David A. Milich ... [et al.]. / Caption title. / Includes bibliographical references. / Supported by the NASA Ames and Langley Research Centers. NASA/NAG-2-297 Supported by the Office of Naval Research. ONR/N00014-82-K-0582 (NR-606-003) Supported by the National Science Foundation. NSF/ECS-8210960 Supported by the AFOSR-Eglin A.F.B. F08635-87-K-0031

Throughout her novels, Jane Austen exhibits an acute awareness of the problems facing the sensitive, intelligent women of her day in a society which effectively keeps them in a position of inferiority. She exposes their faulty moral training, their inadequate education, their lack of opportunity for independence or any gainful employment, their social and economic dependence on the male and the resulting, inevitable and often defective preparation for marriage around which their youth is centered. Despite her concern for the individual woman, from which tragic implications occasionally emerge, her focus remains on society as a whole, and especially on the problems of male egoism and sentimentalism which block, by the subjugation of women, the evolution of a freer and possibly more creative society. All these social manifestations seem to be manifestations of the comic form as defined by such critics as George Meredith, Henri Bergson, Susanne Langer and particularly Northrop Frye, who specifically outlines the archetypal pattern of comic action. The subjection of women can be seen as the "absurd or irrational law" which Frye contends the action of comedy moves toward breaking; in Bergson's terms, it is an example of something mechanical, automatic and rigid superimposed on living society, which only laughter can remove; in Meredith's, the cause of "the basic insincerity of the relations between the sexes," and a demonstration of the vanity, self-deception and lack of consideration for others, which he considers legitimate targets for the Comic Spirit; in Langer's, a grave threat to "the continuous balance of sheer vitality that belongs to society" and which it is the function of comedy to maintain. Parents and all other members of the society, whether young or old, male or female, who consciously or unconsciously endorse the concept of female inferiority, are identifiable as the obstructing, usurping characters who, in Frye's terms, are in control at the beginning of a comedy. The comic heroine's struggle for self-realization against the obstacles they place in her path—particularly her defective and misdirected education and the traditional pattern of courtship to which they try to force her to conform—constitutes the comic action. The comic resolution is, of course, her eventual victory which enables her to find self-fulfilment in the marriage of her choice. Ever since its emergence as a form from the ancient Greek death-and-resurrection rites, comedy has been a celebration of life, of the absolute value of the group and of the forces through which society is perpetually regenerated. As the comic form has evolved, however, its social and moral implications have widened. Bergson and Meredith believe that comedy, because it works toward removing the anti-social, is "a premise to civilization." Jane Austen's novels reflect this view and demonstrate Frye's parallel contention that the movement of comedy is toward a more ideal society which forms around the redemptive marriage of the hero and heroine and which tends to include rather than reject the obstructing characters. Based on the potential equality of men and women, the new society envisioned at the conclusion of Jane Austen's novels replaces the old, anti-social isolation with a new and vital communication among the members, and thus provides a framework within which men and women can work together, each contributing his special talents toward the public interest. Since this new, ideal society is not only the goal of the comic action but also the only area in which the heroine can find self-realization, it represents the ultimate conjunction of the comic form and the role of the comic heroine to be found in Jane Austen's work. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Chan, Ka Man Meg. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-130). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One --- “Selfless´ح Emma in Emma --- p.13 / Chapter Chapter Two --- The Failed 'Heroine(-to-be)' in Northanger Abbey --- p.49 / Chapter Chapter Three --- 'Wit' and 'Femininity' in Pride and Prejudice --- p.91 / Conclusion --- p.123 / Bibliography --- p.127

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Rabbi Naftali Zevi Yehuda Berlin's commentary to the Pentateuch, Ha'amek Davar, was first published in Vilna in 1879-1880. The work grew out of a daily class that Berlin taught at the famed yeshiva Etz Hayyim of Volozhin, where he was dean from 1853-1893. This study of Ha'amek Davar focuses on Berlin's exegesis of Noah's three sons. Because Berlin often conceals his sources and their previous discussions, one of the great challenges of working with Ha'amek Davar is trying to recognize which interpretations were original to Berlin and which were adapted from elsewhere. Because my discussion was limited to a few passages, it was possible to outline how different aspects of Berlin's exegesis interacted. The historical context of Nineteenth Century Czarist Russia had a strong impact on Ha'amek Davar, and some of Berlin's comments are viewed in light of what was being written in the Russian Jewish press of the time.

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This dissertation seeks to construct a profile of Thoreau as a mystic. It examines Thoreau's life up to the publication of Walden, using in the main Thoreau's Journal and letters. It elucidates Thoreau's mystical experience and temperament chiefly by paralleling them with the experience and temperament of other mystics. It comments extensively on Walden throughout its chapters in an attempt to clarify Walden's mystical dimension.The Introduction justifies the method of paralleling Thoreau's experience with that of other mystics. It also defines the terms "mystic" and "mystical experience" and briefly argues the appropriateness of regarding Thoreau as a mystic. The Introduction gives special attention to explaining the various aspects of "illumination," the particular mystical state that Thoreau experienced numerous times in his life.Chapter 1 summarizes and comments in detail on many of Thoreau's illuminative experiences. Thoreau could facilitate these experiences either through meditative practice or through the cultivation of a passive, open, receptive condition while on walks in nature. Thoreau's illuminations included experiences of mystical "Silence," incommunicable noetic experiences, experiences of infinity and of flotation in infinity, experiences of calm and infinite self, "illuminative light," transfiguration and sacramentalization of external nature, joyfully reborn self, and other experiences.Chapter 2 shows that Thoreau conceived of his life as a quest for more and more complete mystical experience. Deliberate pursuit of illumination through nature formed one of the means through which he could make progress on this quest. Thoreau sought out certain natural locales, for example, that might catalyze illumination. Efforts of moral self-examination and self-shaping, efforts of character change, formed another means of progress. Thoreau sought to eliminate negative elements from his character and to cultivate non-self-preoccupation, trust, love, imperturbability, joy.Chapter 3 explores the effects on Thoreau of the gradual lessening, starting perhaps in 1841, of the frequency and intensity of his illuminations. The chapter shows that Thoreau shared in a period common in mystical lives called the Dark Night of the Soul, a period of despondency and spiritual deprivation that springs from the phenomenon of declining illuminations. Thoreau's purpose in going to Walden was partly to dispel the Dark Night he was experiencing and to recover the full illuminative state that he enjoyed previously. Thoreau's Dark Night continued past the Walden sojourn, however. Thoreau's Dark Night was rather frequently brightened by illuminations, although Thoreau commonly expressed dissatisfaction with them. The chapter explores why Thoreau came to regard these later illuminations as insufficient. By the time Thoreau published Walden, he had not advanced to Union, the final stage of the mystical life. The chapter suggests that remaining self-preoccupation and an acquisitive approach to the joys of illumination may have been the reason for Thoreau's not passing completely out of both the Illuminative and Dark Night phases of the mystical life and proceeding to Union. Thoreau seemed to be aware of the hindering effects of his remaining self-involvement, however, so he was in a likely way to grow out of this self-involvement.Chapter 4 discusses the possible effects on Thoreau's character of his numerous illuminative experiences. The chapter finds some of these effects to be a deep feeling of self-worth and of personal security, a sense of belonging in the world by rights as an integral part of it, asense of a loving presence that infuses life, self-detachment, inward calm, loving feeling and behavior, joy and zest in living, liberation from material pursuits, experience of the external world as sacramental or paradisal, and the ability spontaneously to poeticize or mythologize daily experience.