Browsing W & L Historic Theses by Subject "Washington and Lee University -- Honors in English"
Now showing items 1-20 of 59
-
"A Crippled Trust": The Wounded Body in Irish Drama
The recurring use of the wounded body by Irish dramatists throughout the twentieth century begs the student of Irish literature to question how these authors are using this image to debate national character. Because of ... -
The Anxiety of Obsolescence: Pessimistic Depictions of the Artist in the Modern American Novels of Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, and Nathanael West
This study will present the existence of a strand of artistic despair running through modernist American fiction. The consistent failure to positively present the high modem ideal comes about as a result of what I call ... -
Chaucer and the French Dichotomy: A Study of the French Influence on the Poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer went through no single English or French period. He was at all times an English poet, writing for English readers. And at all times he showed a definite Frenoh tinge in his writings. The ltalian influence, while ... -
Chaucer's Pardoner and the Tyranny of Penance
In the context of the tale-telling game that frames the Canterbury Tales, the reader anticipates a wide variety of different stories and forms as each pilgrim takes his or her tum. What we do not anticipate, however, is ... -
The Conflict Between the Apollonian and Faustian Ideals of Poetry in Keats
It is almost impossible for us to reach any conclusions concerning Apollonian-Faustian dicotmy in his soul. I do think his was an Apollonian mind and sensibility of the moment. I am sure he forgot few of those things which ... -
Curious Reversals and Marvelous Wounds: Metamorphosis and Identity in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
Though The Bloody Chamber undeniably supports a feminist reading, ultimately her vision of the wise child encompasses both sexes and provides a meeting ground between them. Elaine Showalter insists that in '"the purest ... -
Currents in Twentieth-Century Verse Drama
The general direction of twentieth-century verse drama is clear. While attempting to effect a reaction to realistic prose drama, they have brought their works close to realistic prose (Eliot) while at the same time treating ... -
Death After the Banquet: The Elegiac Unity of Beowulf
The purpose of this paper is to make a generic investigation of the poem and, if possible, reveal what it means by defining what it is. Since the poem comes from a definite and somewhat known tradition, generic criticism ... -
Death in the Circuit, Life in the Word: Communication Theory as a Governing Metaphor in the Early Work of Thomas Pynchon
I will consider a single aspect of the literature in great depth-specifically, his treatment of communication theory-finally resulting in a better understanding of the basic nature of Pynchon's literary objectives. I will ... -
A "Diamond" in the Rough: Balancing Fiction and Metafiction in American Baseball Novels
For the novelists in this survey, however, baseball is not the only topic they explore. Traversing a vast time-frame, the six novels that I study in chronological order are linked by a common focus on the craft of writing ... -
Discovering F. Scott Fitzgerald's Wise and Tragic Sense of Life
The youthful illusions Fitzgerald alludes to in This Side of Paradise exist in both Amory Blaine, the novel's protagonist, and in Fitzgerald himself speaking through the novel's omniscient narrator. With an attitude of ... -
Dreams and Dreaming in Fred Chappell's Midquest
Dreams emerge as prominent motifs throughout Fred Chappell' s many poems, novels, short stories, and essays. . . . These statements hold equally true for Chappell's Midquest. A "verse novel," as the poet calls his carefully ... -
The Dynamic Interaction Between the Poet and the People in Slam Poetry
Slam is a revolutionary force in contemporary American poetry, and, increasingly, in global poetry. Much of the power of this movement harkens from its ability to draw upon ancestral memories, restoring poetry to its roots ... -
Edith Wharton's Evolutionary Monster; Undine Spragg of The Custom of the Country
In Wharton's own words she describes her intent for the book, "I argued that in The Custom of the Country I was chronicling the career of a particular young woman, and that to whatever hemisphere her fortunes carried her, ... -
The Embryonic Artist and the Nightmare of History: In Search of a Father-Guide in James Joyce's Ulysses
As readers of Ulysses, our only guide to Stephen's future comes from looking back, searching the novel for clues to Joyce's providential design. When in search of a father-guide for Stephen, one must look to "Scylla and ... -
Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Balance of Power: A Woman's Quest
Although she has been criticized for her overwrought sentimentality and elaborate romance, Harriet Beecher Stowe has been acknowledged as one of the most popular writers, male or female of the nineteenth century. Stowe ... -
History, Fiction, and Meaning: A Study of Graham Swift's Waterland
As he continues to write and develop as a novelist, the now-empty niche of Swiftian criticism will undoubtedly fill up quite quickly. In determining to write this thesis on an author so recent and therefore so little ...