English Language and Literature Commons^™

Where The Light Enters, Michael Pikna

Bryant Literary Review

Max knocked lightly on Celia's door.

Dresden, Robert Kostuck

Bryant Literary Review

The mockingbird song is familiar, something from childhood; maybe a nursery rhyme buried in the deepest part of my memories.

Growth And Poverty Traps: Examples From Literature, Danielle Chaloux

Honors Scholar Theses

The writings of Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Knut Hamsun, and Laura Ingalls Wilder capture humanity on the page. The characters in the works of these authors are confronted by realistic or autobiographical situations and make choices based on history, personal preferences, societal pressures, and economic constraints, just as real-life individuals do. They can thus serve as data for illustrating the implications of economic models, specifically poverty traps. To do so, I will draw from Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens, The Fat and the Thin (1873) by Emile Zola, Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun, and The First Four Years (1971) …

2017 Spring Quiz & Quill Magazine, Otterbein English Department

Quiz and Quill

No abstract provided.

Ekphrasis: A Dutch-American Farmer Looks At Bruegel, Keith Fynaardt

Northwestern Review

Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting The Return of the Herd (1565) is the subject of a dramatic poetic treatment and the point of departure for a fictional journey concerning Bruegel’s famous picture “the lost season.” The Ekphrasis is an extended version of a Prologue and Epilogue for an in-progress novel.

"The Sudden Thrill Of That Change": Framing George Eliot's Social Vision, Cyrus Seaberry Frost

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although scholarly commentary of the last decade has engaged more intensively than ever with the content of George Eliot's ideas concerning nineteenth-century British culture, the devices and techniques Eliot employs in the transmission of those ideas remain less explored. Consequently, room exists for a study as attentive to the formal characteristics of Eliot's messages as recent scholars have been to the content of those messages. This dissertation seeks to elucidate the ways in which specific formal techniques that characterize Eliot's fictional work evince her engagement with the thinking of social theorists, particularly Ludwig Feuerbach. The project contends that Eliot internalizes …

A Merrier World:' Small Renaissances Engendered In J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium, Dominic Dicarlo Meo

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

After surviving the trenches of World War I when many of his friends did not, Tolkien continued as the rest of the world did: moving, growing, and developing, putting the darkness of war behind. He had children, taught at the collegiate level, wrote, researched. Then another Great War knocked on the global door. His sons marched off, and Britain was again consumed. The "War to End All Wars" was repeating itself and nothing was for certain. In such extended dark times, J. R. R. Tolkien drew on what he knew-language, philology, myth, and human rights-peering back in history to the …

A Fast-Moving Storm, Amanda Kelley Corbin

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection of linked short stories follows a young woman who takes on a job as a property manager in Lexington, Kentucky after the death of her parents. These stories explore a cast of characters she encounters as well as her struggle to adjust to her new life.

The Geometry Of Loss: A Novel, Elidio La Torre La Torre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the year 2025, Orlando Aniello, nicknamed “Or,” a Puerto Rican poet with a broken life, becomes a “consciousness in virtual space.” Tricked by a couple of goons that devote most of their duties to bootleg memories for people who lead dull and meaningless lives, Orlando’s personality splits into fragments. As consequence, his actual experiences blend the host’s own recollections, which accidentally upload to Orlando’s brain. If bootleg mnemonic technologies glitch, Orlando does not know who he is anymore. Indeed, Orlando/ Gogo/ Alejandro suffers anterograde memory loss, and the narrator becomes merely a voice without a body. A geometry of …

Return To Sender, Katherine Noelle Nypaver

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Return to Sender is a fictional short story that illustrates the potential consequences of neglecting to take others seriously. River Ellison, a high school senior at St. Jude’s Academy struggling with depression and habitual self-harm, receives a note from his peer regarding his thoughts on suicide. His ordinary school day transforms into twenty-four hours of repercussions that force River to see his peer for what she is—an equal. Prefacing the short story, my critical essay explains why I find C.D. Payne, John Green, Jesse Andrews, and J.D. Salinger so inspiring to the young adult literature world. I also analyze how …

"The Mouth Of The Void," "Hum", Hannah L. Comeriato

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project presents two distinct pieces of short fiction, linked through intentional stylized language, grammatical patterns, and a sectionalized narrative structure. Each individual piece of short fiction functions independently – as separate and distinct from the other, with no explicit connection in content (i.e. recurring characters, parallel timelines etc.). However, each narrative also displays a kind of complex interaction with the other, each crafted to produce, when read alongside one another, a shared indistinct aesthetic and emotional experience. This aesthetic and emotional experience is crafted, specifically, by the use of stylized verbs, the em-dash, and alternating dialogue-based and image-based sections. …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 18, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

Creative writings by students, faculty, and staff of the St. Mary's University community.

[Review Of The Book Brown Girl Dreaming, By J. Woodson], Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Jacqueline Woodson is an award-winning children's literature author, who, early in her career, was touted by renowned children's literature sholar Rudine Sims Bishop as one of the most promising children's literature authors of her generation. Lauded for her ability to write honestly about social issues, marginalized youth, and popular culture, Woodson, to date, has written over twenty-five texts for youth, spanning several genres- from novels and picture books to books-in-verse and short stories. She is, as predicted, a major voice in children's literature. In Brown Girl Dreaming, a book written for youth, Woodson explores how she learned to develop …

Swamp Boat, Gravy Boat: Memory And Place In Fiction, Kaycie Surrell

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The importance of memory to place is of particular interest to me and forms the basis for the bulk of my work. In my critical introduction I explore the work of authors and essayists who inspire my fiction work through their focus on place and memory. Specific authors include Sandra Cisneros, David Sedaris, and Pam Houston. Through my short fiction pieces I weave together the stories of my childhood from Florida to Missouri into a quilt that covers the important pieces of my life thus far. I am interested in how people are motivated by fear to write around their …

The Die Hards, Casey S. O'Higgins

Student Publications

A prequel to the Up-All-Nighters, a glimpse into the tragic tale of Rick Rearman: Vampire Hunter. The average man living a supernatural life, Rick Rearman hunts for creatures of the night to avenge his fallen mother. Rearman only wants three things in life, a girl, justice, and a new wardrobe. The spectacularly unspectacular Rick Rearman doesn't deserve a poetry; however, his story was too compelling to pass up.

Float By Joeann Hart, Tonia L. Payne

The Goose

Review of Joeann Hart's Float.

Yes, And Back Again By Sandy Marie Bonny, Catriona Duncan

The Goose

Review of Sandy Marie Bonny's Yes, and Back Again.

You've Gotta Read This: Summer Reading At Musselman Library (2016), 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. Our goal is to inspire students and the rest of our community to take time in the summer to sit back, relax, and read.

With the 2016 collection, we again bring together recommendations from across our campus—the books, movies, TV shows, and even musicals that have meant something special to us over the past year. 124 faculty, administrators and staff offer up a record number of 226 recommendations.

We include five special features this year. Two of our regular columnists are …

Golden Fantasy: An Examination Of Generic & Literary Fantasy In Popular Writing, Zechariah James Morrison

Honors Projects

This essay attempts to analyze critical theory concerning the division between generic fantasy fiction and higher fantasy literature. In examining how these two different types of fantasy writing are identified by popular criticism, the space in-between is defined and labeled "golden fantasy". This kind of fantasy is identified by maintaining a balance between subversive originality, and derivative reproduction, and is generally popular among consumers and academics as a source of both entertainment and scholarly research. The essay is then followed by 3 original chapters by the essay writer, in an attempt to demonstrate some of the elements of golden fantasy …

Urgent News From The Front, Jennifer J. Gray

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This creative thesis is an original work in the genres of fiction and poetry. It consists of three short stories and a chapbook of poems. My work focuses on the ways we find to survive, to create meaning, and to connect to ourselves, to those around us, and to the world in which we live.

Advisor: Jonis Agee

The Lightbringer: A Novel, Brett L. Butler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Lightbringer is about a collision of two worlds: the world of a contemporary South Florida town and the magical world of Zariel, bringing with it the universal threat of the Terra. Childhood friends, Breck and Tom, are thrown into the middle of an ancient conflict between the Terra—a collection of alien races that have been transformed by darkness—and the forces of good. After an encounter with a magical pool of golden water, the boys must learn to use their new abilities to protect against the growing Terranox army. In the midst of their struggle, however, a mysterious companion—the Lightbringer, …

Satori 2016, Winona State University

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang., Todd Edward Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the first two chapters of a novel. The novel parodies the capitalist and consumerist United States of the 21st Century in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Donald Barthelme.

Heaven On Their Minds, Rebecca Kate Robison

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Heaven on Their Minds is a novel written from the first-person perspective of teenage

protagonist Melody O’Malley. The plot details Melody’s attempt, along with two close friends, to undermine their conservative Christian theater camp’s summer production of Godspell via the edgier songs and theology of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though ostensibly a satire of the Evangelical Christian community, Melody’s insecurities are the true heart of the novel--her fraught relationship with her best friends, her concerns about her post-high school future, and her ill-advised crush on the most prominent RFC (Robot for Christ) in the camp, a crush that has terrible consequences …

The Disappearance Of The Hms Umbra, Francesca M. Costa

Student Publications

A sailor aboard the HMS Umbra has a strange run-in with an ominous fog that won't lift. As the days drag by, the weather is the least of his problems.

Agonie | The Agony, Jerry Auld, Gilles Mossiere

The Goose

Un accident d’alpinisme s’est produit en 1920 près du mont Assiniboine dans les Rocheuses canadiennes. Le professeur Winthrop E. Stone fit une chute mortelle après s’être décordé sous le sommet du mont Eon ; sa femme Margaret, n’ayant pu compléter la descente, dut attendre les secours pendant sept jours, sans eau, nourriture ni vêtements chauds. Cette tragédie la marqua à vie, et elle n’en reparla jamais. Jon Whyte, écrivain de Banff, s’est inspiré de ces événements dans The Agony of Mrs. Stone, poème publié en 1977, qui sert de toile de fond à cette nouvelle. / A climbing accident took …

Cabalcor: An Extracted History By Sun Belt, Alec Follett

The Goose

Review of Sun Belt's Cabalcor: An Extracted History.

Literature And Popular Fiction : Examining The Distinction, Mark Christian Dards Collington

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As a society we have developed a hierarchical distinction that we apply to fiction, defining some of it as superior (literature), and some of it as inferior (popular fiction). While this distinction undeniably exists, it resides in our social consciousness, and is not a delineation that is supported by demonstrable differences in the properties of the texts themselves. Rather, it serves to inflect our readings and interpretations of the texts dependent upon their categorization. This hierarchy has been constructed and imposed over time through the treatment of works by critics, academics, librarians, marketing departments, and others in a variety of …

I Think Sam Knows, Roger Walkup

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This story is about Sam and Oran, who are two lower class people entering adulthood and gaining fiscal independence by working as cashiers at a large store. They are struggling to accept their respective childhoods and trying to make peace with the way people are or at least appear to be. They cope with the difficulties of their loneliness, limited resources and troublesome interactions with various meditative activities. Still, they cannot escape the tension between their internal and external environments

Comanche Boys, Benjamin D. Honea

Theses and Dissertations--English

Comanche Boys is a novel that was written and revised during Benjamin Honea’s time at the University of Kentucky. The novel focuses on Brandon, who lives in rural southwest Oklahoma, and how the arrival of two people in his life, one old and one new, changes his future irrevocably. Taking place at the intersections of modern American and Native American life, the narrative explores history, culture, mythology, faith, despair, racism, poverty, vengeance, and justice. The struggles of the past and present, the lost and reclaimed, propel and pervade the lives of the characters.