Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Gentleman Death In Silk And Lace: Death And The Maiden In Vampire Literature And Film, Emily Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains an examination in the psychosocial significance of Hans Baldung Grien’s “Death and the Maiden” art motif, created during the Renaissance period following the Black Death, and its resurgence in the vampire fiction genre of both literature and film. I investigate the motif in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976) as well as their film adaptations by Francis Ford Coppola (1992) and Neil Jordan (1994), respectively. By examining the presence of the motif in art, literature, and film, I found that the common threads across all investigated works were the dominant social …

Poetics Of Finitude: Time And Death In The Poetry Of R.M. Rilke And T.S. Eliot, Isabel James Greene

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

To Put Her In Her Place: An Interrogation Of Death And Gender In Shakespearean Tragedy, Isabella A. Zentner

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This analysis investigates the gendered implications of Shakespearean heroines' deaths. Using Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus as case studies, evidence is drawn from the text. This evidence is then supported by extensive historical research and reference to external critical studies of these tragedies. By identifying the gendered aspects of these heroines’ deaths, one can gain a greater understanding of Shakespeare’s view of female autonomy and power. The deaths Shakespeare inflicts often act as a punishment for the heroines' betrayal of traditional gender roles and forcibly return the heroines to the feminine sphere.

"Slain Ye Shall Be": Eschatological Morality And The House Of Feanor In Tolkien's The Silmarillion, Ashley Anteau

Honors Projects

This thesis expands on existing research and analysis of the eschatology of J. R. R. Tolkien’s invented mythology, with a critical analysis of how it relates to morality and the overarching exploration of good and evil, primarily in The Silmarillion. By analyzing Tolkien’s medieval and spiritual influences, as well as Tolkien’s unfinished works published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien, it explores the effect of the relationship between morality and mortality on the emotional core of Tolkien’s work. It offers new insights into the text by engaging especially with the often overlooked story of the sons of Feanor, and how this story …

Death As A Gift In J.R.R Tolkien's Work And Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gaelle Abalea

Journal of Tolkien Research

In the episode “Intervention” (S5 ep.18), when going on a spiritual quest about her nature as a slayer, Buffy is told, by the guide under the form of the first Slayer, that ‘Death is her Gift’. Buffy, a 20^th century young woman is confused by the declaration, as are the viewers unless they have read the Silmarilliion, in which the Elves refer to human mortality as the Gift of Illuvatar, a gift they greatly envy.

Writing decades apart, Tolkien and Whedon may not have the same use of the word “gift” as their background and inspirations are quite different …

The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends: Theological Conundrums And Religious Scepticism In Hamlet, Kyler Merrill

Student Works

This paper proposes that Shakespeare deliberately incorporated speculative theology into Hamlet to stimulate religious scepticism. It explores the troubling implications of the ghost’s behaviour, cinematic adaptations of the murder testimony, and the characters’ moral failings in the purportedly Catholic cosmos of Elsinore.

Dadless: Dead Dads In Hamlet And The Effects On Their Children, Erin Diiorio

Honors College Theses

This research is a close look at the methods of grief as depicted by the children who lose their fathers in William Shakespeare's classic Hamlet.. The goal is to track each child's reaction to the sudden bereavement in a variety of physical and emotional manifestations. This has been done by first examining current literature on the text, followed by a review of historical context of the period in which the play was written, and finally analyzing each character's behavior. In doing so, this research seeks to highlight the importance of the presence of fathers within Hamlet and provide insight as …

Dehumanizing The Human Body, Shelby Escott

Frankenstein @ 200: Student Posters

How does death affect the way in which the human body ceases to represent humanity?

The Tapestry Of Memory, Kathryn M. Lawson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rationality points to the complete annihilation and end of a life when the body perishes, and yet when a loved one dies we continue to experience that person in a myriad of ways. The focus of this thesis will be a phenomenological exploration of the earthly afterlife of those we have loved and lost. By positing the subject as always intersubjective and as temporal in nature, this thesis will investigate how we continue to create and interact with the deceased upon the earth. In the introduction, this work will be placed in the context of the phenomenological tradition. The first …

Harry Potter And The Meaning Of Death, Harrison D. Brown

Student Publications

The paper reviews how J.K. Rowling is able to examine death in the Harry Potter book series. In the first part of the text the author touches on the deaths of Harry's parents and the scarring that Harry receives from that, as well as an examination of how the deaths of others, from close friends to acquaintances, have affected Harry, specifically pertaining to his personal responsibility for them and also his grieving process. The paper also goes into how Voldemort's inability to feel love, paired with his fear of dying, have pushed his quest for immortality (using Horcruxes). Harry's mastery …

“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 …

Undead Empire: How Folklore Animates The Human Corpse In Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Charles Hoge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores representations of the human corpse in nineteenth-century British literature and ephemeral culture as a dynamic, multidirectional vehicle used by writers and readers to help articulate emerging anxieties that were complicating the very idea of death. Using cultural criticism as its primary critical heuristic filter, this project analyzes how the lingering influence of folklore animates the human corpses that populate canonical and extra-canonical nineteenth-century British literature.

The first chapter examines the treatment of the human corpse through burial and mourning rituals, as specific developments within these procedures provide interpretive windows into how the idea of death was quickly …

Drowning In Sacrifice: Maggie Tulliver’S Role In George Eliot’S The Mill On The Floss, Kami E. Bates

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Upon examining the personal rejection and eventual demise of Maggie Tulliver, the protagonist of The Mill on the Floss, it becomes evident that her death is a sacrifice through which she demonstrates the morality of George Eliot’s religion of humanity. Maggie is a headstrong, intelligent, and memorable character who does not fit into her community and ultimately drowns in a flood while attempting to save her loved ones. The story begs the question: why must such an endearing main character perish? One possibility is that her character flaws make her downfall inevitable. The high-class and hypocritical members of the …

Courville Castle [Supplemental Material], Sarah Thompson

Sarah E. Thompson

No abstract provided.

Memoirs Of Angelique [Supplemental Material], Sarah Thompson

Sarah E. Thompson

No abstract provided.

The Deception Of Perception: Browning, Childe Roland, And Supersensory Belief, Catherine Blass

All Theses

Browning's fascination with the senses and the mind as determiners of reality floods his work. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,' in particular, offers a more complicated, sincere exploration of this topic that had become central to Victorian debate. As Browning acknowledges repeatedly through his poetry, the debate between sensory data (empiricism) and supersensory belief (idealism) could not be understood in clear-cut categories. In much of his poetry, however, he grounds these questions in deceptively simple discussions of mesmerism or the Victorian philosophy of the mind. Although those two topics may seem disparate to twenty-first century readers, Victorian belief …

Mysterious Murder [Supplemental Materials], Danielle Clapham

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

Father Innocent [Supplemental Material], Wendy Fall

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

Memoirs Of Angelique [Supplemental Material], Sarah Thompson

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

Courville Castle [Supplemental Material], Sarah Thompson

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

Priory Of St. Clair [Supplemental Material], Kathryn Hendrickson

Gothic Archive Supplemental Materials for Chapbooks

No abstract provided.

From Womb To Tomb: A Deconstructionist And Psychoanalytic Perspective Of Death In James Joyce's Dubliners, Bailey Gunn

Senior Capstone Theses

Intentionally absent.

Priory Of St. Clair; Or Spectre Of The Murdered Nun. A Gothic Tale [Transcript], Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson

Gothic Archive Chapbooks

The Archbishop of Rouen had the ability to pardon a condemned criminal once a year. One such pardon was that of Lewis Chabot, Count de Valvé.

Intrigued by an overheard conversation, Lewis goes to the Priory of St. Clair where he witnessed Julietta reluctantly making her nun's vows. He is unable to forget her, so bribes the under gardener, Alexis, to carry letters proclaiming his passion and desire to free her from the nunnery. Julietta refuses him.

Lewis then procures a potent liquor that will, when drunk, simulate death. Julietta drinks it unknowingly and Alexis and Lewis carry away the …

The Mysterious Murder; Or, The Usurper Of Naples: An Original Romance. To Which Is Prefixed, The Nocturnal Assassin; Or, Spanish Jealousy., Isaac Crookenden

Gothic Archive Chapbooks

Estaphana, daughter Lusigni, and Belfoni fall in love. When Estaphana tells her father, however, Lusigni is notably averse to the match. Instead, Lusigni arranges for Estaphana to marry the Duke de Savelli. When Estaphana objects the Duke kidnaps her and takes her to a castle tended by an old servant, Jacquilina and her husband. In the meantime, Lusigni catches Belfoni outside his home imprisons him in a secret dungeon.

Locked in the Duke’s castle, Estaphana is visited by the Duke who attempts to rape her. Fortunately, Jacqulina bursts in and reveals that Estaphana is the Duke’s daughter, proven by a …

The Nun, Or Memoirs Of Angelique; A Tale [Transcript], Unknown

Gothic Archive Chapbooks

The Nun, or Memoirs of Angelique; A Tale begins as the written memoirs of Angelique. A young noblewoman, Angelique loves her cousin Ferdinand. However, when Angelique’s family’s fortune seems to have been lost at sea, Angelique’s father rashly vows that his daughter will become a nun should his ships safely return. When the ships return, Angelique is sent to a convent, where she takes her vows. Soon thereafter, Ferdinand sneaks into the convent dressed as a novitiate, and he quickly persuades Angelique to elope with him. After a midnight wedding, Angelique and Ferdinand escape the convent through a secret passageway. …

Father Innocent, Abbot Of The Capuchins; Or, The Crimes Of Cloisters, Unknown

Gothic Archive Chapbooks

Father Innocent draws large crowds to his sermons due to his famous purity. Among them are Drusilla and her fifteen-year-old niece Ambrosia and two cavaliers, Olmas and Antonio. The four meet in the congregation and form friendships as Antonio seeks to woo Ambrosia. Among Innocent’s followers inside the monastery is his favorite novice, Philario, who turns out to be a woman named Sabrina in disguise; she is a seductress in league with Lucifer, and has come to bring about Innocent’s downfall. She successfully seduces Innocent and traps him with the need for secrecy. Meanwhile, Antonio’s sister, Bertha, is a nun …