Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Home And Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America (2013), Shaun O’Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the 2013 Editor's Note by Padraig O'Malley: Shaun O’Connell has lost none of his touch. In “Home and Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America,” O’Connell juxtaposes two novels: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy (1998) and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (2009) and reveals the parallels and contrasts that enrich the discussion of Irish and Irish American identities. Toibin, an Irish writer, would have us see an America, land of the free, as an open, inviting place but exacting in redeeming promises made; McDermott, an American writer, portrays an Ireland that is magical, a little bit of heaven, but finally a closed and bitter …

Frankenstein In The Twenty-First Century, Haley C. Ochs

Honors Program: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Analyzes the science and ethics of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It utilizes historical and literary analyses, as well as a close reading of the text, to demonstrate the impact of eighteenth century science and how it leads to Frankenstein's immorality.

Genre-Savvy Sonnets: Shakespeare’S Subversion Of Problematic Conventions Of Courtly Love, Kelly Kramer

The Kabod

In an analysis of Shakespeare's 130th Sonnet, Kramer finds that the Bard champions a better way to love rather than the idealization of another that is the convention of courtly love. Actually knowing and loving someone's flaws and oddities is more constructive and enduring in contrast to the courtly love tradition which Shakespeare implies is harmful and misleading in its teaching to value the wrong thing in another.

Shylock Celebrates Easter, Brooke Conti

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"At Whigham's Inn": Mrs. Provost Whigham's Lost Kilmarnock, The Allan Young Census, And An Unexpected Discovery, Patrick G. Scott

Faculty Publications

Reports the recent acquisition by Princeton University Library of a long-lost copy of Robert Burns's first book Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1986), formerly owned by Burns's friend Edward Whigham; describes the later transcript it contains of the short poem "At Whigham's Inn," long attributed to Burns; and reassesses the sources and authorship of the poem.

“Inhumanly Beautiful”: The Aesthetics Of The Nineteenth-Century Deathbed Scene, Margo Masur

English Theses

Death today is hidden from our everyday lives so it cannot intermingle with the general public. So when a family member dies, their body becomes an object in need of disposal; no longer can they be recognized as the familiar person they once were. To witness death is to force individuals to confront the truths of human existence, and for most of us seeing such a sight would fill us with an emotion of disgust. Yet during the nineteenth century, the burden of care towards the sick or dying was shared by a community of family, neighbors, and friends; the …

The Dale Spender Collection At The Women's College, University Of Sydney, Olivia Murphy

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Notice of the opening of the Dale Spender collection of books relating to feminism; Australian women's writing; and women's writing in English of the long nineteenth century.

Review Of Peggy Thompson, (Ed). Beyond Sense And Sensibility: Moral Formation And The Literary Imagination From Johnson To Wordsworth, Elizabeth A. Dolan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.

Chawton Novels Online, Women’S Writing 1751-1834 And Computer-Aided Textual Analysis, Anne Bandry-Scubbi

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Using Chawton House Library’s “Novels Online,” several corpora have been set up for a computer-aided textual analysis of the use of vocabulary by women writing “domestic novels” from 1752 to 1834. This corpus stylistics approach makes it possible to map texts according to their word usage and to identify quantitative keywords which provide vocabulary profiles through comparison and contrast with contemporary male and female canonical texts. Items identified include pronouns, markers of dialogue and of intensity; others can be grouped into specific lexical fields such as feelings. One text from the collection then forms the object of a …

Tempering Romance, Katherine R. Larson

Criticism

The Fabulous Dark Cloister: Romance in England after the Reformation by Tiffany Jo Werth. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Pp. 248, 8 illustrations. $65.00 cloth.

Fresh Shakespeare From The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Some critics have argued against the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's contemporary English translation project, but Daniel Pollack-Pelzner argues it's part of the process of keeping Shakespeare alive.

The Hall Of Mirrors: Multi-Biographical Transfigurations Of British Women Writers During The Long Nineteenth Century, Brenda Ayres

Honorable Mention

Assistant Director of Honors, Dr. Brenda Ayres, presents on her upcoming book, A Hall of Mirrors: Multi-biographical Transfigurations of British Women Writers During the Long Nineteenth Century, to be published in the summer of 2016 by Palgrave Macmillan. The presentation is a part of the English Faculty Research Lecture Series. The lecture will be DH 3397, October 16, 2015 from 10:30-11:35.

On Writing Neo-Victorian Fiction: James Miranda Barry (1999) And Sophie And The And The Sibyl: A Victorian Romance (2015), Patricia Duncker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is the text of the Forty-Fourth George Eliot Memorial Lecture delivered at the Chilvers Coton Heritage Centre on 10 October, 2015. An extended version of this article will appear in late 2016 or early 2017 as an interview/essay in the series 'anglistik & englischunterricht': Christina Flotmann and Anna Lienen (eds.), Victorian Ideologies in Contemporary British Culture, Heidelberg: Winter Verlag.

My first historical novel - lames Miranda Barry (1999) was not born a Neo-Victorian novel, but became one. And it had a very personal link to my own life. Barry was a nineteenth-century colonial doctor and medical reformer, who had …

A Companion To J.R.R. Tolkien, Ed. Stuart D. Lee, Reviewed By Andrew Higgins, Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review of A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien (2014), edited by Stuart D. Lee

Tolkien's Middle-Earth: Race Personified Through Orcs, Colleen Fessler

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

From the time of Middle-earth’s creation, a complex society of hierarchies has existed both within and among the different races and creatures in Tolkien’s world. The race-constructed hierarchies speak to the way in which the different races understand themselves and those around them, just as people do in today’s modern society. While embarking on the journeys of this world with Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, with Frodo and the fellowship’s journey across Middle-earth to destroy the ring and Sauron in Mordor in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and from the creation of Arda and Middle-earth until the Third …

In A World With No Religion, How Did It Become So Christian? Christianity Within The Lord Of The Rings, Rhiley O'Rourke

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

Goblins, Greed, And Goodness: The Symbolic And Narrative Degradation Of Goblins Within The Hobbit, Katelyn Stine

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

Throughout The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien establishes a variety of races that range on a diverse scale of good and evil. Within this spectrum, Goblins are portrayed as being the most evil in comparison to every other race on Middle Earth. Tolkien utilizes a variety of literary devices -from a repeated symbolic association with fire to their physical intolerance to environmental elements such as sunlight- to establish the complete disconnection between the Goblins and the natural world. This detachment allows their race as an entirety to become the embodiment of evil, which functions as a plot device throughout the narrative. Goblins …

"Fire And Water Imagery" In Jane Eyre 2015, Shannon O'Loughlin

Master's Theses

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a study in contrasts. Critics have argued the implausibility of the novel, that an orphaned governess who marries her dashing employer is too far-fetched to be believed. However, a proper understanding of Jane Eyre must be based not on a sequence of events, but on the thematic form of the novel in which the signifiers relate to each other and shift throughout. Ferdinand de Saussure explains in his "Course in General Linguistics," that the mental concept one has of a word is its "signifier" (62). Charlotte Bronte relies not simply upon a sequence of events …

The Beast Inside: Trauma Theory And William Golding's Lord Of The Flies 2015, Emily Paccia

Master's Theses

Following World War II and the horrible devastation in Europe, especially in London, Britain began to rebuild. The country was attempting to come back from war, and the culture reflected a bleak, disheartening feeling. Literature written during this time period, which so often reflects the culture directly, showed that very same bleakness. British novelist, and one who lived through that time, William Golding, writing in the 1960's, recreated the dystopia brought into European countries from living through the destruction of the war. Creating a vision of the future -- one of dysfunction and chaos -- Golding’s characters from Lord of …

J.R.R. Tolkien And His Influence On Modern Fantasy Writer Tamora Pierce, Alexandria Curry

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s writing of female and racial minority characters has been criticized as misogynistic and racist by many critics of Tolkien. However, these critics come to these conclusions due to the limited quantity of these characters overall, especially those of the female sex, and their involvement in the overall story’s plot. Tolkien uses women sparingly and because of this, each one has important characteristics and roles that they play. Therefore, if not invalidating the critics position on his supposed misogynistic views, then, at least, dissolving some of their support platforms. However, the roles that the women play are important in understanding …

Tolkien, Fandom, And Priorities, Melissa Conroy

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

Songs In Middle-Earth, Ellory Busch

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

Eowyn As Queen, Brian Scheidt

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

The Inherent Goodness Of Gardens And Their Stewards, Dj Castillo

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Realism And Idealism In Decision-Making: A Case Study Of Tolkien’S And Jackson’S Ents And Elves, Max Bertelotti

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

Attempting to fight Sauron without the Ring of Power is, of course, fruitless. Nearly all the characters in the Lord of the Rings understand this. While many readers debate the reasoning and logic behind sending Frodo and Sam alone into Mordor, few debate the reasoning for each specific race of Middle Earth to become involved in the fight against Sauron. Given Sauron’s impeccability and resilience, any non-destruction-of-the-Ring attempt at defeating Sauron must categorically be deemed infeasible. It fails logic then that, with a few exceptions, each race that the reader encounters in the Lord of the Rings finds it necessary …

The Prominence Of Pippin, Jasmine Sunderlage

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

When building a fictional world as involved and vast as that of J.R.R. Tolkien’s multiple drafts are a must in order to work out the exact details and to make sure that all the possible loose ends are tied up and addressed. Characters can come and go, change in temperaments and in how involved they are when it comes to the story itself. Whereas some characters may start of as highly involved in the plot, they may become nothing other than a supporting character after going through multiple drafting processes. For other characters, however, they may start as a walk-on/walk-off …

The Anti-War Adoption Of Lord Of The Rings, Kayla Spencer

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

Ten years after Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was first published in 1954, an unexpected party discovered Middle-earth. America’s counterculture adopted the series, despite its largely conservative, patriarchal, and militant ideologies. Tolkien himself was not fond of the hippie movement, calling them his “deplorable cultus” (Helms 7). Although always adamant that his books were not allegory, the hippies found it anyway and applied his art to their own agendas. Second-wave feminists understood Eowyn’s refusal to let her romantic interest and her father determine her fate, as well as her fear of being kept in a cage and unable to …

Dominion: Examining The Subject Of Power In Tolkien, Kieran Moriarty

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

The discussion of power and one’s use of it in literature is far from a novel one. This is especially so regarding how one uses power to rule others. Two notable and conflicting ways to rule are using one’s power over the ruled, to keep control of them, and using one’s power for the ruled, by helping and supporting them. The clash between these two can be seen as early as the first book of the Jewish and Christian bibles, wherein God gives humans “dominion over…all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” asking them …

The Heir And The Treasure: The Grammatical Construction Of Aragorn And Arwen, Rachel Landsem

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

Recovering The Beauty Of Medusa, Alexander M. Schlutz

Publications and Research

This essay presents a close analysis of P.B. Shelley’s fragmentary ekphrastic poem “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery.” It places Shelley’s text in its aesthetic, mythological and historico-political contexts to demonstrate how Shelley aims to undo the ideological and representational structures of power that inform human language, art, and history, and which turn Medusa into the monstrous Other as which she appears. In Shelley’s text by contrast, Medusa becomes a figure for a revelatory beauty that cannot become visible in the distorting parameters of a discourse of power that informs our very perception of what …