Man naturally pursues that which brings pleasure, and Wallace Stevens recognizes this inescapable desire, exploring it fully in his poetry, prose, and letters and depending upon it to build the foundation for many, if not most, of his major themes. For Stevens, one's world evolves through the use of poetry, and this world, complete with jubilations of fulfilled desire and frequent despair as illusions of fulfillment are destroyed, chronicles the life of every man. As a result, different kinds of desire and different attempts at satisfying these desires emerge as one reads Stevens--three of which will be advanced in this study. The first, the desire for an ideal truth, takes an intellectual approach, searching for a clue to reality, for a "first idea." This ideal, though, in order to prove satisfactory to the intellect, needs to reconcile the apparent "war between the mind and sky." How do the realm of the imagination and the realm of reality work together? For Stevens, the attempt at an intersection often occurs in the realm of poetry, a world which provides a means of ordering the chaos of reality. Stevens' investigation of human desire in this world is not limited to the intellect, however. At times the sensuous world itself provides the most appropriate objects for our desire. The wonders of our world, the mere experience of living, may provide needed stability in an otherwise precarious existence. Just as the jar placed in Tennessee gives order to the surrounding landscape, a life of observation and experience, established through the beautiful objects which are the focus of the lover's desire, attempts to provide an order. The third, and perhaps the most interesting desire, occurs in the mind of the believer. Stevens recognizes the basic need for a deity; however, he also recognizes the origin of belief to be the collective creation of the myth-making force of a people, implying the ability to create new beliefs as unsatisfactory gods fade from importance. Stevens takes part in this recreation of myth through the emergence in his poetry of supreme fictions, possibilities he provides as examples of adequate beliefs. This study, then, focuses on desire as a major thematic element in Wallace Stevens' poetry and emphasizes the role of desire in man's search for a harmonous existence with this world. In three major chapters the desire to reach an ideal truth through the blending of reality and Imagination, the desire to find pleasure in a world of objects, and the believer's creation and "decreation" of major fictions will be examined as key aspects of the essential element of desire in Wallace Stevens' poetry.

This study of the literary magazines published in Kentucky between 1800 and 1900 consists of material derived from the following sources: The Louisville Public Library; ti1e State and Kentucky State Historical Society libraries, Frankfort; the Lexington Public Library, Transylvania, and University of Kentucky libraries, Lexington; the public libraries of Paris, Covington, Newport, Cincinnati, and Nashville; the Western Kentucky State Teachers College library, Bowling Green; and also the newspaper files of the Nashville Banner, the Lexington Herald, the Paris Kentuckian-Citizen, and the Courier-Journal. I wish to make it clear that this study is of literary magazines only. Other phases might have entered into the study, such as politics and religion, but this study concerns the magazines for their literary qualities alone.

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.

J.D. Salinger's fiction can be approached by looking at the various elements of fiction, but his largest statement rests in the ways that his characters interac within his world. This interaction leads to a code of behavior that the heroes follow, and can be used to determine the heroic character within a particular piece of fiction, much as the Hemingway code developed by Carlos Baker identified the characteristics of the Hemingway hero, Salinger's heroes are all aware of the phony which is in the world around them. They see this phoniness as something undesirable within the world, yet they must learn to come to terms with this trait in other people, developing a compassion for those that are not genuine. In some heroes this trait is apparent; in others, it must be gained. The Salinger hero also feels a peculiar affinity for the madman, saint, and child. In some cases, the hero may long to lose himself in one of these particular niches, but that escape cannot be permanent. A balance between awareness of the phony and appreciation for the madman, saint, and child must be made. The Salinger hero is also on a quest. This quest varies from hero to hero, and is often a futile quest, but still, an attempt is made by the hero to search for something higher. This study examines three Salinger heroes: Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, Franny Glass in Franny and Zooey, and Seymour Glass in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," "Hapworth 16, 1924," and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.

In the introduction to The World of the Short Story, Kay Boyle challenges the short story writer "to invest a brief sequence of events with reverberating human significance by means of style, selection and ordering of detail, and -- most important -- to present the whole action in such a way that it is at once a parable and a slice of life, at once symbolic and real, both a valid picture of some phase of experience, and a sudden illumination of one of the perennial moral and psychological paradoxes which lie at the heart of la condition humaine." River People is my attempt to meet that challenge. It is a creation of short stories about people I know or might know, small-town, seemingly ordinary people whose characters and activities are universal expressions of truth and humanity. The short story genre allows me to inculcate variety in form, style and character. This collection includes several points of view, limited and omniscient, objective and unreliable. It offers brief revelations and more thorough studies. It deals with the past as well as the present. Lastly, it touches the lives of the young and the aged, men and women, the respected and the scandalous, the romantic, the tragic, the realistic.

The purpose of this study is to classify the poems' themes and to reveal frequency patterns, thereby disclosing Frost's heaviest interests. The study is limited to an analysis of the poems contained in the Complete Poems, which includes most of his poetry. The Masque of Reason and The Masque of Mercy, appearing at the end of the Complete Poems, are not included in the study because they are allegorical poem-plays of the Job and Jonah stories respectively. While the study is confined primarily to an interpretation of the poems themselves, important critical studies relating to the themes are included.

Four years subsequent to the close of the great conflict between the North and the South there was born in the neutral state of Kentucky, a roman who was destined to serve with great earnestness and to immortalize with great talent the mountain people of her native state. It is through a sympathetic portrayal of the characteristics of the Southern Highlanders that she has achieved an enviable place as a local color writer in American letters.

There is a need, then, for a study of Merton's poetry as a whole--a study based not on the poetry as a result of his poetic theory but on the poetry primarily as poetry, and which would include his last three volumes. This paper, therefore, will be a survey of representative samplings from each volume of Merton's poetry, and will take into account the differences and similarities between his early and later periods. It will attempt to discover and illustrate the most significant aspects of the development of Merton's philosophy and poetics, as revealed by the poetry itself and by the critical opinion about it. It of necessity will be selective and somewhat general.

The thesis focuses upon the possible influences of Margaret Fuller upon Nathaniel Hawthorne's creation of Hester in The Scarlet Letter and Zenobia in The Blithedale Romance. It suggests that Hester and Zenobia are feminists who may owe much of their characterization as developed through their feminist arguments to Margaret Fuller, a nineteenth century feminist and acquaintance of Hawthorne's. Hawthorne and Fuller are placed in historical context within the feminist movement of the nineteenth century by examining some of the leading feminists and their concerns regarding women's rights. Margaret Fuller's writings and ideas are examined, along with her relationship to Hawthorne. An analysis of the characters of Hester and Zenobia follows. The study concludes with a comparison of the striking similarities between Hester's and Zenobia's feminist arguments and those found in the writings of Margaret Fuller. The similarities are strong enough to warrant the possibility that Hawthorne may have used Fuller's printed arguments and modified them slightly for delivery by Hester in The Scarlet Letter and Zenobia in The Blithedale Romance.