This thesis consists of three short stories dealing with loss. "A Solemn Music" depicts Frederick's attempt to maintain his comfortable life apart from Nature, which, in the form of cicadas, is bent on moving him from his complacency. "The Waker" explores Floyd's reactions to the death of a girlfriend. "Appetites" relates the story of Allen's encounter with a beauty pageant queen and his subsequent attempt to begin a relationship with her.

The forty-four poems of this collection reflect the diversity of ideas which intrigue the poet, the attitudes by which she chooses to live, the relationships which are important to her, and the emotions which influence all of those ideas, attitudes, and relationships.

In Book IV of Paradise Regained, Satan tempts Christ by offering him the learning of the Greek philosophers, poets, and orators. Christ's response is a vehement denigration of Greek literature, which seems to contradict the praise of the classics found in Milton's prose works of the 1640s. Interpreting the condemnation of Greek learning in Paradise Regained as a modification of the poet's early attitudes, the present study examines the biographical, political, theological, and scientific factors which influenced Milton's thought and altered his opinions on the value of classical literature.

This thesis examines time, death, and choice in Philip Larkin's poetry, arguing that his approach to these themes is not deterministic, but existential. The argument is based on the similarity between Larkin's views and those of three existential philosophers. Larkin's view of time, like Heidegger's, is that men live not in long stretches of time, but in processions of unconnected yet similar moments. A constant underlying sadness, like Kierkegaard's despair, makes each moment reminiscent of death. Like Sartre, Larkin finds meaning in his choices, and struggles to live authentically without expectation. Although Thomas Hardy influenced Larkin, given these similarities, Larkin's poetry cannot rightly be called deterministic. It is an attempt to preserve experience for its own sake.