Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Sin And Guilt In The Fiction Of John Gregory Dunne, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

John Gregory Dunne depicts his characters' obsession with guilt in his first two novels: True Confessions (1977) and Dutch Shea, Jr. (1982).

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Women -- Victims Of Society, Rachel N. Overstreet

Theses & Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Literary Nationalism And Ambivalence In Washington Irving's The Life And Voyages Of Christopher Columbus, John D. Hazlett

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Comedy: The Uncertain Terrain Of John Hawkes, Peter Johnson

English Faculty Publications

This dissertation examines the nature and function of

John Hawkes' comic method. Although most critics acknowledge

that Hawkes writes comedy, very few of them

agree on the moral nature of this comedy. Chapter I

examines these differing responses to Hawkes' work and

offers an alternative way of evaluating his humor, based

on his own and other critics' comments on comedy. This

chapter also suggests that our responses to Hawkes' humor

occur on an uncertain terrain where two or more, sometimes

opposite, reactions to a text clash, forcing us into continuous

moments of indecision.

Chapter II deals with Hawkes' first novel, …

Vol. 3, No. 4 (1983), William Boozer, Michel Gresset

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Rediscovering James T. Farrell, Charles Fanning

Bridgewater Review

No major American writer has been worse served by criticism than James T. Farrell. After the publication in 1935 of his first fictional series, the Studs Lonigan trilogy, Farrell labored for four decades under an unjust and unfounded critical accusation. During these years, many influential critics dealt with his fiction as it appeared by mechanical citation of a party line which ran as follows: "James T. Farrell is that sad case, a one-book writer. Studs Lonigan is credible fiction, albeit in the limiting and dated naturalistic mode pioneered by Theodore Dreiser. But his subsequent novels have been obsessive reworkings of …

Vol. 3, No. 3 (1983), Cary Wilkins, Rollin Woodyatt, James W. Silver

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Fallen Angels: William Faulkner's Lost Generation, Ron Buchanan

Theses & Honors Papers

In his address upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature on December 10, 1950, William Faulkner stated that the only topic "worth writing about" is "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself ."1 Throughout his career, Faulkner attempted to convey this idea; regardless of the actual subject or the characters, this theme weaves itself through the author's works. Even Faulkner's works of the 1920s and early 1930s demonstrate this concern with the psychological and emotional problems of his characters. Among the characters most troubled are the veterans returning home after fighting in Europe during World War I …

Vol. 3, No. 2 (1983), William Boozer, Orin Borsten

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Conversion, Revisionism, And Revision In Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return, John D. Hazlett

English Faculty Publications

Malcolm Cowley's first edition of 'Exile's Return: A Narrative of Ideas' (1934) was an autobiographical narrative which traced Cowley and his friends on their ideological odyssey from bohemianism to Marxism. Cowley's 'Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s' (1951) was written because Cowley, like other writers of his generation, was embarrassed by his decade of Marxist enthusiasm and, coupled with a national mood increasingly hostile to Communism, he now perceived his view of history in the first book as a literary flaw. However, once that view was judged inaccurate, it was easy for Cowley to convince himself that "self" …

The Search For Origins: Some Contemporary Views On Poetry And Possibility, David Franke

Honors Theses

Too often it is the habit of critics to create a realm of philosophy that removes itself from the very subject which it aims to clarify or refine. This paper attempts to avoid that mistake by grounding the philosophical ideas explicated in the first section of the paper in practical applications to the poetry of Mark Strand, A.R. Ammons and others. Briefly, the beginning sets up an idealogical framework that focuses on the poet's introspective search for the origins of his art. Drawing heavily on the criticism of Maurice Blanchot, the phenomonological philosophy of Martin Heidegger , and the philosophical …

Vol. 3, No. 1 (1983), Paul Flowers, Stuart Purser

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

The Road Down From Spoon River, Robert Bray

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Freedom At Midday: Elements Of Existentialism In The Works Of Ambrose Bierce, Sharon A. Winn

Masters Theses

Ambrose Bierce exhibited a number of elements of existential thinking both in his life and in his writing. But he was ambivalent about his philosophical stance, and it is difficult to know whether he was the utter pessimist he has been called, or whether his attitude toward the universe admitted a certain optimism.

Much of Bierce's thought parallels modern existentialism, which has three main tenets: a belief that there is no God and the universe is, therefore, irrational; a descent into despair; and a choice of life or death.

Bierce insisted that the universe is irrational, and he repeatedly discussed …

Lights And Shadows - 1983, University Of North Alabama

Lights and Shadows

Art and Literature Magazine

Approaching The Scarlet Letter: Spatiality As Theme And Method, Susan L. Scott

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Although my goal is ultimately to undersatnd Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the emphasis of this thesis is upon ways of approaching that goal. Only the last chapter is directly about the text of that romance. In the first chapter I consider the state of the field, religion and literature, with a view to identifying my own position in it. In the second, I look at the cultural historical contexts for reading the story, specifically, the seventeenth century Puritans and the nineteenth century American romance. The third chapter focuses on variants of the idea of spatiality, for instance, sacred space, topophilia, …

Auden's Poetic Theory & The Child-Like Voice, Diana Graham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

W. H. Auden shares with most of his contemporaries, including Yeats and Eliot, the goal of lighting modern man's way back to a sense of harmony with his universe--the certainty of identity which his ancestors enjoyed. In New Year Letter, Auden announces that the problem lies within man himself because each of us is possessed of a "double" nature, thus rendering us our own schismatics.

Auden finds that only with the help of divinity, specifically Christian, can the destructive element be overcome. To illustrate this solution in his poems then becomes Auden's great challenge. Employing a child-like voice or tone …

Vol. 2, No. 4 (1982), William Boozer, Louis Daniel Brodsky, Robert W. Hamblin

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Stephen Crane & Ernest Hemingway: A Study In Affinities, Clara Metzmeier

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The affinities which appear in writing styles of Stephen Crane and manifest themselves in their works. raised in religious homes, rebelled the life styles and Ernest Hemingway Both writers were against their religious backgrounds, began newspaper careers as teenagers, traveled and reported war for their respective newspapers, believed that life was filled with violence, confirmed that belief through their experiences and observations, and developed corresponding literary credos. Both Crane and Hemingway believed the writer should experience present manner. the story Both men and observe what he wrote and should in a simple, direct, and truthful used short sentences, irony, dialogue, …

Vol. 2, No. 3 (1982), Paul Flowers

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Langston Hughes's "Ask Your Mama": "12 Moods For Jazz" An Explication Of Hope In The Midst Of Protest, William J. Read

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial. fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of English by William J. Read on July 1, 1982.

O. Henry’S Use Of Stereotypes In His New York City Stories: An Example Of The Utilization Of Folklore In Literature, Martin Ostrofsky

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Stereotyping is a folkloristic process which permits people to reduce the complexities of the real world into simplified, abstract terms. O. Henry one of America’s most popular short story writers, made generous use of stereotypes in his stories. By examining O. Henry’s use of stereotypes, insight may be gained into the essential role which folklore often plays in creative literature. Stereotypes greatly influence the composition, function and reception of O. Henry’s work. O. Henry’s personal habits and circumstances demanded that he produce a prolific stream of short stories which would have the greatest popular appeal. Clever manipulation of stereotypes permitted …

Caroline Gordon: A Sense Of Place, Frances Perdue

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Place, as it transcends the immediate setting of a work, is an essential element of Caroline Gordon’s early novels. She looks to the past and to the region of her birth to focus on the traditional South. She shows her characters’ changing attitudes toward the Cavalier Myth, a view that promotes the value of the land, the patriarchal family, and an anachronistic code of honor. To them, the South is unique, and they resist all efforts to change this “given social order.” However, Gordon begins to recognize that change is inevitable. Thus, she reveals her characters’ succumbing to the rising …

Vol. 2, No. 2 (1982), Noel Polk, Carl Petersen, Christine Liska, Robert Liska

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 2, No. 1 (1982), William Boozer, Dean Faulkner Wells

Faulkner Newsletter and Yoknapatawpha Review

No abstract provided.

Willa Cather's Window Imagery: A Study Of A Detail In Artistic Design, Aliesa Zoecklein

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

A Linguistic Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's Poetry, Mary Ann Hobson

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Fairy Queen, Rufus Reed

Rufus Reed Literary Works

From the Author:  The Fairy Queen of East River Mountain is an enchanting children's story which teaches some very valuable lessons about nature and the environment. The story unfolds as Billy and his sister Betty are beckoned into the forest by a friendly squirrel. They are soon lost in the dark woods and are afraid--but they are soon met by the good Fairy Queen Sylvia.

Daughters Of A Jesting God: The Religious Sensibility Of Margaret Laurence, Patricia Stibbards-Watt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

There's No Place Like Home: The Haunted House As Literary Motif, Mary Catherine Mcdaniel

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the development of the haunted house in British and American literature and covers a time span of roughly two hundred years. Its approach is chronological: beginning with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, it examines the use of the Bad Place as a literary motif, emphasizing the consistencies in its development while noting the inconsistencies as well. From Walpole to Stephen King, we see that the haunted house has continuously represented two things. On one hand, it may serve as a repository for unexpiated sin. The traditional haunted house, in fact, is nothing more than the …