Certain characteristics generally attributed to the British Romantics can be seen in selected writings of Flannery O'Connor, a contemporary American author (1926-1964). Chapter I defines Romanticism and identifies the Romantic elements to be discussed in the paper. Chapter II discusses Gothicism, Primitivism, and the treatment of the child as they appear in five of O'Connor's short stories. Variations of the Byronic Hero are presented in Chapter III as they appear in two short stories and one novel, Wise Blood. The internal struggle and anti-intellectualism in The Violent Bear It Away are the basis of Chapter IV. Chapter V concludes that O'Connor's concern with man as master of his fate aligns her with the Romantics and thus illustrates the influence of Romanticism on contemporary life and art.

The themes of sensual experience, nature, and mysticism in James Dickey's poetry are examined. Dickey's "Poems 1957- 1967" and "The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy" are the primary sources for the poems. Selections from a decade of Dickey criticism are also represented. Dickey presents a wide spectrum of attitudes toward acceptance of the physical body, communion with nature, and transcendence of the human condition, but the poems exhibit sufficient uniformity to allow thematic generalizations to be made.

This study seeks to demonstrate that nature provided Frost an objective background against which he could measure the validity of human experience and gain a fuller understanding of it. The experiences examined with reference to the poetry include loneliness, anxiety, sorrow, and hope. Attention is given to the influence of Frost's philosophical skepticism upon his poetry. The study reveals that Frost discovered correspondences between nature and human experience which clarified his perspective of existence. The experiences of loneliness, anxiety, and sorrow were found to relate to Frost's feeling of separation from nature and from the source of existence. The experience of hope was found to relate to Frost's vision of the wholeness and unity of life, a vision which derives from humanity's common source with nature.