<p>James Matthew Barrie, a Scottish novelist and dramatist, created a large and successful body of work during his lifetime. While Barrie's oeuvre includes over fifty fictional works, his reputation as a writer is based almost entirely on his text <em>Peter Pan</em>. Recently there has been a vast interest in <em>Peter Pan</em> (1911), an interest that is reflected by the numerous fictional and cinematic adaptations that have appeared over the last few decades. These modem adaptations of Barrie's work consistently simplify <em>Peter Pan</em> by disregarding the homosocial aspects of the text and presenting the narrative with heterosexual denotations that are non-existent in the original. For example, P. J. Hogan's film <em>Peter Pan</em> (2003) exaggerates the Peter and Wendy plot to establish an archetypal-like romance. Hogan inserts a romantic plotline between Peter and Wendy that does not exist in Barrie's original text. Most modem adaptations also simplify the narrative by removing the issues ofheterosexual uncertainty and masculine insecurity, which are prevalent themes in Barrie's original. In Walt Disney's <em>Peter Pan</em> (1953), the male protagonists are presented as highly masculine individuals, particularly Peter who is given a deep voice and adult-like features. By ignoring the issues of masculinity and male homosociality, these modem adaptations fail to showcase Barrie's social criticism on the negative effects of Edwardian constructions of gender identity. Although the interest in <em>Peter Pan</em> narrative is also reflected by the recent increase in Barrie scholarship, many ofthese critics also heterosexualize Barrie's work and ignore the issues of masculinity that saturate the <em>Peter Pan</em> stories. Most critics focus entirely on the 1911 novel <em>Peter Pan</em> and ignore the significance of other <em>Peter Pan</em> stories such as, <em>Sentimental Tommy</em> (1896), <em>Tommy and Grizel </em>(1900), <em>The Little White Bird </em>(1901), and <em>Peter Pan, or The Boy</em><em> Who Would Not Grow Up</em> (1928). A study of Barrie's earlier Peter Pan stories demonstrates Barrie's social criticism of the nineteenth-century masculine identity.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis is a close reading of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. It is probably one of the first attempts at analyzing every act and scene of the play. There is a particular focus on tracing the unities in the play, and in understanding how the play works dramatically.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The theme of Exile is a prominent one in Caribbean literature and has its roots in the history of the area. Exile, whether forced (i.e. as a result of the slave trade) or self-imposed, causes problems of rootlessness and alienation, and this has given rise to the strong identity motif in West Indian writing. Austin Clarke, a native Barbadian, has been living in North America since 1955. His novels express the problems faced by blacks in Barbados and in Toronto, and focus on the individual's quest for self-identity. While Clarke offers no solution to the problems, his novels raise fundamental questions that are a part of, but not exclusice to, the West Indian/ North American experience.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The scope of this dissertation takes in three of the major middle novels of Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House, and examines the illustrations completed for each of them by Hablot K. Browne. Special emphasis is placed on evidence which shows Browne's original and perceptive contributions to the story. There is a brief discussion of the techniques of etching and reference is made to Browne's predecessors, notably Hogarth, and to the earlier traditions of English graphic art from which he must have worked. The basic tenet of the thesis is that Browne should be considered on his own merits as Dickens' principal illustrator and that the consideration should take place with the illustrations before us.</p> <p>Throughout the argument use is made of critical opinion, from both the past and present day, in order to demonstrate the current standing of Browne's work. A great<br />deal of critical work has been completed on the illustrations in Dickens but not all of it has been fruitful. It is to be hoped that this brief review will serve as a useful introduction to the subject.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

<p>After a half-century of writing, Morley Callaghan has earned a place in Canadian literature. The difficulty in this is that Callaghan wants no such place.</p> <p>To locate Callaghan in our literary development, Canadian critics have attached labels, sought out resemblances and dependences, applied extrinsic analytical tools such as Jungian psychological theory, and finally, they have treated his work with special consideration because he is Canadian. In short, they have reduced his work to a sterile series of commonalities, and have ignored its individuality and mystery.</p> <p>A Fine and Private Place is, in part, a reaction to such critics. It shows the shallowness of critic J.C. Hilton, and traces the right education as a critic of Al Delaney as he moves from his dependence on scholarship to a trust in his heart's reaction to Eugene Shore's writing. In particular, the novel shows that its realism can be verified by a Jungian framework, and yet that the framework does not encapsulate Callaghan's creativity. As a fine tale, it has a charm and intimacy which critical tools cannot dissect.</p> <p>The novel alludes to three other Callaghan works: The Loved and the Lost, More Joy in Heaven, and Such Is My Beloved. In this context, A Fine and Private Place reveals its place in an evolving treatment of the rivalry between criminal-saints and their repressive societies, with the value of the individual as the prize.</p> <p>Callaghan's works must not be trapped in a literary mosaic: they must be accepted by the reader in private on their own merits. A Fine and Private Place is both a request for such treatment and a critical tool to assist in the task.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Criticism of Lampman, while recently successful in finally getting away from reading him merely as a descriptive nature poet, has not closely examined his complex relationship with Emersonian Transcendentalism, nor has it looked at his poetical career as a whole. Many critics portray Lampman as a "dreamer of dreams", an escapist, and the critics who have noticed transcendental tendencies in his poetry conclude that his poetical career was, like that of Emerson or Thoreau, a sustained retreat into nature. After first of all offering a fairer and more balanced biographical account of Lampman than has yet been offered, this study examines past and present criticism of Lampman and the biases that inform it, and looks at Lampmap's views of Emersonian Transcendentalism before coming to the major task which is to examine closely Lampman's three volumes of verse and to show that there is a development, a maturing, of his poetic vision. His first volume, Among The Millet (1888), reflects an attempt to give expression to the Emersonian identification of man with nature; in his second, Lyrics of Earth (1895), after adopting a thoroughly transcendeptal stance, he sees the dishonesty and inadequacy of this philosophy; and in his last volume, Alcyone (1899), he abandons his transcendental quest for unity with nature and gives uninhibited expression to his frightening, direct vision of nature and human nature. In Lampman there is an important, but hitherto neglected, transcendental-visionary development.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis is an examination of Farquhar's works, with an emphasis on major characterization. Such an analysis has not been done to my knowledge, and Farquhar's writing lends itself especially well to a search for the development of one man's art. In Chapter I, the setting in which Farquhar's works were presented is sketched out, as well as Farquhar's ideas about the creation of comedy, as discussed in his "Discourse upon Comedy". Chapter II deals with Farquhar's first play, Love and a Bottle, and its introduction of the basic four character pattern of rake-hero, his more sentimental friend, free-spirited coquette, and chaste maiden. The Constant Couple, a more polished attempt of what was set forth in Love and a Bottle combined with a manners style reminiscent of Congreve, is discussed in Chapter III. Chapter IV examines a problematic play, The Twin-Rivals, and searches for the reasons for this play's lack of success. With Chapter V the introduction of a more natural setting into Farquhar's plays is explored. Farquhar branches out into something different from the popular plays of the period in the rustic The Recruiting Officer with its country setting and military theme. The Beaux Stratagem represents the happy combination of city wit and graceful naturalness in a work which was entertaining as well as fresh. In conclusion, Farquhar's use of morality is discussed, as is his connection with other playwrights. This thesis, then, tries to discover what Farquhar did and perhaps did not do to make his plays popular, and what makes his work stand out as individual and worthwhile.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)