English Language and Literature Commons^™

Mimetic Theory Meets The Oxford Inklings: Girard, Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, And Barfield, Curtis Gruenler

Faculty Presentations

What might the authors known as the Oxford Inklings (J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield) have thought about René Girard’s mimetic theory, if they had had a chance to encounter it? All are among the most prominent Christian literary thinkers of the past century, but in the case of the topic of myth, one that is important to all of them, they take what seem like opposite views. This talk begins with the criticisms the Inklings might have of the anthropological orientation of mimetic theory because of their interest in lively representations of the …

Perfecting Pamela: Samuel Richardson's Final Revisions To His Earliest Novel, Jennifer S. Elliott

Theses & Honors Papers

This author details Richardson’s revision process as he edits his first novel Pamela as the last thing he does before dying. There are three chapters detailing Richardson’s motives behind revising his first novel and his actual revision process, which included three main techniques—substitution, addition, and deletion. Motives considered and argued were: moral purpose and criticism received from others—especially analyzing Shamela, a satire of Pamela—which undermines the morality that Richardson had hoped Pamela accomplished. At the end of the essay, there is an extensive chart complied by the author, spanning a total of 55 pages, of all of Richardson’s …

The Prayer Of Holy Willie: A Canting, Hypocritical, Kirk Elder, Patrick G. Scott

Faculty Publications

Robert Burns wrote this famous satire on religious hypocrisy in 1785, but he did not include it in his first book Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786) or in any edition published in his life-time. This edition makes accessible for the first time the locally-produced chapbook in which the poem was first printed, in 1789. The introduction discusses why the poem was written, the controversial background to the poem's first printed version, and the reasons for thinking the 1789 chapbook version was printed by John Wilson of Kilmarnock, who had printed Burns's first book three years before. An appendix …

Global Chaucers: Reflections On Collaboration And Digital Futures, Candace Barrington, Jonathan Hsy

Accessus

Global Chaucers, our multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-year project, intends to locate, catalog, translate, archive, and analyze non-Anglophone appropriations and translations of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Since its founding in 2012, this project has rapidly changed in response to scholars’ diverse interests and our expanding discoveries. Almost all these changes were prompted and made possible by our online presence (including a blog and Facebook group), and digital media comprises our primary means for gathering information, disseminating our findings, advertising conferences and events, and promoting the resource to other scholars. Because digital media can help disparate people traverse geographical and linguistic barriers, …

“Nede Hath No Law”: The State Of Exception In Gower And Langland, Conrad J. Van Dijk

Accessus

This article discusses the use of the legal maxim necessity knows no law in the works of William Langland and John Gower. Whereas Langland’s usage has stirred up great controversy, Gower’s unique application of the canon law adage has received hardly any attention. On the surface, it is difficult to think of two authors less alike, and the way in which they relate the concept of necessity to different subjects (the poverty debate, fin amour) seems to support that feeling. Yet this article argues that reading Langland and Gower side by side is mutually illuminating. Specifically, this article reveals …

Foreword, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

Co-editors Georgiana Donavin and Eve Salisbury welcome readers to Accessus 2.2.

You've Gotta Read This: Summer Reading At Musselman Library (2015), Musselman Library

You’ve Gotta Read This: Summer Reading at Musselman Library

Each year Musselman Library asks Gettysburg College faculty, staff, and administrators to help create a suggested summer reading list to inspire students and the rest of our campus community to take time in the summer to sit back, relax, and read. These summer reading picks are guaranteed to offer much adventure, drama, and fun!

With the 2015 collection, we again bring together recommendations from across the Gettysburg College campus—the books, movies, TV shows, graphic novels and even podcasts that have meant something special to us over the past year. Ninety faculty, administrators and staff offer up a list of 175 …

The Merry Wives Of Windsor, Daniel Gordon

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

The Merry Wives of Windsor A story of LUST, GREED, and DIRTY LAUNDRY
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Daniel Gordon.

Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor uses more prose than any of his other plays, for indeed, these characters are simple folk. His setting of the countryside of Windsor also offers clues to how I might interpret this play for a South Carolina audience. To reinforce the tight-knit community or provincial common folk that is wary of outsiders, I set this production in a southern trailer park. The script and rhythms fit remarkably well with a southern twang. Knowing the …

Cronstadt Castle [Supplemental Material], Sarah Crompton, Wendy Fall

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

Mary Hallock Foote: Reconfiguring The Scarlet Letter, Redrawing Hester Prynne, Adam Sonstegard

English Faculty Publications

It took 28 years after Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter in 1850 for Mary Hallock Foote to render drawings for one of the novel’s first illustrated editions, which was probably the first ever to be illustrated by a woman.(1) It took 130 years after the publication of Foote’s illustrated edition in 1878 for Project Gutenberg to digitize and disseminate Hawthorne’s novel with Foote’s illustrations.(2) It has taken seven years for Hawthorne scholarship to commence addressing and examining Foote’s edition, and theorize what her drawings suggest about the act of seeing, for the heroine’s audiences in the book, and for …

D.E.S.S.E.R.T. Newsletter Summer 2015, Stephanie Nunley

English Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Confessions Of An American Ginseng Addict, Addison Davis James

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Confessions of an American Ginseng Addict uses the Lazy Branch Holler in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky as a setting for a creative nonfiction work, which uses history, confession, remembrances, and digressions to tell the story of a man dealing with loss, mental health issues, environmental sustainability, and the power of ginseng. In the style of Desert Solitaire and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the narrative is a discursive work of raw unadulterated gonzo writing.

Theorycrafting The Classroom: Constructing The Introductory Technical Communication Course As A Game, Carly Finseth

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

When games are approached as a pedagogical methodology, the homologies between games and technical communication are highlighted: pedagogy that teaches people to play and succeed within certain confines; classroom assessment that provides meaningful feedback to encourage self-improvement; instructional design that incorporates gaming theory and game design principles; and usability to ensure optimum success. This paper provides an overview of these topics for instructors to consider when designing a technical writing course as a game.

Lemonade, Scott Sheridan

IWU Authors Bookshelf

Translated from Italian into English, Sheridan said his greatest challenge may have been capturing the setting and tone of the novel. “It’s a period piece about early 19^th-century England and written by an Italian,” said Sheridan. “I wanted to give it just a hint of Jane Austen without sounding old fashioned or archaic. The book is daring in many ways, from some of the controversial content to the experimental nature of the psychological narrative.”

Lemonade by Nina Pennacchi was published in Italian in 2014. The translated version by Sheridan is now available at amazon.com.

Five Poems From Witch In Mourning, Maria-Mercè Marçal, Clyde Moneyhun

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

Maria-Mercè Marçal was born in 1952, in the middle of the fascist dictatorship in Spain, which lasted from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. Marçal writes, “A l’atzar agraeixo tres dons: haver nascut dona, de classe baixa i nació oprimida” [I thank fate for three gifts: having been born a woman, to the lower class, in an oppressed nation], a phrase that is still famous in Catalan graffiti today.

Dime Novels Gone Digital, Eric Willey

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

A survey of archival institutions which have digitized and made available online some or all of their collection materials containing dime novels, or penny dreadfuls.

The Literary Unconscious: Ideology And Utopia In The Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel In England And Russia, Isra Ahmed Daraiseh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this volume, I have examined a number of works of nineteenth-century realist fiction from England and Russia, using the double interpretive method recommended by Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious. In particular, I have employed the dialectical double hermeneutic suggested by Jameson, who argues that the most productive approach to literary texts is to consider them from the double perspective of ideology and utopia. That is, critics should approach literary texts by seeking out the ideological roots that lie beneath the textual surface and from which the texts grow, while at the same time keeping a careful eye out …

Touching Brains, Jason Tougaw

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Orientalism Of Edgar Allan Poe: The Allure Of The Middle East In Al-Aaraaf, Sohaib Kamal Al-Kamal

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis explores the Orientalist discourse in four of Edgar Allan Poe's poems and two of his prose essays. The major aspects of Orientalism examined in Poe's works rely on the theoretical ideas of Edward Said's Orientalism and other ideas developed by important Arab writers. Said and other Arab writers agree that Islam is the locus of any study of Orientalism. This thesis focuses on the major role of Oriental imagery that it plays in Poe's early poems. It also examines two of his prose essays to help understand central aspects of Poe's orientalia which are also reflected in his …

Only A Body “Who Nobody Owns:” Adolescent Identity In Neil Gaiman’S The Graveyard Book, Aleesa Marie Millet

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book presents a child, Nobody (Bod) Owens, who grows up in a graveyard with ghosts and a vampire as primary guardians. While Bod is not technically an adolescent for the entire novel, he is constantly struggling with adolescent themes—primarily being in a liminal state—and the graveyard provides a heterotopian space for Bod to escape “normal” society and to develop an “othered” identity. Gaiman’s strategic use of monsters reflects adolescence as he presents the repressive human organization, the “Jacks of All Trades,” trying to control society, while Bod becomes a queer monster/human hybrid representing the resistant individual. …

Songs Of The Metamythos, By C.F. Cooper. Reviewed By Kristine Larsen., Kristine Larsen

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Perian's Journey, By Sue Bridgwater And Alistair Mcgechie. Reviewed By Shiloh Carroll., Shiloh Carroll

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Review: Reinventing The Wheel, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Transatlantic And The Invention Of Wings: Historiographic Metafiction In Contemporary Novels And The Importance Of Intersectionality On The Journey To Self-Knowledge, Samantha Rump

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Human Experience Through Short Story: A Comparative Analysis Of Four Stories From James Joyce’S Dubliners And George Saunders’ Tenth Of December, Patrick Gallagher

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Redemption Denied: Variations Of The Underworld Descent In Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian And The Road, Nathan W. Calley

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The classic device of the underworld journey has seen countless incarnations in literature, the most popular of which occurs in Dante’s Inferno. While the mythic origins of the hell descent have inspired numerous imitators, very rarely are the biblical origins considered. Focusing on the Old Testament books of Jonah and Job, this study seeks to illustrate the importance of biblical intertextuality as a model for analyzing the redemptive aspects in the hell narratives that precede Cormac McCarthy’s renditions of the journey in Blood Meridian (1985) and The Road (2006). Following theories of archetypal analysis set forth by Northrop Frye, I …

The Many Faces Of Cleopatra: How Performance And Characterization Change Cleopatra In Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Legend Of Good Women," William Shakespeare's The Tragedy Of Antony And Cleopatra, And John Dryden's All For Love; Or, The World Well Lost, Rebecca Piazzoni Chatham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and John Dryden presented the character of Cleopatra differently, through both the written language of their pieces and their own and others’ performances of her, in order to meet the demands of their respective audiences and performance conditions. Chaucer, in “The Legend of Cleopatra,” portrays and performs Cleopatra comically. Shakespeare, in his Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, characterizes Cleopatra as a complex woman. In All for Love; or, The World Well Lost, Dryden characterizes Cleopatra as sentimental, but the performance of her on stage by female actresses added depth to the role. For Chaucer and Dryden, …

An Exploration Of Dual Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Maria D. Ramirez

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Having a dual identity is something that comes across in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. In this novella, the protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, tries to discover, create, and accept the complexity of her dual identity that is influence by her experiences with poverty, discrimination, classism, and gender expectations. Esperanza wants to overcome the oppression outside her community and the patriarchal society in her community by moving away from Mango Street and becoming a writer. She has to find a way to bridge the gap between both her American and Mexican identity. Through the character of Esperanza, Cisneros tells …

Buying Time, C. J. Hribal

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Literary Note On: Donna Tartt; The Secret History: New York: Vintage, Paperback, 569pp, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid

Business Review

Donna Tartt's postmodern classic gained great fame when published in 1992, and additional, well-merited recognition when its author won the Pulitzer Prize for her more recent novel The Goldfinch in 2014. Originally from Mississippi, Tartt relocated to the East Coast during her college years and struck up friendships with notable literary figures such as Bret Easton Ellis-a move that enabled her to indulge in her passion for writing and bring her undeniable creativity to the public's attention. For sheer twisted machinations, The Secret History has few comparable rivals in postmodern literature, with the exception of great works such as Katherine …