For thousands of years, people have been hearing, reading, and interpreting stories and myths in light of their own experience. To read a work by a different author living in a different era and setting, people tend to imagine works of literature to be something they are not. To avoid this fateful tendency, I hope to elucidate what it means to read a work of literature and interpret it: love it to the point of wanting to foremost discuss its excellence of being a piece of art. Rather than this being a defense, I would rather call it a musing, an examination on two texts that I adore: Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Exodus

Somewhere is most general histories and outlines of English literature, the greatness of the King James Bible and its influence on all of English literature since 1611 have been pointed out. Unquestionably, all men of letters in the English language since that time have known of the King James Bible; and many of them may have been decidedly influenced by its tradition of cadenced prose and its prose figures. The great deal of research would have to be done in order to establish conclusively the influence of the Prayer Book upon all writers from 1549 to the present time. If this thesis stimulates any other worker to make a study in the general problem, it will have far exceeded its present purposes. For this approaches only one small aspect of the problem. Samuel Johnson is an obvious subject for such a study, because he attended the Church of England;1 he knew the Prayer Book well;2 in fact, he was such a good Church of England man that Boswell records in the Life at least two occasions when Johnson was offered a position in the Church.33 Furthermore, Johnson was preeminently a prose writer and used an ornate style. This combination of devoutness and literary ability makes of him ripe material for an investigation of the influence of the Prayer Book on an English writer. There is another reason why Johnson should make a good subject for study. He lived in an age that was a part of the same Renaissance tradition that produced the Bible and the Prayer Book. In fact, it has been pointed out that Johnson was the last of the great Renaissance humanists.4. The problem that this study attempts to solve, then, is "Did the Book of Common Prayer have any influence on Samuel Johnson's prose style?" Although many other problems have arisen in the course of this work, no attempt will be made to solve any of them; showing that the Prayer Book did influence at least part of Johnson's writing will be the single purpose of this paper

I do not purport to give a definitive argument for or against the influences of the unconscious, for the necessary realm of expertise lies within other fields: psychiatry and psychology. However, the application of psychoanalytic literary theory of the unconscious to the lives, words, and characters of selected female authors in order to explore a richer, more meaningful purpose of their art will be the subject of this literary journey. Specifically, the intent will be an analysis of the relation between the manifest content of three classic works of literature to the unconscious intent relative to the author’s biographical perspective, or the psychology of literature.

The purpose of this study is to compare the narrative and framing techniques used by Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. These authors were selected for several reasons. Being contemporaries, they lived through the days of the reign of Richard II, his deposition, and the accession of Henry IV. This was a time change: the age of chivalry and true knighthood was ending; the middle class was establishing commerce, towns, guilds; openly and violently the peasants were beginning to reject their servile positions; the corruption within the organized church was being publicly exposed, and efforts, believed heretical by some, were being made to effect its purification. The discussion in this paper will be limited to the major work of each author. For Gower this is the Confessio Amantis, his only English work of any length; for Chaucer it is the Canterbury Tales, which, incomplete as it is, is generally accepted as the crown jewel of medieval English literature. The discussion wil be limited further to the framing and linking devices and to the four tales which appear in both books: "Constance" (Man of Law's tale), "Florent" (Wife of Bath's tale), "Phebus and Cornide" (Manciple's tale), and "Virginia" (Physician's tales).

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner1 is essentially a poem of survival through transformation, one which, according to William Walsh, 'has to do equally with man's capacity for failure and with that which makes available to him resources for recovery."2 It is also. as Richard Haven recognizes, "the record of the evolution of self." 3 Even more specifically, however, The Ancient Mariner is s tale which reveals key elements of Carl Jung's thought: the process of individuation, the nature of shadow and anima forces, the power of dreams and symbolism. Given the myriad and divergent interpretations of the poem--I heartily agree with C.M. Bowra that "there" is no final or single approach" 4 to Coleridge's masterpiece--my purpose must be explorative, suggestive. A Jungian perspective fairly encourages an exploratory approach, as Carl Kepper contends: The very heart of the applicability of Jung to the problem of symbolism is that he requires of us not that we explain (in the sense of explaining away, reducing to something more familiar) the symbol but that we explore it, not that we we remove. the mystery but that we seek to know it in all the mysteriousness it presents.5 In this searching, delving spirit, then, I will discuss the way the Mariner's--and to a lesser extent, the Wedding-Guest's--experiences represent fundamental aspects of the individuation process, which Jung defines as " ' coming to selfhood' or 'self-realization.' " 6 I will concentrate on the roles of the shadow and anima, respectively, vital and necessary constructs of this process. In these sections and throughout the essay, I will emphasize the essential position both Coleridge and Jung attribute to the law of opposites and closely related rebirth motif. Finally, I will explore the ways dreams, color, and bird imagery are symbolic and develop transformation or individuation to reflect the Mariner's degree of awakening. Not only will the complementary of opposites be discussed in this context, but wat Coleridge terms "the principle of unity in multeity"10 --what mythologist Joseph Campbell calls "unity in multiplicity"11 --and its relation to individuation will be considered. The focus throughout this essay will be on that transformational energy which promotes individuation and rebirth: "The study of the symbols of transformation," explains Violet S. de Laszlo, . . . centers upon the basic demand which is imposed upon every individual, that it, the urge as well as the necessity to become self-conscious of himself. . . . For Jung, the path towards this awareness is identical with the process of individuation. Insofar as the transformation results in a new and deeper awareness, it is experienced as a rebirth. . . .12

The New Woman described in short fiction and editorial articles in British periodicals not only presented the ideal New Woman to readers, but served to shape the perceptions of the reader depending on the demographic of the targeted reading audience for that specific periodical. The audience for specific British periodicals featuring the New Woman included conservative families whose youth saw the New Woman figure as a role model. The New Woman figure easily connected to readers, particularly young, female middle-class readers, who easily identified with her because she possessed similar socioeconomic characteristics. Just as there were many New Women characters in these periodicals experiencing triumph and turmoil, the real-life New Women reading these stories experienced similar trials and tribulations. Facing adversity, the New Women endeavored to shed a traditional domestic stereotype in British society in the periodicals whose audience was receptive to this progressive, yet still moderate figure.

The author of this study explored the works of C.S. Lewis as well as memoirs and scholarship concerning his work to illustrate his transformational leadership. Works reviewed included Lewis's fiction, such as his science fiction trilogy and his children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia, as well as his works of nonfiction, such as essays that addressed social issues. The secondary aim for the author of this study was to determine whether the transformational qualities Lewis exhibited also existed in his characters. Transformational leadership served as the conceptual framework for the descriptive explanatory qualitative design. Essentially the study analyzed the primary works of Lewis and subsequent scholarship through the lens of transformational leadership. Data collected included document review, interviews with Lewis scholars, and observations. Synthesis of the data revealed that Lewis possessed the 4 qualities of transformational leadership established by Bass (1985). Derived from a blended evaluation of scholarship, observational data, and interview responses, findings indicated that Lewis exhibited the 4 qualities of transformational leadership: Idealized influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individual Consideration. In addition, Lewis created a transformational leader in Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia and depicted pseudotransformational leadership in both his science fiction trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia. The author of this study explored a contextual and historical view of Lewis as a veteran of World War I and a voice of hope during World War II. During the period pseudotransformational leadership existed in the reality of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime and echoed in the literature of Lewis in the N.I.C.E. organization from the science fiction trilogy and Shift from The Chronicles of Narnia. Recommendations for further study encourage future scholars to expand the roster of transformational leaders to include artists and thinkers and to examine various aspects of Lewis yet needing research.

Coleridge's usual use of opium was through laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. This thesis presents the history of and criticism regarding the poet's use of laudanum and the physical and emotional consequences the drug held for him and his writing career.

It will be the purpose of this thesis to survey and to evaluate twentieth-century criticisms of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Because the topic is so broad, it is necessary to find methods of limiting the subject so that it· may be adequately covered herein. This paper will be limited primarily to books published on the topic under consideration. To cover all the work in periodical literature would go beyond the scope of this study. Perhaps that task can be covered by someone else.

My primary aim for this study is to illuminate the Ransom trilogy's inherent psychological and spiritual themes, as well as demonstrate how these themes clarify Lewis's philosophical and political goals for the text. Specifically, by investigating Lewis's mythic imagery and suffering motifs in light of psychoanalytic and theological literary criticisms, I elucidate the reasoning behind Lewis's unique—and at times, horrific—portrayal of fear, violence, and death. I also investigate how Lewis integrates his theology with the horrors of personal and intrapersonal suffering, as well as how he utilizes imagination and myth to explicate the practical (or political) implications of his theodicy. As a whole, I present a systematic study of the relationship between the Great War, myth, and the three Ransom novels, one which reveals how Lewis manipulates his personal traumatic experiences to fashion a romantic Christian understanding of evil and violence in the modern world