English Language and Literature Commons^™

“A Power Beyond The Reach Of Any Magic”: Mythology In Harry Potter, Daniella Rizza Fcrh '11

The Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal

J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have over the last decade become a worldwide phenomenon, but why? It is perhaps because of the mythical elements that underlie Harry’s story, particularly the myths of the child and the hero. Comparing the Potter novels to works by mythological theorists Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, it is clear how Rowling both uses and updates traditional mythological structures and elements in the novels. The Harry Potter novels both incorporate the standard myths of the child and the hero, which accounts for the series’ immense ability to grab the reader, and update these myths, making Harry’s …

Civility And Gower's "Visio Anglie", Lynn Arner

Accessus

Deploying conventions from medieval courtesy manuals, Gower’s Visio Anglie assigned varied degrees of authority to Englishmen and women at the bodily level, a system of signification in which food, physical appearances, and overall comportment were key elements. Echoing courtesy manuals, the Visio constructed corporal marks of distinction, interpreted physical signifiers as indices of people’s inner character and value, and classified bodies into social groups accordingly. Offering understandings of civility that began with codes of bodily conduct and that expanded to claims about the cosmos, the Visio’s corporal regulatory system promoted particular understandings of citizenship and governance that sought to …

The Trentham Manuscript As Broken Prosthesis: Wholeness And Disability In Lancastrian England, Candace Barrington

Accessus

Gower’s Trentham manuscript allows us to think about pre-modern disabilities in three ways. First, because it encourages Henry IV to restore the body politic disabled by Richard II, we can see the manuscript as presenting itself as a prosthesis able to compensate, even cure, Henry’s illegitimate claims to the throne. Here, disability is a condition that needs to be eradicated at best, repaired at least.

Second, because the Trentham manuscript reports Gower’s blindness, we can examine how it registers that disability. As “Henrici quarti primus” makes clear, Gower’s disability allows him to assert his own legitimacy as king’s advisor. Here, …

Blindness, Confession, And Re-Membering In Gower's Confessio, Tory Vandeventer Pearman

Accessus

Much scholarship on Gower’s Confessio Amantis has focused on the poem’s assertion that poetic narration, represented by Amans’ ongoing confession, has the ability to restore the fragmentary natures of social and spiritual bodies. Surprisingly, the role that the (dis)abled body plays in the poem’s struggle with fragmentation and integration has been ignored. By focusing on the poem’s representation of blindness in the tales of Medusa and Constance, I will demonstrate that the formal structure and thematic explorations of the Confessio, in fact, rely upon the (dis)abled body and its inextricable relationship to narration. Indeed, it is Amans’ disabling illness …

Blind Advocacy: Blind Readers, Disability Theory, And Accessing John Gower, Jonathan Hsy

Accessus

Toward the end of his life, medieval poet John Gower (d. 1408) composed Latin poetry about his own progressive blindness, and later nineteenth-century Blind readers appropriated Gower’s work as part of a platform to advocate for changed perceptions and opportunities for the blind and other people with disabilities. In this essay, I approach nineteenth-century narrative compilations of blind lives (which include Gower’s) as transformative acts of literary historiography. These compilers not only appropriate the medieval blind poet to advance their own social and political ends, but they also create a new disability-centered approach to the entire Western artistic tradition. I …

Introduction, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

This Introduction by co-editors Georgiana Donavin and Eve Salisbury celebrates the publication of the first issue of Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media, a biannual publication of The Gower Project. The Introduction provides a short history of The Gower Project and explains the scope of Accessus: an e-journal dedicated to articles composed in electronic formats on Western European literature written before 1660. This first issue is dedicated to scholarship on the fourteenth-century English poet John Gower, who inspired the Project and this journal. For a decade The Gower Project has supported exciting new interpretations of …

A Brief History Of The Cornish Language, Its Revival And Its Current Status, Siarl Ferdinand

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

Despite being dormant during the nineteenth century, the Cornish language has been recently recognised by the British Government as a living regional language after a long period of revival. The first part of this paper discusses the history of traditional Cornish and the reasons for its decline and dismissal. The second part offers an overview of the revival movement since its beginnings in 1904 and analyses the current situation of the language in all possible domains.

What Jane Saw, Kate Singer

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

Review of Professor Janine Barchas' "What Jane Saw?" a website that reconstructs Joshua Reynolds's 1813 retrospective art exhibit, which Jane Austen attended, with particular attention to the Regency social and cultural history depicted in Austen's novels.

Frances Burney’S Cecilia: A Publishing History, By Catherine M. Parisian, Lee Kahan

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

No abstract provided.

Matters Of Fact In Jane Austen: History, Location, And Celebrity, By Janine Barchas, Laura E. Thomason

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

No abstract provided.

Crossing Borders: An Interdisciplinary Course In The "Enlightenment", Carol White, Kathryn P. Russell

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

In this essay, we present a twofold version of the first team-taught course on the eighteenth century designed by faculty at Clayton State University who plan to develop and teach this course again in the near future. We hope that our explanation of the original course and our projected future version of the course will be useful to scholars who teach in the eighteenth century, as well as to specialists in other historical periods who wish to plan revisions of courses to make them more reflective of current scholarship in gender studies. Authors taught in this course include Benjamin Franklin, …

Bosom Friends And The Sapphic Breasts Of Belinda, Ula E. Klein

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

This article examines Maria Edgeworth’s 1801 novel Belinda in order to argue that the breast at the center of Lady Delacour’s narrative signifies not maternal failure but Sapphic feelings and connections. While previous studies of the novel have discussed the wounded breast of Lady Delacour as a punishment for her transgressions or as an emblem of her patriarchal oppression, this article claims that the wounded breast is both a sign of and a means to female same-sex desire and relationships. This article contrasts the wounded, festering breast with the tableau that ends the novel. The tableau, a constructed vision of …

Structurally Cosmic Apostasy: The Atheist Occult World Of H.P. Lovecraft, Brian J. Reis

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

The conflict between materialism and spiritualism has a long and sordid philosophical history. Both schools of thought attempted to address the problems of the unknown through varying methods. There are two figures, who i their own ways, one subtle ad the other not so subtle rejected both means. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky sought to counter Spiritualist claims by venturing into her own occult philosophy—Theosophy—seeking to uncover spiritual truths, debunking religious traditions as well as seeking to undermine scientific materialism that had begun to sweep the intellectual life of the 19^th century. To do so, she claimed to have translated an …

An Awareness Of What Is Missing: Four Views On The Consequences Of Secularism, Rachel E. Hunt Steenblik, Heidi Zameni, Debbie Ostorga, Nathan Greeley

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

While the issues regarding widespread secularization in contemporary Western culture are difficult to properly assess, it can be argued that certain prerequisites are necessary for the well-being of any society and, furthermore, that certain of these necessary conditions are only provided by a given civilization's major religious tradition. All societies need to perpetually engage in collective action and decision making, and as any given community faces the challenges of the future, its governing religious worldview is an indispensable source of guidance and time-honored wisdom. With this in mind, it will be argued that Western civilization is dependent upon a Judeo-Christian …

The Auld Sod: Staging The Diaspora At The 1897 Irish Fair In New York City, Deirdre O’Leary

e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies

The 1897 Irish Fair in New York City is significant for its map exhibit of a topographical map of Ireland, with soil from each county represented. For ten cents, participants could walk across the map and stand again on the soil of Ireland. This article examines the map exhibit as demonstrating diasporic nationalism of the late nineteenth century Irish emigrant, and also reads the exhibit as a contrapuntal political discourse on Irish nationalism, Anglo/American relations, and the position of the Irish immigrant in New York.

Troy And The Rings: Tolkien And The Medieval Myth Of England, Michael Livingston

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Asserts that, far from abandoning his early grounding in the classics upon discovering Northern mythology and languages, Greek and Roman motifs remained an important element of Tolkien’s “soup” and he used them in many ways in The Lord of the Rings. Livingston pays particular attention to themes, characters, incidents, and Mediterranean history that have roots in The Iliad. Family structure is one place where we can see convincing parallels, with Boromir as an asterisk-Hector and Faramir as an asterisk-Paris, rewriting the deficiencies in their source-characters as Gondor is the history of Troy re-written.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Fanfiction, And "The Freedom Of The Reader", Megan B. Abrahamson

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Student paper award, Mythcon 2013. Abrahamson makes a particularly convincing case for the validity of fanfiction by applying Tolkien’s own statements about the “dominion of the author,” the “Cauldron of Story,” and subcreation to the issue. Discusses Tolkien’s experiences with early fanwork and his own use of sources as an author.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

Listening As Heroic Action In L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Cara-Joy Steem

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines the theme and spiritual functions of listening in the third Murry family novel, A Swiftly Tilting Planet: as participation in an interconnected universe, as embracing humility, as a witness to cosmic community, and as a sacrificial act. Connects these ideas to her larger theological and interpersonal themes.

The Hobbit And The Father Christmas Letters, Kris Swank

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Traces the mutual influences of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the letters he wrote to his children in the person of Father Christmas. Similar themes in Roverandom and The Book of Lost Tales are also discussed. She tracks the development of several motifs that appear throughout, like irascible wizards, playful elves, invented languages, impudent bears, and fireworks.

How Trees Behave-Or Do They?, Verlyn Flieger

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Flieger takes as her departure point a passage on tree-spirits in one of the manuscripts for “On Fairy-stories,” and considers the development of Tolkien’s ideas about more-or-less enspirited trees throughout his oeuvre. Begins with the earliest appearance of Old Man Willow in the Tom Bombadil poems, progressing through his maturation as an idea in The Lord of the Rings. Pays special attention to Treebeard and the Huorns, and ends with the birch tree in Smith of Wootton Major.

Tolkien's Devices: The Heraldy Of Middle-Earth, Jamie Mcgregor

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Studies a set of images Tolkien deploys with great skill to represent essential thematic elements of the opposition between forces of the Alliance and the Enemy. These include the organic and natural symbols of Gondor, Rohan, Dol Amroth as opposed to the Eye of Mordor and White Hand of Isengard. McGregor’s observations on Saruman’s choice of imagery are particularly valuable in showing how Tolkien revealed the wizard’s attempts to play both sides even at the symbolic level.

Theological Reticence And Moral Radiance: Notes On Tolkien, Levinas, And Inuit Cosmology, Catherine Madsen

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Madsen pulls together three exceedingly disparate elements—the theology of loss and obligation of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas; the way the Inuit peoples of the Arctic regions relate to the hardships and challenges of their physical and spiritual worlds; and incidents of self-sacrifice in Tolkien—into a challenging and rewarding whole.

Fairy Elements In British Literary Writings In The Decade Following The Cottingley Fair Photographs Episode, Douglas A. Anderson

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Scholar Guest of Honor, Mythcon 2013. Explores the effects of the Cottingly fairy fraud on British literary fantasy. Authors discussed include Gerald Bullett, Walter de la Mare, Lord Dunsany, Bea Howe, Kenneth Ingram, Margaret Irwin, Daphne Miller, Hope Mirrlees, and Bernard Sleigh. Anderson also offers some speculations on the effects of the controversy on Tolkien’s early development as a writer.

Reviews, Damien Bador, Gregory Bassham, Joe R. Christopher, Janet Brennan Croft, Hugh H. Davis, Melody Green, Holly Ordway, Robert T. Tally Jr

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

The International Relations of Middle-earth: Learning from The Lord of the Rings. Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James. Reviewed by Robert T. Tally Jr

Moments of Grace and Spiritual Warfare in The Lord of the Rings. Anne Marie Gazzolo. Reviewed by Damien Bador.

The Wizard of Oz as American Myth: A Critical Study of Six Versions of the Story, 1900-2007. Alissa Burger. Reviewed by Hugh H. Davis.

Plain to the Inward Eye: Selected Essays on C.S. Lewis. Don W. King. Reviewed by Holly Ordway.

Tolkien's Poetry. Ed. Julian Eilmann and Allan Turner. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

The …

‘There’S A Lot More To Ogres Than People Think’: Shrek As Ethical Fairy Tale, Eugene O'Brien

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.

Pondering Eternity In A Stifling Rural Setting: François Mauriac's Thérèse Desqueyroux And John Mcgahern's The Barracks, Eamon Maher

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.

Between The Idea And The Reality. John Broderick And The French Connection., Peter D.T. Guy

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.

Brendan Behan’S France. Encounters In Saint-Germain-Des-Prés., Jean-Philippe Hentz

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.

Reading The Novel: A Gothicized "Enterprise Of Health", Claire Mcgrail Johnston

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

No abstract provided.