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The Hoboken War Bride: A Novel
The Hoboken War Bride is a work of historical fiction set in Hoboken, New Jersey during World War II. A young soldier named Daniel and an aspiring actress named Hildy marry days after meeting, though the marriage is doomed to fail. This young couple is not compatible. Daniel ships out to basic training the day after their hasty marriage, leaving Hildy behind with his family, the Anellos, who she quickly becomes attached to. Hildy is exposed to family in a way she had never lived with her own, embracing them even though she doubts she'll ever have a future with Daniel. When Daniel returns after the end of the war, the young couple try to make their marriage work, but it fails almost immediately. Both Hildy and Daniel struggle to pick themselves up after their divorce, finding themselves making choices they never thought they would when they were younger.
Israel Zangwill as an Apologist
Israel Zangwill, novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist, can be understood and appreciated best as an apologist whose chosen mission was to introduce the Jew to the English-speaking reader, a reader who had often see the word Jew on the pages of his literature but seldom had been able to meed an authentic specimen of the group in--or out--of print. This thesis will describe the works of Zangwill from an apologetic standpoint.
"That Every Christian May Be Suited": Isaac Watts's Hymns in the Writings of Early Mohegan Writers, Samson Occom and Joseph Johnson
This thesis considers how Samson Occom and Joseph Johnson, Mohegan writers in Early America, used the hymns of English hymnodist, Isaac Watts. Each chapter traces how either Samson Occom or Joseph Johnson's adapted Isaac Watts's hymns for Native communities and how these texts are sites of affective sovereignty.
God's Perfect Timing
When I was thirty-three years old, I discovered I was an adoptee. In this memoir of secrecy and love, betrayal and redemption, I reflect on my early experiences as a doted-on only child firmly rooted in the abundant love of my adoptive family, my later struggles with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, my marriage to a fellow-adoptee, my discovery of my own adoption and the subsequent reunion with my birth family, my navigation through the thrills and tensions of newly complicated family dynamics, and my witness to God's perfect timing through it all.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Use of Witch and Devil Lore
Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal family history, his boyhood in the Salem area of New England, and his reading of works about New England's Puritan era influenced his choice of witch and Devil lore as fictional material. The witchcraft trials in Salem were evidence (in Hawthorne's interpretation) of the errors of judgment and popular belief which are ever-present in the human race. He considered the witch and Devil doctrine of the seventeenth century to be indicative of the superstition, fear, and hatred which governs the lives of men even in later centuries. From the excesses of the witch-hunt period of New England history Hawthorne felt moral lessons could be derived.
Nine Women in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad
The purpose of this study is to show that many of Conrad's women characters were not merely passive factors and that their inclusion in his fiction was more functional than incidental.
Ours is the Kingdom of Heaven: Racial Construction of Early American Christian Identities
This project interrogates how religious performance, either authentic or contrived, aids in the quest for freedom for oppressed peoples; how the rhetoric of the Enlightenment era pervades literatures delivered or written by Native Americans and African Americans; and how religious modes, such as evoking scripture, performing sacrifices, or relying upon providence, assist oppressed populations in their roles as early American authors and speakers. Even though the African American and Native American populations of early America before the eighteenth century were denied access to rights and freedom, they learned to manipulate these imposed constraints--renouncing the expectation that they should be subordinate and silent--to assert their independent bodies, voices, and spiritual identities through the use of literary expression. These performative strategies, such as self-fashioning, commanding language, destabilizing republican rhetoric, or revising narrative forms, become the tools used to present three significant strands of identity: the individual person, the racialized person, and the spiritual person. As each author resists the imposed restrictions of early American ideology and the resulting expectation of inferior behavior, he/she displays abilities within literature (oral and written forms) denied him/her by the political systems of the early republican and early national eras. Specifically, they each represent themselves in three ways: first, as a unique individual with differentiated abilities, exceptionalities, and personality; second, as a person with distinct value, regardless of skin color, cultural difference, or gender; and third, as a sanctified and redeemed Christian, guaranteed agency and inheritance through the family of God. Furthermore, the use of religion and spirituality allows these authors the opportunity to function as active agents who were adapting specific verbal and physical methods of self-fashioning through particular literary strategies. Doing so demonstrates that they were not the unrefined and unfeeling individuals that early American political and social restrictions had made them--that instead they were …
Emily Dickinson and Nature
The purpose of this thesis is to show upon what aspects of nature Emily Dickinson's poems touch, to what extent and in what manner she uses nature terms in expressing her philosophy of life, what ideas she expresses through these terms, and finally what her own philosophy of nature is.
The Use of Art Objects in the Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne
This study is not concerned with the evaluation of Hawthorne's artistic criticism but with the uses he made art objects in his writing. Such a study should give suggestions for interpretation of his works, as well as information concerning literary devices and technique in style. It should consider the contribution of the art objects to the literary artistry of the works in which they appear. Such a study has not previously been made.
Radius
This paper includes a 62-page book of original poems, 19 pages of which are visual poetry, and a 29-page preface which discusses visual poetry.
Cultures of Elite Theatre in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Masque: Four Incarnations
The early modern English masque is a hybrid form of entertainment that included music, dance, poetry, and visual spectacle, and for which there is no modern equivalent. This dissertation looks at four incarnations of the Elizabethan and Jacobean masque: the court masque, the masque embedded in the progress entertainment, the masque embedded in the commercial play, and the masque embedded in the commercial play performed at court. This study treats masques as a form of elite theatre (that is, theatre for, by, and about elite figures like monarchs and aristocrats) and follows them from the court to the countryside, through the commercial playhouse, and back again to the court in pursuit of a more nuanced picture of the hybridity and flexibility of early modern English performance culture.
Representations of the Mother-Son Relations in the Major Novels of Samuel Clemens
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.
Selected Poems, with a Comparison of Religious Sonnets of Donne and Hopkins
This thesis presents original poems by the author, as well as a comparison of the religious sonnets by John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
The Development of the Dominant Female in Selected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
This study of thirty representative short stories from 1912-1941 demonstrates the stages of growth in Fitzgerald's writing which emerged from his own mental development, focusing upon his changing attitudes toward women as he reflects these attitudes in his depictions of the dominant female figures in the stories. The above chronology is then divided into four major blocks; in each block the dominant female illustrates Fitzgerald's concept of women at that particular stage of his life, The stories prove to be integral to the whole of Fitzgerald's writing and deserve to be judged independently of the novels. Furthermore, through an examination of Fitzgerald's short stories, the growth periods and the natural course of his changing attitudes become all the more clear and incisive.
The Other Side of Yesterday
The four stories in this collection follow different, yet strikingly similar, protagonists who are facing crossroads in life. These stories include memories and specific scenes from the past that combine with scenes from the present to trace the development of the characters.
Joy Harjo's Poetics of Transformation
For Muscogee Creek poet Joy Harjo, poetry is a real world force that can empower the reader by utilizing mythic memory, recovery of history, and a spiral journey to regain communal identity. Her poetic career transforms from early lyric poems to a hybridized form of prosody, prose, and myth to accommodate and to reflect Harjo's concerns as they progress from personal, to tribal, and then to global. She often employs a witnessing strategy to combat the trauma caused by racism in order to create the possibility for renewal and healing. Furthermore, Harjo's poetry combats forces that seek to define Native American existence negatively. To date, Harjo's poetic works create a myth that will refocus humanity's attention on the way in which historical meaning is produced and the way difference is encountered. In an effort to revise the dominant stories told about Indians, Harjo privileges the idea that Native Americans are present and human, and it is this sense of humanity that pervades her poetry. Sequentially, Joy Harjo's volumes of poetry-She Had Some Horses (1983), In Mad Love and War (1990), and The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994)-create a regenerative cycle that combats the effects of oppressive history and racism. Through her poetry, violent and tragic events are transformed into moments of hope and renewal. Her collections are powerful testimonies of endurance and survival. They directly defy the stereotype of the "vanishing" or "stoic" Indian, but more importantly, they offer regeneration and grace to all peoples. The poems create a map to help navigate the multiple simultaneous realms of existence, to find a way to travel through the barriers that separate existence. In this dissertation, I employ various reading strategies to support my contentions. Blending a postcolonial standpoint with feminism, I believe Harjo uses a feminist ethnic bildungsroman to …
Political and Social Significance in Selected Drama of Henry Fielding
The purpose of this thesis are to show that Fielding's dramas reflect the social and political abuses prevalent in England during the first four decades of the eighteenth century; to show through careful delineation of specific drams that those dramas led to repeated attempts by the Walpole Ministry to pass a licensing act; and to show that Fielding was seriously concerned about the political and social deterioration which he felt was occurring during the decade of the 1730's.
Anything Like Us
Anything Like Us is a collection of poems with a critical introduction. In this introduction, I explore modern alternatives to Romantic and Neo-Romantic lyric expression. I conclude that a contemporary lyric that desires to be, in some fashion, about itself, must exhibit an acceptance of the mediating influences of time and language, while cultivating an inter-subjective point-of-view that does not insist too much on the authority of a single, coherent voice. The poems in Anything Like Us reflect, in both form and content, many of the conclusions advanced in the introduction. Nearly all the poems concern the desire for, and failure to find, meaningful connections in an uncertain world .
A Complex of Religious Beliefs as Found in the Life and Works of Lord Byron
The purpose of this thesis is to make an unbiased presentation of the many facets of Byron's religious beliefs.
Differences in Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov as Short Story Writers
The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of Katherine Mansfield's literary indebtedness to Anton Chekhov. Throughout the critical writing about Mansfield there are many suggestions that her work is similar to that of Chekhov, but, these allusions are, for the most part, vague in pointing out specific likenesses.
Running a Family
This thesis contains two parts. the preface theorizes memory and examines the author’s own experience writing her identity. Part II is a memoir framed with the process of training for a marathon. the marathon acts as a narrative thread that pulls together scenes of memory from the author’s childhood which features the author running away from home on several occasions. Running a marathon and running away from home intertwine to allow the writer to draw conclusions about her life and her family.
Lamb's Self-Revelations as "Elia"
The purpose of this thesis is to determine the nature of Charles Lamb as revealed in his Elia essays. To this end, these essays form the major portion of the text. The general procedure for ascertaining what these excerpts indicate is as follows: first, the characteristics of Charles Lamb are determined from a study of the Elia essays; second, these characteristics are considered in relation to information derived from biographies. Careful attention is given to significant discrepancies between the essays and other sources.
Epic Qualities in Moby-Dick
Many critics not satisfied with explaining Moby-Dick in terms of the novel, have sough analogies in other literary genres. Most often parallels have been drawn from epic and dramatic literature. Critics have called Moby-Dick either an epic or a tragedy. After examining the evidence presented by both schools of thought, after establishing a workable definition of the epic and listing the most common epic devices, and after examining Moby-Dick in terms of this definition and discovering many of the epic devices in it, I propose the thesis that Melville has written an epic, not unlike the great epics of the past.
The Monomythic Journey of the Feminine Hero in the Novels of Anita Brookner
Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, establishes a pattern for the hero to answer the call to adventure, ask the question of the goddess and receive her boon, and return to his homeland. Campbell does not, however, make any suggestions about a myth whose protagonist is female. Erich Neumann, in The Origins and History of Consciousness, hints that the woman may, indeed, be her own goddess, that she must give herself the boon she already carries. The novels of Anita Brookner illustrate the dual nature of the feminine protagonist: the seeker and the boon giver. The feminine hero (even when Brookner's protagonist is masculine, he exhibits feminine qualities) hears the call to adventure, receives the teachings of the goddess and/or her representative, receives help fromother beings (in myth these would be supernatural beings), realizes that she carries the answer to the cosmic question of selfhood within her, and, following an apotheosis, makes a return to society. Much of the present work is spent delving into both the monomythic and feminist structures of Brookner's novels. Although Brookner characterizes herself as a "reluctant feminist," examination of her novels reveals a subtle adherence to feminist principles which can be ascertained by viewing each novel in terms of the monomyth schema.
Richard Wilbur's Poetry: a Celebration of Reality
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 present in Wilbur's poetry.
Self-Portrayal in the Plays of Ben Jonson
The purpose of this study was to discover to what extent Ben Jonson revealed himself in his plays and to explain how this self-portrayal has been effected.
Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Relationship
Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway met in Key West in 1937, married in 1941, and divorced in 1945. Gellhorn's work exhibits a strong influence from Hemingway's work, including collaboration on her work during their marriage. I will discuss three of her six novels: WMP (1934), Liana (1944), and Point of No Return (1948). The areas of influence that I will rely on in many ways follow the stages Harold Bloom outlines in Anxiety of Influence. Gellhorn's work exposes a stage of influence that Bloom does not describe-which I term collaborative. By looking at Hemingway's influence in Gellhorn's writing the difference between traditional literary influence and collaborative influence can be compared and analyzed, revealing the footprints left in a work by a collaborating author as opposed to simply an influential one.
Some String or Another: Fiction and Nonfiction Stories of Connection
Some String or Another: Fiction and Nonfiction Stories of Connection, a creative thesis, explores patterns of change in stories from the perspective of connection and disconnection. The preface examines the effects of temporal disconnection, the relationship of conflict and connection to narrative rhythm, and the webs of connection formed during the process of creation. Included in the body of the work are six fiction stories, one metafiction story, and two nonfiction essays.
Naturalism in the Novels of Theodore Dreiser
The author's purpose has been to trace in a very broad and general manner the trend of naturalism up to this point where the central figure of our study, Theodore Dreiser, enters into the picture. This survey is designed primarily to give the reader an indication of what naturalism is, both in philosophy and method, and a very brief historical background of the movement.
True War Stories: Lies, Truth, and Recovery in the Non/Fiction of Vietnam
This dissertation examines memoirs and non/fiction of the Vietnam War, written by combat veterans (Tim O'Brien, Tobias Wolff, Ron Kovic), and army nurses (Lynda Van Devanter and Joan Furey), and war correspondents (Micheal Herr), most of whom joined the antiwar movement, and used their own war wounds as incontrovertible evidence against it. Since these authors' traumatization compromised their memories of combat, their narratives feature literary devices reflective of post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology (e.g. flashbacks, non-linear plots, repetition, disassociation). Their authenticity stems from the military jargon, lewd dialogue, and dark humor contained within. A mix of truth-telling and bullshitting paradoxically coexist in these texts; as trauma theories elucidate, improvisation (of details) does not diminish the integrity of a traumatic memory, or the memoir itself. In an era of Nixonian follies, whistleblowing became a high stakes endeavor for journalists and veterans. They exposed the military's standard operating procedures that violated the Geneva Conventions such as free-fire zones, wide-scale bombings, and chemical warfare (e.g. Napalm, Dioxin, Agent Orange). Desiring reformation, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted their own Winter Soldier Investigation into the Mỹ Lai massacre, sending spokesperson John Kerry to testify during the Fulbright Hearings. Women served thanklessly in the war, yet were excluded from men's organizations and denied Veteran's Administration benefits for diseases contracted in Vietnam until Lynda Van Devanter published her memoir, Home Before Morning, then lobbied for women's rights. She inspired a collection of poetry, and a spinoff TV show, China Beach, though she was never credited for the latter.
Stranger Than Fact
As a dyslexic child, I always had trouble finding my voice. It's hard to express yourself in words, when you struggle with them. For me words always come later when I write. But most people don't understand how I feel. If your synapses fire off at the right time how can you image what it would be like it they didn't? That's where fiction comes in. If you can override someone's lack of experience with the use of a metaphor, then by distancing the reader from reality with an allegory, you can get to truth that's hard to capture any other way. You can also simply tell the truth in your writing with plain nonfiction. For me, fiction and nonfiction are a way for me to claim my voice and convey truth. Only a reader can decided what that truth looks like.
The Faithful Wife Motif in Elizabethan Drama
The major purpose of this thesis is to present a discussion of the motif of the faithful wife as it appears in the domestic drama of the Elizabethan Age; in addition, an account of the literary history of the theme will be given, in order that the use made of the story in Elizabethan drama may be correctly evaluated.
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": Critical Commentary, 1798-1968
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.
Body Doubles: Materiality and Gender Non-Binarism in Victorian Supernatural Fiction
This dissertation is a study of supernatural doubles in Victorian literature. It argues that these doubles expand our understanding of gender variance in the Victorian period. The texts in this dissertation privilege gender non-binarism through their depictions of materiality, gender embodiment, and temporality.
The Prophetic Use of Dreams in Shakespeare
This thesis explores the use of dreams in Shakespeare and the supernatural.
Moral Training for Nature's Egotists: Mentoring Relationships in George Eliot's Fiction
George Eliot's fiction is filled with mentoring relationships which generally consist of a wise male mentor and a foolish, egotistic female mentee. The mentoring narratives relate the conversion of the mentee from narcissism to selfless devotion to the community. By retaining the Christian value of self-abnegation and the Christian tendency to devalue nature, Eliot, nominally a secular humanist who abandoned Christianity, reveals herself still to be a covert Christian. In Chapter 1 I introduce the moral mentoring theme and provide background material. Chapter 2 consists of an examination of Felix Holt, which clearly displays Eliot's crucial dichotomy: the moral is superior to the natural. In Chapter 3 I present a Freudian analysis of Gwendolen Harleth, the mentee most fully developed. In Chapter 4 I examine two early mentees, who differ from later mentees primarily in that they are not egotists and can be treated with sympathy. Chapter 5 covers three gender-modified relationships. These relationships show contrasting views of nature: in the Dinah Morris-Hetty Sorrel narrative, like most of the others, Eliot privileges the transcendence of nature. The other two, Mary Garth-Fred Vincy and Dolly Winthrop-Silas Marner, are exceptions as Eliot portrays in them a Wordsworthian reconciliation with nature. In Chapter 6 I focus on Maggie Tulliver, a mentee with three failed mentors and two antimentors. Maggie chooses regression over growth as symbolized by her drowning death in her brother's arms. In Chapter 7 I examine Middlemarch, whose lack of a successful standard mentoring relationship contributes to its dark vision. Chapter 8 contains a reading of Romola which interprets Romola, the only mentee whose story takes place outside nineteenth-century England, as a feminist fantasy for Eliot. Chapter 9 concludes the discussion, focusing primarily on the question why the mentoring theme was so compelling for George Eliot. In the Appendix I examine …
The Free Verse Movement in America, with an Experiment in Verse
This thesis discusses the notion of free verse in poetry with emphasis on Walt Whitman and Amy Lowell. The majority of the paper consists of original poetry by the author.
An analysis of the syntactic and lexical features of an Indian English oral narrative: A Pear Story study.
This pilot study addresses the distribution of nonstandard syntactic and lexical features in Indian English (IE) across a homogeneous group of highly educated IE speakers. It is found that nonstandard syntactic features of article use, number agreement and assignment of verb argument structure do not display uniform intragroup distribution. Instead, a relationship is found between nonstandard syntactic features and the sociolinguistic variables of lower levels of exposure to and use of English found within the group. While nonstandard syntactic features show unequal distribution, nonstandard lexical features of semantic reassignment, and mass nouns treated as count nouns display a more uniform intragroup distribution.
An Appraisal of some Moot Issues in English Grammar
This thesis discusses traditional and liberal views on certain English expressions by examining them as they are discussed in traditional school grammars, in descriptive grammars, and in current magazine articles and as they are used in the best writing of today.
The Literary Criticism of H. L. Mencken
The thesis of this paper is that Mencken was a better critic than he is credited with being, that he was unusually discerning in his judgment of the fiction of his time, and that his criteria are clearly stated in various of his writings. It is conceded, however, that his taste in poetry was limited and that his contribution to dramatic criticism was not? greatly significant.
I. Korean address and reference terms between married men and women; II. Metaphorical extension in Korean compound verbs
I. This study attempts to investigate the address and reference terms between Korean husbands and wives in different situations by means of the questionnaire. In addition to the results by the questionnaire, questions relating to gender, age, culture and society were partially answered through out this survey. II. This study attempts to analyze metaphorical extension of Korean compound verbs. The patterns found in Korean compound verbs are similar to the work of Abby and Chelliah. That is secondary verbs in the construction of compound verbs which have two sequential verbs have bleached meanings in the processes of grammaticalization.
The Feminine Ancestral Footsteps: Symbolic Language Between Women in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables
This study examines Hawthorne's use of symbols, particularly flowers, in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Romantic ideals stressed the full development of the self¬reliant individual, and romantic writers such as Hawthorne believed the individual would fully develop not only spiritually, but also intellectually by taking instruction from the natural world. Hawthorne's heroines reach their full potential as independent women in two steps: they first work together to defeat powerful patriarchies, and they then learn to read natural symbols to cultivate their artistic sensibilities which lead them to a full development of their intellect and spirituality. The focus of this study is Hawthorne's narrative strategy; how the author uses symbols as a language his heroines use to communicate from one generation to the next. In The Scarlet Letter, for instance, the symbol of a rose connects three generations of feminine reformers, Ann Hutchinson, Hester Prynne, and Pearl. By the end of the novel, Pearl interprets a rose as a symbol of her maternal line, which links her back to Ann Hutchinson. Similarly in The House of the Seven Gables Alice, Hepzibah, and Phoebe Pyncheon are part of a family line of women who work together to overthrow the Pyncheon patriarchy. The youngest heroine, Phoebe, comes to an understanding of her great, great aunt Alice's message from the posies her feminine ancestor plants in the Pyncheon garden. Through Phoebe's interpretation of the flowers, she deciphers how the cultivation of a sense of artistic appreciation is essential to the progress of American culture.
Postmodernity and Pakistani Postmodernist Literature
Though scholars have discussed postmodernism in Islam and South Asia before, they tend to (i) assume Muslims as a monolithic group, bypassing the diversity of different cultures and the interaction of these cultures with indigenous practices of Islam; (ii) study postmodernity synchronically, thereby eliding histor(ies) and the possibility of multiple temporalities; and (iii) compare postmodernity in non-Western countries with Western standards, and when these countries fail this test, declare them not-yet-postmodern, or even modern. Negligible and scant discussions of postmodernity that do take place inside Pakistan, most of which are published in newspaper articles, tend to focus on Western postmodernity and its evolution and contemporary position. There is no book-length discussion of postmodernity and postmodernist literary texts from Pakistan and its curious sociopolitical blend of Indo-Muslim and Anglo-Indian influences and interaction with the Islamic political foundations of the country. This project discusses postmodernity and postmodern literature in Pakistan. I argue that, because of a different political, cultural, and literary climate, postmodernity and postmodern literature in Pakistan are distinct from their Western counterparts. Because of technological advancement and neoliberal globalization, Pakistan experiences a different kind of postmodernity resulting in the production of a different kind of postmodern literature. I trace the historical employment of postmodern literary tropes from Indo-Islamic genres, i.e. dastan, to contextualize this conversation. Then I discuss experimental works of fiction like Sultana's Dream (1908), Bina Shah's Before She Sleeps (2018), and Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable (2019). The last chapter explores the relationship of postmodernity, postmodern politics, and Pakistani and Muslim historiographic metafictional literary texts: The Satanic Verses (1988) and A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008). Hence, the work is regional and national, as well as comparative and transnational.
The Palestinian Archipelago and the Construction of Palestinian Identity After Sixty-five Years of Diaspora: the Rebirth of the Nation
This dissertation conceptualizes a Palestinian archipelago based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope, and uses the archipelago model to illustrate the situation and development of Palestinian consciousness in diaspora. To gain insight into the personal lives of Palestinians in diaspora, This project highlights several islands of Palestinian identities as represented in the novels: Dancing Arabs, A Compass for the Sunflower, and The Inheritance. The identities of the characters in these works are organized according to the archipelago model, which illustrates how the characters rediscover, repress, or change their identities in order to accommodate life in diaspora. Analysis reveals that a major goal of Palestinian existence in diaspora is the maintenance of an authentic Palestinian identity. Therefore, my description of the characters’ identities and locations in the archipelago model are informed by various scholars and theories of nationalism. Moreover, this dissertation illustrates how different Palestinian identities coalesce into a single national consciousness that has been created and sustained by a collective experience of suffering and thirst for sense of belonging and community among Palestinians. Foremost in the memories of all Palestinians is the memory of the land of Palestine and the dream of national restoration; these are the main uniting factors between Palestinians revealed in my analysis. Furthermore, this project presents an argument that developing a Palestinian exceptionalism as both a response and a solution to the problems Palestine faced in the 20th century has already occurred among diasporic Palestinians as well as those settled in the West Bank. In addition, a significant finding of this dissertation is the generation clash in regarding to the methods of modernization of the West Bank society between the settled Palestinian and those returning from diaspora. Nevertheless, a Palestinian homecoming will require a renegotiation of Palestinian identities in which generation gaps and other disagreements …
Specter
This dissertation is a collection of poems preceded by a critical preface. The preface considers the major changes within the elegy from the traditional English elegy—the touchstone poems for this genre being Milton's "Lycidas," Shelley's "Adonais," and Tennyson's "In Memoriam"—to the contemporary elegy and argues that many of these changes showcase contemporary elegists' active refusal and reversal of the time-honored traditions of the form. The preface is divided into an introduction and three sections, each of which recognizes and explores one significant alteration—or reversal—to the conventions of the form as established by early English elegists. The first discusses the traditional elegiac tradition of consolation in which the speaker, after displaying a series of emotions in reaction to the death of a loved one, ultimately finds comfort in the knowledge that the deceased lives eternally in heaven. This convention is contrasted with a common contemporary rhetorical movement in which the speaker not only lacks comfort by the end of the poem, but often refuses any kind of consolation, preferring instead to continue his grief. The second recognizes and explores the traditional elegiac tradition in which the speaker, listing the virtues of the beloved, replaces the real, historical person with a symbol which represents what society has lost due to this death. This convention is contrasted against a common contemporary theme in which the speaker, in an attempt to evoke authenticity, portrays the deceased subject not as a romanticized symbol, but as a real human being. The final section discusses the definition of the traditional elegy as a reaction to the literal death of a loved one and contrasts this with the more fluid contemporary understanding of the elegy as a poem about loss—either a literal or metaphorical death—and a poem which need not display conventional aspects of mourning but rather a …
Serpent Imagery in William Blake's Prophetic Works
William Blake's prophetic works are made up almost entirely of a unique combination of symbols and imagery. To understand his books it is necessary to be aware that he used his prophetic symbols because he found them apt to what he was saying, and that he changed their meanings as the reasons for their aptness changed. An awareness of this manipulation of symbols will lead to a more perceptive understanding of Blake's work. This paper is concerned with three specific uses of serpent imagery by Blake. The first chapter deals with the serpent of selfhood. Blake uses the wingless Uraeon to depict man destroying himself through his own constrictive analytic reasonings unenlightened with divine vision. Man had once possessed this divine vision, but as formal religions and a priestly class began to be formed, he lost it and worshipped only reason and cruelty. Blake also uses the image of the serpent crown to characterize priests or anyone in a position of authority. He usually mocks both religious and temporal rulers and identifies them as oppressors rather than leaders of the people. In addition to the Uraeon and the serpent crown, Blake also uses the narrow constricted body of the serpent and the encircled serpent to represent narrowmindedness and selfish possessiveness. The second chapter deals with the serpent as a symbolic force of energy itself. Blake uses the serpent to represent birth, the life force, guardian of life forces, inner strength, resurrection, forces of destruction, and rebellion against tyranny. The Orc figure, a mythological creation of Blake, is the major representative of all phases of energy. He is a Promethean figure of rebellion and often described by Blake as having a "serpent body." His birth represents the awakening of a terrible, uncontrolled energy which will bring war, destruction, and death. He …
Cities Beyond
Cities Beyond is a collection of poems about the liminal space between the suburbs and the pasture as metaphor for the created space of memory, self, and location.
A Comparative Study of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding
This thesis presents a biographical and literary study of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. It also looks at the romanticism and realism of Richardson, the realism of Fielding, and the differences between Richardson and Fielding.
The Picaresque Novel in America since World War II
This is not intended to be a definitive study of all the picaresque novels of the last two decades. It is, instead, a representative study which includes those authors who have attained the most prominence and who have contributed most to the delineation and advancement of the picaresque genre.
Browning's Literary Reputation: 1833-1870
The purpose of this thesis is to present English opinion of Robert Browning, contemporary with him, from the anonymous publication in 1833 of his first poem, Pauline, through the appearance in 1868-69 of what is agreed to be his masterpiece, The Ring and the Book. This study will consider the acceptance of each of Browning's publications, in chronological order of their appearance.
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