No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-199).

No description available.

The three papers included in this thesis reflect my development as a graduate student during the course of my master's program at Brigham Young Universtiy. I came to Brigham Young University interested in creative writing and developed a love for research and criticism. My work in nineteenth century American literature led to the first two papers. Both deal with literary history, the first narrow in scope, devoted to a study of the significance of a single play, the second broad in scope, devoted to a study of the unifying thread of anti-sentimentalism in the writings of the major American realists. These papers reflect both my research in and commitment to American literary criticism. My third paper is a study of the significance of violence in the poetry of Clinton F. Larson. I have attempted to be objective and honest in my assessment of Dr. Larson's poetry. My thesis on his poetry is entirely my own. To my knowledge this is a first: a first study of Dr. Larson's poetry, and a first paper on his work ever included in a master's thesis. I am happy to have the privilege of opening up this area of investigation. It is my hope that this study will stimulate further discussion of his work.

My paper examines the ethics of representing Mormons in serious American fiction, viewed through two primary texts, Bayard Taylor's nineteenth-century dramatic poem The Prophet and Maureen Whipple's epic novel The Giant Joshua. I also briefly examine Walter Kirn's short stories “Planetarium” and “Whole Other Bodies.” Using Werner Sollors' and Matthew Frye Jacobson's writings on ethnicity as foundational, I argue in that Mormonism constitutes an ethnicity, which designation accentuates the ethical demands of those who represent the group. I also use W.J.T. Mitchell's theories of representation as the basis of my arguments of the ethics of representing ethnicity. As ethical theorists, Emmanuel Levinas and Edward Said inform the theoretical framework of my project, and I place their theories both in opposition to and harmony with each other in terms of what it means to be truly “Other” and the responsibility of those who view, represent, project, or accept otherness as essential to being. I also borrow from Wayne C. Booth, particularly in his practical application of ethics theory. I employ Terryl Givens, Michael Austin, Bruce Jorgensen, and Gideon Burton to help bring the theory into the field of Mormon studies. In applying all these theorists to Taylor and Whipple I examine Taylor's exoticizing, “Othering” Mormons, creating an “Oriental” version of the rise of Mormonism, parallel to some of his Middle Eastern travel writing. Taylor also makes the remarkable ethical step of being the first non-Mormon to “take Mormons seriously” in literary fiction. I demonstrate how his use of classical literary forms and themes moves the ethical treatment of Mormons forward in an unprecedented way. Maureen Whipple relies on some of the sensational, romantic tropes in common use, but overall she also moves forward ethical representation of Mormons in serious literature, being the best-received of “Mormondom's Lost Generation” of literary writers. In conclusion I argue that these texts, along with the more problematic Kirn stories, help create a positive ethical climate for Mormon representation.