This study of the elements of the Byronic hero in Herman Melville's Captain Ahab includes a look at the Byronic hero and Byron himself, the Byronic hero and the Gothic tradition, the Byronic hero and his "humanities," and the Byronic hero and Prometheus-Lucifer.

On the premise that examination of a poet's language can provide a valid and significant approach to the study of a work of art, this thesis proposes to make such a study of Prometheus Unbound, the major poetical work of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with specific attention to his use of color language.

This examination of Kafka as philosopher will not concentrate on the selection of the "correct" approach to his work, but on his description of reality from all levels of approach. Socially, spiritually, psychologically, Kafka speaks not only as an artist, but also as a philosopher, who sees all levels of a man's existence as a part of reality. The definition of Kafka's prose as literature-philosophy will be based chiefly on an examination of his shorter fiction.

This thesis includes a study of common historical and biographical elements in the lives of Dryden and Byron, a comparison of the literary principles and achievements of Dryden and Byron, a study of the concept of the hero, and a comparison of the heroes of Dryden and Byron.

The purpose of this study is to examine the social criticism of Williams by careful analysis of six of his full length plays: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, and The Night of the Iguana. After the analyses of the plays, the final chapter of this study will deal with the playwright's comments on specific aspects of the social order and will not be confined to the six major plays under consideration.