Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-112).

<p> The author argues that ecocriticism has overlooked important works of mid-20th-century American literature because of their unorthodox approaches to writing about nature. These unorthodox approaches revolve around the use of humor and play to formulate arguments about nature. The author argues that because ecocriticism as a political critique emphasizes ecological catastrophe, humor and ludic writing tend to get ignored in the critical discussion. The author expresses the desire to expand the conversation on ludic texts. The author argues that two texts with relatively little ecocritical attention, Thomas Pynchon&rsquo;s <i>Gravity&rsquo;s Rainbow</i> and Vladimir Nabokov&rsquo;s <i>Pale Fire,</i> use the aesthetic theories of Friedrich Nietzsche to explain the role of the non-human in human civilization. </p><p> In the first chapter, Vladimir Nabokov&rsquo;s <i>Pale Fire</i> is argued to be a novel that is about the natural source of human aesthetic production. The author synthesizes studies of the novel and argues that Nabokov&rsquo;s novel, both in its language and form, valorizes mimesis as the source of all aesthetic production. Nabokov&rsquo;s belief in some form of design is examined through mimicry, and is found to permeate the novel through structural and descriptive references to games and nature. Nabokov is found to be influenced by the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, Johan Huizinga, and Walter Benjamin. Nabokov ultimately finds that the justification for the world is aesthetic, that nature is important to humans as the origin of all artistic impulses. </p><p> The second chapter reads Thomas Pynchon&rsquo;s <i>Gravity&rsquo;s Rainbow</i> through the many references to Nietzsche&rsquo;s <i> Birth of Tragedy,</i> finding that the novel sets nature against civilization according to Nietzsche&rsquo;s distinction between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The author finds that the novel holds up the natural world as a counter-force to the capitalist impulse to control and exploit the natural and human worlds. The author examines how Pynchon uses Dionysian tropes like drunkenness, absurdity, music, and feelings of oneness in the novel in moments of resistance to the dominant order. </p><p> The conclusion suggests that the work of Friedrich Nietzsche ought to be examined as an influential source for modern views on the value of nature. </p>

This is a study of love (erōs) in Plato’s Symposium. It’s a study undertaken over three chapters, each of which serves as a stepping stone for the following and addresses one of three primary aims. First: to provide an interpretation of Plato’s favored theory of erōs in the Symposium, or as it’s referred to here, a theory of Platonic love. This theory is understood to be ultimately concerned with a practice of living which, if developed correctly, may come to constitute the life most worth living for a human being. On this interpretation, Platonic love is the desire for Beauty, ultimately for the sake of eudaimonic immortality, manifested through productive activity. Second: to offer a reading of the Symposium which attends to the work’s literary elements, especially characterization and narrative structure, as partially constitutive of Plato’s philosophical thought on erōs. Here it’s suggested that Platonic love is concerned with seeking and producing truly virtuous action and true poetry. This reading positions us to see that a correctly progressing and well-practiced Platonic love is illustrated in the character of the philosopher Socrates, who is known and followed for his bizarre displays of virtue and whom Alcibiades crowns over either Aristophanes or Agathon as the wisest and most beautiful poet at the Symposium. Third: to account for how to love a person Platonically. Contra Gregory Vlastos’ influential critical interpretation, it’s here argued that the Platonic lover is able to really love a person: to really love a person Platonically is to seek jointly for Beauty; it is to work together as co-practitioners in the art of love. The art of Platonic love is set up in this way to be explored as a practice potentially constitutive of the life most worth living for a human being.

No description available.

Wallace Stevens was profoundly affected by Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God and his poetry reflects an ongoing struggle to understand what it means to be a poet in an age of disbelief. Although Steven’s early poetry suggests that this loss of belief created a sense of crisis in the poet, his later work indicates a full acceptance, even an embracing, of this loss, recognising it as the inspiration for poesis. The thesis considers Stevens alongside of such thinkers as Nietzsche and (the later) Heidegger and shows how the poet came to regard the shaking of the metaphysical foundations as a gift offering the possibility for poetry.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Study of themes in the novels of Edward Abbey, Lan Cao, Toni Morrison, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-238). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-340). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Unviersity of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 1999. / Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 275-287).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-257)