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Religion as a Factor in the Literary Career of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Description: The purpose of this study is to evaluate various religious elements in Nathainel Hawthorne's life in relation to his career as a literary artist. The moral seriousness of this author at once strikes us as being something closely akin to religious sentiment, but he refused to endorse any specific dogma or to subscribe to any one organized faith. We know from his work that he had a religion, but his silence leaves ample room for conjecture if we wish to "label" him, or decide which of those relig… more
Date: July 1952
Creator: Miller, John Davidson
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The Religion of Dr. Samuel Johnson

Description: Johnson was a rationalist in everything except religion, which, to him, was an adherence to the established Church with its traditional forms. His efforts to maintain his orthodox views in the midst of the controversial beliefs of his age will be the subject of subsequent chapters in this study.
Date: 1949
Creator: Hopper, Ruth
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Renunciation and Self-Realization in Selected Novels of Henry James

Description: This study of renunciation and self-realization examines four of Henry James's novels which have been selected for the centrality of this theme. Following James's failure as a dramatist, in the novels of the major phase, from 1897 on, the theme of renunciation becomes primary as James's work achieves psychological and stylistic maturity. In addition Henry James's letters, notebooks, and prefaces will be used to indicate his attitudes concerning renunciation.
Date: August 1969
Creator: Edwards, Susan Lee
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Repetitions in the Most Popular Works of Mark Twain

Description: This paper is a study of the repetitions in the works of Mark Twain.The author has chosen repetitions which are most nearly alike and most representative of Mark Twain. The study was limited to repetitions of his own experiences repeated in his works, to repetitions of descriptions of the beautiful and the horrible, and to repetitions which are a result of his humor and a desire to save man from himself.
Date: August 1949
Creator: Chambers, Nettie Jackson
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The Representation of Satan in the Fiction of Samuel L. Clemens

Description: Unable to rationalize man's interpretation of God, Clemens took a different view of Satan. He wrote four minor pieces that illustrate his attitudes toward Satan. He began to act as a pen for the narrator, Satan. Clemens allowed his Satanic characters freedoms that he would not allow other characters, and opinions that he restrained from writing as his own. But an older Clemens tossed convention aside as he assumed Satan's identity and wrote imaginative and unrestrained ideas on God, Satan and … more
Date: May 1971
Creator: Rainey, Betty F.
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Representation of the Social Class Structure in the Fiction of Ernest Hemingway

Description: Hemingway has given us pictures of individual members of society in the United States, in Africa and in Europe from the nineteen-twenties to the present time. In order to present Hemingway's characters as a study in social structure, the following classes will be considered: primitives, peasants, middle class, upper class, aristocrats.
Date: 1957
Creator: Cook, Mary K. McCarley
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Representations of the Mother-Son Relations in the Major Novels of Samuel Clemens

Description: This thesis examines the relationship between Samuel Clemens and his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens. It is apparent that Samuel was strongly influenced by his mother in his personality, appearance, and beliefs; but of greater importance is the influence she exerted on the literary creations of Mark Twain.
Date: June 1968
Creator: Rogers, Janie

Resurrection Attempts: Essays

Description: This dissertation is composed of a critical preface, "Reconciling Art and Account in the Creative Essay," and the essay collection Resurrection Attempts: Essays. The preface situates the following essay collection within the genre of contemporary creative nonfiction. Specifically, it argues that genre-bending or genre hybridity are inherent and unavoidable features of creative nonfiction writing and should be celebrated, rather than denied or lamented. It points to other writers who deliberatel… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Al-Qasem, Ruby
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Revisiting the Grotesque: Poems

Description: This thesis consists of a group of poems around a central concept: language as a physical dwelling place—a place much like what Raphael discovered in the grottoes of Rome and named "grotesque," or "grotto-esque." Using the word, "grotesque," as an example, the preface illustrates how poetry can play with the lost histories of words while still searching for new referents and associations.
Date: August 1997
Creator: Davidson, Chad (Chad Thomas)

Revolutionaries and Prophets: Post-Oppositionality in Kathleen Alcalá's Sonoran Desert Trilogy

Description: In this dissertation, I examine the Sonoran Desert trilogy by Kathleen Alcalá through the lens of post-oppositional theory as developed by AnaLouise Keating. Moving beyond the use of post-oppositional theory to analyze non-fiction works, I apply this theory instead to the fiction of Kathleen Alcalá—whose work appears in such anthologies as The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. Alcalá, though well published, is underrepresented in contemporary literary criticism, as can be seen by the only … more
Date: August 2021
Creator: VonTress, Aurelia Ann
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The Rhetoric of Androgyny: Gender and Boundaries in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness

Description: The androgyny of the Gethenians in The Left Hand of Darkness is a vehicle for Ursula Le Guin's rhetoric concerning gender roles. Le Guin attempts to make the reader identify with an ideal form of androgyny, through which she argues that many of the problems of human existence, from rape and war to dualistic thought and sexism, are products of gender roles and would be absent in an androgynous world. The novel also links barriers of separation and Othering with masculine thought, and deconstruct… more
Date: August 1996
Creator: Gleason, Benjamin P. (Benjamin Patrick)
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The Rhetoric of Posthumanism in Four Twentieth-Century International Novels

Description: The dissertation traces the trope of the incomplete character in four twentieth-century cosmopolitan novels that reflect European colonialism in a global context. I argue that, by creating characters sharply aware of the insufficiency of the Self and thus constantly seeking the constitutive participation of the Other, the four authors E. M. Forster, Samuel Beckett, J. M. Coetzee, and Congwen Shen all dramatize the incomplete character as an agent of postcolonial resistance to Western humanism t… more
Date: August 1998
Creator: Lin, Lidan
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Rhetorical Transformations of Trees in Medieval England: From Material Culture to Literary Representation

Description: Literary texts of medieval England feature trees as essential to the individual and communal identity as it intersects with nature, and the compelling qualities and organic processes associated with trees help vernacular writers interrogate the changing nature of this character. The early depiction of trees demonstrates an intimacy with nature that wanes after the tenth-century monastic revival, when the representation of trees as living, physical entities shifts toward their portrayal as alleg… more
Date: December 2008
Creator: Grimes, Jodi Elisabeth
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Richard Wilbur and the Poetry of Apocalyptic Interstices

Description: In my dissertation I assert that Wilbur's poetry is not so much an attempt to balance spiritual and physical realities as an attempt to mine the richness that exists in the boundary between the two worlds. I also examine and comment on his poetry that exists in the space created by other apocalyptic interstices as well.
Date: August 1994
Creator: Compton, Randall D. (Randall Dean), 1964-
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Richard Wilbur's Poetry: a Celebration of Reality

Description: The celebration of reality in Richard Wilbur's poetry has significant implications for contemporary literature and for contemporary man. In literature, his celebration of reality points to the way out of the mood of despair which has influenced much of literary thought in the twentieth century. For the individual, the celebration of reality encourages man to turn from self to an appreciation for reality which makes life worthwhile. This thesis will discuss the celebration of reality that is pre… more
Date: January 1968
Creator: Sage, Robert L.
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The Riddle of Oedipus: Complex, Myth, and History

Description: There are two general approaches to myth, the literal and the symbolic. The literal method considers myth a record of man's responses to factors external to himself, while the symbolic approach evaluates myth as the externalization of internal conflicts. The purpose of this paper is to examine several examples of each type of scholarship and to show the efficacy of both in gaining a complete understanding of the Oedipus myths.
Date: August 1971
Creator: Stephens, Jessie L.
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"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": Critical Commentary, 1798-1968

Description: The new elements in "The Ancient Mariner" were partly responsible for the unfavorable early reviews which vary much from the high praise the poem receives today. The purpose of this study is to record critical opinion of the poem from the contemporary reviews of 1798 to the intensive critical analysis of the 1960's.
Date: January 1969
Creator: Schlueter, Helen V.
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Road Debris

Description: This dissertation comprises two parts: Part I, which discusses the growing trend in project books in contemporary poetry, and Part II, a collection of poems titled, Road Debris. There is an increasing trend in the number of project books, which are collections of poetry unified in both thematic and formal ways. the individual poems in a project book share overt connections which allow the book to work on many different levels, blending elements of fiction and non-fiction or sharing a specific … more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Dewoody, Dale W.
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