English Language and Literature Commons^™

“An Instrument In The Shape / Of A Woman”: Reading As Re-Vision In Adrienne Rich, William J. Camponovo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This single-author-oriented dissertation on the work of Adrienne Rich looks at her extensive body of work both in poetry, and in prose. This project considers how Rich re-visited and re-read her work over the course of her career, often making new discoveries and observations in quasi-autobiographical prose. This dissertation interrogates the ways in which these framing efforts may be in tension with both academic and journalistic narratives of her career arc. In looking at Rich’s own writing that, at times, attempts to re-contextualizes her work, even for herself, this project aims to chart out an oeuvre that functions as a …

The Quest Of Love: A Liturgical Reading Of The Pilgrim's Progress, Matthew Charles Fox

Masters Theses

John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress has been enjoyed for its imaginative story by a wide variety of readers since its publication in 1678, but criticism has long treated Bunyan’s imaginative story-telling as separate from and at odds with his Puritanism. If this were the case and expositing theological doctrine was Bunyan’s main purpose, then why would he write a fiction? Using James K. A. Smith idea of “liturgical pedagogy” from his Cultural Liturgies series, this thesis argues that Bunyan’s story does more than vividly convey theological doctrine to the reader’s mind; rather, it captures the imagination of the reader’s heart, …

Animals And Literature, Lewis Carroll, Herbert George Wells, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Animals and Literature. Contains Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells.

Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of Shakespeare. Contains The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

British Literature Of The 18th-20th Cenutry, Jane Austen, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Edward Morgan Forrester, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Mary Prince, Samuel Richardson, Carrie Lewis Miller, Firdavs Khaydarov, Odbayar Batsaikhan

All Resources

Openly licensed anthology focused on the theme of British Literature from the 18th-20th centuries. Includes: Persuasion by Jane Austen, Lady Audley’s Secret by M.E. Braddon, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Middlemarch by George Eliot, A Passage to India by E.M. Forrester, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson.

Metacognitive Self-Evaluation Techniques In Efl Classrooms, Rula J. Yazigy

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

This study aims to examine whether the use of metacognitive self-assessment helps English as a foreign language (EFL) students to improve their metacognition. The study implemented an intervention technique on 540 students in Grades Four to Nine in a private school in Beirut. Students had to evaluate their performance on English tests in relation to their study skills and preparation. The four EFL teachers included students' study skills self-evaluation statements at the end of the English tests in the first term of 2019-2020 and responded to five questions to evaluate the intervention. Their responses indicated that younger learners were more …

The Tale Of The Old Forest: The Damaging Effects Of Forestry In J. R. R. Tolkien’S Written Works, Katrine L. A. Hjulstad

Journal of Tolkien Research

The Old Forest is more often than not considered a wholly villainous woodland, and yet in a letter to the Daily Telegraph (1972), J. R. R. Tolkien claimed that he ‘take[s] the part of trees’ in all his works. Verlyn Flieger takes issue with this claim in her essay ‘Taking the Part of Trees’, as it seems to suggest that Tolkien’s Hobbits in the Old Forest were no better than the Orcs in Fangorn. Here it is argued that Flieger’s interpretation forgets that Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to appear as the Hobbits’ writings and recollections, and shows …

Re-Enchanted: The Rise Of Children's Fantasy Literature In The Twentieth Century (2019) By Maria Sachiko Cecire, Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Andrew Higgins, of Re-Enchanted: The Rise of Children's Fantasy Literature in the Twentieth Century (2019), by Maria Sachiko Cecire

Effective Language Teachers’ Characteristics As Perceived By English Language Private Institutes’ Administrators In Iran, Negar Yazdanipour, Mehrnoush Fakharzadeh

The Qualitative Report

Recruiting wisely from the available supply of teachers is one of the instructional roles of school administrators. Their hiring and retaining decisions, among other things, can influence learners' achievements. The number of studies examining the features of effective language teachers in the eyes of administrators is limited. Therefore, the present study was designed to examine how effective language teachers are perceived by administrators of English Private Language Institutes in Iran. To this end, 27 male and female administrators were selected and interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the narrative data. The results of coding revealed several characteristics of effective …

Beauvoir In Time, Meryl Altman

English Faculty publications

Beauvoir in Time situates Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex in the historical context of its writing and in later contexts of its international reception, from then till now. The book takes up three aspects of Beauvoir's work more recent feminists find embarrassing: "bad sex," "dated" views about lesbians, and intersections with race and class. Through close reading of Beauvoir's writing in many genres, alongside contemporaneous discourses (good and bad novels in French and English, outmoded psychoanalytic and sexological authorities, ethnographic surrealism, the writing of Richard Wright and Franz Fanon), and in light of her travels to the U.S. and …

The Inklings, The Victorians And The Moderns: Reconciling Tradition In The Modern Age (2020), By Christopher Butynskyi, Thomas Honegger

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Thomas Honegger, of The Inklings, the Victorians and the Moderns (2020) by Christopher Butynskyi

The Uses Of Character: Modernism And The Politics Of Characterization, Jared Matthew Klemp

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In The Uses of Character: Modernism and the Politics of Characterization, I analyze experiments with character in the British and Irish fiction of the early twentieth century. I argue that, though they are frequently treated as monolithic and apolitical, such experiments are heterogenous attempts to rehabilitate or revise national identities in response to historical and political pressures. Taking two emblematic figures of high modernism, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and another figure who is frequently left out of discussions of modernism, Flann O’Brien, I demonstrate that a shift in the construction of character reveals a shift in the author’s relationship …

"Saint Galadriel?: J.R.R. Tolkien As The Hagiographer Of Middle-Earth", Jane Beal Phd

Journal of Tolkien Research

Abstract: Galadriel is perceived in different, sometimes contradictory ways both within the world of Middle-earth and the world of Tolkien scholarship. In some ways, she is a liminal figure, on the threshold between Middle-earth and Valinor, and between secular and sacred influences from the primary world Tolkien actually lived in. One neglected context that may help readers to understand Tolkien’s characterization of Galadriel is the medieval cult of the saints.

The cult of the saints provides specific practices and beliefs that shaped how Tolkien consciously characterized Galadriel as saint-like, especially in terms of her beauty, holiness, and power. Her saintliness …

Final Master's Portfolio, Lisa Berlekamp

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio is comprised of four papers which demonstrate my growth in English and my ability to use this growth to improve my knowledge and skills as an educator. The time spent researching writing, the teaching of writing, and diverse literature highlights my focus during the program. My work can hopefully be used by other educators who strive to adapt and create their English curriculum.

Ritual, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

Here is the place of the big tree Here is the place of coming together Known as the Ring of Gathering

Read by Nolan Meditz

Reviews, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

Reviews of our contributors' publications.

We Dreamed Ourselves Awake, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

One day we all woke up. Every one of us really woke up. We dreamed ourselves awake.

Read by Victoria Gaydosik

The Dreaded Tome Of Urawn, Lee Clark Zumpe

The Mythic Circle

"Curse you, mortal," shouted the great gray dragon vexedly as the mortal on her back fidgeted nervously in his saddle. "By the gods, be still!"

Read by Kelley Logan

Working Title, S. Dorman

The Mythic Circle

Mark Twain had gone into outer darkness on a comet, leaving his friend Jack Lewis at his desk musing on their great experience together—an awful vision of the crucifixion in which the crucified Christ was nothing but an insect.

Read by Scott Long and Steve Strickler

What Iphigenia Knows, Ama Kirchner

The Mythic Circle

1. Iphigenia is in a void. The space surrounding her is not black or gray, nor is it faded light that tapers off at the edges of her vision.

Read by Victoria Gaydosik

Falling For A Cornish Maid, Ella Wallsworth-Bell

The Mythic Circle

It’s the girl’s blue eyes that hook me in. She sits at the back of the pub, staring at me through a sea of cigarette smoke and a chatter of voices, incessant as waves on rocks.

Read by Adrian Watts

Six Years After The Wedding, Joe R. Christopher

The Mythic Circle

Arthur: Our wedding is, on this sixth anniversary, still barren. You have not had so much as a miscarriage to suggest a possible later fulfilment. I need to have an heir to my throne. Two or three heirs—royal brothers—would be even better.

Version A read by Kelley Logan and Jon Woltz

Version B read by Nolan Meditz and Jessica Salmans

Deathwater, Dusk, Meg Moseman

The Mythic Circle

Lead us past the murky lakes, where all is laid to rest and sunk in earthIn overhanging twilight, seeking has no use, and understanding dies.

Read by Meg Moseman

Mythic Blooms (Fatherless / A Vision), Mack W. Mani

The Mythic Circle

i. Papa sailed to Troy before I learned to sing, naming me and calling it a job well done.

Read by Nolan Meditz

Our Contributors, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

This is a list of our contributors for The Mythic Circle #42

Editors' Introductions, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

The Mythic Circle is a creative writing journal devoted to fantasy-inspired creative works; it has been published by the Mythopoeic Society since 1987, and earlier versions of the Society’s creative writing efforts extend to Mythril (1971 to 1980) and Mythellany (1981 to 1987). These journals have now been archived in their entirety at https://dc.swosu.edu/mythsoc/ through the efforts of the Society’s archivist, Phillip Fitzsimmons, and digital assistant Benjamin Dressler. All but the current issue may be downloaded for free, and the current issue may be purchased as a digital download or ordered as a print-on-demand title from Amazon.

In its thirty-three …

Betrothal, Lawrence Buentello

The Mythic Circle

Grayson first saw her as she rode from the trees of the forest beyond his small house. The sun, with the last of the light it threw over the hills to the west, illuminated her astride her horse in burnished gold and yellow streaks.

Read by Phillip Fitzsimmons

Troll, Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The Mythic Circle

Once upon a time there lived a troll who guarded a tollbooth on a bridge.

Read by Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

Epic, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

A back-to-the-future Shamanic telling for public recitation Sing in me, Muse, the epic tale of that Earth daughter who shook the foundations of the Dark Towers and challenged in combat the dread lords of tyranny and their master the Patriarch of Death. Before the Book, back in The Dreaming— over eons of Shaman Lore—it is attested that light is restoration for those who are eaten by their own shadows and fire is the bane of phantoms. From somewhere here, Muse, begin.

Read by David Sparenberg

The Tree That Stood Forever, Mary Alice Dixon

The Mythic Circle

One day not long ago, as time is measured by trees, a woman wandered fields of thyme and lavender near a small, hard-to-find town. She was a traveler who had become lost looking for home. Her memory was lost, too.

Read by Phillip Fitzsimmons