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Title: Re-visioning the Fall: Mythic implications of Archibald MacLeish's "Songs for Eve".
Creator: Felt, Richard Thomas., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The history of Western thought is permeated by a dualistic habit of mind which prevents a deeper connection with that primordial world mediated by myth and archetypes. Nietzsche described this dualism as the imposition of rationalistic Apollonian values on the far older tradition of intuitive Dionysian modes of being. Extending this concept further, James Hillman describes this same phenomenon as a lack of soul which he calls psyche. Without a reconnection to psyche, Western civilization is...
Show moreThe history of Western thought is permeated by a dualistic habit of mind which prevents a deeper connection with that primordial world mediated by myth and archetypes. Nietzsche described this dualism as the imposition of rationalistic Apollonian values on the far older tradition of intuitive Dionysian modes of being. Extending this concept further, James Hillman describes this same phenomenon as a lack of soul which he calls psyche. Without a reconnection to psyche, Western civilization is schizoid and incomplete. Using these insights as a basis for critical exploration, this thesis examines Archibald MacLeish's 1954 poem cycle Songs for Eve and its inversion of the traditional Western archetypes of the Fall and woman's role in it. By rejecting the traditional Western allegorical interpretation and reinstating the older Dionysian understanding of the Fall, MacLeish awakens the reader to a new and deeper understanding of this pervasive mythic motif.
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Date Issued: 2002
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12891
Subject Headings: MacLeish, Archibald,--1892---Songs for Eve., Myth in literature., Archetype (Psychology) in literature.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The hand as creator in Wallace Stevens: Perception, sensation, and the phenomenal self.
Creator: Johnson, Jamie, Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Wallace Stevens's poems alluding to hands yield one of his most profound topics of interest: reality (the external, natural world) versus the imagination (the internal mind). The human hand offers a unique perspective of the complex, often problematic worlds in which the artist exists. In terms of the external world, the hands are the most common means of sense experience. For many artists, the hands act as a medium through which expression of art is delivered. During inspiration, an artist...
Show moreWallace Stevens's poems alluding to hands yield one of his most profound topics of interest: reality (the external, natural world) versus the imagination (the internal mind). The human hand offers a unique perspective of the complex, often problematic worlds in which the artist exists. In terms of the external world, the hands are the most common means of sense experience. For many artists, the hands act as a medium through which expression of art is delivered. During inspiration, an artist therefore takes an experience of the world, filters it through the imagination, and then creates art by combining mind and sense experience. It is the complications involved in this process of creation that the forthcoming analysis explores. The philosophical insight of Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Husserl, and William James offers ways of interpreting the intricate creative process apparent in Stevens's poems. By visualizing the necessary altered state of perception through Stevens's language, one can then better understand the acquisition of the ideal state, or "phenomenal body."
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Date Issued: 2002
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12916
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation, Perception (Philosophy) in literature, Self (Philosophy) in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The significance of the space between: A consideration of liminality, meditation, and modernity in selected poems by Wallace Stevens and Charles Baudelaire.
Creator: Wonn, Charles S., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The state of liminality, as defined by Mihai Spariosu and exemplified by Wallace Stevens and Charles Baudelaire, is a significant one, transitional in its "structure," and one in which a vital activity takes place. Namely, this activity is the moving between worlds, states, or perceptions, and the choice of new ones, or of considering new potentialities. Essentially, this idea of being in limbo and the result of this state of "in-betweenness" is that we emerge from a relatively indeterminate,...
Show moreThe state of liminality, as defined by Mihai Spariosu and exemplified by Wallace Stevens and Charles Baudelaire, is a significant one, transitional in its "structure," and one in which a vital activity takes place. Namely, this activity is the moving between worlds, states, or perceptions, and the choice of new ones, or of considering new potentialities. Essentially, this idea of being in limbo and the result of this state of "in-betweenness" is that we emerge from a relatively indeterminate, contemplative, and subjective space with an ultimate satisfaction or heightened or altered awareness. Much of Stevens's poetry, especially his later poetry, exemplifies a meditative contemplation of being, while Baudelaire's poetry portrays the liminally sublime, ghostly being in a transitional urban world. Both poets demonstrate such concepts of transition and ultimate coping in a modern state of flux.
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Date Issued: 2002
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12957
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation, Baudelaire, Charles,--1821-1867--Criticism and interpretation, Liminality in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The "anomaly" in Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady".
Creator: Liotta, Leonard Thomas., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The word "anomaly" in The Portrait of a Lady forms a nexus of meanings derived from its denotative and connotative meanings. This complex of meaning bring in focus phenomenological aspects of character, action, and style translating into larger thematic concepts to create a level of understanding deepening the experience of the novel. Isabel Archer is examined for her anomalous portrayal of a modern character whose complexity emerges as a dynamic of the anomalous and the vulgar that are...
Show moreThe word "anomaly" in The Portrait of a Lady forms a nexus of meanings derived from its denotative and connotative meanings. This complex of meaning bring in focus phenomenological aspects of character, action, and style translating into larger thematic concepts to create a level of understanding deepening the experience of the novel. Isabel Archer is examined for her anomalous portrayal of a modern character whose complexity emerges as a dynamic of the anomalous and the vulgar that are distinguishable but ultimately inseparable. Using a phenomenological approach, the word "anomaly," as recurring descriptive term, can be studied in its juxtaposition to other words, such as vulgarity, providing additional insight into characterization and action in Portrait of a Lady.
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Date Issued: 2000
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15777
Subject Headings: James, Henry,--1843-1916--Portrait of a lady, James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation, James, Henry,--1843-1916--Characters--Isabel Archer, Archer, Isabel (Fictitious character)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Wallace Stevens: Tale teller of the soul.
Creator: Frusciante, Denise Marie., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: In his work Re-Visioning Psychology, Jungian depth psychologist James Hillman defines the soul as "a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself"(xvi). This definition helps to show the existence of a nontraditional, but not anti-Christian, soul in the works of Wallace Stevens. From the swirling chaos of "The Pleasures of Merely Circulating" to the underworld liminal irreality displayed in "Yellow Afternoon," we find psyche flourishing in the...
Show moreIn his work Re-Visioning Psychology, Jungian depth psychologist James Hillman defines the soul as "a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself"(xvi). This definition helps to show the existence of a nontraditional, but not anti-Christian, soul in the works of Wallace Stevens. From the swirling chaos of "The Pleasures of Merely Circulating" to the underworld liminal irreality displayed in "Yellow Afternoon," we find psyche flourishing in the poetry of Stevens. She dwells in an underworld existence surrounded by archetypal Gods, such as Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Priapus, and Zeus. While Stevens does not use the word "soul" in any of the poems to be discussed, Hillman's theories on psyche show us that we are not to literalize our souls. We must allow psyche to transport us into a metaphoric, interior realm where Stevens's worms, his poet figure, and his readers can transform into Gods.
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Date Issued: 2000
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12715
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation., Soul in literature.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The flame in the grate: The Kullus character in a selection of Harold Pinter's early works.
Creator: Nudelman, Brian Charles., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Between the years 1949 and 1955, Harold Pinter was writing not plays, but poems and prose. Three works written during this period are "Kullus," "The Task," and "The Examination." Not only do these works follow chronologically, but also the intricate relationship between the narrator and Kullus established within each seems to continually refer back to a previous work. When read together, with "The Task" central, the three works form a continuing narrative of conflict and personal struggle,...
Show moreBetween the years 1949 and 1955, Harold Pinter was writing not plays, but poems and prose. Three works written during this period are "Kullus," "The Task," and "The Examination." Not only do these works follow chronologically, but also the intricate relationship between the narrator and Kullus established within each seems to continually refer back to a previous work. When read together, with "The Task" central, the three works form a continuing narrative of conflict and personal struggle, and for each to be fully appreciated and understood, one needs that knowledge gained from seeing the progression in relationship that is developed from "Kullus" to "The Examination." Pinter's early exploration with Kullus is not unlike an experiment in dramatic structure. The three works are an experimental proto-play; a playful structure of events that calls upon a willing reader to fulfill his/her role as interpreter and connection-maker.
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Date Issued: 2000
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12693
Subject Headings: Pinter, Harold,--1930---Criticism and interpretation, Pinter, Harold,--1930---Characters--Kullus
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Metaphorical worlds in Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" and Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes".
Creator: Fiedler, Robin M., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Harold Pinter's debt to Samuel Beckett is not a matter of direct copying or replication, but a natural progression of the postmodern dramatic form. Both Pinter and Beckett examine human violence, companionship, game playing, religion, and philosophy, culminating in a world-as-stage metaphor where characters are subtly aware of being both spectators and players. Pinter's and Beckett's mimetic representations, whether successful or not, capture the essence of existence as a continuous creative...
Show moreHarold Pinter's debt to Samuel Beckett is not a matter of direct copying or replication, but a natural progression of the postmodern dramatic form. Both Pinter and Beckett examine human violence, companionship, game playing, religion, and philosophy, culminating in a world-as-stage metaphor where characters are subtly aware of being both spectators and players. Pinter's and Beckett's mimetic representations, whether successful or not, capture the essence of existence as a continuous creative process: characters examine dreamlike memories of experiences for meaning and narrate the past in their present existence in order to bring purpose to their future. The creative process of defining the past influences the characters' present decisions: the phenomenology of being in time is the only certainty. Pinter and Beckett move beyond tragicomedy and absurdity to an ontological metaphor: play creates fiction as an epistemological truth.
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Date Issued: 2000
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12677
Subject Headings: Beckett, Samuel,--1906-1989.--Endgame., Pinter, Harold,--1930-2008.--Ashes to ashes., Drama--Technique., Realism in literature.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Conversations with the dead: The ontological substructure of Wallace Stevens' "Esthetique du Mal".
Creator: Danylyshen, Darren Joseph., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: In "Esthetique du Mal," one of his later poems, Wallace Stevens considers existence from a variety of critical and philosophical perspectives, among them various moral, aesthetic, political, theological, and philosophic "epistemes" that condition how humanity perceives and experiences the world. These epistemological "modes" dictate how we live and perceive the world about us, providing preconceptions that shroud understanding and obfuscate ontological explanation. What Stevens accomplishes...
Show moreIn "Esthetique du Mal," one of his later poems, Wallace Stevens considers existence from a variety of critical and philosophical perspectives, among them various moral, aesthetic, political, theological, and philosophic "epistemes" that condition how humanity perceives and experiences the world. These epistemological "modes" dictate how we live and perceive the world about us, providing preconceptions that shroud understanding and obfuscate ontological explanation. What Stevens accomplishes in "Esthetique du Mal" is to create a dialogue with various historical and philosophical "schools," systematically confronting and rejecting their perspectives, and creating a movement toward Martin Heidegger's "aletheia" to uncover the ontological substructure that exists beneath the individual's experience in the world. This movement of "uncovering" and exposing the nature of what it means "to be in the world" is a journey to an ontological substructure that allows Stevens to arrive at a dynamic, ontological proof: that existence is full of "reverberating" possibilities, not solitary and "univocal" statements.
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Date Issued: 1999
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15702
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Esthʹetique du mal, Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation, Ontology in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Alice Walker: Redefining the hero.
Creator: Campbell, Nicole., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D., Peyton, Ann
Abstract/Description: In Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker places women in the traditionally male role of hero. As an artist, her goal is to provide stories with role models who will help women transcend the gender stereotyping inherent in patriarchal cultures and enable them to envision themselves as capable of completing the stages of the hero's journey. The novels are compared to the three stages of the hero's journey as it is defined by Joseph Campbell to...
Show moreIn Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker places women in the traditionally male role of hero. As an artist, her goal is to provide stories with role models who will help women transcend the gender stereotyping inherent in patriarchal cultures and enable them to envision themselves as capable of completing the stages of the hero's journey. The novels are compared to the three stages of the hero's journey as it is defined by Joseph Campbell to demonstrate how the women successfully master the hero pattern. The simple act of replacing the mythical male hero with a female initiates the shift in consciousness or the "key archetypal" event that Campbell insists is necessary for a change in world ideology. By redefining the role of the hero, Walker changes society's perceptions about women and becomes the arbiter of myth that will encourage women's potential.
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Date Issued: 1998
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15557
Subject Headings: Walker, Alice,--1944---Criticism and interpretation, Women heroes
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The naming man: A study of Wallace Stevens's poetry titles.
Creator: Weinschenk, George Godfrey, III., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The titles of Wallace Stevens's poetry assist in an explication of the poems. Stevens's titling techniques force the reader into a complicit involvement with the text before the commitment to read is even made. By asserting a strong presence in his titles, Stevens is able to engage the reader in an exploration of what is possible for the imagination. He presents his poetry as a foil for the actualization of his audience. Potentials are experienced and made real by this active involvement with...
Show moreThe titles of Wallace Stevens's poetry assist in an explication of the poems. Stevens's titling techniques force the reader into a complicit involvement with the text before the commitment to read is even made. By asserting a strong presence in his titles, Stevens is able to engage the reader in an exploration of what is possible for the imagination. He presents his poetry as a foil for the actualization of his audience. Potentials are experienced and made real by this active involvement with the poems, which in turn permits them to reveal their hidden meanings. A recursive responsiveness to Stevens's titles during the enjoyment of his poems rewards the reader with some answers to Wallace Stevens's masterful mystery. His management of titles is a part of the syntactical expression that is central to a full experience of his poetry.
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Date Issued: 1997
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15402
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation, Titles of poems, Poetics
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Henry James and Plato: Divining the truth in "What Maisie Knew".
Creator: Marquart, Rosanne B., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Henry James's and Plato's presumed ideological incompatibility is fostered in part by the philosopher's well documented censure of literature and the arts and by his belief that true knowledge is secured by purely rational apprehension. Henry James, however, contends that the philosopher and novelist have comparable concerns, for both seek truth and the origins and meaning of virtue. Plato's conception of knowledge and ethics, however, differs markedly from James's: if true knowledge is...
Show moreHenry James's and Plato's presumed ideological incompatibility is fostered in part by the philosopher's well documented censure of literature and the arts and by his belief that true knowledge is secured by purely rational apprehension. Henry James, however, contends that the philosopher and novelist have comparable concerns, for both seek truth and the origins and meaning of virtue. Plato's conception of knowledge and ethics, however, differs markedly from James's: if true knowledge is commensurate with rational apprehension, emotions and imagination distort rather than elucidate truth. Yet is there but a single path to knowledge? In What Maisie Knew James illustrates that learning, like narrative, is an experiential process involving intuition, emotion, and imagination. Moreover, although Jamesian and Platonic thought may appear antithetical, a comprehensive study of their works reveals not only the expected differences, but certain unexpected discursive and ideological similarities.
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Date Issued: 1997
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15360
Subject Headings: James, Henry,--1843-1916--What Maisie knew, James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation, Plato--Influence, Ethics, Philosophy in literature, Literature and morals
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Flannery O'Connor's prepubescents: Two on a pedestal.
Creator: Thompson, Joan Elaine., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Flannery O'Connor wrote two stories about antisocial twelve-year-old girls, who live in fractured households where they have little contact with males. In "Temple of the Holy Ghost," the unnamed child is comfortable in her perceived intellectual superiority and allows her imagination to keep her on a cerebral pedestal. The angry Sally Virginia in "A Circle in the Fire" takes refuge in a second-floor window, but later descends for a physical confrontation with three boys threatening the secure...
Show moreFlannery O'Connor wrote two stories about antisocial twelve-year-old girls, who live in fractured households where they have little contact with males. In "Temple of the Holy Ghost," the unnamed child is comfortable in her perceived intellectual superiority and allows her imagination to keep her on a cerebral pedestal. The angry Sally Virginia in "A Circle in the Fire" takes refuge in a second-floor window, but later descends for a physical confrontation with three boys threatening the secure world run by her tyrannical mother. Both girls gain spiritual knowledge: the "Temple" child comes to recognize the sanctity of the female body, while Sally Virginia discovers the familial misery inherent in all people. But Sally Virginia includes both males and females in her understanding of human suffering, while the "Temple" child remains spiritually flawed because of a smugness that equates only females with purity.
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Date Issued: 1996
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15259
Subject Headings: O'Connor, Flannery--Criticism and interpretation, Children in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The drama of Appollonian-Dionysian opposition: Euripides's "The Bacchae" and Schrader's "Kiss of the Spider Woman".
Creator: Trifan, Alex., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The Apollonian-Dionysian duality is a mythical opposition that suggests a complex and fundamental pattern of looking at the world. In this opposition Nietzsche identified two antagonistic tendencies whose tense coexistence is a prerequisite of the tragic genre; in his formulation tragic conflict must essentially involve a tension between rationality and irrationality, at the level of plot, character, genre. I adopt this symbolic mythical pattern to explore the theme of dramatic conflict in an...
Show moreThe Apollonian-Dionysian duality is a mythical opposition that suggests a complex and fundamental pattern of looking at the world. In this opposition Nietzsche identified two antagonistic tendencies whose tense coexistence is a prerequisite of the tragic genre; in his formulation tragic conflict must essentially involve a tension between rationality and irrationality, at the level of plot, character, genre. I adopt this symbolic mythical pattern to explore the theme of dramatic conflict in an ancient play, Euripides's The Bacchae, and in a modern text, Schrader's screenplay Kiss of the Spider Woman. At the heart of both these dramatic works there lies a profound and balanced conflict between illusion and reality, emotion and reason, pragmatism and idealism, nature and culture, a conflict structured according to the Apollonian-Dionysian matrix. This thesis explores the connections between the two texts and reveals that their common predicament consists of an unsettled dramatic opposition of Apollonian and Dionysian imaginative realms.
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Date Issued: 1996
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15296
Subject Headings: Conflict (Psychology) in literature, Tragic, The, in literature, Apollo (Greek deity) in literature, Dionysus (Greek deity) in literature, Euripides--Bacchae, Schrader, Leonard--Kiss of the spider woman
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The telegraphist's odyssean journey in Henry James's "In the Cage".
Creator: Olson, Peter J., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Henry James's In the Cage offers a character, a young female telegraphist, who constantly applies theories to and comes up with interpretations of the people, objects, and events that make up the world outside her cage. The experiences she undergoes with the telegrams' ambiguous messages and her customers' strange actions compel her to weave an intricate drama that not only clears up the ambiguities but also allows her to play an important role. She creates a subjective reality through which...
Show moreHenry James's In the Cage offers a character, a young female telegraphist, who constantly applies theories to and comes up with interpretations of the people, objects, and events that make up the world outside her cage. The experiences she undergoes with the telegrams' ambiguous messages and her customers' strange actions compel her to weave an intricate drama that not only clears up the ambiguities but also allows her to play an important role. She creates a subjective reality through which she can embark on an exciting, dangerous adventure. This reality, however, is not immutable. When faced with new sets of circumstances, new flashes from the outside world, she struggles to re-work her interpretations and re-create her fiction; like Odysseus, she is forced to submit to an overwhelming external power and find a new path on which to travel.
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Date Issued: 1996
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15346
Subject Headings: James, Henry,--1843-1916--In the cage, James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation, James, Henry,--1843-1916--Technique, Homer--Odyssea, Ambiguity in literature, Narration (Rhetoric)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A textual comparison of Henry James's "An International Episode".
Creator: Wilson, Mary Kay., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: In revising his works for inclusion in the New York Edition, James shows his artistic growth. The revised text of An International Episode, James's tale of the English in America and the Americans in England, startles the reader who compares it with the earlier Cornhill publication. The characters, as well as the worlds that they inhabit and visit, are changed by James's additions of new dialogue and description. An International Episode was initially reviewed as unfairly satirical in its...
Show moreIn revising his works for inclusion in the New York Edition, James shows his artistic growth. The revised text of An International Episode, James's tale of the English in America and the Americans in England, startles the reader who compares it with the earlier Cornhill publication. The characters, as well as the worlds that they inhabit and visit, are changed by James's additions of new dialogue and description. An International Episode was initially reviewed as unfairly satirical in its portrayal of English customs and English characters. My thesis argues that many changes to the original text were James's response to this criticism. His text for the New York Edition shows a balancing of English and American characterizations, revealing a more equal satire.
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Date Issued: 1995
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15182
Subject Headings: James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation, James, Henry,--1843-1916--International episode
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: MARGARET ATWOOD'S "TRICK HIP": TRANSCENDING DUALITY WITH IMAGINATION.
Creator: LAMB, MARTHA MOSS., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The major theme of Margaret Atwood's work is the transcendence of duality. Several critics, led by Cheryl Grace, have emphasized the duality only, yet there are many examples of wholeness in Atwood's early poems and novels as well as in her more recent fiction. The clearest examples of the reconciliation of opposites are in Atwood's late poems. The poetics of the romantics Blake and Coleridge, as discussed by the twentieth-century critics Northrop Frye and I. A. Richards, and underscored by...
Show moreThe major theme of Margaret Atwood's work is the transcendence of duality. Several critics, led by Cheryl Grace, have emphasized the duality only, yet there are many examples of wholeness in Atwood's early poems and novels as well as in her more recent fiction. The clearest examples of the reconciliation of opposites are in Atwood's late poems. The poetics of the romantics Blake and Coleridge, as discussed by the twentieth-century critics Northrop Frye and I. A. Richards, and underscored by new theories in physics, may be used to clarify how Atwood resolves dualities. The last five poems of "New Poems 1985-1986" from Selected Poems II demonstrate the blending of life/death, God/human, spiritual/material, body/nature, real/imaginary, male/female, subject/object into one through the use of paradox, poetic image, and remaking of myth, techniques of the imagination that Atwood shares with Blake and Coleridge.
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Date Issued: 1994
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15037
Subject Headings: Atwood, Margaret Eleanor,--1939---Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: David Mamet's games in "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Homicide", and "House of Games".
Creator: Woods, Mary., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: David Mamet's use of play and games in his dramas illustrates the nature of play: its power to attract and hold players in its spell. Play and games fascinate and master the characters. Shelley Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross, Bob Gold in Homicide, and Margaret Ford in House of Games are convinced that they know the rules of the game and thus believe they are in control. They assume roles that they believe make them major players in the game they think they are playing. But rather than being in...
Show moreDavid Mamet's use of play and games in his dramas illustrates the nature of play: its power to attract and hold players in its spell. Play and games fascinate and master the characters. Shelley Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross, Bob Gold in Homicide, and Margaret Ford in House of Games are convinced that they know the rules of the game and thus believe they are in control. They assume roles that they believe make them major players in the game they think they are playing. But rather than being in control of the game and its rules, each of these characters is an unwitting player in a larger game where they are the pawns. In addition, these characters contribute to their own victimization by breaking the rules of their own games. The audience participates in these characters' games and adventures very much as the characters themselves do and are thus mesmerized, mastered, and ultimately set up by the game that Mamet plays with them.
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Date Issued: 1993
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14906
Subject Headings: Mamet, David--Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Expressions of the religious imagination in the work of Jane Austen and Flannery O'Connor.
Creator: Payne, Pamela Wood., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Jane Austen and Flannery O'Connor possess essentially religious imaginations. The character of their work is determined by the degree of similarity or difference between their beliefs and those generally held by their intended audiences. Austen, an orthodox Anglican in a fundamentally religious era, creates a fiction of restraint: gently satiric, ultimately comic in form and intent, directed to a reader who shares her vision of spiritual and moral order revealed through social structure. O...
Show moreJane Austen and Flannery O'Connor possess essentially religious imaginations. The character of their work is determined by the degree of similarity or difference between their beliefs and those generally held by their intended audiences. Austen, an orthodox Anglican in a fundamentally religious era, creates a fiction of restraint: gently satiric, ultimately comic in form and intent, directed to a reader who shares her vision of spiritual and moral order revealed through social structure. O'Connor, a Catholic in an age of unbelief, writes a fiction of extremity, characterized by fierce satire, violence, grotesquerie, and the juxtaposition of comic characters and situations with tragic form and meaning, directed to an unbelieving reader whom she wishes to "shock" into a new awareness of the sacred. A comparison of the work of Austen and O'Connor in this context leads to a renewed appreciation of the interdependence of imagination and reality in determining the distinctive qualities of a writer's oeuvre.
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Date Issued: 1993
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14889
Subject Headings: O'Connor, Flannery--Criticism and interpretation, Austen, Jane,--1775-1817--Criticism and interpretation, Imagination--Religious aspects
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Concept of Deity in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens.
Creator: Lawson, Jeanette Dee, Pearce, Howard D., Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description: Wallace Stevens sought to remove the false image of God in order to find truth and reality. His various attempts to dispel the myth of religion can be traced through his poetry and correspondence. His poetry can be divided into five phases, each illustrating Stevens's changing attitude toward God. In phase I Stevens employed simple substitution, replacing the image of the supreme with common objects. In phase II he looked for ''the god within man" while increasing his efforts to remove the...
Show moreWallace Stevens sought to remove the false image of God in order to find truth and reality. His various attempts to dispel the myth of religion can be traced through his poetry and correspondence. His poetry can be divided into five phases, each illustrating Stevens's changing attitude toward God. In phase I Stevens employed simple substitution, replacing the image of the supreme with common objects. In phase II he looked for ''the god within man" while increasing his efforts to remove the illusion of God. Phase III was one of transition, where Stevens rejected former theories and sought a new direction to follow. In phase IV he concentrated on exposing the myths and defining reality. At the end of this phase, he reviewed his progress and found himself no nearer to his goal. Stevens lacked focus in phase V due to this disappointment; he died before settling on a new theory.
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Date Issued: 1992
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000932
Subject Headings: Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: "Tempting providence": The absurd humor of Eudora Welty's "Losing Battles".
Creator: Policy, Carole Davis., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: The function of humor in Eudora Welty's work is to allow the reader access to her experiential world through language in order to reveal the multivalent life process, the insulating network of ritualistic endurance, and the dignified grace of ill-fated defiance. Exaggerated stereotypes and mythical allusions provide a way of entry into the fictional world of Losing Battles. Using vernacular dialogue and absurd actions as virtually her sole method of character development, Welty represents the...
Show moreThe function of humor in Eudora Welty's work is to allow the reader access to her experiential world through language in order to reveal the multivalent life process, the insulating network of ritualistic endurance, and the dignified grace of ill-fated defiance. Exaggerated stereotypes and mythical allusions provide a way of entry into the fictional world of Losing Battles. Using vernacular dialogue and absurd actions as virtually her sole method of character development, Welty represents the elemental vitality of her characters whose will to persevere is reflected in their endless autobiographical storytelling. By recreating the family with talk, Welty's characters are able to shrug off the impinging reality that threatens their Sisyphian effort to survive. Her use of a self-conscious Southern idiom invites a phenomenological reading revealing the ultimately life-affirming pattern that informs the novel and gives shape to her fundamental comic spirit.
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Date Issued: 1991
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14730
Subject Headings: Welty, Eudora,--1909---Losing battles
Format: Document (PDF)

Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation (10)	+ -
James, Henry,--1843-1916--Criticism and interpretation (6)	+ -
O'Connor, Flannery--Criticism and interpretation (5)	+ -
Stevens, Wallace,--1879-1955--Criticism and interpretation. (3)	+ -
Children in literature (2)	+ -

Jarrell, Randall,--1914-1965--Criticism and interpretation (2)	+ -
Pinter, Harold,--1930---Criticism and interpretation (2)	+ -
Plath, Sylvia--Criticism and interpretation (2)	+ -
Women in literature (2)	+ -
Yeats, W B--(William Butler),--1865-1939--Criticism and interpretation (2)	+ -
Albee, Edward,--1928---Characters (1)	+ -
Ambiguity in literature (1)	+ -
American poetry--African American authors (1)	+ -
Anderson, Sherwood,--1876-1941--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Androgyny (Psychology) (1)	+ -
Apollo (Greek deity) in literature (1)	+ -
Archer, Isabel (Fictitious character) (1)	+ -
Archetype (Psychology) in literature. (1)	+ -
Aristotle--Aesthetics (1)	+ -
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor,--1939---Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Austen, Jane,--1775-1817--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Authorship (1)	+ -
Baudelaire, Charles,--1821-1867--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Beckett, Samuel,--1906-1989.--Endgame. (1)	+ -
Bly, Robert--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Bond, Edward--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Borges, Jorge Luis,--1899- (1)	+ -
Brooks, Gwendolyn,--1917---Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
Burke, Edmund,--1729-1797. (1)	+ -
Conflict (Psychology) in literature (1)	+ -

Florida Atlantic University (63)	+ -
COHEN, NANCY SITARIK. (1)	+ -
CONFORTI, DIANE LYNNE. (1)	+ -
CONNOLLY, JOANNE MARIE. (1)	+ -
CONNOLLY, PATTY BARNHILL. (1)	+ -

Campbell, Nicole. (1)	+ -
Danylyshen, Darren Joseph. (1)	+ -
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ENDRUSCHAT, MARY ELIZABETH. (1)	+ -
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Frusciante, Denise Marie. (1)	+ -
GLADDING, MARTHA W. (1)	+ -
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LAMB, MARTHA MOSS. (1)	+ -
LENAHAN, TERI S. (1)	+ -
LEWIN, DOROTHY MAY. (1)	+ -

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