Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

"Reader" In Jane Eyre, Siruo Li

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis is designed to show the development of feminist power of Jane Eyre, the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, by examining how her reader is addressed in the totality of this novel. The main body of this thesis will follow the four parts of Jane Eyre’s different period of her life: in childhood, in Thornfield, in Moor House and in Ferndean Manor. The rhetorical instrument of addressing her reader is influenced by her speech and silence, and appears in a gradually increasing frequency in the four parts. In this sense, Jane Eyre’s female voice is also empowered …

Don't Take Orpheus Without The Lyre: The Intricacies Of Using Pagan Myths For Christian Purposes In The Divine Comedy And Paradise Lost, Rebekah J. Waltmann

Masters Theses

Because of their universal and artistic nature, the classical myths lend themselves well to use in literature, especially poetry. When used properly, as by Dante and Milton, the myths have the ability to enhance the work; when used poorly, they become gaudy ornamentation. It was, and is, this ability to enhance both the artistry and function of literature that pulled so many poets to the myths, despite the difficulties that could arise when the pagan myths did not quite match the Christian setting. My purpose in this thesis is not to explicate every use of myth within The Divine Comedy …

Romanticism, Blake, And The Politics Of Nature (Flyer), Kevin Hutchings

The Idea of Nature Public Lecture Series

Because politics is a distinctly human activity, we often think of nature as something that exists apart from the political realm. However, in an era of revolutionary turmoil, William Blake, who championed “England’s green and pleasant land” against industrialism’s “dark Satanic Mills,” understood better than any other Romantic poet that nature was subject to myriad political uses. By showing how cultural institutions invoke nature to “naturalize” their authority, Blake reveals that nature can be thoroughly political. Join author and musician Kevin Hutchings as he explores the politics of Blake’s visionary ecology in poetry, painting, and song.

The Monkey In The Looking Glass: Fairies, Folklore And Evolutionary Theory In The Search For Britain's Imperial Self, Tessa Katherine Jacobs

Scripps Senior Theses

In his groundbreaking work of postcolonial theory, Orientalism, Edward Said puts forth the idea that imperial Europe asserted an identity by constructing the character of its colonized subjects. Said writes that his book tries to “show that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (3). The object of this thesis is a related project, for it too is a search for imperial Britain’s surrogate or underground self. Yet rather than positioning this search within the British colonies, this thesis takes as its context a …

Force Or Fraud: British Seduction Stories And The Problem Of Resistance, 1660-1760, By Toni Bowers. (Review), Rachel Carnell, Toni Bowers

English Faculty Publications

A review of the book "Force or Fraud: British Seduction Stories and the Problem of Resistance, 1660-1760," by Toni Bowers is presented.

A Victorian Christmas In Hell: Yuletide Ghosts And Necessary Pleasures In The Age Of Capital, Brandon Chitwood

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation explores how the cultural and literary development – one might argue, creation – of a specifically Victorian Christmas arose in response to social anxieties related to the expansion of industrial capitalism, Darwinian theories of evolution, and the increasingly problematic definition of the family during the nineteenth century in Britain. Using a Lacanian psychoanalytic lens, the dissertation explores how the liminal figure of the ghost pervades the literary narrativization of the Christmas holiday, and how such ghosts provided uncanny comforts to a reading public increasingly horrified by social, economic, and natural forces seemingly beyond their control. The dissertation argues …

The Search For Pan: Difference And Morality In D. H. Lawrence’S St. Mawr And The Woman Who Rode Away, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

Both St. Mawr (1925) and The Woman Who Rode Away (1928) were written at the height of Lawrence’s fascination with New Mexico and demonstrate a continuum of thought about the position of the European and the Indian, but what is most interesting about these stories when read in conjunction is their attitude towards difference. Lou Carrington, the protagonist of St. Mawr, holds herself separate from other women of her class, from other men, from her mother and her Indian groom, finally finding a temporary peace in seeking affinity in a landscape; the woman who rides away from home and …

"An Image Comforting The Mind”: Emotion Theory And Tennyson’S In Memoriam, Melanie Pavao

English Student Scholarship

This paper examines Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam A.H.H. through the lens of Cicero’s stoic theory of emotion. It critically reviews the manner in which Tennyson describes grief in the poem and how he uses the poem to deal with his own grief over the death of his best friend. It continues with a discussion of how the poem is useful for others in learning to deal with their own grief.

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, And Revisions That Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Jarrod Hurlbert

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation is a study of the revisions Samuel Richardson made to his first novel, Pamela, and its sequel, Pamela in Her Exalted Condition, published within his lifetime. Richardson, who was his own printer, revised Pamela eight times over twenty years, the sequel three times, and the majority of the variants have hitherto suffered from critical neglect. Because it is well known that Richardson responded to friendly and antagonistic "collaborators" by making emendations, I also examine the extant documents that played a role in Pamela's development, including Richardson's correspondence and contemporary criticisms of the novel. Pamela Reworded, then, is an …

Gender Politics In The Novels Of Eliza Haywood, Susan Muse

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study investigates how Eliza Haywood addressed ideological conflicts about gender produced by modernization in early eighteenth-century England. Expanding Michael McKeon's theory of the novel to include "questions of gender," I address a wide sample of novels in order to show how Haywood's writing developed during her long career. Her first preoccupation was the sexual double standard that defined "fallen women" as society's exiles. Influenced by the "she-tragedy" of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Haywood wrote novels that elicited pity for fallen women and searched for reasons to explain their condition. Haywood's writing became overtly political with her …

The Significance Of Silence: The Muted Voices Of Count Fosco And Laura Fairlie In The Woman In White, Melanie Page

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the intricacies of voice using narrative theory and reader-response theory with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Since Collins first wrote this epistolary novel serially, he wrote aware of his audience as he printed segments with different narrators. This novel allowed Collins the opportunity to reveal an internal set of narrators' responses to other characters' voices--responses that sometimes conflict with and modify one another. At the same time, Collins' contemporary audience's responses to the novel reveal the role of characters' voices in shaping reactions of members of the novel's reading public. Two opposing figures--Laura Fairlie and Count …

A Hierarchy Of Love: Myth In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, Joseph Walls

Masters Theses

In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, the transposed creature is drawn up into its "kindly stede" as a sacramental symbol of Christ through that fictional planet's unbroken relationship between meaning and form. Although Perelandra's "wheels-within-wheels" hierarchy may at first seem reminiscent of Catholicism's teachings on symbol, as a Protestant, Lewis believes that human beings cannot be truly sacramental symbols until the return of Christ. Lewis's optimistic depiction of a cosmic hierarchy is one of perfect love: superiors rule their subordinates with agape, and creatures who discover their submissive roles reciprocate with eros or adoring love. Every created being in Perelandra is part …

Review Of Poetry, Pictures, And Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book And Victorian Visual Culture 1855-1875 By Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Katherine D. Harris

Faculty Publications, English and Comparative Literature

No abstract provided.

With This Ring, I Surrender: Politics, Religion, And Marriage In Shakespeare And Tudor England, Mara R. Berkoff

Honors College Theses

The ideas I wish to explore are the overarching themes of politics, religion, and marriage in the Turor period under the rule of King Henry VIII from 1509 to 1547. The popular opinion of the period on Henry VIII's behavior can be seen in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Henry VIII.

Post-War Europe: The Waste Land As A Metaphor, Semy Rhee

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes the mindset of twentieth-century Europe through the perspective of a modern individual that T. S. Eliot creates in his poem The Waste Land. Although The Waste Land is the greatest modernist poem, it is often criticized for its esoteric nature. A thorough examination of the poem is useful in understanding and appreciating Eliot’s masterful demonstration of the modernist philosophy. This study analyzes the poem in light of the definition of modernism and the poem’s metaphorical nature. It also aims to reconcile the two most confusing elements of the poem—its allusive content and fragmented structure—to the design …

Respect Des Fonds D'Archives: Theory And Application, Danielle Lee-Muma

Data and Test Instruments

This paper examines the principle of Respect des fonds, its history and reason for becoming a dominant principle, and what its aspects mean: interpreting original order as an internal arrangement, and discussing external arrangement in the principle of provenance. Case studies (both real world examples and hypothetical examples based on real fonds and archives) will be used to discuss how the twin principles of respect des fonds, original order and provenance can be put into practice. The case studies are used to discuss what problems can arise in the application of respect des fonds.

The Dangerous ‘New Woman’ In The Victorian Press: ‘Blind Alike To Maiden Modesty And Maternal Dignity, Danielle Nielsen

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Present in photography, artwork, fiction, drama, and popular journalism, the New Woman was a familiar presence in late-Victorian Britain. By analyzing the journalistic portrayal of the New Woman and the construction of a negative femininity by those authors who opposed her and the values she represented, this essay draws from that popularity and presence. I argue that Victorians who disagreed with the political and social ramifications of the New Woman participated in discourse communities or communities of practice. These discourse communities portrayed the New Woman as one who was first, competitive rather than cooperative, and second, a mythical, unnatural creature. …

Orts 73, 2012, The George Macdonald Society

Orts: The George MacDonald Society Newsletter

Orts will soon join North Wind’s Online Digital Archive, thanks to the ongoing efforts of John Pennington, who teaches at Saint Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. Dr. Pennington, one of the editors of North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies, previously oversaw the digitization of the academic journal. Jaena Manson, an editorial intern at the journal, is assisting in the process, a considerable task given that the archive will encompass the newsletter’s entire history, from the first issue published over thirty years ago in 1981 to the present edition. As with North Wind, the Orts archive will be …

"That's A Lotta Faith We're Putting In A Word": Language, Religion, And Heteroglossia As Oppression And Resistance In Comtemporary British Dystopian Fiction, Haley Cassandra Gambrell

MA in English Theses

Dystopian literature, in which writers imagine a chaotic, uncertain future, has become a trend in contemporary literature. Three recent British dystopian texts--Alan Moore and David Lloyd's graphic novel V for Vendetta , Patrick Ness's young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go , and China Miéville's detective novel The City & the City --reveal important themes of dystopian literature that transcend genre and stylistic convention. When a totalitarian regime governs the people, language and religion become commodities used by both government and citizens. First, I will explain the role of naming in establishing identity of both governing bodies and …

Carlyle, Arnold, And Wilde: Art And The Departure From Humanism To Aestheticism In The Victorian Era, Caitlin Larracey

Undergraduate Review

The Victorian era of British literature spanned almost an entire century and saw writers from Carlyle to Rossetti, Kipling to Barrett Browning, and Dickens to Tennyson. The fabric of London changed as industry and invention flourished, along with poverty and social decay. Significant changes in politics, science, and religious thinking emerged as well. As British society moved further away from its roots in agriculture and devout religion, British literature also moved further away from its roots in Renaissance humanism towards the decadence and aestheticism that characterize late nineteenth-century works. By tracing the shift of styles and use of rhetorical devices …

Stella’S Voice: Echo And Collaboration In Astrophil And Stella 57 And 58, Laura Kolb

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Review Of Women And Personal Property In The Victorian Novel, Deborah Wynne

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Dorothea Brooke was reluctant to accept the bequest of her mother's jewellery, but was George Eliot equally resistant to the allure of pretty things? Deborah Wynne thinks not. Wynne cites a letter from Eliot to her friend Elma Stuart in which the energizing pleasure of 'little joys' is a cause for celebration:

it is cheering to think that there are blue clocks as well as troubles in the world. There is another spiritual daughter of mine whom I should gladly see eager about some small delight - a china monster or a silver clasp - instead of telling me that …

'The Generations Of Ant And Beavers': Classical Economics And Animals In The Mill On The Floss, Andrew Lallier

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Before any named characters find their way into The Mill on the Floss, the narrator introduces us to two sets of animals (aside from a human driver): white ducks dipping their heads into the stream and horses pulling a covered wagon. The ducks are characterized as being 'unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above' (24). This characterization serves a comic purpose, indicating a disparity between the mentality of the unreflective animals and the implicit judgement of the narrator's gaze. By contrast, the horses seem to possess a surprisingly developed interiority (however conditioned by the narrator's …

'There Is No Such Thing As Natural Barrenness In Natural Women': Childless Marriages In Silas Marner And The Lifted Veil., Marianne Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'There is no such thing as natural barrenness in natural women' wrote the eminent French psychologist Eugene Becklard in the 1840s, and, in general, physicians agreed with him. Certainly in mid-nineteenth-century literature children were the sine qua non of a successful marriage; courtship novels rarely ended at the altar, happy endings demanded babies. Unlike lady novelists who wrote silly novels, George Eliot thought marriage, with its complications, compromises, and lack of easy exits, was quite as interesting as courtship, and childless marriages were generally more interesting than generative ones. The two childless marriages' in Silas Mamer and The Lifted Veil …

Chairman's Annual Report 2011, Jphn Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It was a good year for the Fellowship. Our membership numbers held their own, and although some older members have difficulty getting to events, we have attracted new members who have been enthusiastic in their support.

The theme for the year was Silas Mamer, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2011. The first event of the year was the AGM, which we had hoped to expand with a keynote lecture to start the year by Barbara Hardy. Unfortunately, Barbara had to cancel due to ill-health but undaunted, we arranged a review of the previous year and had useful discussions about …

Deronda And The Tigress: Buddhism, Compassion, And National Consciousness In George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Josh Moats

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Many scholars have written about George Eliot's treatment of Judaism in Daniel Deronda (hereafter DD), but no one has yet explored why George Eliot includes Buddhism in the novel. Eliot engages with Buddhism most explicitly in chapter thirty-seven when Mirah compares Deronda to the Buddha: 'Mr Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you hardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of Bouddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her little ones from starving. And he said you were like Bouddha. That is what we all imagine of you' …

From George Eliot To Her 'Rabbi': An Epistolary Find, Peter A. Brier

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I cannot be easy without writing a word or two this morning for I am conscious that I made myself more disagreeable than nature obliges me to be by my hard quips to you. They were not warrantable by anything but a strong personal and impersonal interest in that sensitive being of yours, which holds what may be very precious things in its keeping. And even with that warrant it will be a proof of your fondness if you quite forgive me.

You look wretched - and I have now so much of that subtle misery which can be explained …

The George Eliot Review: Journal Of The George Eliot Fellowship- 2012 No. 43, Beryl Gray, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CONTENTS

Notes on Contributors .............................................................. 5

ARTICLES Josh Moats: Deronda and the Tigress: Buddhism, Compassion, and National Consciousness in Daniel Deronda (Prize Essay)....................................................... 7

Joanne Shattock: Models of Authorship: Margaret Oliphant and George Eliot...................18

Marianne Burton: 'There is no such thing as natural barrenness in natural women': Childless Marriages in Silas Marner and The Lifted Veil..................... 31

Melissa Raines: Knowing Too Much: The Burden of Consciousness in the Lifted Veil ........................................................................................... 39

Andrew Lallier: 'The generations of ants and beavers': Classical Economics and Animals in The Mill on the Floss................................................................. .4 7

Peter A. Brier: From George Eliot to her …

Japanese Branch Report - 2011, Mizue Aida

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On Saturday 3 December 2011, the Fifteenth Annual Convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Ferris University.

The morning session began with an opening address by Hidetada Mukai (Ferris University). Three papers were presented in the morning: the first two were introduced and commented upon by Hiroshi Ikezono (Yamaguchi University) and the third by Mie Abe (Shoin University).

The first paper 'Sensitivity and Materiality in "The Lifted Veil'" was presented by Mari Takumi (Tokyo University). She focused on Latimer and his supernatural ability to look into the minds of others and see the reality through his …

Knowing Too Much: The Burden Of Omniscience In The Lifted Veil, Melissa Raines

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the spring of 1859, not long after the success of her first novel, Adam Bede, George Eliot submitted a much shorter work to her publisher, John Blackwood, for his consideration. Blackwood's eventual letter in response to the piece arrived more than a fortnight later and had to be prompted by Eliot's partner, George Henry Lewes. Perhaps Blackwood's belated reply was somewhat understandable: he must initially have been thrilled by the prospect of another submission from the rising new author, but the strangeness of this undeniably macabre new tale unsettled him. A story of supernatural power and science that pushed …