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John Fowles: a Critical Study

Description: This critical introduction to the works of John Fowles focuses upon his three novels, with secondary attention to his poetry, essays, and The Aristos, his non-fiction book of personal philosophy. Giving some biographical detail, the first chapter treats the influence of other writers upon Fowles's work and discusses his thought--especially as it appears in The Aristos, the poems, and the essays. The second chapter is a study of The Magus, Fowles's first novel, although published second. The Ari… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Huffaker, Robert, 1936-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Restoration Players: Their Performances and Personalities

Description: Some of the older actors of the Restoration provided a link between the pre- and post-Commonwealth stages by preserving their craft during the years from 1642 to 1660, despite the harsh and numerous restrictions enacted by the Parliament. Some of the younger players, on the other hand, quickly mastered their art and continued the tradition preserved for them by men such as Charles Hart and Michael Mohun. The greatest actors and actresses of the period certainly influenced the direction of Resto… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Rosenbalm, John O.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Development of Myth in Post-World-War-II American Novels

Description: Most primitive mythologies recognize that suffering can provide an opportunity for growth, but Western man has developed a mythology in which suffering is considered evil. He conceives of some power in the universe which will oppose evil and abolish it for him; God, and more recently science an, technology, were the hoped-for saviors that would rescue him. Both have been disappointing as saviors, and Western culture seems paralyzed by its confrontation with a future which seems death-filled. Th… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Hall, Larry Joe
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Self-Alienating Characters in the Fiction of John Steinbeck

Description: The primary purpose of this study is to show that John Steinbeck's concern with alienation is pervasive and consistent from the beginning of his career as a writer until the end. The pervasiveness of his concern with alienation is demonstrated by examining his two early collections of short stories and by showing how alienated characters in these stories resemble alienated characters in all the author's major works of fiction. Since much confusion surrounds the meaning of the word "alienation,"… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: McDaniel, Barbara Albrecht
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Prototypical Pattern in Dreiser's Fiction

Description: Beginning in 1911 with Jennie Gerhardt and continuing through the publication of The "Genius" in 1915, all of Dreiser's major fiction is curiously marked by the same recurring narrative pattern. The pattern is always triangluar in construction and always contains the same three figures-- a vindictive and vengeful parent, outraged by an outisder's violation of personal and societal values; an enchanted offspring; and a disrupted outsider who threatens established order. In spite of each work's d… more
Date: December 1974
Creator: Wood, Bobbye Nelson
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Energy and Archetype: A Jungian Analysis of The Four Zoas by William Blake

Description: The purpose of this study is to examine the parallels between the tenets of Carl Jung's psychology and the mythopoeic structure of Blake's poem, The Four Zoas. The investigation is divided into three chapters. The first deals with the major conceptual parallels between the intellectual systems of the two men. The second is a detailed analysis of the poem, and the third concludes the study by discussing the originality of Blake's thought. Blake anticipated much of Jung's psychology. The parallel… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Hamilton, Lee T.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Motivation of Clarissa Harlowe

Description: This paper proposes that Samuel Richardson consciously created the motivational complexity of Clarissa Harlowe. The arguments are the following: eighteenth-century scientific interest in motivation influenced Richardson, his Puritanism led him to suspect and emphasize motive, his frequent use of the word motive suggests an awareness, his choice of the epistolary form is ideal for revealing motives, his attention to the ambiguity of motives indicates his interest, and his complexly motivated Cla… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: House, Doris Ann
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Transcendental Experience of the English Romantic Poets

Description: This study is an exploration into the Romantics' transcendence of the dualistic world view and their attainment of a holistic vision. Chapter I formulates a dichotomy between the archaic (sacrosanct) world view and the modern (mechanistic) world view. Chapter II discusses the reality of the religious experience in Romanticism. Chapter III elucidates the Romantics' use of mystic myths and noetic symbols. Chapter IV treats the Romantic transcendence of the dualistic world view and the problems of… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Berliner, Donna Gaye
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Browning's Theme: "The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Giveth Life"

Description: This thesis is concerned with the establishment of an underlying philosophy for Robert Browning's many themes. It asserts that a notion found in II Corinthians 3:6, "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," is basic to ideas such as Browning's belief in the superiority of life over art, of the wisdom of the heart over the intellect, and of honest skepticism over unexamined belief. The sources used to establish this premise are mainly the poems themselves, grouped in categories by subjec… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Rollins, Martha A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Analysis of the Major Characteristics of American Black Humor Novels

Description: This thesis serves to classify Black Humor as a philosophy, which holds that the world is meaningless and absurd, and as a literary technique. Historical origins are discussed and the idea is related to a reflection of the middle-class syndrome of twentieth century man. Close philosophical and literary relatives are presented and a pure work isn't defined. Black Humor literary characteristics are described in terms of style, theme, plot, setting, chronology, and characteristic ending. Black Hum… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Tyler, Alice Carol
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Reality and Revelation in the Short Fiction of Katherine Anne Porter

Description: This investigation of Miss Porter's short fiction demonstrates that reality and revelation are predominant ideas in most of her writing. Reality for most of the characters differs from reality as the protagonist eventually perceives it. Through revelation of delusions-- both his own and others'--the protagonist may better deal with life's difficulties. These difficulties are represented, as secondary themes in the stores, by three repeated human experiences: initiation, subjugation, and alienat… more
Date: December 1974
Creator: Swank, Rebecca Ann
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Emily and the Child: An Examination of the Child Image in the Work of Emily Dickinson

Description: The primary sources for this study are Dickinson's poems and letters. The purpose is to examine child imagery in Dickinson's work, and the investigation is based on the chronological age of children in the images. Dickinson's small child exists in mystical communion with nature and deity. Inevitably the child is wrenched from this divine state by one of three estranging forces: adult society, death, or love. After the estrangement the state of childhood may be regained only after death, at whic… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: McClaran, Nancy Eubanks
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Hemingway and the Aristotelian Tragedy

Description: Because Ernest Hemingway's four major novels are often referred to as tragedies, these novels are checked against Aristotle's criteria for tragedy. "The Sun Also Rises" is not an Aristotelian tragedy because the wounding of Jake Barnes precedes the events in the novel; it is, instead, an extended tragic epilogue. "A Farewell to Arms" is a modern anti-romantic tragedy of irony, a story of disillusionment which does not provide cathartic relief. The most nearly tragic in structure, "The Old Man a… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Kromi, Edythe D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Use of the Sixth Sense in the Novels of Frank Norris

Description: Frank Norris uses the sixth sense in his writings as a creative device, explaining the illusory characteristics of life mainly in six works: The Responsibilities of the Novelist, Blix, Vandover and the Brute, McTeague, The octopus, and The Pit. In The Octopus, Vanamee, a character fashioned after Norris's friend Bruce Porter, becomes the focal point for the author's elucidation of the sixth sense, and also of related powers such as telepathy, hypnosis, and transmigration, all related to a mora… more
Date: December 1974
Creator: Neal, Nancy L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Poems; with an Essay on Matthew Arnold and T. S. Eliot

Description: The thesis consists of a selection of original poems and an essay on the literary relationship between Matthew Arnold and T. S. Eliot. The poems are loosely related in theme; they are the responses of the poet to the various forces in his upbringing, such as literature, religion and the American Southwest. The essay compares the literary criticism of Arnold and Eliot, the foremost critics of their respective periods, with special attention to Eliot's criticism of Arnold. The conclusion is that … more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William), 1865-1933
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Reaction of Jonathan Swift to Viscount Bolingbroke's Ethical Views

Description: The problem investigated in this paper is the unlikely friendship of Swift and Bolingbroke. The purpose is to assess the reaction of Swift to the ethics of Bolingbroke. Under examination are the conflicting opinions of these men in regard to morals, money, and ethics. Chapter I contains immoral actions of Bolingbroke. Chapter II shows Swift's manner of life and his reaction to Bolingbroke's immorality. Chapter III gives Swift's attitude to money, Bolingbroke's attitude, and Swift's reaction to … more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Camp, Paul W., 1908-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Modernized Myth, Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, and The Lord of the Rings

Description: This study views J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy against its Anglo-Saxon background, specifically in light of Tolkien's 1936 Beowulf essay, and contends that the author consciously attempted to recreate the mood of the heroic poem. Chapter I compares Tolkien's use of historical perspective in Lord of the Rings with that of the Beowulf poet. His recognition of the poet's artistic use of history is stated in the "Beowulf" essay. Chapter II makes comparisons between Good and Evil as t… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Simpson, Dale W. (Dale Wilson)
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Study of the Epithalamiums, Elegies, and Epyllion of Gaius Valerius Catullus

Description: The purpose of this thesis is to determine the limits of evidence concerning the biography of the Roman poet Catullus, the texts of his poems, and the earlier poetic influence on his longer works and to compare scholarly opinions about those topics. To attain those objectives, both classical authors and modern scholars were used as sources. This work has five chapters. The first outlines the problems of Catullan scholia. The second and third discuss his life and texts. The fourth and fifth conc… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Duggan, John H.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Edgar Allan Poe's Journey and Abyss Motifs: Order vs. Disorder

Description: The key to an understanding of what Poe attempted to accomplish with his art lies in his depictions of order and disorder in the universe. Poe's explorations of order and disorder revolve around journey and abyss motifs exemplified in his imaginative approaches toward nature, conscience, art, intuition, and apocalypse. These imaginative approaches serve to unify Poe's- work as a whole and emphasize his importance as a questing artist who not only sought to define the shape of reality in terms o… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Raffety, Duane N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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"A Grace Beyond the Reach of Art:" A Study of the Literary and Biographical Influences Upon Thomas Gray and His Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Description: This study focuses on the poetic temperament of Thomas Gray and considers his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard as representative of a change in sensibility which took place roughly in the last half of the eighteenth century. The first chapter considers the literary and biographical influences on the author's changing aesthetic sensibility. The second chapter concerns the early life and education of Gray and his friendship with Walpole and West. The third chapter is a study of the Elegy its… more
Date: December 1974
Creator: Sosbee, Geral W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Depiction of Women and Negroes in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor

Description: This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the characterizations of women and Negroes in the fiction of Flannery O'Connor and the extent to which the attitudes, beliefs, and ideas contained in the background of the author influenced such portrayals. The thesis identifies these influences as her native South and the Roman Catholic Church and concludes that her misogynistic treatment of women and sympathetic handling of Negroes proceeds from values placed on both groups in such influences. more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Thomae, Sue Sessums
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Literary Commune

Description: Initially, this work recognizes that college students often fail to understand or to appreciate the language of literature; therefore, a proposal has been developed that incorporates the typical methods and media of two academic areas--literature and oral interpretation--into a synchronized dual approach to the study of literature. Chapter I discusses contemporary problems of literacy in general; Chapter II explores the traditional teaching approaches of English and oral interpretation; and Cha… more
Date: August 1974
Creator: Black, Ann N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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