Current Search: Symbolism in literature (x) » Criticism and interpretation (x)
View All Items
Pages
- Title
- Out of the ever after and other stories.
- Creator
- Amadori-Segree, Claudia., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Out of the Ever After and Other Stories is a collection of language-driven stories set in different parts of the world and thematically linked, comprising realist narratives and magical realism. The trope that unifies this collection is that of the journey. The characters go on journeys, whether real or metaphorical. Many are lost at the beginning, but they find themselves in the end; others remain lost, but have a better understanding of their condition in the world. Although diverse in...
Show moreOut of the Ever After and Other Stories is a collection of language-driven stories set in different parts of the world and thematically linked, comprising realist narratives and magical realism. The trope that unifies this collection is that of the journey. The characters go on journeys, whether real or metaphorical. Many are lost at the beginning, but they find themselves in the end; others remain lost, but have a better understanding of their condition in the world. Although diverse in nationality, cultural background and gender, the characters in the eight stories share the need to find a lasting identity and a home-place to return to, whether physically or psychologically. The collection alternates magical and realist plots, male and female narrators, points of view, and diverse settings to create variety and a multicultural, hybrid and hyphenated experience. Some stories experiment with language; others have a more traditional mood, akin to fairytales.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/77641
- Subject Headings
- Short stories, Collections, Short stories, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Fiction, Technique
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Notes on a liminal state.
- Creator
- Straub, Patricia., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Notes on a Liminal State is a collection of poetry prepared in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in writing at Florida Atlantic University. While the poems cover a variety of topics, recurring themes include a mother's decline due to Alzheimer's Disease, infertility, adoption, and the observation of rural landscapes. The poems do not adhere to any single form.
- Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3356785
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Poetry, Symbolism in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The philosophy of the animal in 20th century literature.
- Creator
- Johnson, Jamie, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
The following dissertation examines the philosophy of the animal as it appears in twentieth-century British and American literature. I argue that evolutionary theory, along with the Romantic emphasis on sympathy, creates an historical shift in our perception of humans and nonhumans. Beginning with Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby-Dick, the whale represents what I call a transitional animal figure in that the whale not only shows the traditionally symbolic literary animal but also the...
Show moreThe following dissertation examines the philosophy of the animal as it appears in twentieth-century British and American literature. I argue that evolutionary theory, along with the Romantic emphasis on sympathy, creates an historical shift in our perception of humans and nonhumans. Beginning with Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby-Dick, the whale represents what I call a transitional animal figure in that the whale not only shows the traditionally symbolic literary animal but also the beginnings of the twentieth century shift toward the literal animal-as-subject. My proposed comparative analysis consists of a return to classic existential and phenomenological philosophers with animal studies in mind. A handful of critical essays in recent years have conducted just such an analysis. My contribution extends these philosophical endeavors on the animal and applies them to major literary authors who demonstrate a notable interest in the philosophy of animals. The first chapter of the dissertation begins with D.H. Lawrence, whose writings in selected essays, St. Mawr, and "The Fox" continue considerations made by Melville concerning animal being. Because Lawrence often focuses on gender, sexuality, and intuition, I discuss how a Heideggerian reading of animals in Lawrence adds value to interpretations of his fiction which remain unavailable in analyses of human subjects. In Chapter Two, I move on to William Faulkner's classic hunting tale of "The Bear" and other significant animal sightings in his fiction and nonfiction. For Faulkner, the animal subject exists in the author's particular historical climate of American environmentalism, modernism's literary emphasis on visuality, and race theory., This combination calls for a natural progression from a Heideggerian existential phenomenology: a contemporary Sartrean reading of animal being. Finally, the last chapter examines J.M. Coetzee, an author whose texts show the accumulated existential and phenomenological progression in the philosophy of the animal with a combined interest in current political and social issues surrounding animal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/192984
- Subject Headings
- Symbolism in literature, Animals (Philosophy), Human-animal relationships in literature, Animals in literature, American prose literature, Criticism and interpretation, English prose literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The " living presence" and the "ideal character": sex, fantasy, and photographs in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.
- Creator
- Taylor, Margaret, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
- Abstract/Description
-
In my thesis I will argue that the source of the major conflict in Jude the Obscure - the traumatic relationship between Sue and Jude - is Jude's viewing of his cousin's photograph early in the novel. Because of his tendency to idealize the individuals around him, Jude projects a desired image onto a photograph of Sue before meeting her in real life. This projection takes on an aspect of reality for Jude which he can not escape, despite Sue's efforts to disillusion him and introduce him to...
Show moreIn my thesis I will argue that the source of the major conflict in Jude the Obscure - the traumatic relationship between Sue and Jude - is Jude's viewing of his cousin's photograph early in the novel. Because of his tendency to idealize the individuals around him, Jude projects a desired image onto a photograph of Sue before meeting her in real life. This projection takes on an aspect of reality for Jude which he can not escape, despite Sue's efforts to disillusion him and introduce him to her actual self. Since his projection starkly contrasts to Sue's actual being, not only does Jude believe that the two are compatible when they are not, but he believes that Sue's attempts to disillusion him are in fact deceitful. Thus the initial impetus of the photograph eventually leads to their conflicted relationship and the tragedy of the novel overall.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/210004
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Imagination in literature, Despair in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The food of fools: an analysis of the Fools' gustatory imagery in King Lear.
- Creator
- Sparer, Sara Rafferty., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
The character of the Fool in William Shakespeare's King Lear uses hitherto unexamined gustatory imagery as a linguistic device to achieve the literary fool's function of imparting wisdom that masquerades as nonsense. While previous critics have analyzed the linguistic devices of puns, riddles, and rhymes used by medieval and Renaissance literary fools, this thesis argues not only that the Fool's gustatory imagery constitutes the dominant motif in the play, but also employs food theory to...
Show moreThe character of the Fool in William Shakespeare's King Lear uses hitherto unexamined gustatory imagery as a linguistic device to achieve the literary fool's function of imparting wisdom that masquerades as nonsense. While previous critics have analyzed the linguistic devices of puns, riddles, and rhymes used by medieval and Renaissance literary fools, this thesis argues not only that the Fool's gustatory imagery constitutes the dominant motif in the play, but also employs food theory to demonstrate how these image patterns provide political commentary on the dramatic action. The Fool's pattern of gustatory imagery is employed as well by characters who can be seen as variations on the wise fool. Through these characters, Shakespeare establishes a food chain motif that classifies some characters as all-consumptive, even cannibalistic, and others as their starving prey. The pattern of food imagery offers a range of perspectives, from highly critical to idealistic, on the play's meaning and political relationships.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/227981
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Food, Symbolic aspects, Food in literature, Literature and society, Criticism and interpretion
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- "One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!": twinship and doubling in Twelfth Night.
- Creator
- Puehn, Amanda M., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the...
Show moreThis thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the scope of a comedy that plays upon the issues of cross-dressing and mistaken sexual identity. During the Renaissance, it was believed that male and female seed was co-present in every person and through dominance a distinct sexual identity was developed. This thesis argues that while Shakespeare initially convoluted this by allowing one of the twins to cross-dress; he resolved the anatomical doubling by presenting both characters together on stage at the close of the play.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3335455
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Identity (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature, Literature and medicine, History
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- One nation under gods: interfaith symbolism and the "American" race in the works of Jean Toomer.
- Creator
- Fallon, Laura Gayle., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This study argues that the interfaith symbolism present in the works of American author Jean Toomer undermines dominant Christian justifications for racism in the United States. It also discusses the ways in which Toomer's interfaith symbolism promotes the establishment of a race Toomer called the "American" race, a group of interracial, interreligious people whom Toomer hoped would change the way race was viewed in the United States. The multireligious references in Toomer's works challenge...
Show moreThis study argues that the interfaith symbolism present in the works of American author Jean Toomer undermines dominant Christian justifications for racism in the United States. It also discusses the ways in which Toomer's interfaith symbolism promotes the establishment of a race Toomer called the "American" race, a group of interracial, interreligious people whom Toomer hoped would change the way race was viewed in the United States. The multireligious references in Toomer's works challenge constricted definitions of both religion and race by highlighting interchangeable religious ideals from several world religions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/359926
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Race in popular culture, Race relations
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A good woman is hard to find: discovering the voice of the woman satirist in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.
- Creator
- Paxton, Virginia A., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
While Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially...
Show moreWhile Flannery O'Connor's characters and narrative landscape may share a history with those of other works often labeled "Southern gothic," her heavily judicious narrative voice utilizes the depravity of the South struggling to find its identity as a means to explore her vision of God's mercy and distinguishes her work as satirical criticism. This thesis analyzes her construction of a distinctive satirical narrative voice for Wise Blood, particularly as it deviates from how she initially wrote the first chapters as presented in earlier short stories like "The Train" and "The Peeler." Here, the ways in which O'Connor revises her diction and syntax to create a satirical tone will be examined closely. For the purposes of this paper, satire is defined as a literary work aimed at utilizing irony, hyperbole, or sarcasm to reveal, critique, and correct some moral, ethical, or social phenomenon or situation that the author finds reprehensible.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/221951
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Feminism and literature, Didactic fiction, American, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Abjection and social transformation in John Fowles's Mantissa and A Maggot.
- Creator
- Skolnick, Jenifer A., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
In John Fowles's last two novels, he alters his authorial project of discovering freedom for an individual from a social system to how a social system can be changed from within. Using Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection and her interpretation of the semiotic versus symbolic processes of signification, readers can determine how an imbalance in the human signifying process has become corrupted by power. Through Fowles's heroines and semiotic irruptions of the symbolic order in both Mantissa...
Show moreIn John Fowles's last two novels, he alters his authorial project of discovering freedom for an individual from a social system to how a social system can be changed from within. Using Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection and her interpretation of the semiotic versus symbolic processes of signification, readers can determine how an imbalance in the human signifying process has become corrupted by power. Through Fowles's heroines and semiotic irruptions of the symbolic order in both Mantissa and A Maggot, Fowles reveals weaknesses in the symbolic, and consequently, moments where transformation of a patriarchal, symbolic system can be recognized. These moments of strain on the symbolic are significant because they cause a disruption of the rules and borders that define a social system like patriarchy. By calling attention to these moments, the categorical imperatives that have been imposed on women and perpetuated for the purpose of maintaining power relations can thus be subverted. In Mantissa and A Maggot, Fowles accomplishes a breaking of the boundaries, both within and of the text, by providing a literary space where readers can glimpse the power of the semiotic, the corruption of social conditioning, and gain a new perspective of their own symbolic/social system in the real world.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2979382
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.), Culture, Semiotic models, Symbolic interactionism, Symbolism in literature, Postmodernism (Literature)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The discourse of confession and the rhetoric of the devil: unnatural attraction and gender instability in Wuthering Heights and The Master of Ballantrae.
- Creator
- DeFalco, Dana., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Often overlooked in the nineteenth century Gothic novel are the complicated social issues existing within the text. In Emily Brontèe's Wuthering Heights and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae, the authors each create villains who represent the preoccupation with appropriate sexuality and conventional gender roles existing in Victorian England. Brontèe's Heathcliff and Stevenson's James Durie embody all that is immoral and non-normative in society with their depraved behavior ;...
Show moreOften overlooked in the nineteenth century Gothic novel are the complicated social issues existing within the text. In Emily Brontèe's Wuthering Heights and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae, the authors each create villains who represent the preoccupation with appropriate sexuality and conventional gender roles existing in Victorian England. Brontèe's Heathcliff and Stevenson's James Durie embody all that is immoral and non-normative in society with their depraved behavior ; however, because of the authors' craftiness with language, the authors, through their villains, manage to magnetize the other characters and subsequently emasculate those men in the text who emulate the Victorian ideal of masculinity. By focusing their novels on the plight of the Other and his disruption to the homogeneous rules regarding sexuality and gender in the nineteenth century, both authors articulate a profound understanding of the societal fears regarding these issues existing in their time.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3170602
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Homosexuality in literature, Symbolism in literature, Confession in literature, Desire in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao: an epistemological fantasy.
- Creator
- Creed, Daniel B., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, published in 1936, has been widely read in the last eighty years and has influenced significant authors in the field of fantasy, yet it has been examined in just three critical studies in that time. This study examines Finney's novel as an epistemological fantasy, a heretofore undefined term that precipitates an epistemological crisis of knowing and certainty. The novel opens a way for fantasy literature to establish itself in a Modernist landscape by...
Show moreCharles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao, published in 1936, has been widely read in the last eighty years and has influenced significant authors in the field of fantasy, yet it has been examined in just three critical studies in that time. This study examines Finney's novel as an epistemological fantasy, a heretofore undefined term that precipitates an epistemological crisis of knowing and certainty. The novel opens a way for fantasy literature to establish itself in a Modernist landscape by foregrounding the marvelous and extraordinary knowledge that lies just outside the realm of human experience. Finney presents Dr. Lao's circus as a surrogate model of success, and while many of the characters in the novel are unable to accept the truth offered them by the beings of fantasy, the author uses their experiences to satirize the complacencies he witnessed upon returning to America from the Far East in the 1930s.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2683122
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Knowledge, Theory of, in literature, Fantasy fiction, American, Criticism and interpretation, Postmodernism (Literature)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Existential consciousness, redemption, and Buddhist allusions in the work of Saul Bellow.
- Creator
- Durbeej, Jerry K., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Within the past two centuries, massive industrialization, technological and scientific advances, wars, diseases, failures in social systems, and religious, ethnic, and political conflicts have produced an existential angst that has saturated the collective consciousness of modern man. The atrocities of World Wars I and II induced European and American authors and artists to confront this state of disillusionment, anxiety, loneliness, fear, and dread; consequently, much of our modern...
Show moreWithin the past two centuries, massive industrialization, technological and scientific advances, wars, diseases, failures in social systems, and religious, ethnic, and political conflicts have produced an existential angst that has saturated the collective consciousness of modern man. The atrocities of World Wars I and II induced European and American authors and artists to confront this state of disillusionment, anxiety, loneliness, fear, and dread; consequently, much of our modern literature reflects this nihilistic darkness. In this state of grave doubts and uncertainties, the modern man finds himself alienated and disconnected from the very essences that ground him. Scholars of literature, philosophy, and the various arts and social sciences, having examined this contemporary dilemma, find just cause to question our western belief that science, technology, and materialism put the world in order. The further indictment is that these rational and materialistic forces have usurped the place of God and dismantled the ancient mythologies that once grounded our existence. This study examines the selected work of Saul Bellow and argues that his recurring themes of suffering, compassion, humanity, and renewal of the human spirit are antithetical to this collective existential angst. My argument introduces the doctrine of Existentialism and then explores the basic existentialist theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. From this platform, I later establish that Bellow takes a stand against this collective nihilism in favor of community and the celebration of life that are defined by a moral framework. Bellow's most representative novel in this vein of existential dislocation is Dangling Man., From this novel, I argue that there is an inherent flaw in the notion that man's essential existence can only be defined through his agency as an individual, and that man, not God, is ultimately responsible for his actions and destiny. This pursuit of existence based on personal freedom and intellectual synthesis is prone to failure; Bellow's point of view is that the existentialist, having disconnected himself from God and community, plunges into an abyss fraught with angst and turmoil. Bellow's theme of humanity instructs that our redemption lies not in our personal quest, but in our absorption and participation in a community framed by moral precepts and the respect for God. Finally, and from another angle and through Bellow's Herzog, I establish a connection to Buddhism. From these Buddhist allusions, I further affirm that the quest for authentic existence and redemption demands a confrontation with our angst and an acknowledgement of our suffering.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/1870695
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Existentialsim in literature, Symbolism in literature, Buddhism and literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- I'll be your mirror: reflections on doubling and the processing of aggression in the post(modern) fairy tales of Hesse & Winterson.
- Creator
- Rigdon, Brittany K., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Traditional fairy tales represent some of the oldest and most archetypal forms of literature. However, as humanity rapidly evolves, the genre and content of traditional fairy tales still operates as a prevalent socializing agent that fails to promote pluralism. Instead, traditional fairy tales illustrate and uphold limited gender roles and expectations. This paper examines Hermann Hesse's role as a pioneer in a now burgeoning movement of fairy tale revisions that blur boundaries between...
Show moreTraditional fairy tales represent some of the oldest and most archetypal forms of literature. However, as humanity rapidly evolves, the genre and content of traditional fairy tales still operates as a prevalent socializing agent that fails to promote pluralism. Instead, traditional fairy tales illustrate and uphold limited gender roles and expectations. This paper examines Hermann Hesse's role as a pioneer in a now burgeoning movement of fairy tale revisions that blur boundaries between fantasy and reality by introducing specific, everyday locations, countries, and individuals coupled with a copious use of the double. This formula draws the reader into the tale via the uncanny and prompts a reevaluation of especially violent historical moments and issues that affect all within a society. Hesse's work within this new tradition of revisions of beloved fairy tales, as well as his creation of literary fairy tales, has significantly influenced the work of key postmodern feminist fairy tale revisionists like Jeanette Winterson.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/369202
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Feminism in literature, Postmodernism (Literature), Fairy tales, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Spenser's spiritual vision: the Faerie Queene as a teleological romance.
- Creator
- Groves, Laura Hendricks., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
A recent trend in Spenser studies that relies heavily on materialist thinking either undervalues or misses altogether The Faerie Queene's inherent spiritual quality along with the irreducible interaction and ultimate reciprocity of earth and heaven. This thesis argues that Edmund Spenser's spiritual vision in The Faerie Queene expresses itself in a teleological romance that assumes a condition of mutability over stasis in the temporal earthly realm, as its first three heroes ascend a ladder...
Show moreA recent trend in Spenser studies that relies heavily on materialist thinking either undervalues or misses altogether The Faerie Queene's inherent spiritual quality along with the irreducible interaction and ultimate reciprocity of earth and heaven. This thesis argues that Edmund Spenser's spiritual vision in The Faerie Queene expresses itself in a teleological romance that assumes a condition of mutability over stasis in the temporal earthly realm, as its first three heroes ascend a ladder of perfection that evokes the heavenly and eternal, while at the same time heavenly glory reaches down into the story "romancing" the characters and exerting its own influence on the action.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/210523
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Spirituality in literature, English literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Meis Oculis: eyes in the early poetry of T.S. Eliot.
- Creator
- Richards, Joshua., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This study is an examination of ocular imagery in the secular poetry of T.S. Eliot. As a symbol, eyes begin as a metonym for the panoptic vision of society. In the earliest poems, Michel Foucault's conceptions of discipline illuminate the acerbic paranoia attached to ocular imagery and its source in the culture of turn-of-the-century Boston. Towards 1919, the image of eyes becomes an objective correlative for the figure of Dante's Beatrice who represents both earthly and divine love. The loss...
Show moreThis study is an examination of ocular imagery in the secular poetry of T.S. Eliot. As a symbol, eyes begin as a metonym for the panoptic vision of society. In the earliest poems, Michel Foucault's conceptions of discipline illuminate the acerbic paranoia attached to ocular imagery and its source in the culture of turn-of-the-century Boston. Towards 1919, the image of eyes becomes an objective correlative for the figure of Dante's Beatrice who represents both earthly and divine love. The loss of sight by the various speakers in both - "Gerontion" and The Waste Land is then the loss of connection to both the earthly woman and God. Finally, in The Hollow Men, the tenor and vehicle merge completely so the eyes themselves become the object of desire.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/215286
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Postmodernism (Literature), Imagery (Psychology) in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- " Merely to officiate light": the subordination and glorification of God the Son in Paradise Lost.
- Creator
- Cruikshank, Kathryn H., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis considers the role and function of God the Son within the anti-Trinitarian system John Milton envisions in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. In the poem, God the Father frequently acts independently of His Son, and the divine attributes that traditionally describe the Son, including His timelessness, no longer apply to the character Milton constructs. Despite this apparent degradation, Milton still elevates the Son and considers Him to be a character worthy of our respect. To account...
Show moreThis thesis considers the role and function of God the Son within the anti-Trinitarian system John Milton envisions in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. In the poem, God the Father frequently acts independently of His Son, and the divine attributes that traditionally describe the Son, including His timelessness, no longer apply to the character Milton constructs. Despite this apparent degradation, Milton still elevates the Son and considers Him to be a character worthy of our respect. To account for this seeming paradox, I propose a reading of Paradise Lost that does not dismiss Milton's heretical belief in a subjected Son, but rather uses it as a way envision a new form of power. To do so, I compare the relationship between God the Father and His Son in terms of light and sun imagery, to demonstrate how power is divided and distributed between the two, according to the scientific principles of Milton's day. In addition, I consider how Michel Foucault's concept of the docile body both applies to the Son and explains His deference to the Father. Through these analyses, I hope to demonstrate that the Son's power exists as the result of properly exercising His free will, a will that would not have been His own had He been one with His Father.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/209988
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Religion, Symbolism in literature, God in literature, Religion and literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Polysemy in John Milton's Paradise Lost.
- Creator
- Harrawood, Suzanne., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This is a study of the polysemous language in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Unlike some of his seventeenth-century contemporaries, Milton did not harbor a mistrust of highly symbolic and interpretable language, and the fact that he did not has deep repercussions in Milton's great epic. I examine the porous and mutable nature of Edenic language, and how it challenges the idea of prelapsarian language as devoid of polysemous gloss. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve's perfect acquisition of...
Show moreThis is a study of the polysemous language in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Unlike some of his seventeenth-century contemporaries, Milton did not harbor a mistrust of highly symbolic and interpretable language, and the fact that he did not has deep repercussions in Milton's great epic. I examine the porous and mutable nature of Edenic language, and how it challenges the idea of prelapsarian language as devoid of polysemous gloss. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve's perfect acquisition of knowledge is not undermined by the symbolism of language. Nevertheless, Satan cleverly exploits the polysemy of Edenic language in order to effectuate Adam and Eve's transgression. Ultimately, Milton's Paradise Lost departs from common seventeenth-century theories about language and knowledge. Milton's view is unique in that it retains a positive view of symbolic language and suggests that postlapsarian humanity is bereft of divine guidance and left to struggle for knowledge through experience.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/332913
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Narration (Rhetoric), Polysemy, Semiotics
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Under construction: positive-negative space in Faulkner and beyond.
- Creator
- Puleo, Simone Maria., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This thesis probes the materiality of a text by focusing on elliptical matters. In The Culture of Time and Space, Stephen Kern introduces the term "positive-negative space" to describe the primacy of empty space as a formal subject matter in sculptures of the early twentieth century. With some caveats and distinctions, the thesis argues that Kern's theory of positive-negative space is crucial for reading Faulkner's crytic and polyvalent production of space. Using a smorgasbord of approaches...
Show moreThis thesis probes the materiality of a text by focusing on elliptical matters. In The Culture of Time and Space, Stephen Kern introduces the term "positive-negative space" to describe the primacy of empty space as a formal subject matter in sculptures of the early twentieth century. With some caveats and distinctions, the thesis argues that Kern's theory of positive-negative space is crucial for reading Faulkner's crytic and polyvalent production of space. Using a smorgasbord of approaches including psychoanalytic and reader-response criticism, feminist and critical race theories, post-structuralist and formalist notions of space, theories of the "hole" in fine arts sculpture, and the New Southern studies, my thesis reinvents the conception of positive-negative space, and asserts that positive-negative space as an artistic principle" is the modus operandi of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Sanctuary.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3358961
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Space in literature, Place (Philosophy) in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A literary history of sugarcane discourse in the works of James Grainger and Junot Dâiaz.
- Creator
- Linder, Michael., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
This study examines the recurrence of the image of sugarcane in Caribbean literature and traces a timeline of oppressive discourse. The image of the cane field represents a tension between silencing voice and identity independent of European nation-building ideologies. There is a history of silencing associated with sugarcane, even as Caribbean authors seek a potential to use this history to create a voice. While the authors examined employ the image of the cane field to create a voice...
Show moreThis study examines the recurrence of the image of sugarcane in Caribbean literature and traces a timeline of oppressive discourse. The image of the cane field represents a tension between silencing voice and identity independent of European nation-building ideologies. There is a history of silencing associated with sugarcane, even as Caribbean authors seek a potential to use this history to create a voice. While the authors examined employ the image of the cane field to create a voice outside of the dominant discourse, the voice of the Caribbean is nonetheless restricted. Postcolonial theory will be used to examine the history of oppression through the image of sugarcane as a negative past that authors try to get beyond, while dealing with the issue that it also helped to form their voice. My thesis investigates these issues using The Sugar-Cane: A Poem. In Four Books. With Notes, a poem by James Grainger, to set up the colonial history of sugar in the Caribbean and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as a reaction to that colonial discourse.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3342201
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Sugar in literature, Imperialism in literature, Caribbean literature (English), Criticism and interpretation, In literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- A humdrum aha!: John Clare's mundane sublime.
- Creator
- Pell, Dana Odwazny., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
- Abstract/Description
-
Following the work of Sara Houghton-Walker and Edward Strickland, this thesis theorizes the "mundane sublime" as encountered in romanticist John Clare's poetry. Instead of being oriented upward, as with Longinus's elevatory sublime, Clare's mundane sublime brings the subject downward to earth. While the sublime of the Burkean tradition begins with terror, I claim that the mundane sublime emerges out of love for that which is commonplace. Still revelatory, it may be further characterized by an...
Show moreFollowing the work of Sara Houghton-Walker and Edward Strickland, this thesis theorizes the "mundane sublime" as encountered in romanticist John Clare's poetry. Instead of being oriented upward, as with Longinus's elevatory sublime, Clare's mundane sublime brings the subject downward to earth. While the sublime of the Burkean tradition begins with terror, I claim that the mundane sublime emerges out of love for that which is commonplace. Still revelatory, it may be further characterized by an engagement with ecosystems, eternity, divinity, and nature as a whole. Clare's style scaffolds images resulting in a profusion of detail that arrests the mind and allows it to reflect on its own position in nature. As Clare's mundane sublime takes up simple natural objects and posits an ecological interconnectedness, it implies a more environmentally responsible relationship to one's surroundings, making it increasingly relevant for green studies.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3355875
- Subject Headings
- Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in nature, Poets, English, Criticism and interpretation, Sublime, The, Criticism and interpretation, Sublime, The, in literature, Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)