Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Contested Cosmopolitanism: William And Elizabeth A. Sharp’S Glasgow Herald Reviews Of The Paris Salons 1884-1900, Michael Shaw

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses William Sharp's attempt as a fin-de-siecle art critic to accommodate local particularism and national identity within his "outsider" cosmopolitanism, through his contributions to The Evergreen and the regular reviews he and his wife Elizabeth A. Sharp wrote of the Paris Salons for the Glasgow Herald, unsigned but identifiable through their correspondence, and argues that these reviews show how "the Sharps resisted the growing tendency to see the particular and the cosmopolitan as irreconcilable opposites."

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Haunted Heroines: An Examination Of The Complication Of The Gothic Heroine, Molly S. Callison

Honors Projects

This undergraduate research thesis is an examination of two of the most significant evolutions of the literary figure of the Gothic heroine, focusing on innovations made by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey (1817) and Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre (1847). It discusses the origins of the Gothic heroine, set up by Horace Walpole in The Castle of Otranto (1764), and examines the ways that Austen and Brontë make their heroines more internally complex, bringing not only realism to the Gothic heroine but a psychological depth to the feminine Gothic.

The Influence Of Japan And India In The Circle Of Patrick Geddes, Murdo Macdonald

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Japanese art in Evergreen contributions by E.A. Hornel and Charles Mackie, the influence of Patrick Geddes's ideas in Japan, and Geddes's links with the early 20th century revival of interest in Hinduism and Indian art.

Small Nations Writ Large: Notions Of Cosmopolitanism In Fin-De-Siècle Scotland And Flanders, Koenraad Claes

Studies in Scottish Literature

Compares relations between cosmopolitanism and nationalism in Scotland and Belgium, through the Scottish critic William Sharp's response to the "Belgian Renascence," to the magazine La Jeune Belgique, to Flemish authors writing in French (notably the playwrights Van Lerberghe and Maeterlinck, the novelist Eekhoud, and the poet Verhaeren), contrasting that movement with the later pro-Dutch-language magazine Van Nu en Straks, and illustrating how the local and global overlapped in the rivalling cosmopolitanism of fin-de-siècle Belgium and the late-19th-century avant-garde.

Andrew Lang’S Discursive Cosmopolitanism In Longman’S Magazine, Linda K. Hughes

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the distinctive form and influence of Andrew Lang's series "At the Sign of the Ship," in Longman's Magazine, and explores Lang's range of Scottish and cosmopolitan references and perspectives.

Unionism, Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism: Ruraidh Erskine Of Marr At The Fin De Siècle, Alex Murray

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines the works of Ruraidh Erskine of Marr within the context of fin-de-siècle literary and political cultures in Scotland and England, arguing that his journey from conservative unionist to radical nationalist (and back again) challenges existing models for reading cosmopolitanism.

Contributors To Ssl 48.1

Studies in Scottish Literature

No abstract provided.

The Cosmopolitan Evergreen And The Global Digital, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines how Patrick Geddes’s The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal used the affordances of fin-de-siècle print culture to imbricate the regional and the transnational, and shows how the magazine’s digital remediation on Yellow Nineties 2.0 makes its cosmopolitan vision newly accessible to global audiences today.

Locating Scottish Cosmopolitanism In The Digital Archive, Alison Chapman

Studies in Scottish Literature

A reassessment of late nineteenth century Scottish cosmopolitan poets as represented in Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry (https://dvpp.uvic.ca/ ), focussing on the poems of John Davidson, William Sharp, Francis Annesley Brodie-Innes, and Violet Tweedale, and on the Scottish periodicals Good Words and Chambers’s (Edinburgh) Journal.

Cosmopolitanism And The Scottish Working-Class Writer: John Parkinson/Yehya-En-Nasr And Islam In Ayrshire, Kirstie Blair

Studies in Scottish Literature

Explores the grassroots cosmopolitan and international literary interests of Scottish working-class writers, through the writing of the Scottish poet and convert to Islam John Parkinson or "Yehya-en-Nasr" (1874-1918), in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, in the monthly The Islamic World and the weekly newspaper The Crescent, as a journalist in Rangoon, and in book form, notably his Lays of Love and War (Ardrossan, n.d.), arguing that Parkinson's "Muslim cosmopolitanism" and his local Ayrshire identity and contexts were inextricably intertwined.

“The Battle Against Sameness”: Queer Marriages In Forster And Woolf, Lindsey Hatton

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Bloomsbury Group was known for unconventionality, both in their lives and in their writing. This holds especially true for E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, whose novels uniquely depict queer relationships as an alternative to traditional, rigid, heterosexual marriages. This paper looks at Clarissa and Richard from Mrs. Dalloway, Margaret and Henry from Howards End, and Maurice and Alec from Maurice and how each of these couples subvert the societal conventions of the Victorian era in different ways. A close reading of these texts and characters allows for a nuanced understanding of Woolf and Forster’s revolutionary visions and demonstrates how …

Mutually Exclusive: Being Gay And Being A Man In E.M. Forster’S Maurice, Kimber Foreman

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper outlines the impacts of English heteronormativity on E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice by exploring applicable cultural context and its reflection within the text. Maurice was published after Forster’s death, and as his only novel with explicit queer characters, is the best suited for parsing Forster’s own understanding of the society he lived in. With a primary focus on the characters of Maurice and Clive, the paper examines the dichotomy that Forster posits heteronormative English society creates between traditional English masculinity and the identities of gay men. This examination ultimately leads to the conclusion that Forster writes the Greenwood-bound fate …

Tolkien, Enchantment, And Loss: Steps On The Developmental Journey (2022) By John Rosegrant, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Marilyn R. Pukkila, of Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey (2022) by John Rosegrant

Calkas’S Daughter: Paternal Authority And Feminine Virtue In Troilus And Criseyde, Jennifer Alberghini

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The heroine of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde has been of considerable interest to medieval feminist scholars as a woman who is depicted as both virtuous and an adulteress. Yet critical discussions do not often view Criseyde’s virtue in light of her role as daughter. This article explores that role, focusing on how her father Calkas is described by the characters as having authority over his daughter’s body in the marriage market. This will later enable them to use him as an excuse for Criseyde’s failure to return to Troy and thus preserve her status as virtuous. However, the characters …

Affect And The Tomb In Robert Henryson's Testament Of Cresseid, Elizabeth Elliott

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The penultimate verse of Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid suggests the possibility that Troilus raised a monument in memory of his former love, Cresseid: “Sum said he maid ane tomb of merbell gray” (l. 603). Examining the political implications of this uncertain act of memorialisation, this article considers how Henryson's poem mobilises the reader's emotional response to constitute Cresseid as a mourned subject, whose subjectivity is recognised only insofar as it is limited to suffering and death. In doing so, the Testament also establishes a subjectivity for women that offers conditional tolerance predicated on respectable behaviour, contributing to the historical production …

Poverty, Social Isolation, Uselessness, And Loneliness: The Fears And Anxieties Of 19th-Century British Governesses, Lydia Pejovic

English (MA) Theses

This essay focuses on the prevalent fears of governesses in nineteenth-century Britain: poverty and social isolation, uselessness/redundancy, and a life of loneliness. Through looking at Emma, Jane Eyre, and The Turn of the Screw, novels which span the century (their publication dates ranging from 1814-1898), and comparing them to the historical reality of many middle class women at the time, these fears are revealed to be quite valid. The fears and anxieties displayed by the characters in the three novels are reflected in statements made by former governesses (including Mary Wollstonecraft), and are likewise reinforced through census reports and common …

“Strumpet,” “Huswife,” “Whore”: Centering Othello’S Bianca, Phoebe Merten

English (MA) Theses

Is Bianca a sex worker? What meanings change if she is or isn’t? Not enough artistic or critical attention has been paid the character. It seems likely that the initial lack of attention stemmed from Bianca’s status as a purported sex worker, as though this makes her somehow categorically different from the other women in the play, or inherently less interesting. There has in the past decade or so been a marked increase in scholarship on sex work, but this too largely skims over Bianca, likely because of the ambiguity surrounding her profession.

In my introduction I go over some …

"Custome Is An Idiot": How Genre Bending Opens New Meanings For Hæc Vir, Or The Womanish Man, Stephen Montgomery-Anderson

All Theses

Hæc Vir, or the Womanish Man is often conceived of as a satirical pamphlet. Moreover, scholars such as Linda Woodbridge and Simone Chess read the pamphlet as ultimately and explicitly arguing for a normative rendering of gender. Such readings, while acknowledging the rhetorical power and feminist nature of the crossdressed female character Hic Mulier’s arguments, invariably discount them in favor of a supposed return to normalcy. I instead suggest that Hic Mulier’s arguments be read as genuine and potentially altering. I further argue that we should read Hæc Vir as a closet drama. Bending the genre of the …

Love And Romance In Early Modern British Literature, Sophia Szeneitas

Senior Honors Projects

This paper seeks to describe and analyze the way in which themes of love and romance were presented in literature in early modern Britain, and how those may differ from or be similar to romantic themes in the media of today. The works being analyzed include plays by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, as well as some of Shakespeare’s sonnets. A few different lenses will be explored, including the interaction that love could have with the societal power structure and hierarchy present within the literature (such as the ways in which someone being the lover of a powerful person might …

“Hysteria Abated”: Forster’S Treatment Of Women’S Mental Health In Howards End, Rosemary Pauley

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In Howards End, Forster’s female characters are written off multiple times as having ‘hysteria’ or simply being foolish, sensitive women, which was a common attitude towards mental illness in Edwardian society. This essay investigates the concept of hysteria and Forster’s use of mental health with his female characters, using these factors to enhance the understanding of the characters, particularly the struggles or judgments that the three leading ladies, Helen, Margaret, and Ruth, face. The initial inspiration was drawn from Margaret’s jumping out of the carriage, as well as the neglect of Ruth’s dying wish; both women are deemed hysterical. While …

Ghosts And Ethics In The Early Works Of James Joyce, Michael Menase

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last 20 years, critics have contributed new insights into the character development, overall messages, themes, and other literary aspects of James Joyce’s works by focusing on their ethical implications. By following an intertextual method and by performing close readings of Joyce’s texts, I try to fill a gap in the scholarly literature by adding a related focus on ghosts to the conversation about Joyce’s ethics and those of his characters. Focusing on Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I hope to show that the ghosts in Joyce’s corpus motivate characters and readers to …

Problematic Advocacy And Victorian Public Health In Gatherings From Graveyards By Dr. George A. Walker, Olivia Ladner

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the problematic advocacy of Dr. George A. Walker in his public health pamphlet, Gatherings from Graveyards. In his work, Walker calls for the removal of urban cemeteries from within London and other cities in Great Britain due to concerns about public health safety. He cites miasmatic theory as the reason for the spread of disease from rotting corpses and unkept cemeteries in the British metropolis. Though he blames Parliament for the state of urban cemeteries, he continuously cites poor communities and neighborhoods as the sole sources of disease and does not conduct investigations into the …

The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is now an almost foregone conclusion that classic depictions of vampirism resonate with contemporary queer audiences. A sympathetic response to the monster’s persecution is often the key factor in these arguments, yet little attention is paid to the textual details that prompt such a process of identification. This study posits that the iconography used to establish a connection between monstrosity and non-normative sexuality has its origins in Victorian Gothic fiction, whose descriptions of vampirism were assimilated into the discourse of the fin-de-siècle medical field known as sexology. Theories that defined homosexuality as an illness with physical and psychological symptoms …

Definitions And Depictions Of Rhetorical Practice In Medieval English Fürstenspiegel., Joseph Ethan Blaine Sharp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how medieval authors defined rhetoric and depicted rhetorical practice in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. It begins by analyzing how the field of medieval rhetorical historiography has overlooked the Fürstenspiegel as a rhetorical genre due to its overt reliance on meta-rhetorical handbook genres as the objects of its analysis. This dissertation challenges traditional narratives that positions medieval rhetoric as a primarily academic discipline divorced from political practice by engaging in horizontal reading practices that examine the broader culture of medieval rhetorical practice alongside the definitions of rhetoric found in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. In so doing, this dissertation …

Enchanting Music: How English Playwrights Use Music In Renaissance Witchcraft Plays, Alyssa Anders

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Music is an integral aspect of the Early Modern theater, but because most of this music is lost, scholars and students typically only analyze these works using literary theories. This approach does not allow for a full understanding these plays, which is especially true of witchcraft plays because witches typically utilize music for their spells. In this thesis, I am exploring the interdisciplinary connection of music and literature in the Jacobean witchcraft plays The Witch (c. 1616) by Thomas Middleton and The Tragedy of Sophonisba or The Wonder of Women (1604-1606). From my analysis of the existing music from The …

Performance, Theatricality, And Identity In Shakespeare’S The Taming Of The Shrew, Nina Masin-Moyer

College Honors Program

William Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew is a curious and often controversial play due to its depiction of spousal abuse and female subordination. But despite that charged reputation, it continues to be produced on stages around the world, with creative choices that suggest an attempt to change a supposedly un-feminist play into a feminist one. My thesis argues that this play already features notable feminist elements at the level of the text itself, stemming in particular from its thematic and structural investment in performance and theatricality and in the roles that these elements play in constructing gender and …

A Lesson In Mourning: The Evolution Of The English Anti-Elegy, K. Matthew Bennett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the evolution of the anti-elegy originating with Thomas Hardy’s elegiac sequence in memory of his wife Emma; Poems of 1912-1913. Using French post-structuralist Georges Bataille’s The Accursed Share as a theoretical lens, Hardy’s anti-elegies are analyzed and rhetorically connected to English war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s anti-elegies. Hardy’s anti-sentimentality, fatalistic outlook on death, and rejection of the Christian afterlife seeps into the language of Sassoon’s war poems which serve as a protest to the dehumanizing effects of late capitalism witnessed during the First World War. Hardy and Sassoon’s anti-elegies, with their hyper-focus on the elegized body, are …

Switzerland In Tolkien's Middle-Earth: In The Footsteps Of His Adventurous Summer Journey In 1911 (2021) By M.S. Monsch, Christina Scull &. Wayne G. Hammond

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, of Switzerland in Tolkien's Middle-earth: In the Footsteps of His Adventurous Summer Journey in 1911 (2021) by M.S. Monsch.

First Person Narration In Postwar British Women’S Fiction, Julia Mccoy

English Student Scholarship

Julia McCoy ’22
Majors: English and Political Science
Faculty Mentor: Dr. William Hogan, English

A study of postwar English novelists Margaret Drabble and Jeannette Winterson, looking particularly at the way these writers use first person narration in their works. Both writers explore how women’s identity can be ‘written into being’ against external pressures and authorities that seek to define women’s ‘proper’ role.

Women And Supposition: The Chronicles Of Narnia And Biblical Womanhood, Carolyn Dailey

Honors Projects

Supplemented by C.S. Lewis' works in theology, predominately Mere Christianity, and 'Priestesses in the Church?" as well as sources from other theologians, and historians, this paper explores the relationship between Christian tradition and Biblical womanhood that is expressed in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. This paper finds that C.S. Lewis drew more from the core tenets of love and equality that exist at the heart of Christianity rather than from traditional Christian beliefs, including some he held himself. In doing this, he crafted an imaginative fiction that affirms Biblical womanhood.