Charles Sumner is one of America's greatest yet most neglected statesmen. A founder of the Free Soil and Republican parties, perhaps the most outspoken anti-slavery leader in the United States Senate from 1851 to 1874, and its powerful Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner must be included in any history of the American anti-slavery movement and of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Yet he is often dismissed as a narrow zealot, while the intellectual and moral principles that propelled him into public life and guided his career are misunderstood or ignored by historians, including his most influential twentieth-century biographer, David Donald. By examining his life until his 1851 election to the Senate, this dissertation seeks to recover Sumner's true intellectual outlook and character, and thus to help restore him to his true stature in American history. Born in Boston, in the afterglow of the American Revolution and of the Enlightenment, Sumner was deeply influenced by the republican principles of duty, education, and liberty balanced by order, as well as by Moral Philosophy, the dominant strain of American Enlightenment thinking, which embraced cosmopolitanism and the dignity of man's intellect and conscience. As a young lawyer, Sumner was greatly attracted by the related principles of Natural Law, which since ancient times had conjoined law and ethics. These influences are symbolized by Sumner's closeness to John Quincy Adams, William Ellery Channing, and Joseph Story. Sumner, with many early nineteenth-century American intellectuals, desired to build an American culture that would combine the principles of American liberty with European culture. He thus eschewed law for reform—including education, promotion of the arts, prison discipline, international peace, and anti-slavery—and eventually politics, not from rashness or ambition, but from the belief in each individual's duty to work for the public good and in the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment. Sumner grew increasingly disillusioned as the controversy surrounding these reforms divided Boston and the nation over the significance of that Enlightenment legacy, but he devoted his entire public career to the realization of the Enlightenment's vision of a civilized nation, both cultivated and just.

Emmanuel Levinas claimed that the subject is not a self-positing entity. This dissertation shows that the relational dimension of the subject is reflected in the literature of exile by analyzing the works of three authors who were forced to flee Spain after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939): Luis Cernuda, Pedro Garfias and Federica Montseny. Without dismissing the historical, political and aesthetical dimensions of exile literature, this study proposes to focus on its ethical dimension, which makes writing in exile primordially a responsible act. Self-writing in exile is constituted by the urge to establish a dialogue with unreachable addressees, be them the future generations, the citizens of the new countries or even the victims of the war. Affected by the loss of an immediate addressee, the poems of Luis Cernuda in exile are informed by an urgent sense of responsibility towards the future generations of Spaniards. Aware of the irreducible distance to his addressees, Cernuda offers his works as an acknowledgment of their difference, rather than as an attempt to reduce it. Likewise, having the victims of the Spanish Civil War as its ultimate addressees, the poetry of Pedro Garfias reflects his search for a more profound and rich encounter with the Other. In works like Primavera en Eaton Hastings the poetry questions the limit of the poetic task itself. The comparative analysis of the personal narratives of Federica Montseny provides a rich opportunity to explore the peculiarities of the voice in exile. The study of the sources that Montseny uses to write Mis primeros cuarenta años (1987) reveals that the ethical dimension of the autobiographical voice is far more intense in exile than in post-exile.

This dissertation studies the ethic-esthetic project of the Puerto Rican patriot, Dr. Ramon Emeterio Betances Alacan, during half a century of revolutionary struggle. For this study, we will use various texts on Betances that have been preserved to present time. Among them, Betances by Luis Bonafoux is of great importance, in addition to the texts published by Carlos M. Rama, and the written by Feliz Ojeda Reyes. Furthermore, we will rely on the biography, El Antillano by Ada Suarez Diaz, a text of principal importance for this study. However, La virgen de Borinquen y epistolario intimo, the book that contains Betances' poetry, and some of his revolutionary speeches and proclamations, deserves particular attention since they are fundamental to emphasize the symbiosis between the great loves of the patriarch: the fatherland, liberty and a woman. The first chapter is dedicated to explaining the birth and formation of Betances as a patriarch. We will look into the influences Betances received from the bosom of his home. In addition, we will see the importance that Betances' home upbringing had in his political growth and maturity in the revolutionary Paris of 1848, as well as in the rise of his campaign for the abolition of slavery after his return to Puerto Rico in 1856. This part of our study will aim to link his family experience to his revolutionary activities in Paris, in an attempt to reveal the birth of Betances the patriarch. The second chapter will be dedicated to the study of Betances' epistolary texts. Maria del Carmen Henri Betances, the only woman loved by the patriarch, is the cornerstone upon which these texts will be sustained. Maria del Carmen Henri is the muse that illuminated Betances' existence, and whose sudden death unleashed his most poetic and heart-rending writings. This contributed to the link between his esthetic and political concepts, achieving with this a "betanciana" poetry of the fatherland. In the third chapter we will study the narrative, La Virgen de Borinquen, where we will see the symbols of the beloved woman and the fatherland as the center that moves the spirit of this writer. In the fourth chapter we will analyze some of Betances' poetry, as well as a few of his revolutionary proclamations and speeches, in which he uses biblical references to advocate the independence of Puerto Rico. The final chapter will offer the conclusions of this study.

The conventional belief that objective truth is incompatible with "bardic" insight (as Andre Maurois called it), has led to the undervaluing of the literary nature of biography. Not until it is generally understood that biography derives its form from the biographer's dependence upon language will biography be accepted as a symbolic structure the same as any other artifact of narrative discourse. The acceptance of biography as an art form worthy of the same serious critical attention shown the novel or the lyric would allow both the creators and readers of biography to realize and participate in the possibilities inherent in the genre. To this end, Part One of this dissertation examines the principal critical approaches to biography promulgated during the last one hundred years. These approaches are characterized as being either dominantly objectivist or subjectivist in tenor. Special attention is paid to attempts to utilize psychology and psychoanalytic technique to reconcile the differing requirements for authenticity demanded by these two opposed approaches to the genre. The position taken by this dissertation, however, is that biography is not a question of history as opposed to art, of objectivity as opposed to subjectivity, or even of the truth as opposed to untruth. A third, or ironist, approach to the creation and critical appreciation of biography is, therefore, proposed. This approach accepts as untenable all claims to absolute truth whether they be positivist or idealist in nature. The critical position developed in Part One is applied in Part Two to an examination of specific texts, both critical and primary, selected from the biographical literature on one of the most influential figures in modern American culture, Ernest Hemingway. The resulting critique demonstrates that biography is the best characterized as a field of cultural interplay wherein all peremptory dichotomies are subsumed and reworked into more meaningful, if also more transitory, structures.

The purpose of the study was to combine literary criticism and biography in order to show the connecting links between the poetry of Robert Frost and the woman who shared his life for almost fifty years. This dissertation is a biography of Elinor Frost, which aims not only to relate her difficult life and reveal her complex personality but also to provide insights into her husband's poetry. The time period covers a span, which begins in 1892 with the high school graduation of Elinor White and Robert Frost and ends shortly after her death. Mrs. Frost was a highly intelligent, sensitive woman whose nature complemented that of her husband, and interspersed throughout the narrative are critical analyses of poems that reflect her influence. Sources of information about Elinor include unpublished letters and interviews.

Although much information is known about how Emily Dickinson's paternal family affected her life and poetry, very little is understood concerning the influences of her matrilineal relatives--the Norcrosses. In fact, most of what we do know about the Norcrossses has been blurred by scholarly misinterpretation, maligned by sexist derision, and obscured by a paucity of biographical detail. Yet, by her own profession, Dickinson's Aunt Lavinia Norcross and Cousins Louisa and Frances were among the most significant figures in her life. Along with her Norcross grandparents, Cousin Emily, and Uncle Joel, these formidable individuals helped create a familial environment in which Dickinson felt encouraged to seek self-expression, to act independently, and--above all--to think. This biographical study examines the lives of these central individuals in Dickinson's life in order to consider the ways in which the Norcross family legacy nurtured the poet. By so doing, the research provides a broader cultural context for identifying the social forces which helped shape the world in which Dickinson lived. Chapter I focuses on the influence of the poet's grandparents, Joel and Betsey Fay Norcross, and their important role in the founding of Monson Academy and support of women's education. Chapter II examines the life of Cousin Emily Lavinia Norcross, specifically her year with Dickinson at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and the model she later provided as an independent woman devoted to a profession. Chapter III considers the effect of gregarious Joel Warren Norcross. Dickinson's pivotal 1850 letter to him, in many ways, marks the beginning of her adult writing career. Chapter IV studies the lives of Aunt Lavinia and Uncle Loring Norcross, with close attention to the prototypic model of sisterhood Aunt Lavinia and the poet's mother represented. Chapter V investigates the early influence of Loo and Fanny Norcross, especially their significant months with Dickinson in Cambridgeport where she was treated for a mysterious eye ailment. Lastly, Chapter VI discusses the Norcross cousins' involvement in the heady literary life of Concord, Massachusetts and offers a new theory as to the possible fate of Dickinson's long correspondence to them.

American expatriate Elizabeth Robins was a major figure of her times. She was more instrumental than any single performer in the staging of Ibsen plays in England in the 1890s. Her writing on behalf of women's suffrage and other women's issues in the first quarter of the twentieth century represents an important contribution to feminist politics. This study of her life and literary output begins with her arrival in England in 1888, and concludes with her feminist treatise against militarism published in 1924, because during these years especially, her life was rich with competing ambitions and a double career. Simultaneous with her London acting career, she published several novels under the pseudonym C. E. Raimond. She carefully documented her trip to Alaska in 1900 in a journal. The journal served as a source for two novels, the memoir of her brother Raymond Robins, and many stories and articles. After 1906, she participated in the organized effort to win the vote for women in England and formulated a more feminist aesthetic in her fiction. Her political activity extended to many women's issues, including white slave traffic and the plight of working women in postwar England. Her fiction bears comparisons to Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather. She responded to the satiric spirit of the early 1890s with parodies of Hubert Crackanthorpe and aggressive lady authoresses, honored Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot in her essays and fiction, and won acclaim for her feminist novels and plays. Robins formed close associations with Florence Bell, William Archer, William Heinemann, Henry James, Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst, Dr. Octavia Wilberforce, and Viscountess Rhondda (Margaret Haig). She wrote about her part in a changing theatre world with a sense of female difference, and what she wrote and did not publish based on her stage experience is equally engaging. She transformed her long personal history of ill-health and poor medical treatment into feminist concerns. Her life was not without contradiction, failure to achieve, missed or denied opportunities. These very aspects of her life defined her feminism and led to her woman-identified existence.

This dissertation explores the ways in which Bishop's profound sense of loss permeates much of her work. Specifically, I focus on how Bishop's early loss of her mother and of her family are at the core of her early unpublished and published work and the manner by which this early and intensely personal sense of bereavement becomes a central theme in her work. I begin by examining Bishop's unpublished autobiographical work and her published prose, looking closely at drafts and notebooks from the Vassar College Library and at voluminous correspondences she kept with friends and acquaintances. The opening chapter reveals the extent to which even Bishop's most puzzlingly surrealistic pieces spring from her early autobiographical writing. I then examine each of Bishop's five books of poetry in light of these early writings, and in light of letters and drafts, paying particular attention to the way in which Bishop's vision develops from being mysterious and intensely personal, to being much more inclusive and openly autobiographical. I closely examine individual poems in light of Bishop's early autobiographical concerns, illustrating how the poems spring from the early writings and how they develop the concerns of the particular book in which she published them. While I begin and end by discussing the unavoidable, intensely interesting and ultimately unanswerable questions about the extent to which Bishop's early loss of her mother influenced both her poetic and her sexual identity, the bulk of my dissertation is a close analysis of individual poems and books of poetry. The mystery of Bishop's poetic genius does not reside in her gender or in her losses, but in what she was able to make of what she lost. Ultimately, then, I attempt simply to look closely at Bishop's work--as she herself instructed her readers to do.

In 1946, "Jo Sinclair" (Ruth Seid), a young Cleveland writer from the ghettoes, won the $10,000 Harper Prize for her first novel Wasteland. Richard Wright immediately acclaimed it for providing the Jewish voice that he had been seeking in literature. Today it is acclaimed for being a landmark in literature because it portrayed a strong and well-adjusted lesbian. To reclaim human waste is Jo Sinclair's literary credo. She has published four novels, all of which are variations on the theme of spiritual deghettoization: Wasteland (1946), Sing at My Wake (1951), The Changelings (1955), and Anna Teller (1960). Sinclair has also published many short stories and produced a play, The Long Moment (1950), about passing. This critical biography, based upon the manuscripts available at Boston University Special Collections, traces the evolution of Jo Sinclair. The first chapter looks at the author's family life and early stories, especially from her years on the WPA and with the Red Cross. The second chapter presents Wasteland as a pioneer work because it explores the successful psychotherapy of a self-loathing Jew who has been prompted to seek treatment by his sister who learned with professional help to accept her lesbianism. The third chapter is a feminist analysis of Sing at My Wake, a novel about a single mother. The fourth chapter offers an overview of The Changelings, which took the longest to write and underwent the most changes of all of Jo Sinclair's works. The fifth chapter refutes the claim that Anna Teller is primarily an example of immigrant literature. The last major chapter discusses Jo Sinclair's unpublished works since 1960: a novel, a play, and an autobiography. All of her books are currently out of print. However, a new generation of readers will be able to enjoy Jo Sinclair with the 1985 reissue of The Changelings by the Feminist Press.

This dissertation is a study of the role Lou Andreas-Salome played in the life of Rainer Maria Rilke. It attempts to elucidate the significance of the relationship between these two prolific writers within a literary and personal framework, emphasizing their struggle to conceptualize God in their writings and in their own lives. The possible effect of Salome's writings on Rilke's works and the development of Rilke's creative process have been examined through their correspondence with each other from 1897-1926. In the first chapter, Lou Andreas-Salome's importance for Rainer Maria Rilke is studied. An excursus is presented to discuss a possible explanation of the complex relationship between Lou and Rilke. The second chapter deals with Lou Andreas-Salome and her writings. The third chapter presents Lou's influence on Rilke's poetic development from 1897 to 1905.