The purpose of this study is to investigate how John Milton uses music imagery in his English poetry. This is accomplished through consideration of the musical milieu of the late Renaissance, particularly of seventeenth century England, through examination of the symbolic function of music imagery in the poetry, and through study of the significance of music imagery for the structure of the poem. Milton relies on his readers' familiarity with sounds and contemporary musical forms as well as with the classical associations of some references. Images of practical music form the greater part of the imagery of music that Milton uses, partly because of the greater range of possibilities for practical images than for speculative images. The greater use of speculative images in the early poems indicates the more idealistic stance of these poems, while the greater number of practical images in the later poems demonstrates Hilton's greater awareness of the realities, of the human situation arising from the years spent as apologist for the Puritan cause and as Latin Secretary of State. Music imagery is important as a structural device for Milton. He uses music images to provide unity for, to "frame," and to maintain decorum in the poems. …

This dissertation demonstrates that the optimal account of English phonology denies phonemic status to oral glides. That is, it shows that all instances of phonetic [y] and [w] are predictable by rule. These occurrences include the following: formative initial glides, such as those in yet and wet; post-consonant, pre-vocalic [w] in such forms as quit, guava, and white and post-consonant, pre-vocalic [y] in such forms as cute, few, million, onion, and champion; the [y] following the tense vowels in bite, beet, bate, and boy and the [w] following the tense vowels in bout, boot, boat, cute, and few; and, finally, the post-vocalic centering glide [h] in spa, cloth, beer [bihr], and bear. The new proposals, described and justified in Chapter III, have the effect of eliminating the glides [y] and [w] from the inventory of underlying phonemes of English. From this flows what is perhaps more significant: they render the feature [Syllabic] completely redundant in the lexical representations of English formatives.

One aspect of the current revaluation of Victorian thought and literature is the examination of the crisis of religious faith, in which the proponents of doubt and denial took different directions: they became openly cynical and pessimistic; they turned from religion to an aesthetic substitute; or they concluded that since mankind could look only to itself for aid, the primary duties of the individual were to find a tenable creed for himself and to try to alleviate the lot of others. The movement from the agony of doubt to a serene, or at least calm, humanitarianism is the subject of this study. The discussion is limited to four novelists in whose work religious doubt and humanitarianism are overt and relatively consistent and in whose novels the intellectual thought of the day is translated into a form appealing to the middle-class reader. Their success is attested by contemporary criticism and by accounts of the sales of their books; although their work has had no permanent popularity, they were among the most discussed authors of their time.

Some of the older actors of the Restoration provided a link between the pre- and post-Commonwealth stages by preserving their craft during the years from 1642 to 1660, despite the harsh and numerous restrictions enacted by the Parliament. Some of the younger players, on the other hand, quickly mastered their art and continued the tradition preserved for them by men such as Charles Hart and Michael Mohun. The greatest actors and actresses of the period certainly influenced the direction of Restoration drama in several ways. Thomas Betterton and Elizabeth Barry were so skilled that on several occasions leading dramatists asked their advice about dialogue, character development, and stage business. Other actors, such as Samuel Sandford and Colley Cibber, developed into great character actors, and the dramatists created roles especially suited to their talents. William Congreve 's admiration for Anne Bracegirdle's talent and beauty perhaps contributed substantially to the creation of the character of Millimant in The Way of the World. Actors such as William Penkethman and Joseph Haines often insured a play's success by their antics on the stage. In addition to the major figures of the period, a substantial number of competent minor actors and actresses mastered the character …

A commonplace among Hardy critics is that as a young man Hardy lost his Christian faith and entered a serious religious disillusionment. The mainstream of Hardy criticism has followed the general consensus that Hardy suffered keenly as a result of this experience and looked back on Christianity with poignant nostalgia. If his view is not purely nostalgic, traditional criticism has insisted, then it seems at worst only ambivalent. The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that Hardy's attitude toward Christianity as revealed in his novels is not only not ambiguous, but, as a matter of fact, is specifically anti-Christian, often to the point of vehemence; that his treatment of various components of Christianity in his novels is aggressively anti-Christian; and that the feeling is so pronounced that the novels may be read as anti-Christian propagandistic tracts. This dissertation evaluates Hardy's cynical view of and attack on Christianity by examining his treatment of its symbols, such as its architecture, and its practitioners, both clergy and laity. Furthermore, since Hardy's attitude is shown not only in specific comments and particular situations but also in general tone, attention is directed toward the pervasive irony with which Hardy regards the entire panoply of …

This paper is a collection of three short stories. A short preface discussing the origin of the tales precedes the stories. Fractions and Equations is the story of a love triangle. In this tale, the development of love between two people is told. There is no resolution in the tale. The second story, The Sailing of the Fantasy Cafe, tells of the operation of a book shop at Christmas time. The main characters in the story are described and several important incidents are also related. The tale ends with a Christmas party. The final story, And Penance More Must Do, deals with the life of a young teacher. The story begins in Africa and ends in America. During the course of the story the mind and heart of the main character are probed in detail.

This study examines rhythm, syntax, sound, and diction in selected early and late poems from Dylan Thomas's Collected Poems. It demonstrates, on the basis of stylistic evidence, that the later poetry is the greater achievement. The early and later poems are different in the area of rhythm. Early poems are regularly metered with a strong iambic beat, and a majority of lines are end-stopped. Rhythms in the later, finer poems are irregular, and enjambed lines predominate. The later poems show an increased ability to match rhythm with meaning. Dylan Thomas's syntax is simpler on the surface than ordinarily supposed. Early poems contain restrictive relative clauses that result in complex deep structure and sentence stacking. The later poems contain appositive relative clauses, a change in style that results in greater clarity. Repetitive patterning is frequent during both poetic periods. Thomas shows his greatest virtuosity in the area of sound. Many techniques are common to both periods, but his achievement in making sound functional in the later poetry gives it greater dimension. In creating his unique poetic voice, Dylan Thomas uses both old and new devices. Common and uncommon rhetorical figures abound in both periods, but, in common with the other stylistic …

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate George Eliot's literary indebtedness to the Bible by isolating, identifying, and analyzing her various uses of Scripture in her novels. This study is an attempt to demonstrate in some detail George Eliot's literary indebtedness to the Bible, to show that in the course of her fictional career she made virtually every possible use of the Bible. She at times presents Bibles themselves as significant objects, she refers to the Bible-reading habits of various characters, and she quotes, paraphrases, and alludes to the Bible. She employs biblical words, passages, narratives, characters and objects for purposes of scene-setting, symbolism, authorial commentary, characterization, and presentation and underscoring of basic themes. Sometimes she uses the Bible to achieve a serious tone; at other times, she uses it with humorous intent. Sometimes she sounds traditionally Judaeo-Christian and employs the Bible to exhort the reader in homiletic fashion, but just as often she uses biblical material to preach her own Victorian gospel. The purpose of this study is to isolate, identify, and critically analyze these various uses of the Bible which together produce the recurrent Biblical overtones so notable in the novels of George Eliot.

These sketches and stories are the result of moods, daydreams, and experiences. The collection progresses from those intimate stories controlled by personal experience to the last two works which try to crystallize a mood or experience in a medium without the device of first person. "Grandpa," "Great-Grandpa," and "Weedgod" are sketches which describe the boundary between what things are and what things seem to be. "Aunt Mary," "Hospital," and "Eggy Cooter" are short stories presenting situations in which the reader can determine this boundary line himself.

The play Eguus presents a series of dialectics, opposing forces in dramatic tension. The multi-leveled subjects with which Shaffer works confront each other as thesis and antithesis working towards a tentative synthesis. The contrasts include the conflict of art and science, the Apollonian and Dionysian polarity, and the confrontation of Christianity and paganism. Modern man faces these conflicts and attempts to come to terms with them. These opposites are really paradoxes. They seem to contradict each other, but, in fact, they are not mutually exclusive. Rather than contradicting each other, each aspect of a dialectic influences its counterpoint; both are necessary to make a whole person.

In William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha novels, a group of characters exists who possess three common characteristics--a closeness to mankind, a realization of the tragedy in life, and a positive response to this tragedy. The term beneficent is used to describe the twenty individuals who possess these traits. The characters are divided into two broad categories. The first includes the white and black primitives who innately possess beneficent qualities. The term primitive describes the individual who exhibits three additional traits--simplicity, nonintellectualism, and closeness to nature. The second group includes characters who must learn the attributes of beneficence in the course of the novel. All the beneficent characters serve as embodiments of the optimism found in Faulkner's fiction.

Most Richardson scholarship mentions that Clarissa shares affinities with drama; however, with the exception of three books and a few articles, there is no comprehensive study of the drama's effect upon the composition of the work. No one work deals with all areas in which drama affected the novel, and no one work deals exclusively with Clarissa. The drama influenced the composition of the novel in three ways: First, tragedy and theories of neoclassic tragedy exerted an influence upon the work. Richardson himself defended his novel in terms of eighteenth-century views of tragedy. Secondly, Restoration and early eighteenth-century plays affected the plot, character portrayals, and language of Clarissa. Lastly, Richardson adapted techniques of the stage to the novel so that Clarissa, though an epistolary novel, achieves the manner, if not the effect, of the theater.

The primary purpose of this study is to show that John Steinbeck's concern with alienation is pervasive and consistent from the beginning of his career as a writer until the end. The pervasiveness of his concern with alienation is demonstrated by examining his two early collections of short stories and by showing how alienated characters in these stories resemble alienated characters in all the author's major works of fiction. Since much confusion surrounds the meaning of the word "alienation," it is necessary to begin with a definition of "alienation" as it is used to discuss Steinbeck. An alienated character in Steinbeck's fiction is a person who is separated from another person, group of persons, society, or the person's ideal self. This study is concerned with characters who create their own alienation rather than with those who are merely helpless victims.

The novels that compose Colin MacInnes's London trilogy, City_ of Spades, Absolute Beginners, and Mr. Love and Justice, are concerned with British society as it has evolved since World War II. By depicting certain "outsiders," MacInnes illustrates a basic cause of social unrest: the average Britisher is blind to societal changes resulting from the war. Most citizens mistreat the African immigrants, allow their children to be exploited by the few adults who realize the buying power of the postwar youth, and remain oblivious to crime, even among their own police force. Though the novels are social documentaries, they are also valuable as literature. MacInnes's exceptional powers of description, together with his facility with language in general, contribute to the trilogy's merit as a compelling exploration of the human condition.

This study is a detailed textual examination of the word "parallax" in Ulysses. It distinguishes three levels of meaning for the word in the novel. In the first level, parallax functions as a character motif, a detail, first appearing in and conforming to the realistic surface of Bloom's inner monologue, whose meaning is what it tells of his crucial problems of identity. In the second, parallax functions as an integral part of the symbolic complex, lying outside of Bloom's perceptions, surrounding the emblem of crossed keys, symbol of, among other things, paternity and homerule, two major narrative themes. The third level involves parallax as a symbol informing the novel's overriding theme of the writing of Ulysses itself and of the relationship between the novel's representative life and artistic design.

This thesis examines existing theories of Spanish stress assignment in generative phonology and proposes an alternative theory that is more effective in predicting the surface representations of Spanish stress. Stress is characterized according to traditional textbook standards and examples are given (Chapter I). The current theoretical setting, especially the theories of James W. Harris, is then described (Chapter II). This writer's own theory, based upon an underlying distinction between tense and lax vowels, is delineated (Chapter III) and defended (Chapter IV). The new stress assignment rule--along with a rule of vowel laxing before a word boundary (#) and a rule of stress adjustment--shows stress in Spanish to be predictable and, therefore, not phonemic.

Shelby Hearon's four novels--Armadillo in the Grass, The Second Dune, Hannah's House, and Now and Another Time--are unified by the common elements of the vital female character and her quest for selfawareness, self-integration, and fulfillment. This study examines the four novels chronologically in order to understand the development of this character and the themes which are common to all four. The concluding chapter offers an assessment of Hearon as a novelist whose work is both universally lasting and relevant.

The teaching of freshman composition can be a challenging and exciting endeavor if teachers are aware of current linguistic facts about the nature of language variations manifested by their students and the linguistic shortcomings of many textbooks. Awareness of the distinction of linguistic competence and linguistic performance can aid teachers in making freshman composition more realistic to students. These concepts are technically explained in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Noam Chomsky (1965), and are applied to dialect for teachers of composition by the Committee on CCCC Language Statement in Students' Right to Their Own Language (1974). With knowledge of linguistic principles, teachers can respond to their students' dialects humanistically and realistically and can teach academic English without making impressionistic and incorrect statements about non-academic variations from their students.

In The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence departs from traditional literary techniques, going below the level of ego consciousness within his characters to focus on the elemental dynamic forces of their unconscious minds. Using three generations of the Brangwen family, Lawrence traces the rise of consciousness from the primal unity of the uroboros through the matriarchal epoch and finally to full consciousness, the realization of the self, in Ursula Brangwen. By correlating the archetypal symbols characteristic of three stages of consciousness outlined in Erich Neumann's Origins and History of Consciousness and The Great Mother with the three sections of the novel, it is possible to show that Lawrence utilizes the symbols most appropriate to each stage.

This study emphasizes the private and public struggles of the common man as portrayed in two representative plays by Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman and The Price, and two by Thornton Wilder, Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. These plays demonstrate man's struggle because of failures in responsibility toward self and family and because of his inability to fully appreciate life. Miller concentrates on the pathetic part of Man's nature, caused by a breakdown in human communication. Wilder, however, focuses on the resilient part which allows man to overcome natural disasters and moral transgressions. The timelessness of man's conflict explains the motivations of symbolic character types in these plays and reveals a marked applicability to all average citizens in American society.

The Magus, by John Fowles, can be read as a modern re-telling of the traditional hero quest. The thesis attempts to explore all of the ways the novel compares to hero myths.

To provide a current survey of the scholarship and an annotated bibliography on Fanny Burney from 1920-1970 for scholars and students is the purpose of this paper.

This study concentrates on the personification of death in Middle English literature and examines some examples of the literature from the period.

This thesis presents original poems by the author, as well as a comparison of the religious sonnets by John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins.