-1889), and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1891-1894). The thesis also demonstrates that the pessimism becomes more dominate as the novels progress chronologically through the repetition of the themes and the increasing number of themes being treated.

The introduction briefly discusses the arguments over the origins of Twain's pessimism as set forth by …

The Endlessly Elaborating Poem: A Comparative Study Of Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, And The American Experimental, Long Narrative Poem, Paul Freidinger

Masters Theses

Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, British and American poetry was expected to employ rigid metrical and rhythmical patterns. Any verse that did not conform was considered devoid of aesthetic merit. In addition, some critics, Edgar Allan Poe being one of those, argued that there was no place for a long poem in poetry. Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, two proponents of the long narrative poem, both wrote in free verse and, thus, directly confronted these traditional theories.

This study demonstrates that the verse of Whitman and Stevens constitutes a new approach to poetic style and structure. A …

Character Motivation And Definition Through Dialog In The Memory Plays Of Harold Pinter, Douglas E. Grohne

Masters Theses

Several critics have suggested that the plays of Harold Pinter are incomprehensible because the characters do not explicitly explain their actions and motivations. These comments come because the critics and audiences are conditioned to expect a playwright to in some way explain the motivations and personalities of his characters with a standard explanation given through explicit dialog, copious stage directions, or other means. But Pinter believes that it is dangerous for a playwright to design a play with one overall purpose in mind because the chances are that the purpose will be mistaken.

Pinter prefers to write in a realistic …

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Finds Reality: In The Comic Mask, Eva Marie Enis

Masters Theses

Scholars have considered the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus from nearly every perspective, but, at the same time, they have been hesitant to recognize the humorous incidents, particularly the so-called clownish scenes, as having a legitimate place even though much comic incident appears in Marlowe's source. Though scholars have acknowledged Marlowe's play to be a morality, they have not viewed Faustus as a morality character whose comic mask is his reality.

An examination of the morality tradition, with Marlowe's debt to the morality in mind, justifies the inclusion of much …

The Biblical View Of The Fall Of Man In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Lois Darlene Hanson

Masters Theses

"The story of the fall of man!" One can easily tell that The Fall is the main topic in The Marble Faun. Hawthorne, in this romance, is asking whether man's fall in the Garden of Eden was for man's betterment or not. He is also asking if sin is our power of regeneration, for without the sin of Adam and Eve there would have been no need for a savior. This theory is known as the Fortunate Fall of Man.

Hawthorne is suggesting within The Marble Faun that our sin is both original and renewable--it is something that we …

From Ritual To Resurrection: The Exploratory Poetic Of Seamus Heaney, Susan L. Morris

Masters Theses

Heaney's poetry has grown and changed since the publication of his first collection of poetry, Death of a Naturalist. This paper is an attempt to present the development of Heaney's exploratory poetic which was created through his use of language and image, allowing him metaphorical vehicles for the examination of oppositions.

Heaney began his poetic exploration, or "dig," with the collections Death of a Naturalist and Door Into the Dark. The poetry presents nature images which represent Heaney's search into the unknown, the dark places. These images symbolize a searching for the imagination and for the purpose of …

The Influence Of Women In Vardis Fisher’S Western Literature, Sylvia L. Alderton

Masters Theses

Vardis Fisher, a writer who wrote about the early west, uses his life experiences and extensive historical research as a basis for his western novels. With his background in the Antelope region and his historical research, Fisher presents both women in the Antelope hills and women in the hazardous far west surroundings. He instills in the reader a panoramic view of the pioneer women as they experience life in the old west.

The Antelope women are isolated in their environment with little social contact. They are effected physically, psychologically, and economically in this remote area. Most of the women overcome …

Escape From Reality: A Comparative Study Of Bleak House And Little Dorrit, Julie L. Mcmillen

Masters Theses

During the later period of his career, Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House (1853) and Little Dorrit (1857). Both of these novels share a common theme: those who face life squarely, though scarred, survive while those who try to escape do not.

In developing this theme Dickens uses parallel types of major characters. The motherly concern for others exhibited by Esther Summerson is repeated in Amy Dorrit. The irresponsibility of Richard Carstone reappears in William Dorrit. Finally, the protective concern of John Jarndyce reoccurs in Arthur Clennam.

Dickens develops these characters in five basic ways: the narrator, either omniscient or first-person, …

Herman Melville And Paul Tillich: An Ontological Interpretation Of Billy Budd, Michael E. Gress

Masters Theses

The traditional approaches to Herman Melville's Billy Budd focus upon the question of whether or not the story was Melville's final statement of acceptance or irony. Both arguments are sociological in nature in that the different sides argue that Melville either finally accepts or continues to reject by irony, the forms of society. The acceptance critics contend that Melville ends by seeing value in the forms because of their use for maintaining order in society; the irony critics claim that Melville was taking a final satirical poke at society's limiting forms and authority.

My thesis differs from these traditional arguments …

The Innocent Narrator In Mark Twain's Roughing It, John R. Fisher

Masters Theses

Mark Twain in his travel narrative Roughing It presents a naive, innocent narrator from the East who ventures forth into the largely uncivilized Western frontier during the exciting silver mining boom of the 1860's. In his sojourn the innocent narrator encounters many people, places, customs, values, and experiences that are unfamiliar to him, and because of his status as a tenderfoot unacquainted with the frontier, he is often made a dupe by the mischievous old-timers in the West.

The innocent narrator must go through numerous initiations before he is accepted as a member of the vernacular community. In these various …

Characteristics Of The Narrator: Chaucer’S The Canterbury Tales, Gerald Cecere

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy: Metaphysical Theology In Science Fiction/Fantasy, Douglas L. Semark

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Functions Of Menace: A Comparison Of The Room And The Birthday Party, Lee R. Martin

Masters Theses

An atmosphere of menace surrounds the action of Harold Pinter's plays, The Room and The Birthday Party. Several critics seem to agree that the menace originates in the outer world and threatens to intrude upon the security of a room, where people attempt to hide. But the menace may also originate within the room--from the inner world and not the outer. The Room illustrates how a character deals with a menace that is within, while The Birthday Party deals with agents of menace from the outer world.

Rose Hudd, in The Room, is dissociated from the outer world …

Fielding's Clergymen, Kathleen Marie Puhr

Masters Theses

Henry Fielding presented more clergymen in his fiction than any other major novelist except Trollope, and his non-fictional writings--notably articles in his journal, The Champion--also reflect his interest in the status of the clergy in eighteenth-century England. In his series of articles entitled “An Apology for the Clergy,” Fielding establishes the criteria by which he feels clergymen should be judged and lists the qualities of the “true” and “false” clergymen.

This study reveals that while Fielding in his non-fictional works clearly explains the traits of the true clergyman, his fiction does not contain a clergyman measuring up to his …