Thesis (M.S.)--University of California, Santa Cruz 2001. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1948 P74 / Master of Science

This study demonstrates that Edwin Arlington Robinson's keen interest in mystery is reflected in his poetry. However, he creates an unusual subgenre--the unresolved mystery. Definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary, religious treatises, and philosophical works, helped formulate a working definition of the word mystery. I then selected eight murder poems from The Collected Poems -- "The Tavern," "The Whip," "Stafford's Cabin," "Haunted House," "Avon's Harvest," "Cavender's House," "The Glory of the Nightingales," and "The March of the Cameron Men" and three poems from the Uncollected Poems and Prose of Edwin Arlington Robinson --"The Miracle," "For Calderon," and "The Night Before." In these murder mystery poems, Robinson fails to provide definite motives or conclusive evidence or reliable narrators--all necessary components to solve a mystery. These violations of mystery writing rules appear both in his long and short poems.In the short poems, without exception, Robinson provides no motives. Dead bodies indicate that crimes have been committed, but none of the perpetrators is brought to justice, and in some cases, not even identified. Hence, the presence of relevant, but skimpy details disallow solving the mystery with any degree of certainty. In addition, the long poems exclude clear motives, hard evidence or reliable narrators--all of which prevent the reader from reaching a sound conclusion. Other poems suggest the involvement of supernatural beings. Consistently, all his murder mystery poems conclude with the mystery either partially or completely unresolved. / Department of English

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-151). Also available via the World Wide Web.

When Mark David Chapman assassinated John Lennon in December of 1980, he explained that he had to kill him in order to promote the reading of J. D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman's belief that he could become Salinger's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is the genesis for this research. The concept that a person could identify with a novel or character in a novel to such an extent that he or she would commit murder is an extraordinary allegation.In order to further explore this accusation, this research focuses on three novels: Alexandre Dumas, pere's The Count of Monte Cristo, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and Stephen King's Rage. Michael Sullivan, Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley, and Scott Pennington read one of these literary works before committing, or attempting to commit, murder.This project traces the cognitive processes of these men in an effort to understand why reading a specific novel lead to a murder. By delving into the minds of these murderers, it can be determined if the novel itself is a motive, an impetus, for the crime, or a scapegoat. / Department of English

In this thesis an attempt will be made to trace briefly the development of the domestic tragedy of blood on the English stage to the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century.

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