English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Rise Of The Machine: The Annihilation Of Human Connection In "The Rainbow", Elizabeth Miller

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This essay analyzes the growth of industrialization in England at the turn of the century by examining D. H. Lawrence’s 1915 novel, The Rainbow. More specifically, this essay will focus on the role of machine culture and how the growing presence of industry acted as a catalyst for societal destruction. I argue that Lawrence defines machine culture as the worship of the machine, roboticism, the erasure of memory, and misogyny. These social constructs are exposed through the male characters in the novel to express Lawrence’s attitude toward the destructiveness of industrialization. He uses these characteristics to represent the type of …

Claude Mckay's Protest Sonnets, Lily Jensen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

The sonnet tradition is rich with change. It is a genre forged in strict conventions: fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, a volta (or even multiple turns), and themes of praise and unrequited love. Because of these rules, sonneteers from Petrarch to Shakespeare, Donne to Rosetti, and Hopkins to Hughes have used this form and bent it to their own personal uses. The sonnet has an intense social, cultural, and political history. This paper analyzes how Claude Mckay both used the conventions of the sonnet tradition and broke from the sonnet tradition in the poems “If We Must Die” and “The Lynching” …

Recognizing Freedom: Zitkala-Ša's Fight For Native Citizenship, Camille J. Karpowitz

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Minority groups protesting and petitioning for civil rights have been fundamental to United States history. Before the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Zitkala-Ša, a Native American rights activist, positions herself as a voice for Native citizenship. Within the native community, however, the issue of citizenship was not as easily advocated for, due to past injustices perpetrated by the United States government. As a result, Zitkala-Ša has been labeled an assimilationist or one who connect to either Natives or Americans.

While her advocacy for citizenship does not go unnoticed by scholars, it is often ignored in her works outside of political …

From Alchemy To Algorithms: The Legacy Of John Dee's Occult Magic In Digital Age, George Goga

Myth and Science, 2023-24

The Renaissance polymath John Dee worked as a spy, occult magician, and advisor to the Queen who blended the scientific with the magical. "From Alchemy to Algorithms: The Legacy of John Dee’s Occult Magic in the Digital Age" explores Dee's lasting influence in today's world.

Exploring The Matriarchal Past To Forge A Modern Identity: Maternal Origins In Woolf And Ihimaera, Kirsten W. Burningham

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Though the writings of Virginia Woolf and Witi Ihimaera are “incommensurable” in many ways, I find “commesurablilities”––the kind of commensurabilities the Susan Stanford Friedman seeks out across the planetary landscape of modernism––in the way they negotiate a new creative identity in a modern environment with the bang clash of history and present ringing in their ears. I see this commensurability in at least three key features: 1) Woolf and Ihimaera each gave birth to new literary movements: Woolf was mother to high British Modernism with experimental techniques such as free indirect discourse and the relegation of plot to the background; …

Women After Waterloo: Evolving Females In Jane Austen’S Persuasion, Madison Maloney

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In Jane Austen’s last novel, Persuasion, she offers a glimpse into a character that breaks past the societal restraints women typically experience. Mrs. Croft, ostensibly, is the first Austen woman to find her way out of England; the Napoleon wars afford her the opportunity to travel the seas with her Admiral husband and participate in traditionally masculine experiences. Though other women in Austen novels do travel, they remain in-country, and they always find their way back to their original society. Throughout many wars in history, the absence of men as they fight in the military offers women the opportunity to …

Subverting Social Order: Investigating Class Critique In Homer’S Odyssey, Riley R. Mayes

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

The ‘Homeric Question,’ or the question of who Homer was, has long preoccupied the minds of the Western world (Foley 2). Due to the amorphous nature of oral tradition and the lost histories of ancient Greece, it is likely that this question may never be answered to satisfaction. However, what historical data we do have allows us to synthesize a composite character of who Homer might have been and, more importantly, what he represented. As we will explore, records reveal that the mythology of ancient Greece arose from the lower rungs of the social ladder; storytellers were often members of …

“Hopelessly Crippled”: The Construction Of Disability In Borges’S “Funes, His Memory”, Madilyn Abbe

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In Jorge Luis Borges’s “Funes, His Memory,” the narrator presents Ireneo Funes as an intriguing example of both physical and cognitive atypicality. Although the narrator is quick to identify Funes’s deficiencies, he unashamedly acknowledges his own cognitive weaknesses as well. Using a literary disability studies lens, this article examines the construction of disability within the text, arguing that the narrator imposes disability onto Funes to mask the possibility that he be categorized as disabled. The narrator sets up an ableist binary to undermine Funes physically, yet this binary falls apart when applied to cognitive ability. In order to address this …

Henrietta Maria: Royalist Women’S Representations Of The French Catholic Queen, Kim Hansen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

By the mid-15^th century, the royal marriage of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria incited enough conflict to spark civil war, as the English struggled to reconcile between the long-established image of female English domesticity and a pervasive cultural expectation for equality between marriage partners. Any form of equality in the royal marriage called the absolute power of the king into question, as it would imply that his actions had included her direct involvement, and even at times were more representative of her, not his, views. Letters captured at the Battle of Naseby confirmed fears that the queen …

Fiqws Killer Stories Syllabus For Writing Section, Serhiy Metenko, Serhiy Metenko

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus informs the students of the course and their expected deliverables.

William Caxton's Paris And Vienne And Blanchardyn And Eglantine, Harriet Elizabeth Hudson

TEAMS Middle English Texts

William Caxton’s Paris and Vienne and Blanchardyn and Eglantine are English versions of romances well-known in medieval and early Renaissance Europe, but outside the modern canon of early English literature. Like many of his publications, they are translations of prose works circulating at the court of Burgundy, but unlike his other romances, they do not belong to the matters of the Nine Worthies. They are independent narratives of love and adventure presenting two differing but complementary accounts of chivalry and courtly love. Following fifteenth-century fashions, they treat conventional materials with a degree of realism and imbue characters with subjectivity. Blanchardyn …

---

Go to article

Fantasy Escapism: Using Role-Playing Games To Explore Mental Health And Gender Identity, Aidan Cipolla

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

This project analyzes how escapism through the use of role-playing games can be used as a coping mechanism for those struggling with a variety of topics, including gender dysphoria and mental health issues. The project takes an ethnographic approach to data gathering, consisting of interviews with a small group of Dungeons and Dragons / video game players, and personal anecdotes regarding the author’s experience with escapism.

Warnings Against The Exploitation Of Children In Young Adult Dystopian Literature, James Henry Lambert

English Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The works of Suzanne Collins, Koushun Takami, and Neal Shusterman present a unique subset of young adult literature in which young adults are forced to kill one another. My thesis argues that the presentation of child gladiators in these stories is a form of weaponization conducted by the fictional governments as deterrent weapons against the parents of these fictional dystopias. This weaponization is accomplished through the creation of spectacular events that are meant to draw the attention to the power of the government, also as a form of deterrence against rebellion. Next, my thesis demonstrates how the human body is …

#Metoo And Literary Studies: Reading, Writing, And Teaching About Sexual Violence And Rape Culture, Gabrielle Stecher

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Fiqws The Politics Of Language (Composition Section), Sarah Z. Perez

Open Educational Resources

ZTC syllabus and class calendar with assignment and text links for Freshman Inquiry Writing Seminar (FIQWS) Composition class.

Ahab’S Soul: An Exploration Of The Hero Of Moby-Dick, Jaedon Wilkinson

The Kabod

Presented at the National Collegiate Research Conference at Harvard University, January 2023.

See also Research Week 2023 Poster.

Paradise And Paradiso: Echoes Of A Fortunate Fall, Kathryn Alley

The Kabod

Presented at the National Collegiate Research Conference at Harvard University, January 2023.

Front Matter

The Robert Frost Review

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Virginia Smith

The Robert Frost Review

No abstract provided.

Frights And Forests: The Hellish Landscape Of The Dark Forest, From Sleepy Hollow To The Forest Of Arden, Minna Nizam

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This paper seeks to explore forest settings in fantasy, and its hellish landscapes. From the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, to the frights and horrors of mythical creatures in fantasy settings placed in forests. The purpose of this study is to dive deep into the fear of the forest, its early days in storytelling, to more modern renditions. Sources used will be primarily books, and texts within books, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, and much more.

Mythopoeic Awards Discussion, David Lenander, David Emerson

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

No abstract provided.

Seven Minutes In Hell: Hells In Fantasy Games, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Join Nyssa Gilkey on a tour through several different fantasy video game depictions of hell. We’ll spend about seven (-ish) minutes looking around each hell or underworld before moving on, touring Helheim in God of War and God of War: Ragnarok, Hades and Elysium as portrayed in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey DLC, and the Duat of ancient Egypt in Assassin’s Creed: Origins DLC. With sufficient time and interest, we can tour other fantasy depictions of hell. Participants will be able to ask questions and discuss throughout the journey.

The Image Of Satan In Evangelical Children’S Fantasy, Melody Green

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Over the last few decades, niche publishers have presented several children’s fantasy series marketed as being “in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien.” These publishers, however, are neither British, nor are they Anglican or Catholic. They are instead American Evangelical organizations, providing a space for faith-informed stories that wander somewhere between allegory and parable. Within the pages of these texts can be found not only the expected Christ-figures, but there are also Satan-figures and hellish landscapes much more likely to reflect concepts from Dante, Milton, and medieval witch-hunting guides than from the Bible, the text that evangelicals claim to be …

Hell As An Exploration Of Sin: A Comparison Of Alan Moore’S Providence To Dante’S Inferno, Zachary Rutledge

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In Alan Moore’s graphic novel Providence, Robert Black travels Lovecraftian New England and suffers a series of horrifying encounters—each an allusion to a Lovecraft story. These encounters contain direct references to various sins and taboos, thereby making explicit much of the sublimated sexuality in Lovecraft’s works. Therefore, Black’s journey constitutes not only a trip through Lovecraft’s mythology but also reads as a cataloguing of sins reminiscent of Dante’s passage through the levels of sin in Inferno. This paper identifies and explores the similarities between Dante and Black as examples of those who descend to the underworld along with a …

Political Demons: Society As Hell In Hellblazer And Sandman, Andrew Burt

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the Hellblazer and Sandman comic book universes, hell depends on the writer’s worldview and often on the decade in which they are writing, appearing as a twisted version of a dreary regular world. Thus, this hell is often related to the contemporary Western political and cultural landscape as seen through Judeo-Christian conceptions of hell, demonology, and fears of everlasting torment and damnation, just like Dante’s Inferno and many other representations for centuries. In creating a hell that mirrors the modern world and accounts for contemporary folklore about the supernatural, the creators humanize the character’s quests and reify the fruitlessness …

Panel: The Rings Of Power Season 1: Underworlds, Overworlds, And Ocean Worlds, Tim Lenz, Leah Hagan, Grace Moone, Pablo Guss

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Now that the first of five planned seasons of Amazon’s big budget Second Age adaptation The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has aired, we will provide a retrospective of Season 1. We will compare Tolkien’s Second Age writings with the realized version in the show, including how the writers and showrunners have interpreted certain specific passages from the texts, and where significant departures were made for sake of adaptation. We will highlight themes of the season, as well as specific characters, relationships, and settings that have resonated with audiences, and speculate on where the series could potentially …

Who The Hell Is Helen Of Sparta?, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The rising popularity of Greek mythology is due in some part to female authors such as Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes lending a fresh perspective to the Homeric tradition. However, these female authors tend to actually reduce the importance of one of the most important female characters of the Trojan War: Helen. Helen of Sparta has been an enigma to writers throughout the last 3000 years, her story changing with each iteration and era. Since Homer’s Iliad, the most beautiful woman in the world has been victim and villain, strong and weak willed. She has chosen husbands, and been …

Pullman’S Problematic Paradise: Dissolving Into Dust, David E. Isaacs

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the His Dark Materials trilogy, Phillip Pullman has openly positioned himself as the anti-C.S. Lewis who attempts to embed the gospel of atheism through his fantasy novels. Pullman recasts classics such as Paradise Lost and Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell so that humans triumph over the oppressive Authority by learning that sinning is simply enjoying life. This paper will specifically explore Pullman’s depictions of the underworld and his alternative vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in The Amber Spyglass, examining Pullman’s attempts to assure readers that by rejecting Christian views of the final translation, one can …

Hellish Landscapes In J.R.R. Tolkien’S Legendarium, Willow Dipasquale

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium is rich with magical and mythological elements—enchanted rings, powerful wizards, stories told long ago—and near-Biblical struggles of good over evil, power over life and death, and the inexorable passage of time. The Halls of Mandos in Valinor even have echoes of the “afterlife,” serving as a liminal place for the spirits of Elves to await their next destination. Interestingly, though, a “hell” in the classic sense (that is, a spiritual region of eternal torment and suffering) does not seem to truly exist in Tolkien’s imagined worlds. However, Tolkien does fill those worlds with hellish landscapes: Utumno and …

Planes Of Oblivion In The Elder Scrolls, Michael Barros

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The planes of Oblivion from The Elder Scrolls (TES) series are not explicitly Hell; they are any dimensions of reality which are not under control of the Aedra, the benevolent spiritual entities. As a result, these planes may be totally unknown, pleasant, chaotic, or horrifying, depending on who is in charge, reflecting the personality of its ruler. These planes are at the heart of the franchise, and the intrusion of the planes of Oblivion and its inhabitants is a constant in the series. The planes of Oblivion are a reimagining of Hell as a place of potential, rather than evil. …