This study represents an attempt to explore the occult tradition, in particular the Kabbalah, in an effort to establish a relationship between this tradition and the prophetic poems of William Blake. The Kabbalah is examined to reveal similarities between the kabbalistic Adam Kadmon and Blake's sleeping giant Albion. In addition, a comparison is made of the sexual dichotomies in both sources. Once Blake is viewed as a part of the occult tradition and the kabbalistic similarities are explored, an important aspect of Blake's poetry is clarified, by considering the essential design of kabbalistic thought as it stands in close relation to the prophetic poems, which are his most ambitious projects.

It is the intent of this thesis to describe and analyze the various aspects of the fall motif in five novels of William Golding: Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, Free Fall, and The Spire The fall motif shall be defined, in part, to mean an allusion to a lapse of mankind from innocence or goodness into a state of innate sinfulness through willingly succumbing to temptation-- symbolic of the Biblical fall from the Garden of Eden.

Willa Cather believed very firmly in two things: individuality and art. The purpose of this study is to show Cather's intense dedication to the pursuit of individual artistic achievement as depicted by the heroines of seven Cather novels: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My Antonia (1918), A Lost Lady (1923), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940). Cather was concerned about whether or not woman as artist could succeed or be forever bound by sexual limitation. She devoted her life to the worship of art and the belief that one must pursue that spark within, regardless of its form, whether in either the traditional role or in a professional one. The essence of Cather's belief in the individual is the firm affirmation contained in all her works that the real sin against life and against oneself is the failure to realize one's potentialities. She insists upon complete self-sufficiency and self-reliance in devoting oneself to following the only possible life-course one can follow. All of the women discussed in this paper are deeply individual and independent and all are set against Cather's criteria for the artist. They either succeed because of their "dedicated spirit," or they fail because their spirits can not withstand the adversity set against them. Cather's test of greatness in her heroines was the devotion to a life-course that corresponded to the artist's search for beauty in her work. Alexandra Bergson, Thea Kronberg, Antonia Shimerda, and Lucy Gayheart succeed because they seek a worthy channel for their creative vitality and struggle against the mediocrity that threatens the spirit of the individual. Marian Forrester, Myra Henshawe, and Sapphira Colbert fail because their independent spirits thrive, not on the search for beauty in personal fulfillment, but on transient materialism and tarnished images. The differences in the heroines are not in their strength and endurance, but in the goals they set for themselves. Whether she succeeds or fails, each woman still maintains the right to be "herself" in her own inimitable way.

To William Faulkner, art must bolster man; it must somehow remind man of those truths toward which his race has struggled and must continue to struggle if life is to have meaning and significance. Faulkner's works meet this aim by dramatizing the conflict individuals face if they seek to wrench from life a morality that allows them placement within the larder human community. Both The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! require a re-examination in light of Faulkner's artistic aim. For at the center of both novels are children inescapably threatened by a corrupted moral tradition--a decayed antebellum southern morality. Such is the legacy Jason and Caroline Compson and Thomas and Ellen Sutpen bequeath their children; that is, the Tompson children and the Sutpen children receive as part of their inheritance a moral tradition stripped of its base -- a concern for the well being of others. The dilemma, then, that confronts these children is whether they choose to adhere to the moral tradition bequeathed them, to deny it, or to endeavor to transcend it. For different reasons, Jason and Caddy succumb to the moral code they inherited. Quentin, Henry, and Judith attempt to transcend but finally embrace the very code they waged war on. What is important, though, in Faulkner's handling of the abusing legacy that each child in The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! inherits is not the degree to which each seems irrevocably doomed; rather, what is crucial is the degree to which each struggles to achieve a moral identity that affords placement within the family of man. Courage, strength, honor, pity are truths toward which the individual must aspire: they are the goal of a life-long struggle that cannot be wholly successful because it aims for ideals. But for Faulkner, the struggle itself - not its outcome - is all.

The strongest and best-developed supporting characters in The Portrait of a Lady are the men in Isabel Archer's life: Ralph Touchett, Caspar Goodwood, Lord Warburton, and Gilbert Osmond. Because it is largely through the eyes of these men that the reader sees Isabel, a thorough understanding of their personalities is essential for a clear interpretation of Isabel. James shows the four men in vivid detail--their physical appearance, cultural background, intellect, moral convictions, sense of humor--everything from a habit of keeping hallas in pockets to having a wardrobe which seems to have come from a single bolt of cloth. This study draws together the details James gives the reader about Ralph, Caspar, Warburton, and Osmond along with the critics' comments about them in an analysis which attempts to show how each personality contributes to the development of Isabel Archer.

Henry James, Jr. (1843-1916) has had a greater impact on the world of the novel than any other writer. The greatest controversy surrounding this most prolific of American authors and critics Concerns the area of sexual passion. The most insidious criticism leveled against James is that he and his characters lack sexuality. The whole problem is epitomized in this perusal of the sexual consciousness of Isabel Archer Osmond, the famous heroine in The Portrait of a Lady. While many critics simply ignore Isabel's sexuality, many others are less discerning than they should be, and some are absolutely mistaken: they appreciate the chaste. innocent young, virgin with blue-blooded ties, but they fail to recognize the healthy, red-blooded woman who is of greater depth in the very real "Lady" she becomes. James allows the observer to glimpse the white purity and strength of the young girl who is described as being independent or self-reliant and full of spirit in the beginning of the novel--there is a sexual aura in the sense of anticipation created here--but, while this first impression is a correct one and purposefully remains with the reader, James goes much further in brushstroking in impressionistic details as Isabel's senses are whetted and her character and feelings are further revealed through her relationships and growing experiences. Implicit in some critics' views is the assumption that Isabel can be placed on a pedestal of purity in men's minds and held there as some ideal of the eternal virgin awash in the white light of her intelligence precisely because she remains for them untainted by earthy sexuality. They see her as a cold work of art not vulnerable to carnal concerns. Those men fail to recognize that the experiences that contribute to her expanding sexual awareness detract from her personal beauty no more than the blooming of a rose detracts from the integrity of the tightly furled bud. The first chapter presents pertinent views of the critics. Most critics in finding Isabel either "sexually cold" or "frigid" point to the many instances in the novel when Isabel exhibits caution or fear of one kind or another and ultimately find in them all a "fear of sex." The second staccato-like chapter reveals Isabel's "fear" for what it is. Isabel's experiences and relationships with men and women are viewed under the microscope of the third chapter. The observer's growing awareness of the development of Isabel's sexuality is truly a process of accretion as James allows his reader glimpses of Isabel in different settings ranging from her chaste New England room to her husband's somewhat sinister home in Rome. This concluding chapter illustrates that anyone who will conscientiously scrutinize the ample details that James provides will find Isabel Archer Osmond in no way lacking in sexuality.

Because human nature is so often irrational and passional, William Faulkner many times offers portraits of people who are the antithesis of rationality and morality. Thus, it is not surprising to observe Faulkner's extensive use of aberrant, or deviant, characters, especially aberrant women, since the author generally associates this group with the volatile, passional elements in life. These disturbingly abnormal women possess as a group certain characteristics that become a remarkably consistent pattern in the Faulknerian canon. Faulkner's aberrant women invariably have at least one trait in common: they become destructive forces that bring about the ruin of others and often themselves and, hence, are associated with death. Also, these women have, to some degree, fallen short of achieving fulfillment as women by means of sexual love and motherhood, which are natural feminine roles. Another trait that Faulkner's aberrant women have is an incongruous blend of masculine and feminine characteristics, a blend which is taboo in the author's Yoknapatawpha world. Also, they possess an inability to accept the pleasure principle manifested by the erotic impulses. Finally, many critics believe that Faulkner's aberrant women show an affinity for evil. These aberrant traits are manifested in Temple Drake in i, Caddy Compson in The Sound and the Fury, and Joanna Burden in Light in August. Temple Drake is an adolescent temptress, Caddy Compson a social outcast, and Joanna Burden a sterile spinster; these women, along with several others, venture outside of their traditional spheres and, as a result, bring about despair and death. The author may be using this type of character to imply that the corruption of women is indicative of a cultural disintegration, since women generally represent the nucleus of family and community affairs.

Beneath the placid surface of books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there are the seeds of a darker, yet more profound Twain than a cursory reading yields. From a point beginning about 1876 until his death in 1910, there is in Twain's major works a progressively darker, more intensely pessimistic view of the human condition, for Twain increasingly saw man as circumscribed and imprisoned by mechanistic determinism. This study provides a chronological examination of Twain's attempt to resolve the problem of man's sense of moral responsibility in a deterministic world. The development of Twain's thinking or man's conscience and determined behavior falls into three stages that form the basis for the three major chapters of this thesis. In Twain's primary stage he initially grappled with the problem of determinism and moral responsibility. In the second stage Twain recognized the control determinism exercises and the guilt that socially engrained conscience imposes on man, yet he still insisted on man's ability to rise above these things and impose his own concept of morality. In the final stage Twain relinquished the lingering vestiges of his belief in man's control of his life and actions and depicted man as unable to move above his guilt because of circumstances he cannot control.

This study may be considered an exercise in graphemic analysis. It proceeds from the point of view that writing is an independent manifestation of language. As such, the writing system of a language may be subject to a descriptive analysis based upon methods similar to those used in the analysis of spoken language systems. The purpose of such a description is to determine the distinctive and non -distinctive elements of the system. Chapter V of this study is a graphemic analysis of one section of the Parker Manuscript. This analysis is based upon the principles discussed in Chapter II and follows the specific criteria presented in Chapter IV. Since the writing system of the text is an alphabetic one, Chapter VI indicates, to a limited extent, the relationship or fit of the writing system with the Late West Saxon dialect of Old English, of which the Parker Manuscript is a specimen.

Ford Madox Ford has often been seen by critics as an author of pure style, writing without philosophic underpinnings for his impressionistic techniques. However, philosophy plays a large role in Ford's work—as a foundation for both his themes and literary theory. This philosophy, phenomenology--the metaphysics of individual experience as opposed to universal determinism—came into existence during Ford's lifetime. Though Ford may never have read in phenomenology, his works reflect the movement both in what he writes, by emphasizing the individual over the communal experience, and how he writes, using the idea of the neutral author to present objective narration. The first three chapters explore three of Ford's works--the fairy tale The Queen Who Flew (1894), the novel The Good Soldier (1915), and the tetralogy Parade's End (1924-1928)—and show a growth of phenomenological thought within each. Starting with The Queen Who Flew, Ford portrays the first principle of phenomenology, the importance of individual perspective, a principle found in the early phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. In The Good Soldier, a second stage of phenomenology. Martin Heidegger's discovery of the underlying void and apparent meaninglessness of life, can be seen. Third, Jean-Paul Sartre's ideas of nihilation, freedom, and the self-created being are reflected in Parade's End. The final chapter applies phenomenology to Ford's literary theory, an early version of reader-response criticism, a literary school of thought which comes from phenomenological philosophy. Three central relationships appear in Ford's critical writings: the relationship between the writer and the word, epitomised by the removal of authorial presence; the relationship between the reader and the writer, marked by humbleness on the part of the writer; and the relationship between the reader and the word, a relationship based on surprise. Etch of these relate back to Ford's major intent, to become the neutral author. Ford's criticism shows his consciously applying the basic ideas of phenomenology to his own writing, allowing readers to arrive at their own subjective interpretations of life as presented in the novel.