As a teacher of American literature in high school, I have become conscious of the importance of teaching students of that age level the lore and poetry of their native state. Poems of nature or local color in their own country will hold their interest when material from more distant points seems dull and uninteresting. Through my teaching I have become interested in the poetry of the Southwest and have enjoyed reading the poetry and knowing the poets through personal interview or correspondence.

For this study, an analysis will be made of six of Edith Wharton's heroines: Lily Bart, the luxury-loving, aristocratic heroine of The House of Mirth, who was destroyed by her own class; Ellen Olenska, who neither lost nor sought an established place in New York society, since it belonged to her, and she stayed there by the sacrifice of instinct and happiness; Anna Leath, a typical product of puritan New York, who suffered from having learned so thoroughly the rules of her generation; Halo Tarrant, who took love into her own hands and defied society but felt the strength of the social convention which shuts out the woman who does not play the game according to the rules; Undine Spragg, the social adventurer, who represents ambition, which Mrs. Wharton had come to recognize as the dominant characteristic of the new woman of America; and Sophy Viner, an American girl who, yielding to temptation, is plunged into insecurity because she comes into contact with Anna Leath and the rules of her world.

By examining the critical comment of some of the best known critics, who fall roughly into two groups, the philosophical or psychological on the one hand, and the realistic on the other, I have endeavored to gather the ideas they have advanced in regard to the motives of them main characters from three of Shakespeare's tragedies--Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. It is evident that the discussion of motives has not been the main consideration of any one of them, though the problem has naturally arisen in the analyses of characters and explanations of plot and dramatic art. Consequently it will be my purpose to study these plays from the standpoint of the motivation of the characters, having in mind two objects: the determination of which motives Shakespeare took from the sources of the plays and which ones he himself attributed to the characters, and the determination of which group of critics, the psychological or the realistic, is more nearly correct in their contentions in regard to the motivation of characters in Shakespeare's plays.

This thesis examines the criticisms written by James Russell Lowell about his contemporaries. In addition, the author tries to record the reasons behind Lowell's opinions, when those reasons can be ascertained.

There are critics who believe that the real Mark Twain was born in the East, while others say that the frontier made him. I have considered evidence on both sides and have definitely concluded that Mark Twain was and is a product of the frontier.

This study of Southey as a narrative poet will be based on an analysis of the five long poems, sometimes called epics, on which the poet laid his claim to fame in the field of narration.

The author proposes to determine, through a study of the poems, tales, and criticism, the purposes and methods guiding Poe's violation of the conventional use of nature as a mere descriptive element.