Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-257). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This thesis evaluates and re-evaluates the relationship between the works of Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Martin Amis through a detailed examination of their published works, and attempts to locate this relationship in the context of the central moral uncertainties of post-1945 British fiction. Most previous critical studies of these authors have tended to discuss the relationship between Kingsley Amis and Martin Amis in terms of an opposition between the father's realism and the son's postmodernism, and have debated Philip Larkin's influence upon Martin Amis only tangentially. Against this trend, this thesis argues that these three authors share a commitment to literature as a public, moral act, and, in particular, that their works share the intention of articulating a number of closely related secular 'human values' which map out a potential post-Christian morality in British society. The thesis also examines a common tension within their oeuvres inimical to such hopes - the fear that the possibilities of rational self-scrutiny and of becoming 'less deceived' have been discredited by the history of the twentieth century, and that this history instead evidences the dominance of irrational and self-destructive tendencies in the human. These fears, it is further claimed, are implicated in the works of all three authors in a tendency towards the construction of Edenic myths, deterministic simplifications, and despairing devaluations of the value of human life. Overall, this thesis makes the case for the significance of the common concerns of Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin's works in the context of contemporary literary studies: their efforts to create in art an unpretentiously 'public space' for the address of burning moral and existential issues, and their unresolved struggles with the question of what it might mean to live a good life in a society which no longer possesses religion as a common moral language.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 357-367 ).

Following the work of Sara Houghton-Walker and Edward Strickland, this thesis theorizes the "mundane sublime" as encountered in romanticist John Clare's poetry. Instead of being oriented upward, as with Longinus's elevatory sublime, Clare's mundane sublime brings the subject downward to earth. While the sublime of the Burkean tradition begins with terror, I claim that the mundane sublime emerges out of love for that which is commonplace. Still revelatory, it may be further characterized by an engagement with ecosystems, eternity, divinity, and nature as a whole. Clare's style scaffolds images resulting in a profusion of detail that arrests the mind and allows it to reflect on its own position in nature. As Clare's mundane sublime takes up simple natural objects and posits an ecological interconnectedness, it implies a more environmentally responsible relationship to one's surroundings, making it increasingly relevant for green studies. / by Dana Odwazny Pell. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

From Introductory note: The Complete Poems of W.H. Davies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963; rev. 1968) has been used throughout this study. Accordingly, unless otherwise stated, all citations of poem numbers and pagination refer to this text. Critical literature on the work of W.H. Davies is restricted in quantity and limited in scope. There are few comprehensive assessments of Davies as poet, autobiographer, novelist, or raconteur. Apart from such sources as Richard J. Stonesifer's full-length critical biography (1963), Lawrence Hockey's biographical monograph (1971), and Thomas Moult's anecdotal and historical appreciation (1934), critical material must be drawn from contemporary reviews, isolated articles in magazines such as The Catholic World and Fortnightly Review, and specific chapters in surveys of the poetry of the early twentieth century, although Davies is frequently alluded to passim in literary histories which deal with this period. Many of these studies favour biographical exposition and evaluation rather than descriptive analysis and discursive interpretation. A detailed chronology of Davies's works is included in Stonesifer's discussion. This thesis is not attempting to trace a line of development for two reasons. First, the Complete Poems gives no indication of date of composition or publication of particular poems, and the present writer has access only to the dates of publication of individual volumes as external evidence of a chronology, internal evidence being confined to such infrequent references as "the birds of steel" in Poem no. 236, p. 260. Secondly, the lyrics themselves do not, on the whole, evince much stylistic and thematic development, and the concern of this study is with recurrent themes and techniques dispersed throughout the oeuvre.

This dissertation concurs with the Jungian postulation that certain psychological archetypes are inclined to be reproduced by the collective unconscious. In turn, these psychological archetypes are revealed to emerge in literature as literary archetypes. It is consequently argued that science fiction has come to form a new mythology because the archetypal images are displaced in a modern, scientific guise. This signifies a shift in the collective world view of humanity, or a shift in its collective consciousness. It is consequently argued that humanity’s collective consciousness has evolved from mythic thought to scientific thought, courtesy of the numerous groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the past few centuries. This dissertation posits as a premise that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s supposition of humanity’s collective consciousness evolving towards what he calls the Omega Point to hold true. The scientific displacement of the literary archetypes reveals humankind’s evolution towards the Omega Point and a cosmic consciousness. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Edmund Waller, William Davenant, Andrew Marvell, and Abraham Cowley were royalist poets who changed sides following the English Revolution, attracted to Cromwellian military power, and the reforming aims of the Independents. This thesis contributes to existing scholarship by showing that the poets engaged strongly with theories of allegiance, self-consciously returning to first principles - the natures of sovereignty and obligation - to develop a concept of allegiance that was contingent and transferrable. Their crucial influence was Hobbes. Hobbes collapsed partisan perspectives into a general theory of sovereignty constituted by a de facto protective and coercive power; this was grounded on a psychological analysis of humans' restless appetite for power. The poets' approach to Hobbes was crucially mediated by Machiavelli, who provided a less abstract account of the relationship between individual agency and collective institutions, and whose concept of virtù offered a model for how restless ambition could be harnessed to political order. An introductory chapter sketches out the intellectual background to this body of theory and reflects on the methods used to show how the poets dramatized it in their works. Chapter two considers the disintegration of Waller's courtly poetry under the pressure of civil war, and his resulting turn to rationalist theory. Chapters three and four focus on the immediate aftermath of the revolution, considering the synthesis of Hobbes' and Machiavelli's theories of military power ventured by Davenant, and the influence of Davenant's ideas on Marvell's Machiavellianism. Chapter five focuses on Cowley and his more religiously-inflected account of Hobbesian psychology and political obligations. Chapter six asks how the poets responded to the Restoration of Charles II, and in particular charts their influence on the younger poet John Dryden. With their emphasis on materialist psychology, the turncoat poets abandoned allegory in favour of a mode of dramatization which observed the contingent circumstances in which allegiances could be generated, dissolved, and transferred. They possessed a political conservatism, but a conceptual radicalism which presented a serious challenge to Anglican and constitutionalist discourses of Stuart monarchy.

This dissertation concurs with the Jungian postulation that certain psychological archetypes are inclined to be reproduced by the collective unconscious. In turn, these psychological archetypes are revealed to emerge in literature as literary archetypes. It is consequently argued that science fiction has come to form a new mythology because the archetypal images are displaced in a modern, scientific guise. This signifies a shift in the collective world view of humanity, or a shift in its collective consciousness. It is consequently argued that humanity’s collective consciousness has evolved from mythic thought to scientific thought, courtesy of the numerous groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the past few centuries. This dissertation posits as a premise that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s supposition of humanity’s collective consciousness evolving towards what he calls the Omega Point to hold true. The scientific displacement of the literary archetypes reveals humankind’s evolution towards the Omega Point and a cosmic consciousness. / English Studies / M.A. (English)