Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

English Language and Literature Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Discipline
Institution
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1531 - 1560 of 47334

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

The Mudwoman In The Academia: The Spectral Presence Of Jane Eyre And Antoinette Cosway In Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman, Stéphanie Durrans Apr 2025

The Mudwoman In The Academia: The Spectral Presence Of Jane Eyre And Antoinette Cosway In Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman, Stéphanie Durrans

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

While Jane Eyre has been lauded as a feminist novel, its modernist prequel Wide Sargasso Sea clearly aims at recovering the lost voice of the much-maligned Bertha Rochester from an altogether different feminist perspective. In her 1985 essay on these two novels, Joyce Carol Oates highlights their dual relationship in terms of romance and anti-romance, regarding Rhys’s novel as “a reverse mirror image of Jane Eyre’s and Rochester’s England.” Commenting upon the brief encounter between Jane and Rochester’s first wife as depicted by Jean Rhys, Oates also points out that, “[i]nhabiting contrary worlds, one woman is a savage to the …


The 11-Year Itch: Exploitation As Sublimation In Blonde (Joyce Carol Oates, 2000; Andrew Dominik, 2022), Jocelyn R. Dupont Apr 2025

The 11-Year Itch: Exploitation As Sublimation In Blonde (Joyce Carol Oates, 2000; Andrew Dominik, 2022), Jocelyn R. Dupont

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

The goal of this article is to discuss Andrew Dominik’s much-criticized adaptation of Oates’ novel Blonde (2000), released on the Netflix streaming platform in September 2022. It aims at re-assessing the movie in the light of its literary hypotext, which appears to have been rather unfairly left out of much of the debate surrounding the release and critical reception of the film. In a first part, this article briefly addresses the stakes of Dominik’s adaptation, which are more complex than they might seem, notably on account of the extreme iconicity of its subject, even more so than its subject matter. …


Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story, Nicolas P. Boileau Apr 2025

Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story, Nicolas P. Boileau

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This paper seeks to address the question of Oates’s relation to feminist and gender theories by looking at two novellas published consecutively, Beasts and Rape: A Love Story in the beginning of the 2000s. The short texts share a common storyline based on rape, which is far from uncommon in Oates’s fiction. However, I argue that there is something very specific in these two novellas in the way Oates chooses to handle the testimony of the rape, both overtly and covertly, both in graphic details and in repressed forms of expression, giving way to a reflection on women’s vulnerable position …


Joyce Carol Oates And Feminism: Facts Found And Foundered, Gavin J. Cologne-Brookes Apr 2025

Joyce Carol Oates And Feminism: Facts Found And Foundered, Gavin J. Cologne-Brookes

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This essay explores the nuanced relationship between Joyce Carol Oates and feminism, distinguishing between Oates as an individual and “JCO” as the authorial process. Through analysis of novels like Babysitter, the essay argues that Oates’s fiction resists fixed labels, instead foregrounding ambiguity, interpretation, and the limitations of categorization. Drawing on philosophical and literary contexts, it contends that while Oates’s work invites feminist readings, her narrative style deliberately undermines definitive conclusions. Ultimately, the essay suggests that JCO’s writing stimulates inquiry and self-reflection, positioning art as a process of response rather than a vehicle for asserting categorical truths—including those of feminism.


Exploring Specters Of Feminism In The Work Of Joyce Carol Oates, Nicolas P. Boileau, Tanya L. Tromble Apr 2025

Exploring Specters Of Feminism In The Work Of Joyce Carol Oates, Nicolas P. Boileau, Tanya L. Tromble

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This collection originates from the international conference “Specters of Feminism in the Work of Joyce Carol Oates,” held at Aix-Marseille Université in March 2024 as part of the broader project “Women and the F-Word: Thinking about Women’s Resistance to Feminism.” The introduction situates Oates’s vast and varied oeuvre within evolving feminist discourses, highlighting her ambivalent personal stance toward feminism and the critical consensus that her work engages deeply with feminist themes, especially sexual violence, trauma, and the complexities of gendered power. The essays gathered here explore how Oates’s stylistic experimentation, intertextuality, and representations of female agency and victimhood simultaneously reflect, …


Fantasy And Faith: Lewis And Tolkien On Magic In Fantastical Literature, Zion Lang Apr 2025

Fantasy And Faith: Lewis And Tolkien On Magic In Fantastical Literature, Zion Lang

Senior Honors Theses

Despite biblical warnings against the occult, Christian authors C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien incorporated many kinds of magic into their works of fantasy. These authors had an orthodox view of the occult, but they also believed that fantasy magic differs from the esoteric: its purpose is imaginative, rather than power-seeking, and it is usually part of the imagined laws of the fantasy world. Lewis focused on the mythic side of fantasy and included more ambiguous magic. Tolkien focused on fantasy as eucatastrophic fairy tale, and his works include somewhat divine supernatural forces. Nonetheless, both authors saw fantasy …


I Am Guillotine, Nathanael Joseph Williams Apr 2025

I Am Guillotine, Nathanael Joseph Williams

Fiction MFA Theses

63 years after the Mad War, an exchange of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, a twelve-year old girl wakes up on a train. She has no memory of where she comes from or who she was before the train, but when it stops, there is no doubt that she is now a slave. Brought to the town of Bludgeonburg in chains, she is sold off, along with a boy named Mohawk, to a man named Aabrax as a pit slave. The odd are firmly against Aabrax, and Gilly is not expected to survive, but by a stroke of luck, she …


Kutztown University 2025 Composition Conference Program, English Department, Kutztown University Apr 2025

Kutztown University 2025 Composition Conference Program, English Department, Kutztown University

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

Program Booklet


Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle Apr 2025

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …


Magic, Magicians And Detective Fiction: Essays On Intersecting Modes Of Mystery, Edited By Rebecca Josephy, G. Connor Salter Apr 2025

Magic, Magicians And Detective Fiction: Essays On Intersecting Modes Of Mystery, Edited By Rebecca Josephy, G. Connor Salter

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

Magic, Magicians and Detective Fiction edited by Rebecca Josephy considers how magic appears in detective stories, from the seemingly miraculous exploits of Arsene Lupin to the moral dilemmas of occult detective Elvis Infante.


Harry Potter And The Myth Of Milennials: Identity, Reception, And Politics By Priscilla Hobbs, Dominic Nardi Apr 2025

Harry Potter And The Myth Of Milennials: Identity, Reception, And Politics By Priscilla Hobbs, Dominic Nardi

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

No abstract provided.


Art And Enchantment: How Wonder Works By Patrick Curry, N. Trevor Brierly Apr 2025

Art And Enchantment: How Wonder Works By Patrick Curry, N. Trevor Brierly

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

Patrick Curry has written extensively on Tolkien, art and enchantment, and Art and Enchantment is his most academic in nature on these subjects, and the most fully developed and detailed. Curry describes and analyzes both enchantment and disenchantment. He focuses on art, artists and artistic movements and whether they might be more, or less, conducive to enchantment. In particular he notes that modernism is largely hostile to enchantment.


Mapping A Sense Of Humor: Narrative And Space In Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels By Daniel Lüthi, Susan Moore Apr 2025

Mapping A Sense Of Humor: Narrative And Space In Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels By Daniel Lüthi, Susan Moore

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

No abstract provided.


Harry Potter And Resistance By Beth Sutton-Ramspeck, Douglas Charles Kane Apr 2025

Harry Potter And Resistance By Beth Sutton-Ramspeck, Douglas Charles Kane

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

No abstract provided.


Potterversity: Essays Exploring The World Of Harry Potter Edited By Kathryn Mcdaniel And Emily Strand, And The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, And Beyond: More Essays On The Works Of J.K. Rowling Edited By Lana Whited, Liam Butchart Apr 2025

Potterversity: Essays Exploring The World Of Harry Potter Edited By Kathryn Mcdaniel And Emily Strand, And The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, And Beyond: More Essays On The Works Of J.K. Rowling Edited By Lana Whited, Liam Butchart

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

No abstract provided.


Mimetic Theory & Middle-Earth: Untangling Desire In Tolkien’S Legendarium By Matthew J. Distefano, Curtis Gruenler Apr 2025

Mimetic Theory & Middle-Earth: Untangling Desire In Tolkien’S Legendarium By Matthew J. Distefano, Curtis Gruenler

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

Matthew Distefano’s friendly volume extends considerably the conversation about resonances between two twentieth-century literary giants, J. R. R. Tolkien and René Girard. Distefano not only clarifies essential aspects of Tolkien’s work by reading it through the lens of Girard’s mimetic theory but also, through his particular interest in how Hobbits provide models of positive mimetic desire, highlights, extends, and one might even say enacts aspects of Girard’s theory that are easily overlooked.


Diary Of An Old Soul By George Macdonald, Annotated Edition, Tiffany Brooke Martin Apr 2025

Diary Of An Old Soul By George Macdonald, Annotated Edition, Tiffany Brooke Martin

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

Book Review of Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald. Annotated edition with introd. and notes by Timothy Larsen. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2024.


Tolkien’S Cosmology: Divine Beings And Middle-Earth By Sam Mcbride, Phillip Fitzsimmons Apr 2025

Tolkien’S Cosmology: Divine Beings And Middle-Earth By Sam Mcbride, Phillip Fitzsimmons

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

Sam McBride writes the following in his Introduction to Tolkien’s Cosmology: Divine Beings and Middle-earth “Exploring Tolkien’s legendarium will show the cosmological structure of Middle-earth, but also reveal moments in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when the metaphysical impacts the physical.” (p. x) The book delivers on its promise to show the reader places within the stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings likely to be influenced by spiritual beings who are described in The Silmarillion and the other volumes of the Legendarium. McBride’s book gives the reader a convincing description of the divine …


J.R.R. Tolkien: A Very Short Introduction By Matthew Townend, Laura N. Van Dyke Apr 2025

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Very Short Introduction By Matthew Townend, Laura N. Van Dyke

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

No abstract provided.


“Perilous And Fair” In “A Bleak, Barren Land”: A Feminist Responds To Dylan Lee Henderson’S Essay, Robin A. Reid Apr 2025

“Perilous And Fair” In “A Bleak, Barren Land”: A Feminist Responds To Dylan Lee Henderson’S Essay, Robin A. Reid

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

Dylan Lee Henderson’s 2023 essay in Mythlore (vol. 42, no. 1) titled “A Bleak, Barren Land’: Women and Fertility in The Lord of the Rings,” claims that “many feminist scholars [since 1971] have condemned Tolkien’s depiction of women as inadequate and denounced Tolkien himself as a misogynist” (88). In my response, I argue that Henderson’s essay reduces a fifty-plus year history of scholarship (much of it by feminists) exploring the complex, contradictory issues of Tolkien’s female characters to a single negative stereotype. I described that stereotype in my 2015 essay in Perilous and Fair (Croft and Donovan) in my conclusion …


What Will We Do With The Christmas Pudding?: Joy Davidman, William Lindsay Gresham, And "Christmas In The Workhouse", Gabriel C. Salter, Clark Sheldon Apr 2025

What Will We Do With The Christmas Pudding?: Joy Davidman, William Lindsay Gresham, And "Christmas In The Workhouse", Gabriel C. Salter, Clark Sheldon

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

The poem "Christmas in the Workhouse" archived in William Lindsay Gresham's papers at first appears to be a random transcript in his files. Exploring the work's publication history and Gresham's contributions to War Poems of the United Nations, a book edited by his second wife Joy Davidman, suggests that in fact "Christmas in the Workhouse" is part of the larger story of how they informed each other's work in the 1940s.


Weaving Wikipedia’S Middle-Earth Web, Ian F. Alexander Apr 2025

Weaving Wikipedia’S Middle-Earth Web, Ian F. Alexander

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

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth fantasy writing has become extremely popular, and has been extensively studied by scholars. Part of the demand for information on the subject is met by Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with a large readership. I have extended its coverage of Middle-earth subjects to more than 200 Good Articles, divided roughly equally between in-universe subjects such as “Aragorn” and more scholarly subjects such as “Heroism in The Lord of the Rings”. Each article is required to stand alone as a notable topic in its own right, as demonstrated by its citations to reliable sources. Other sites like Tolkien Gateway …


St. Jack’S Experiment House For Juvenile Delinquents: Responding To Aslan’S Breath By Matthew Dickerson, Gabriel C. Salter Apr 2025

St. Jack’S Experiment House For Juvenile Delinquents: Responding To Aslan’S Breath By Matthew Dickerson, Gabriel C. Salter

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

Matthew Dickerson raises an important point in his latest book "Aslan's Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia" that Lewis offers a theologically problematic example of combating evil when his heroes terrorize the bullies at Experiment House at the end of The Silver Chair. Exploring Dickerson's point, and particularly how Lewis pairs vengeance with saitre in this scene, challenges readers to see that Lewis' work for children is often more transgressive than it appears, not unlike the concerns raised about Roald Dahl's vengeful punishment scenes. Extending the popular Dahl vs. Lewis discussion shows how they both may be read as …


"Better To Reign In Hell": Ambivalence And Orcs In The Lay Of The Children Of Húrin, Matthew Thompson-Handell Apr 2025

"Better To Reign In Hell": Ambivalence And Orcs In The Lay Of The Children Of Húrin, Matthew Thompson-Handell

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

A remarkable passage in Tolkien's incomplete Lay of the Children of Húrin, describing the Orc-band after its capture of Túrin, provides an echo of Milton's assembly of fallen angels in Book I of Paradise Lost. The description of the Orc-band also hints at the kind of ambivalence which has often been ascribed to Milton's portrayal of Satan. This in turn provides a connection with recent work on humanity in Tolkien's depiction of the Orcs.


Interview With Professor John Mckinnell Concerning Tolkien’S Lectures On Beowulf, Łukasz Neubauer Apr 2025

Interview With Professor John Mckinnell Concerning Tolkien’S Lectures On Beowulf, Łukasz Neubauer

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

Professor John McKinnell attended his classes on Beowulf as a student in the early 1960s. The interview sheds more light on Tolkien as a lecturer.


Alan Garner’S Elidor: The “Anti-Narnian Fantasy”?, Laura N. Van Dyke Apr 2025

Alan Garner’S Elidor: The “Anti-Narnian Fantasy”?, Laura N. Van Dyke

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

British fantasy writer Alan Garner has referred to his novel Elidor as "THE anti-Narnian fantasy," though he says this was done unconsciously. In this article, I explore why Garner positioned his work as the antithesis to C.S. Lewis's fantasy novels, and argue that in many ways it in fact complements rather than contradicts the vision Lewis conveys.


The Bright Sword And Its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, And Medievalism In The Lord Of The Rings, Gavin S. Davis Apr 2025

The Bright Sword And Its Sharpness: Swords, Symbolism, And Medievalism In The Lord Of The Rings, Gavin S. Davis

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

Swords are paradoxical objects that hold in tension both aesthetic beauty and repulsion, and how one goes about resolving this paradox has much to say about one’s personal ideology. This paper investigates Tolkien’s representation of swords in The Lord of the Rings as ideologically loaded objects with shifting symbolic significance between the cultures of Rohan, Gondor, and Hobbits. These changes in significance produce three kinds of medievalism, shaped by differences in their interaction the cultural imagination of the medieval sword. Through the Rohirrim, Tolkien provides a medievalism of spectacle—an idealized world of valor to be marveled at from the safe …


Book Culture And Narrative In Martin’S A Song Of Fire And Ice, Maria Damkjær Apr 2025

Book Culture And Narrative In Martin’S A Song Of Fire And Ice, Maria Damkjær

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

What do books represent in G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire? This article examines their role as objects and their limitations within a narrative obsessed with loss of knowledge. Books, which are handled, lost, found, read, or destroyed, are both a shorthand for a fantasy world’s material culture, but also a metafictional nod to the reality of the reader. Contemporary fantasy authors, I posit, are both fascinated by texts, and also troubled by their limited chance of survival over the very long periods that the genre tends to sketch. Deep time is hostile to book knowledge, and …


Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Beowulf: Rowling’S Beowulfian Allusions, Analogues, And Inversions, Mark-Elliot Finley Apr 2025

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Beowulf: Rowling’S Beowulfian Allusions, Analogues, And Inversions, Mark-Elliot Finley

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

In this essay, I suggest Rowling’s Goblet of Fire literarily echoes the Old English epic poem Beowulf, while simultaneously updating the medieval epic to reflect the novel’s place within the modernized, Christian-influenced fantasy tradition. While cursory popular links have been made between the Old English epic with Rowling’s novel, this essay presents a sustained dialogue between Beowulf and Goblet of Fire. Both heroes engage in one-to-one combat (Beowulf with Grendel and Harry with Voldemort), venture into an unknown watery abyss (Beowulf diving into Grendel’s mother’s underwater cave and Harry rescuing Ron and Gabrielle from the merpeople in Hogwarts’s …


Pandemic Mythmaking: Covid-19 And Mythological Symbolism In Indian Folk Art, Ishani Anwesha Joshi, Sathyaraj Venkatesan Apr 2025

Pandemic Mythmaking: Covid-19 And Mythological Symbolism In Indian Folk Art, Ishani Anwesha Joshi, Sathyaraj Venkatesan

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

Through a comprehensive analysis of Durga Bai Vyam’s “Samura Manthan” and Rupsona and Bahadur Chitrakar’s “Corona Rakshasa,” this article aims to investigate how mythological stories and themes have been used in the Indian context in folk art during the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigation will offer insights into how artists have leveraged mythological symbolism to infuse their works with richer layers of meaning, thereby engaging readers in a deeper exploration of the pandemic’s impact on society and the human psyche. By close-reading the aforementioned paintings, this study aims to illustrate the evolving visual representation of cultural narratives …