English Language and Literature Commons^™

Review Of Encyclopedia Of The Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Edited By Christopher John Murray; And A Companion To European Romanticism, Edited By Michael Ferber, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

Few students of Coleridge know the dark, mysterious poetry of the later years better than Eric Wilson. And even fewer have a stronger command of the scholarship on this poetry. Understandably, the work of the pre-1800 years, especially the great trio of the imaginative and the supernatural—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan—and the earlier conversation poems, have received major critical attention. Yet although these poems bring to the fore the troubling presence of Sara in “Eolian Harp” and the distressing violations of the Mariner and of the innocent Christabel by the serpent-woman Geraldine, …

The Cover, Sarah Wadsworth

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Teaching Wuthering Heights As Fantasy, Trauma, And Dream Work, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Symmetrical Womanhood: Poetry In The Woman's Building Library, Angela Sorby

English Faculty Research and Publications

Late-nineteenth-century women poets shed midcentury sentimentality unevenly and at some cost, losing a sense of privacy, a (Christian) frame of reference, and an "imagined community" of women who shared their worldview. They also gained more public, secular, and professional sources of identity. The exact nature of this postsentimental self was unclear. Postsentimental poets often wrote in the "genteel tradition," which trumpeted eternal truth and beauty while working from a position of subjective instability. Ultimately, their verses must be seen as powerfully fluid and transitional, registering (like the Woman's Building Library) women's struggle to inhabit more public forms of authority.

Preface [To Libraries And Culture, Winter 2006], Sarah Wadsworth

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction [To Eliza Parson's "The Castle Of Wolfenbach: A German Story"], Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Urban Fervor: Los Angeles Literature And Alternative Religion, Christine M. Daley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using alternative religion and other dynamics within the spiritual life of Los Angeles opens up the city's literary canon; employing religion as a critical lens illuminates the conjunction of history, literature, and urban growth that characterizes Los Angeles culture. This is especially relevant in a setting where, according to a 1941 guide to the city, "the multiplicity and diversity of faiths that flourish in the aptly named City of Angels probably cannot be duplicated in any other city on earth." It is apparent, however, that the specific social phenomena of abundant sects in this urban space can provide keys to …

Henry James’S "The Ambassadors": Anatomy Of Silence, Marie Leone Meyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the use of silence in Henry James's novel The Ambassadors. James uses silence rich in meaning to portray the protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether's unfolding consciousness. James creates different types of silences that reflect a shift from the spoken or written word to alternate symbol systems. James's novel perches on the threshold of modernity, as his work reflects the ideas of a line of thinkers extending back from James and his brother, William, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sampson Reed, and Emanuel Swedenborg. At the same time, the novel draws on the contemporary ideas of Charles Darwin, prefigures …

An Opera In Aid Of The Reading Of History, B. Mcevoy Campbell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis consists of six chapters and a frontispiece/CD recording of a song cycle, Blue Orpheus: Hymns and Lullabies, written and performed by the author. This arrangement responds to currents within queer theory, which view questions concerning its historical and philosophical origins as diversions from its ability to determine present conditions, by reframing these "presentist" (and its close relative, "performative") orientations in terms of "place" and the corresponding laws and freedoms that originate from its cultivation—in politics, the art of memory, and systems theory and design. Generally speaking, to each concept of place I devote two chapters.

Chapter one …

Visible Effects: Narrative Spectacle And Affective Response In The Late Eighteenth-Century Novel, Tanya Radford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eighteenth-century visual culture and literature reflect a struggle between two models of vision and understanding: on one side, an Enlightenment vision dedicated to disembodied objectivity and technical precision; on the other, a sentimental or expressive vision that produces irrational or emotional insight. If the disembodied eye can be seen as an emblem of reason and the goal of the Enlightenment approach to scientific knowledge, the spectatorial and incarnate eye represents an alternative and equally significant emblem of the period's visuality. This dissertation focuses on novels from the late Eighteenth century in which the spectatorial and incarnate eye is the dominant …

Dances Of Courtship And Other Stories, Katherine Ware Volmensky Gannett

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis is a collection of short stories mainly written in dialect. The locale of the stories is Orkney, an island group located in the Atlantic Ocean, between the north coast of Scotland and the Shetland Islands. The historical period is the 1890s.

What Happened To Dad: A Portrayal Of Teenage Fathers In Young Adult Literature, Becky R. Schafer Andrews

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to see if authors of realistic fiction accurately portray the characteristics of teenage fathers. Abundant fictional novels on the topic of teenage pregnancy are in print; however, most seemed concerned with teen mothers and neglect teen fathers. How teen fathers react to being told about the conception to accepting responsibility for their actions was evaluated through a checklist. This research demonstrated that a realistic portrayal of teen fathers is absent from much young adult fiction. In sharing this research with others it is in hopes that more authors will give teen fathers a more …

The Revolt Revisited: A Study Of Popular 20th-Century American Small-Town Literature, Ted Ray Duitsman

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The subject of small towns has both attracted and made some of the greatest authors in American literature. Through stunning imagery, description, and dialogue they create realistic portrayals of this places that lay them bare for all to see. Generous treatments portray them as generally good places that uphold the myth of small towns as utopian villages. For those with more unfavorable views, however, the literature shows the dullness of the town as well as the provinciality and closed-mindedness of its people. It is unfair to categorize some of the better works into either/or arguments however, for they involve more …

Written On The Body By Jeanette Winterson In The Context Of Nomadology, Maria Goltsova

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study provides an interpretation of the novel Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson in the context of nomadology, a post-modern philosophical project initiated by Gilles Deleuze. My analysis, concentrating on the plot and the narrative strategy of the novel, explores the concept of nomadic subjectivity and demonstrates how it is constructed in the text and how, if at all, it can be challenged. It also examines melancholy and loss, and their role in the formation of nomadic identity. In the novel, Louise is presented as an object of the narrator's desire; she is articulated through the examination and …

The Benefits Of A For-Credit Course For New Writing Center Staff, Richard Benjamin Crosby

Faculty Publications

Some questions about writing center theory and praxis never seem to change: how do we prepare for our clientele? How do we engage them? What questions should we ask? When should we direct them? And when should we encourage them to direct us? The list goes on. Fortunately, we consider it a virtue that we continue interrogating the same issues. As students of rhetoric, we realize that the answers to these questions often depend on the contexts in which they are asked. Thus, we give ourselves over to principles of adaptability. Instead of establishing rigid, universal rules that do not …

Goblin Chronicles: The Katscratchers Tribe, Thomas Bilstad

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

"Goblin Chronicles: The Katscratchers Tribe" is an urban fantasy genre story, narrating the adventures of a tribe of goblins who have named themselves the Katscratchers. The story is set in contemporary Minnesota, in the Twin Cities region of St. Paul and Minneapolis. These creatures of legend have moved into the city from the wilderness of Wisconsin in hopes of finding a new land in which they can survive. The story revolves around the humor and heartaches the goblins face in day-to-day living as they seek to coexist in secret with humans. At the story's start, the chronicler, Quill, introduces himself, …

Up Wau Hollow And Other Stories, Deborah J. Bloom

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The following thesis consists of five short stories. My work has a regional emphasis, with each story set in Iowa. "Up Wau Hollow" tells about Ginny, a girl whose family lives up Wau Hollow in the Loess Hills of southwestern Iowa. "Cabbie" focuses on a cab driver with an active imagination. He works hard at distancing himself from people and from life. "Letting Go" is the story of a mother torn between her maternal instinct and letting go of her daughter. "View from the Flying Wienie" brings together two characters that might not have met if it weren't for the …

Handful Of Dust: Poems & Memoir, Kimberly Jo Groninga

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Handful of Dust is a collection of poetry and memoir which travels through a number of subjects including trees, family, dreams, death, song, sex, and silence. Weaving through the collection is the idea that what we hold in our hands-bits of memory, cakes of earth with dangling roots, understandings and perceptions-is a place to begin. In a palmful of tiny particles, images and connections emerge. And they begin to tell the story of who we are. Identity, indeed, is the primary theme of many of the pieces within this collection.

Claiming Agency: Edith Wharton's Public And Private Spaces In "The House Of Mirth", Lauren Del Polito

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Breathing Out Smoke, Angela Sorby

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Theories Of Creativity And The Saga Of Charlotte Brontë, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Review [Of Reading The Brontë Body: Disease, Desire, And The Constraints Of Culture By Beth Torgerson], Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Jane Austen, Character, And The Place Of The Picturesque, Lola Burnham Mcelwee

Masters Theses

Through an examination of three of Jane Austen's novels-Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park-this thesis examines the picturesque debate of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries and uses that debate to frame a discussion of the moral values of Austen's characters. This thesis cites extensively from primary sources by Uvedale Price and Humphry Repton, practitioners of picturesque landscape aesthetics, and draws parallels between those works and Austen's writings. While the place of the picturesque is the question common to all three novels, each novel treats other questions that were important to English society at the time Austen was writing. …

Her Violated Body: Sexual Violence And The Limits Of Political Allegory In Post-Apartheid South African Fiction, Jennifer Mishaela Fuhler

Masters Theses

In post-apartheid South Africa, writers continue to use political allegory to critique the democratic transition, racial tensions, and the reconcilation process. This use of allegory, although effective at times, often includes the sexual violation of the female body, further inhibiting gender equality as women continue to exist as secondclass citizens both in fiction and reality. This thesis analyzes three post-apartheid texts - Zakes Mda's The Madonna of Excelsior (2002), J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999), and Marlene van Niekerk's Triomf (1994, translated into English 1999) - and moves beyond the allegorical representation of the figure of the raped woman to a critique …

Tracing Virag: Jewish Migration And The Construction Of James Joyce's Ulysses, Barry A. Hudek

Masters Theses

My thesis explores the role of Rudolph Virag, the father of Leopold Bloom, in James Joyce's Ulysses. I compare the migration of Rudolph Virag throughout Europe within that novel to the historical Jewish experience in the same locations Joyce places Virag. Although I detect parallels between Virag's movements and actual patterns of nineteenth-century Jewish migration, I argue that Joyce makes subtle changes in timing to create a literary connection between the exodus of Rudolph Virag and Leopold Bloom, and Ireland's political and cultural struggle as an English colony.

Virag's history is then used to further explore Joyce's literary techniques in …

Living With Paine: The Age Of Reason In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Joe Webb

Masters Theses

The completion of this thesis represents a reasonable stopping point after a year of detective work - a year spent trying to piece together one small story in the history of nineteenth-century American free thought. In July of 2005, I happened to pick up a copy of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason at a bookstore in Chicago, and having nothing much to do for the next few hours, I sat down in a café and read the book cover to cover. I was captivated. My experience, in fact, was probably not unlike the experience of Mark Twain when he …

An Environmental Scan Of Adult Numeracy Professional Development Initiatives, Renee Sherman, Kathy Safford-Ramus, Anestine Hector-Mason, Larry Condelli, Andrea R. Olinger, Nrupa Jani

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Allusion As Form: The Waste Land And Moulin Rouge!, Stacy Magedanz

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

Allusion is usually considered a literary technique, but relatively little attention has been paid to the notion of allusion as a literary form. In this essay, I attempt to describe the allusive form based on two prominent examples, T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! Though radically different, the two works embody distinguishing characteristics of the allusive form. These are intertextuality, or a dependence upon outside sources for sense and significance; heightened and self-conscious artificiality; a confrontational attitude toward the audience; elitism, based on the exclusivity of allusions; appropriation of multiple cultures; and pervasive anachronism. Though prone …

Reinscribing The Revolution: Genre And The Problem Of National History In Early American Historical Novels, Joseph John Letter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines nine early historical novels of the Revolution that recover an important yet largely forgotten archive of American cultural history. In the years following the War of 1812 writers from the Revolution’s successor generation reinscribed the history of national origins through narratives of the Revolution that address issues left unresolved by the Revolutionary War and subsequent Constitutional debates; thus, the Revolution itself becomes an important and ubiquitous subject area for writers attempting to situate narratives of national history. These national allegories, consciously constructed as patriotic narratives, unconsciously “bring forth” figurations that represent the official nation’s Others, people excluded …

"Feathered Glory": A Poet In Flight From Medieval Ireland To The Twentieth Century, Denell Marie Downum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feathered Glory explores the relevance of the medieval Irish character Suibhne, usually anglicized as Sweeney, to twentieth-century writers. Suibhne is the protagonist of the twelfth-century text Buile Suibhne, in which he is depicted as a minor king who goes mad on the field of battle, abandons his kingdom and his role in society, and flies like a bird into the woods, where he becomes a poet of exceptional power and beauty. This tale languished in obscurity for many centuries, but following J. G. O'Keeffe's publication of a scholarly edition and English translation of Buile Suibhne in 1913, Suibhne has …