English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Nurse Of Elfland: Lizzie Endicott And C.S. Lewis, Reggie Weems

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

In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis introduced Lizzie Endicott as the first of two "other blessings" in his childhood, even before his introduction of Warnie. But apart from his abbreviated 136-word biography, very little is known about the nurse who introduced Lewis to faery tales. Based on the Lewis Family Papers, genealogical research, and personal interviews with Lizzie’s relatives, this article introduces Lizzie to the world of Lewismania. It also suggests various ways in which Lizzie influenced the man and the author that C.S. Lewis became, as well as the mythical worlds he created and Lewis’s anonymous tributes to …

Well, I’M Back: Samwise Gamgee And The Future Of Tolkien’S Literary Pastoral, Mg Prezioso

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

This article examines the treatment of the literary pastoral in The Lord of the Rings in order to demonstrate that Tolkien’s pastoral, often considered a vestige of authorial nostalgia, is as forward-looking as it is wistful. Through Samwise Gamgee and his connection to the Shire, Tolkien presents a pastoral that, though rooted in memory, is as mutable as nature itself – one that orients the reader forward and conveys that change is not only something to be accepted, but also embraced.

Goddess And Mortal: The Celtic And The French Morgan Le Fay In Tolkien’S Silmarillion, Clare Moore

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

Few characters change more in their depiction throughout ‘traditional’ Arthurian literature than Morgan le Fay, who transitions from the benevolent and supernatural Queen of the Isle of Apples to the mortal sister of King Arthur with a complicated relationship to her brother and his court. These two versions of the Arthurian enchantress are represented in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini and the French Vulgate Cycle, and they parallel two of Tolkien’s prominent female characters in The Silmarillion: Lúthien and Aredhel. Establishing parallels between Monmouth’s Morgen and Tolkien’s Lúthien demonstrates both a connection to the Celtic tradition and a departure …

"The Evil Side Of Heroic Life": Monsters And Heroes In Beowulf And The Hobbit, Catherine Hall

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

Tolkien scholars have long studied the many connections between Beowulf and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. This essay explores the novel’s representation of heroism and monstrousness and the ideal of kingship in relation to the Old English poem. Parallel descriptions between heroes and monsters illustrate that neither Beowulf nor Thorin is immune to monstrousness, but analyzing their actions in light of Hrothgar’s advice to Beowulf illustrates that both characters distinguish themselves as great kings and heroes. Moreover, how these characters resist evil varies greatly and reveals a core distinction between the Beowulfian and Tolkienian hero, and even highlights …

“What Happened To Battles Are Ugly Affairs?”: Fighting Girls In The Films The Chronicles Of Narnia, Chapters 1, 2 And 3, Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero

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

Although C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956) are still hugely popular today, some critics have accused the books of representing masculinity and femininity in an outmoded way. The three Walden Media films, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), appear to adopt a more contemporary perspective, especially as far as the representation of fighting girls is concerned. While Lewis seemed slightly reluctant to show women playing an active role on the battlefield, Andrew Adamson, who directed the first two films, lets Susan, the female protagonist, fight alongside the …

Tellers Of Dark Fairy Tales: Common Themes In The Works Of C.S. Lewis And Terence Fisher, Gabriel C. Salter

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

This article explores connections between C.S. Lewis and filmmaker Terence Fisher, notably how their works explore themes like the charm of evil, white magic’s dubious nature, and myth hinting at divine truths. By viewing these themes, Fisher and Lewis’s common views on fairy tales, and how feedback informed their work, scholars discover nuance in the perceived “Inklings versus secular British culture” dichotomy.

"Delight In Horror": Charles Williams And Russell Kirk On Hell And The Supernatural, Camilo Peralta

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

Charles Williams has always been one of the more overlooked members of the Inklings, and the continued neglect of his poetry and “supernatural thrillers” suggests that he is not likely to experience a dramatic increase in popularity anytime soon. Similarly, Russell Kirk is an American historian who will always be better known for writing The Conservative Mind in 1953 than for any of the dozens of short stories and novels he wrote, many of which deal with ghostly or supernatural themes. In fact, Kirk acknowledged Williams to be an important influence on his fiction; this influence is perhaps most evident …

Haunted Manikins And The Hero(Es) Within: The Modern Romantic Hero As The Divinely Inspired Person Inside Of The Personality, Mikaela E.S. Von Kursell

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

In Charles Williams's All Hallows’ Eve, the primary female characters wage war internally: Betty is a split-selved “house divided,” and the protagonist Lester and the antagonist Evelyn are bound together in a deformed manikin, each pulling the body in a different direction according to their wills. With this image of a “haunted” manikin, Williams neatly concretizes and lends credence to the notion of compartmentalized selves—those competing and complex matrices of impulses which exist within one body. In That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis elaborates on this idea by offering a sustained analysis of Jane’s many compartmentalized selves: the smitten …

“Read This Book, And You Will Find All The Grand And Marvelous Things To Be Found”: A Song Of Ice And Fire And Medieval Travelogues, Elisabeth Brander

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

Although travel is one of the most prominent themes in the modern fantasy genre, travelogues are not usually regarded as one of the predecessors of Western fantasy. Yet a close examination of both medieval travel narratives and fantasy novels reveals many shared characteristics. The journeys of fantasy protagonists, which include encounters with foreign cultures, monsters, and marvels, tend to echo the journeys of the medieval missionaries and merchants who ventured into the Far East in the 13^th and 14^th centuries. This article uses George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire as a lens through which to …

Echoing Ecopoetics: Fantasy Literature's Background Sounds, Catherine Olver

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

Despite David Abram’s fear that reading disrupts people’s “attunement to environing nature,” fantasy literature can vibrantly convey how to hear our environments as it describes characters attuning their ears to particular places. Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series (1995-2021) and Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy (2008-10) develop an echoing ecopoetics of place through both world-building and style. Their fantasy worlds emphasize that characters must relearn to listen in unfamiliar environments: adjusting their expectations and interpretations of background sounds, recognising significant silences, adapting to new ways of communicating, and seeking meaning in nonhuman sounds rather than dismissing them as noise. Their stylistic …

History In The Margins: Epigraphs And Negative Space In Robin Hobb’S Assassin’S Apprentice, Matthew Oliver

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

Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice demonstrates a significant effect of epic fantasy’s conventions for creating the history of a fictional world. By prefacing each chapter with an epigraph from an official in-world historical text before giving a first-person personal narrative, the novel blurs the boundaries between text and paratext, public and private, official history and personal myth-making. This structure raises questions about what is central and marginal in history, suggesting the extent to which historical narrative is constructed in the imagination by taking the facts surrounding a central event from which the historian is absent—a process much like negative space drawing …

David Lindsay's The Violet Apple, Eric Wills

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

Applies the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to The Violet Apple, a posthumously published novel by David Lindsay, whose A Voyage to Arcturus is frequently cited as an influence on Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet.

Notes Of An Inklings Scholar: Musings On Myth And History, Promises And Secrecy, Ethical Reviewing, And The Limits Of Authorial Intent, David Bratman

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

Five mini-essays proposing hypotheses on topics in J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis scholarship.

1. The Expansion and Contraction of Tolkien's Imagination: how and why his burgeoning sub-creation began to contract and systematize in his later years.

2. A Hobbit in the Legendarium: Tolkien's original conception of the relationship between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion may have been to have Bilbo visiting a land of fable.

3. Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moore: Lewis's devotion to Mrs. Moore may have been a sense of metaphysical and spiritual obligation.

4. But did he ever read the book?: How Edmund Wilson …

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

No abstract provided.

L’Italia, L’Altrove Luoghi, Spazi E Attraversamenti Nel Cinema E Nella Letteratura Sulla Migrazione, Simone Brioni Dr.

Department of English Faculty Publications

This monograph is a meditation on how transnational migrations have influenced how the sense of place and the politics of space are represented in literature and film about migration to, from and within Italy. It examines work produced in Italian and English, and it emphasizes how culture and national identity can be reconsidered in a more inclusive way within a world marked by increased mobility. The text is divided into three main sections – “Places”, “Spaces” and “Crossings” – each of which contains two chapters. Chapter 1 argues that bridges, as they are represented in literature, movies and paintings about …

Witness, Justice, And The Silent Confessional, Kortney Sebben

Great Plains Graduate Review

Stories depicting injustice are inherently complicated by the limitations of language. Jacques Derrida’s “Circonfession” uses deconstructionist theory to describe the flawed nature of the confession in that proximity becomes problematic: those who experience are unable to authentically deliver the truth of that experience. Language also becomes an imperfect channel through which to deliver the truth; the truth lies in both a person’s ability to bring meaning to individual experience, but also, in an audience’s ability to interpret that experience; however, both sides of the conversation are challenged through an imperfect channel of communication. Therefore, silence of human behavior may very …

I Dreamt I Was Kafka: Freudian Interpretation And Kafka’S The Metamorphosis, Erin Blake

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis has been examined through the lens of Freudian theory for decades. This article argues that Franz Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis with Freudian theory in mind, particularly regarding The Oedipal Complex, a theory Sigmund Freud developed to describe the psychosexual development that occurs during the Phallic stage. According to Freud, during this stage, children experience an unconscious feeling of desire for their opposite-sex parent and jealousy and envy toward their same-sex parent. This article examines how Franz Kafka seems to reverse the Oedipal pattern in The Metamorphosis as the main character Gregor seems to not long for …

Review: Counterstories From The Writing Center By Wonderful Faison And Frankie Condon, Alexandria Hanson

The Writing Center Journal

Counterstories from the Writing Center is a book that centers the perspectives and experiences of peoples of color in writing centers as tutors, administrators, and students. The book aims to educate all readers, but specifically “white, straight, cisgendered women (WSCGW)” (p. 5), whose presence has permeated writing center scholarship and work, about how writing centers often engage in representational change or practice, applying Band-Aid solutions that fail to enact social justice and antiracist practices. The goal of the book is to get readers to exercise a certain level of humility, to reflect on and accept responsibility, in order to enact …

The Structures Of Intra-National Class Divisions In Neoliberalism: The Women Of “Light” And “Dark” In The White Tiger, Sneha Madimi

Theses and Dissertations

Aravind Adiga’s novel, The White Tiger, represents gender hierarchies and the class struggle of India’s neoliberal present. Adiga uses elements of satire and allegory to teach us something about how women are differently positioned in the neoliberal system. David Harvey in A Brief History of Neoliberalism defines neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (2). I will consider the novel, alongside Chandra Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes” …

Creating Inclusive Classrooms: Demanding Excellence In Pedagogical Practices With Universal Design, Elizabeth Tacke, Rachael Ryerson, Camden Burd

Together We RISE (Making Excellence Inclusive)

This presentation asks attendees to consider pedagogies of universal design that support student learning. Drawing on experiences in the classroom, the panelists will discuss various approaches to teaching that address the diverse perspectives and pedagogical needs of students. After briefly introducing theories of universal design for learning, the panelists will provide examples of assignment prompts and instructional approaches, develop questions for the audience to consider, and suggest potential revisions ideas for existing curriculum and projects.

Young Adult And Canonical Literature Instruction In The High School Classroom: Assessing Students’ Reading Interest, Alexis Yang

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

In the high school English classroom, classic novels are taught as cornerstones of the curriculum. Although these canonical works such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) are revered for their literary merit, students often find them boring and skim through the readings or decline to read altogether. Young adult literature (YAL), a genre written for teens, may be an effective genre to teach in high school to boost students’ reading interest. This study aims to determine how teaching young adult literature in the high school classroom, as opposed to canonical works, might affect …

Diversifying Knowledge: Presenting And Applying A Framework For Inclusive Graduate Program Websites, Jamal-Jared Alexander, Hannah L. Stevens, Rebecca Walton

English Student Research

This paper reports our experience improving the inclusivity of Utah State University’s (USU) Technical Communication and Rhetoric (TCR) graduate program’s online materials. We report outcomes and implications of a 20-hour project in which Stevens applies aspects of an analytical framework developed by Alexander. In addition to the nine-tactic framework introduced in this report, readers may find value in four takeaways we share, based on our experience applying the framework.

Cultivating Ethics In The Peer Review Process, Rachel Welton Bryson, Sam Clem

English Student Research

After describing the content and implementation of an anti-racist scholarly review training informed by recent scholarship in technical communication (TC), the authors reflect on an unanticipated outcome of that training: a participant using language from the training in an attempt to silence an author they were reviewing. We analyze this experience through a framework of modern virtue ethics scholarship and explore ways to cultivate more ethical peer review practices. Drawing upon elements of ethical self-cultivation articulated by Vallor, we use concepts of moral habituation, relational understanding, and reflective self-examination to understand how to cultivate more ethical, reflexive peer review processes.

Tolkien, Race, And Racism In Middle-Earth (2022) By Robert Stuart, Dimitra Fimi

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Dimitra Fimi, of Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth (2022) by Robert Stuart

American Becoming : Poetics, Space, And Race In The Travel Narratives Of Herman Melville And Jack Kerouac, Yun Song

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

This dissertation examines the travel narratives of Herman Melville and Jack Kerouac arguing that these works epitomize a literary ”becoming” in American history. Being a crucial component of Gilles Deleuze’s positive ontology, this ”becoming” mirrors a multiple and constant transformation toward the minor, the marginal, and the non-white and resonates rigorously with the literature of Melville and Kerouac. The representative works by these two canonical American authors, namely, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) and On the Road (1957), construct aesthetic spaces in which readers are called upon to appreciate the American life of becoming-Pacific and becoming-beat. The geographical …

Developing Biblical, Community-Based Resources For Military Wives Entering The Empty Nest And Midlife Transition Period, Cynthia Louise Stumme

Masters Theses

Military wives approaching the onset of middle age and the empty nest should have access to resources that help them navigate the challenges of midlife within the context of the military lifestyle. The US military provides resources supporting successful family relationships for almost every other demographic except for military wives at the midlife and empty nest stage of life. While midlife is understudied as a life stage, the existing research does identify specific objectives for personal development and growth during middle age which lead to thriving in that stage and in old age. Using these objectives as a guide, this …

Uk Shakespeare Travel Course Photo Presentation, Elliot Morelli-Wolfe

Study Away Presentations and Photo Contest Winners

Photo presentation of Shakespeare's Britain, including Edinburgh, England, the Globe Theatre, and Westminster Abbey

The Fall Of The House Of Usher, And The Rise Of The Civil War, Richard E. Campbell Ii

2022 Symposium

Poe may have died before the Civil War began, but he was close to the politics of his time. He was also an astute observer of people. His writings often explore deep aspects of the human condition. Using his in depth understanding of people and his close proximity and personal interest it would make sense that he could see how the wheels were turning. In the end it is possible that Poe would predict and hide clues of his observations within this writings, specifically The Fall of the House of Usher.

Highlights Of Taylor Etiquette: 2022 Edition, Taylor University

Heritage Books and Booklets

Students in Dr. Aaron Housholder's ENG110 class collaborated with Special Collections & University Archives to produce an updated etiquette guide. The original etiquette guide was booklet produced circa 1930 detailing the expectations of Taylor University students. Sections in the booklet included:

• As Regarding the Dining Hall
• As Regarding the Campus
• As Regarding Chapel

Students in the ENG110 (College Composition) course spent time reviewing the original etiquette booklet, identified guidelines that should be carried forward into 2022, and then worked together to generate several new "guidelines" they felt were relevant to today's Taylor culture.

Unit Plan For A Course On Banned Books For 11th And 12th Grade, Jonny Gherman

English and Creative Writing Capstone Projects

This lesson plan will teach high school students (11th-12th grade) what censorship is, why it is powerful, and what to do with it. Aligned with Pennsylvania State Standards, students will identify common themes between the two most popular genres of banned books (race & gender/sexuality). Through a series of activities, discussions, and a final project, students will practice close reading, critical thinking, and basic research skills.