Thesis (doctoral)--Marburg, 1925. / Cover title. Vita. Bibliographical essay: 59-61.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland. / Typescript. Bibliography: leaves 139-142. Also available online.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Thesis (M.A.) - University of Texas, 1906. / Bibliography: p. [39]-41.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1913. / "Inaugural-dissertation zur erlangung der doktorwürde der philosophischen Fakultät, Sektion I, der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München." "Verzeichnis der benützten literatur": before text.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1913. / "Inaugural-dissertation zur erlangung der doktorwürde der philosophischen Fakultät, Sektion I, der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München." "Verzeichnis der benützten literatur": before text.

My doctoral dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of music and literature and stems from my M.A. thesis (U.N.B., 1992) which examined musical form and dramatic theme in three of Shakespeare's comedies. As the survey in Chapter 1 of the present dissertation shows, the general trend in interdisciplinary studies moves from a coverage of wide ranges of music and literature, as in Calvin S. Brown's study of 1948, to an investigation of one or two artists, represented by Thomas S. Grey's recent study of Wagner's musical prose (1995). This dissertation examines two 19th-century artists who display particular interests in the relationship between music and literature, and who practise and develop both arts to a high degree. Robert Browning's and Richard Wagner's aesthetic, poetic, and musical theories provide an account of their artistic growth and their realisation that music is the key to their poetic art and their own self-awareness. Their mature works allow their readers or audiences to experience art to a deeper level and provide ideal models for interdisciplinary study. The introduction to Chapter 1 traces Browning's early interest in the relationship of the arts and his empathy for the young poet in Pauline. Just as that speaker uses the mysterious powers of song to guide his thoughts and artistic queries, Browning begins to understand and use the technical, stylistic, and aesthetic qualities of music to develop his poetic art. Wagner's career also follows a path from self-doubt to self-awareness, and his rediscovery of the orchestra's power in Tristan parallels Browning's realisation of music's force in “Saul.” Chapter 2 summarises and compares Browning's and Wagner's theories and shows how their artistic explorations lead to the writing of The Ring and the Book and the Ring cycle, and their interest in using a variety of textures to control their motivic techniques. Chapters 3 and 4 consist of a close textual examination of two major motives in Browning's The Ring and the Book (in Books 1 and 7) and two major leitmotives in Wagner's Siegfried, and looks particularly at formal, technical, and stylistic similarities and differences. In this respect, my study follows in the spirit of Calvin S. Brown's comparative study. My methodology also borrows from Robert Wallace's comparison of Jane Austen and Mozart (1983), and his investigation was influential in choosing and limiting specific points of analysis. My dissertation examines musical and dramatic details in the areas immediately surrounding Wagner's leitmotives, and the poetic lines which precede and follow Browning's motives; it expands current critical perspectives of motivic practice, and moves beyond previous studies which trace technical details of the motif but do not identify the subtle changes inform and meaning which allow the motif to be effective. My project concentrates on two areas common to the two arts—technical and formal aspects, and stylistic features. In particular, I focus on the artists' creative strategies and their use of motivic techniques to enhance characterisation or to advance dramatic meaning. Further, it reveals their interest in the interaction of the audience or listener, and highlights artistic trends in large-scale works of the 19th-century. My dissertation concludes by pointing to new directions that might be taken by further comparative studies, and the comparison of other interdisciplinary techniques used by poets and musicians to enhance dramatic and narrative goals. / Graduate

While deception and its artifices have been recognized as central to Browning's poetry, they have not been examined in his late works. The dominating concept in The Ring and the Book that falsehood is ubiquitous in human existence provides Browning with impetus for the next decade, as he attempts further to understand and dramatize both the means by which man obscures truth, and the circumstances, if any, under which man may act according to some sort of moral perception. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau presents a persona who manipulates point of view in order to mask his insecurity. His final realization that his political benevolence is an illusion leads not to salvation but to an impasse, since the truth he perceives is that all language is inevitably false, and therefore all arguments inevitably futile. Once he relinquishes deception, he is at the mercy of chance. Don Juan in Fifine at the Fair flaunts the artifices of language and mind overtly and deliberately. He apprehends both the elements of deception in all perceptual processes, and his dependence for knowledge on the misleading appearances of reality; consequently, he realizes a "histrionic truth" which is based on this realistic understanding of man's limitations and which enables him momentarily to reconcile the conflicting impulses of soul and flesh. In Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, Miranda's disastrous leap of faith is the result of his insufficient strength of intellect to perceive properly the function of religious symbol. All the characters in this story adhere to external signs, either symbols of belief or indications of social convention. Clara, the cousins and the clergy exploit the possibilities of deception, taking advantage of Miranda's impulsiveness and flawed perception. His death is rational in a perverse sense according to his circumstances and training, but his reasoning functions in terms of a naive literalism. He dies, a victim of the inept attempt of his fancy to merge the reality of illusion with the reality of physical fact. The Inn Album dramatizes the reaction of three people to the knowledge and discovery of falsehood. The Lord views deception as characterizing human morality and he exploits its possibilities to impose his cynical design on others. The Youth acts impulsively and naturally to destroy it, but he retains the same obtuse idealism at the end with which he admires the Lord at the beginning—he has swapped a master for a mistress. The Lady reacts with horror, trying to escape from falsehood and to purify its leprous touch—her suicide is a kind of martyrdom to the cause of tainted purity. The Lord's social artifices, epitomizing human pretentiousness and sophisticated behaviour, are contrasted with the spontaneous beauty and natural art of the landscape. Man's deceit outrages the civilization of the natural world. None of these poems offers the purely generous response of right against wrong; even good actions retain an element of selfishness. Browning does, however, allow the reader to judge his characters and his point of view which underlies each poem testifies to at least the possibility of abstracting and authenticating values from human experience. Much of the interest in these dramas of consciousness lies in the paradoxical ability of reason to perceive good or unselfishness while it simultaneously deceives itself. The refinement of intellect leads to the obscurity of earthly reality as well as to the apprehension of its essentially ambiguous nature. These poems are dramatic, unified and more intelligible than many critics have admitted. They undoubtedly emphasize the experience of the mind, but they are not devoid-of emotion. Juan's sense of the "histrionic truth" combines Browning's aesthetic with his metaphysic, and Browning as always locates intellectual questions within the labyrinths of personality. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Thesis (M.A.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes pictures of the Institut Catholique de Paris, a seminary which was formerly the monastery where Brother Lawrence lived and wrote. Includes bibliographical references.