In this thesis I endeavor to discover and show the Unitarian and Patristic theological influences on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's long narrative poem Evangeline, with special focus on the poem's theological teachings concerning deification and descriptions of the spiritual experience of shining with divine light. In chapter one, I explore the theological climate of early nineteenth-century New England, focusing on the Unitarian and Transcendental movements and Longfellow's familiarity with both. In chapter two, I present an overview of the critical literature concerning the religious elements of Evangeline, beginning with reviews by Longfellow's contemporaries and ending with recent scholarship that calls for a new investigation of Unitarian influences on Evangeline. In chapters three and four, I look back to those Church Fathers who articulated the doctrines of deification and divine light in the second through fourth centuries. Through looking at the presence of the Church Fathers in Longfellow's writings, especially in the unexplored “Christian Fathers” manuscript lectures from the early 1830s, I show how the Patristic writers proved interesting and inspiring to Longfellow in the years leading up to the publication of Evangeline. Finally, in chapters five and six, I investigate in depth the religious elements of Evangeline, giving special attention to the keynote passages of 2.1 and 2.5, which include, respectively, theological teaching concerning deification and a description of the spiritual experience of shining with divine light. I conclude that though in 2.1 Longfellow articulates theological teachings that possess strong affinities with Unitarian doctrine, in 2.5 Longfellow concludes the poem with a characteristically Patristic vision of the deified heroine shining with divine light.

Thèse (M.A.)--Université d'Ottawa, 1998. / Comprend des réf. bibliogr.

Le français n’a pas toujours été la langue raffinée que nous connaissons aujourd’hui. Cette langue que les linguistes et les grammairiens se sont acharnés à épurer, de siècles en siècles, ne s’est pas exportée partout au-delà des frontières de la France. La Nouvelle-France de l’autre côté de l’océan Atlantique ne peut qu’en être témoin. Ce parler acadien, repéré sur la côte est du Canada et considéré comme du français d’antan, a piqué notre curiosité et nous a amené à l’étudier de plus près.Notre travail suit l’exode de la langue française jusqu’en Acadie et les difficultés rencontrées pour sa sauvegarde. Ainsi, nous démontrons que, dans la Péninsule acadienne au Nouveau-Brunswick, Canada, d’anciens mots disparus du dictionnaire français sont toujours utilisés dans la langue orale. Notre étude porte sur vingt anciens mots testés sur 150 personnes de différentes générations. L’hypothèse émise est que le niveau d’éducation aurait une incidence sur le pourcentage d’utilisation de mots anciens.À la suite de notre analyse, nous constatons que, même avec l’augmentation de l’éducation, certains mots ne sont pas près de disparaître du langage oral. Mais, l’ouverture au monde pourrait obliger les Acadiens à s’adapter à une langue française modernisée, et ainsi abandonner les anciens mots français. / French has not always been the sophisticated language that we know today. This language, which linguists and grammarians have worked hard to refine centuries after centuries, was not exported everywhere beyond the borders of France. The New France on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean was a witness to that. This Acadian dialect, spoken on the east coast of Canada and considered Old French, sparked our curiosity to study it more closely.That said, our work follows the French language exodus to Acadia and the difficulties encountered in safeguarding it. Thus, we will demonstrate, that in the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick, Canada, old words removed from the French dictionary are still used in the Acadians oral language. Our study focus on twenty old words by questioning 150 persons of different generations. The assumption was that the level of education would affect the percentage of use of old words.4As a result of our analysis, we found that even with the increase in education, some words are not ready to disappear from the spoken language. But openness to the world might force Acadians to adapt to a modernized language and abandon the old French words.

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