In Poets of Reality, Joseph Hillis Miller seeks to establish T.S. Eliot as a precursor of the modern movement towards romantic. subjectivism. By applying his phenomenological critique, Miller claims that several major modern writers, including Eliot, adopt aesthetics based on various forms of philosophical monism. The point underlying this thesis is that Eliot stands opposed to any such position and, until 1930, breaks with philosophy, monistic or otherwise. His art from this period is instead characterized by a search for solution in poetic artifice, a pure art. However, with "Ash Wednesday," the poet once again enters fully into the realm of ideas, and by Four Quartets has achieved a synthesis of art and idea that is clearly dualistic in nature and affirms the importance of a progressive, and not destructive tradition. All of this he finally undergirds with a logocentric belief in language as a vehicle to be purified, far from the linguistic nihilism of Miller's "Yale School" colleague, Jacques Derrida.

The examination of the climaxes of the two plays Hamlet, and Coriolanus, illustrates that the two mothers, Gertrude and Volumnia, have destructive influences on their sons. The closet scene in Hamlet reflects that Gertrude's second marriage and her choice of Claudius shatter Hamlet's Idealization of her in the role of the faithful wife and the virtuous mother. Hamlet's inaction and destruction are caused in part by his mother's influence. Volumnia's influence both shapes and destroys her son. She rears him as the embodiment of her chivalric ideal of nobility. The climactic scene in this play reveals that Coriolanus' calamity is caused by his mother's influence. The study shows that Hamlet's catastrophe springs from an inability to accept the disparity between the real 'Gertrude of the play and his Idealization of her, and that Coriolanus catastrophe springs from his inability to conform to the ideal Volumnia has instilled in him, and act in accordance with his concept of filial duty. This thesis examines and reveals sore of the inadequacies of a psychoanalytic approach to explain the action of the characters case studies of the suppression of sexual drives.

The vehicle Tennyson uses to explore the thematic ambiguities of love/indifference; faith/doubt; hope/despair; and life/death is domestic imagery, specifically images which involve the home or house and those images of personal relationships which move the poet from despair to a tentative faith. The initial chapter of this work will present a general view of Tennyson and In Memoriam by which the subsequent study of the elegy's domestic imagery may be brought into focus. In addition to a discussion of the occasion of the poem, pertinent critical material will be evaluated in terms of value to this discussion of imagery. After a brief working definition of domestic imagery in Chapter II, an in-depth analysis of this imagery in In Memoriam will be studied. The first major cluster of domestic images is found in the beginning movement of the poem. In this movement images of domesticity proliferate. The aspects of home life which pertain to the poet's grief over the loss of his beloved friend will be explored and analyzed in depth in Chapter III. Moving away from the domestic scene, the poet concentrates in the next major movement on a specific symbol: the hand. This hand imagery is the vehicle for the poet's exploration of the tree aspects of love: agape, philia and eros. In Chapter V, it will be shown that the poet, in his grief, progresses through a movement of mind from negation to indifference. These attitudes of denial and insouciance are not conveyed by a single cluster of images such as those of domesticity and the home, but rather by disparate images as widely scattered as physical objects, states of mind, and human relationships. In delineating the progress of Tennyson's grief from despair through indefference to affirmation, the poet traversed essentially those elements found in Hegelian Triad - thesis, antithesis and synthesis - or in the Carlylian diction of the Everlasting Nay, the Centre of Indifference, and the Everlasting Yea. The Everlasting Yea, or rather, the arrival of the poet at a tentative affirmation is the subject matter of Chapter VI. The final movement of the poem considered in this chapter makes use of all previously used symbols to some degree for the purpose of revealing the emergence of a new state of mind and a more healthy attitude toward life as exhibited by the poet. By way of conclusion, a synthesis of the six preceding chapters will be presented in which the interaction and interrelation of domestic imagery, hand imagery, scenes of domestic relationship, and states of mind show a persistent progression from uncontrolled grief through a period of apathy and indifference to arrive finally at a state of acceptance of life as it is and of affirmation, although qualified, of the significance of life.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate, and hopefully, to elevate the literary "currency" of Richard Lovelace. To this end, various methods and approaches will be utilized in order to capture a comprehensive, yet coherent view of Lovelace and his poetry. Specifically, these methods and approaches will include: a survey of Lovelace's biography, including clarification of discrepancies among authorities concerning pertinent details of his life; a location of Lovelace in the primary social, philosophical, and poetical movements of the early seventeenth century; an identification of Lovelace as a Cavalier poet, differentiating him from other Cavaliers; an analysis of representative poetry according to theme, imagery, and conflict-structures; and a summation of Lovelace's critical reception since the Publication of Lucasta. Recent criticism, while inconclusive and sparse, points to an increased awareness of Lovelace's conscious craftsmanship. This study is an effort at bringing this vision of Lovelace into clearer focus.

The multiple and widely varying interpretations of Duke Vincentio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure can be reconciled and made into a consistent interpretation by the application of a framework consisting of both literary and Elizabethan conventions as well as a view of comedy that accepts the comic function of movement toward identity as comedy's goal. Duke Vincentio is the comic drive in the play. His behavioral motives are based on his sincere concern for his constituency and his courageous use of his power during a time when reform is vital. The morally equivocal means he sometimes employs are justified by his hoped-for ends. Each decision the Duke must make is based on his goal of redeeming his dukedom to a place of harmony and order. He keeps in mind all the while both man's frailties and man's potential. The major characters come to a degree of self-knowledge that enables them to accept and apply a more loving justice. Through humility and mercy, a new pattern for reconciliation is provided. The marriages at the end serve to provide the characters with a position within which they can employ their new wisdom.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a limited number of the most influential and interesting studies dealing in depth with the question of Hopkins' religion and its resultant influence on his poetic talent, and to attempt to resolve some of the points of dispute. some of the studies investigated argue that Hopkins was hindered in his poetic endeavors by his religion, while others attempt to prove that his religion enhanced his poetry. The present study is not intended as an evaluation of individual works; its purpose is rather to present the pertinent and relevant ideas projected in each study discussed, thus giving the reader an understanding of the general trend of critical thought dealing with the religious problem in Hopkins.

An investigation of the literary conventions and an evaluation of the way they are employed by Daniel will help to provide some indication of his literary importance. To examine the traditional conventions he uses will, to some degree, indicate where Daniel fits into the literary society of the Elizabethan Age. A study of some of his innovations and a few of his distinctive ways of using traditional motifs will help to demonstrate his overall importance to literature.

W. H. Auden shares with most of his contemporaries, including Yeats and Eliot, the goal of lighting modern man's way back to a sense of harmony with his universe--the certainty of identity which his ancestors enjoyed. In New Year Letter, Auden announces that the problem lies within man himself because each of us is possessed of a "double" nature, thus rendering us our own schismatics. Auden finds that only with the help of divinity, specifically Christian, can the destructive element be overcome. To illustrate this solution in his poems then becomes Auden's great challenge. Employing a child-like voice or tone becomes his finest tool. It lies at the center of consciousness in most of his best works, providing the quality of "radical innocence" that the poet feels men must regain in order to become reunified within themselves and, simultaneously, reunited with grace. If we can learn to "be honest like children," says Auden, and accept the nature of life and society, if we can accept and love ourselves for the unique beings that we are, then the path opens to a possible peace of mind and jay experienced in childhood. Thus, the child-like voice in Auden's poetry serves his chief purpose as a modern poet. His sophisticated adaptation of a child's point of view indeed illumines the path to the Just City.

Critics of Eliot often deal with his religious themes, but not with sympathy. In general, it seems that they are not at ease with Eliot's religious views; so the tendency has been not to give them a careful, objective treatment. The purpose of my study of the plays is to attempt such an unbiased examination, to keep in view precisely what Eliot dues say and the religious meanings that are clearly implied. Whether Eliot's ideas as they stand may be compatible or incompatible with the current thought climate is not, after all, the most important thing. He is a serious theological writer, sensitive and deep, and his plays deserve to be given a careful, straightforward reading, one that will make his major intentions clear. A number of critics, of course, do offer incisive comment on various matters, but a balanced, whole view of religious content in the'main plays seems to be needed. I have hoped at least to make a start toward such an important project.

On the archetypal level of Hamlet, Polonius embodies three roles--the wise old man, the fool, and the scapegoat-- in a schema composed also of embodiments of the archetypal hero-prince, the anima, the racial father, the shadow, the terrible mother, and the night sea journey. Polonius as an incarnation of the wise old man archetype has both a positive side, which is denoted in his relationship to Ophelia, and a negative side, which is shown in his relationship to Hamlet. From the wise old man, Polonius degenerates into the archetypal fool who, being on the periphery of the social order, constantly tries to secure his position. Within his role as fool, Polonius resembles the vice figure of the old morality plays and the archetypal trickster figure, both of which add complexity to this role. From the fool, Polonius degenerates into a scapegoat, in which form he resembles another scapegoat figure in Shakespeare, Falstaff, and is sacrificed, at which time he both substitutes for the king and portends his death. Polonius' degeneration and denouement within his roles contrast, through symbols connected with the mother archetype, with the sacrifice of the hero, Hamlet, which is preceded not by a degeneration but by a journey which fits the model of the archetypal night sea journey. After this journey, a reoriented and reborn Hamlet sacrifices himself, and, in so doing, makes possible the resurgence of a new order, the old society having been destroyed symbolically at Polonius' death. Although the two sacrifices are contrasted in the play - Polonius' is truncated and Hamlet's is transcendent - both are necessary to reform and revitalize a corrupt and dying social order.