Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Escape From Reality: A Comparative Study Of Bleak House And Little Dorrit, Julie L. Mcmillen

Masters Theses

During the later period of his career, Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House (1853) and Little Dorrit (1857). Both of these novels share a common theme: those who face life squarely, though scarred, survive while those who try to escape do not.

In developing this theme Dickens uses parallel types of major characters. The motherly concern for others exhibited by Esther Summerson is repeated in Amy Dorrit. The irresponsibility of Richard Carstone reappears in William Dorrit. Finally, the protective concern of John Jarndyce reoccurs in Arthur Clennam.

Dickens develops these characters in five basic ways: the narrator, either omniscient or first-person, …

Functions Of Menace: A Comparison Of The Room And The Birthday Party, Lee R. Martin

Masters Theses

An atmosphere of menace surrounds the action of Harold Pinter's plays, The Room and The Birthday Party. Several critics seem to agree that the menace originates in the outer world and threatens to intrude upon the security of a room, where people attempt to hide. But the menace may also originate within the room--from the inner world and not the outer. The Room illustrates how a character deals with a menace that is within, while The Birthday Party deals with agents of menace from the outer world.

Rose Hudd, in The Room, is dissociated from the outer world …

Fielding's Clergymen, Kathleen Marie Puhr

Masters Theses

Henry Fielding presented more clergymen in his fiction than any other major novelist except Trollope, and his non-fictional writings--notably articles in his journal, The Champion--also reflect his interest in the status of the clergy in eighteenth-century England. In his series of articles entitled “An Apology for the Clergy,” Fielding establishes the criteria by which he feels clergymen should be judged and lists the qualities of the “true” and “false” clergymen.

This study reveals that while Fielding in his non-fictional works clearly explains the traits of the true clergyman, his fiction does not contain a clergyman measuring up to his …

The Rite Of Initiation In Pinter's The Birthday Party, Richard C. Slocum

Masters Theses

The paper is an attempt to give full treatment to elements in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party which suggest the rite of initiation practiced in primitive societies. A few critics have touched upon the subject of initiation in the play, but they fail to discuss it in detail.

Extensive comparisons are made between Charles Eckert's summary of initiation rituals and the actions and characters in the play. The initiate is isolated from society as a preliminary to the rite of initiation; Stanley is isolated in a seaside boarding house. The initiate is secluded in a dark and threatening place; Stanley …

The Troubled Ecstasy Of Yeats's "Purgatory" And "At The Hawk's Well", Gregory Michael Sadlek

Masters Theses

A great amount of W. B. Yeats's writing attests to his fascination with the preternatural. Indeed, it seems that Yeats felt the sacred experience to be somehow central in the living of a full life. Further, in his essay "The Celtic Element in Literature," he proposed that all great literature arises out of the passion which flows from the sacred experience. Yeats thought that drama as well as poetry, then, must plumb this core of life. And in his essay "The Tragic Theatre" he declared that great tragedy deals with feelings and experiences which are universal and timeless and which …

The Acceptance And Rejection Of Courtly Love By The Lovers In Chaucer’S Troilus And Criseyde, Michael Jerome Baldwin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

William Blake's Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience: From Innocence To Experience To Wise Innocence, Robert W. Winkleblack

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Illusion Vs. Reality In The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Glendora S. Plath

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Beckett's Manipulation Of Audience Response In Waiting For Godot, Robert Carl Themer

Masters Theses

This thesis examines one of the many paradoxes of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot--that although on the surface Beckett reduces his characters to the barest minimum in human terms, the spectator still finds himself, mysteriously, identifying with those pathetic stage creatures and their plights.

The dual purpose of this paper is to examine the methods Beckett used to foster this sense of spectator-character likeness and to assess its impact upon the spectator. It explores the contrast between the near-caricatures, Pozzo and Lucky, and the more complexly humanized Vladimir and Estragon. It discusses Beckett's universalization of character, time, place, and …

Romanticism And Evangelical Christianity In William Cowper's The Task, Carol V. Johnson

Masters Theses

In The Task, dated 1785, William Cowper clearly anticipates certain major themes in early nineteenth-century British Romantic poetry. In his individual presentation of the central Romantic themes of this "transitional" work, however, Cowper differs significantly from the major Romantic poets whose work his own most resembles. This is largely due to the strain of Evangelical Christianity that pervades the poem, as the result of his contact with the Evangelical Revival that swept England during the second half of the eighteenth century. The orthodox Christian doctrine and morality that underlie the Romantic themes in The Task, together with the …

The Theme Of Othello, James Irving Krumrey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

ComparacióN De Las Novelas DoñA Perfecta Y Silas Marner, Margarita Means

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Suicidal Nature Of Chivalry: A Study Of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, Timothy A. Shonk

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Death-Rebirth Archetype In John Donne's "Songs And Sonets", Eva Diane Fletcher

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Neoplatonic Reading Five Donne Poems, Yuko Miyazoe

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Treatment Of Platonic Love In Ford's Nondramatic Works And Independent Tragedies, Kathryn M. Jackson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Chaucer's Poetics And The Evolution Of The Narrator In Troilus And Criseyde, Judith I. Green

Masters Theses

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Middle Class Follies Reflected In The Comedies Of Thomas Shadwell, Lila Elaine Horn

Masters Theses

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Thomas Hardy's Shorter War Poems, Anne Marie Rodgers

Masters Theses

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Applications Of The Halle-Keyser Theories Of Metrical Stress, Gary Forrester

Masters Theses

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The Fool In Lear Exposes A Foolish Lear, Anthony John Cuccio

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Henry Fielding: A Whig Journalist And Essayist, Martha Ann Klestinski

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Machiavellian Influence Manifested In Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine The Great And The Jew Of Malta, Carol L. Janssen

Masters Theses

The concepts developed by Niccolo Machiavelli and presented in The Prince exerted a profound influence on the dramatists of the Elizabethan age. However, before they were incorporated into Elizabethan dramas, these ideas were perverted and disparaged by Innocent Gentillet, Gabriel Harvey, Father Parsons, and others. The result of this perversion is that Machiavelli's original ideas are barely recognizable, at times, in the Elizabethan interpretations, of those ideas.

The key ideas of Machiavelli are these: the ruled majority of the people are passive, weak, mutable, inconsistent, simple, and ungrateful, so they can be easily subjected and controlled by the Prince; the …

The Biblical Parallels Of Suffering In Jude The Obscure, Denny Lee Brandon

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Critical Tenets Of Dr. Samuel Johnson As Represented In The Life Of Pope, M. Kathleen Parienti

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Disease, Age, And Physician Imagery In Richard Ii And Henry Iv, Parts I And Ii, Maureen Shannon Townsend

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The "Deor" Legends: Their Dissemination In Germanic Literature, Doris Larraine Mabry

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Dialectic Of The Theology Of Browning's Bishop Blougram, Sylvia Eunice Lowe

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of “The Disappearance Of God” As It Appears In Arnold's Thyrsis And Tennyson's In Memoriam, Leland Dale Rhyne

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Three Unholy Churchmen Of Robert Browning's Poetry, Everett L. Millhorn

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.