Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald. / Vita.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Greifswald. / Vita.

Texte remanié de: Thesis Ph. D.--Stockholms Universitet, 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 158-164.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 164 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-156).

Thesis--Heidelberg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-203) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 55-56)

This thesis is a study of the growth and development of an important contemporary Canadian poet, Dorothy Livesay. I attempt to show that common to her personal, lyrical poems and her social documentaries is a democratic and humanist sensibility. Her purpose as a writer is to communicate with Canadians her responses to contemporary life as she experiences and feels it. Her perspective is that of a sensitive and critical mind, conscious of injustice and the difficult striving of people for happiness and fulfillment in what she feels to be a restricting, often violent society. She has always been a rebel; and it is her rebellious, unquiet spirit which drives her to express both her communal concerns as a political poet, and her innermost personal feelings as a woman. Chapter one shows her early concern with the problem women have in finding fulfillment in a male-dominated world. Her intimate knowledge of and fondness for women Imagist poets finds reflection in Green Pitcher and Signpost. Also evident is her realistic response to her environment, and the influence of Raymond Knister. During this apprenticeship period in her life she mastered the Imagist technique, and indicated competence at treating larger social questions. Chapter two explores the impact the 1930s and upsurge of revolutionary ideas had on her writing. She accepted Marxism as the only perspective which could rationally explain the social evils caused by the depression. Her life as a social worker led her to see the worst aspects of industrial society. She channelled her political activism into revolutionary poetry after she became aware of the lyrical writings of Auden, Spender, Day-Lewis and others. In this chapter I also show her commitment to peace and the Loyalist cause in Spain. Much of her finest lyrical and social poetry in this period is her response to the ugliness of war against which she has campaigned all her life. Chapter three extends my analysis of her social poetry into the area of national themes. I investigate the important question of national identity in Canada. I also indicate that Dorothy Livesay is a patriot but not a jingoist. As such she has made an important contribution in making her compatriots aware of the real essence of their nation which is the people who live and work within an expansive landscape. Chapter four describes the difficult decade of the 1950s. Dorothy Livesay responded to the atomic age and problems of raising a family by a sharp reduction in the quantity and quality of her poetry. I then show how her return from Africa to Vancouver in 1963 led her to re-explore the lyrical point of view of a woman in love. Chapter five concludes the thesis with an examination of her latest social poems, re-emphasizing the continuity of her democratic, humanist perspective, I show how her interest in new techniques and her raporte with young writers enables her to continue exploring themes of love, war, art and politics in modes that communicate clearly and effectively her progressive, critical attitudes to contemporary life in Canada. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The relationship between victims and manipulators is a basic theme in the works of Dorothy Parker. Rejected by her stepmother as a child, she grew up incapable of accepting love or affection, and spent her life alienating others on the off-chance that they too might hurt her if she allowed herself to care about them. This defensive attitude led her to view the world through a two-dimensional lens: one either "did" or was "done to"; one was either a victim or a manipulator. Parker's short stories fall into two general categories. Some deal specifically with lovers, and the rest examine more general, nonsexual relationships. The second group appeared to offer more depth and variety, and so all her prose was examined with this aspect in mind. Because her poetry is concerned almost entirely with love, it seemed too limited to be explored in detail in a broad thematic study, such as this had become. The fact that the plays were all co-authored excluded them as well, although Ladies of the Corridor does deal with the victim-manipulator theme at some length. The reading was based upon a checklist which I believe to be a complete listing of Dorothy Parker's non-critical prose. It was compiled from March 1974 until September 1975, and is based primarily upon the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, although many other guides and indices were consulted as well. Cross-references and chance allusions were also important sources of information, even though many of the leads suggested by John Keats' book proved to be false. Once the stories were read, classified, and selected, they were grouped into four categories--manipulator-oriented relationships, victimless manipulator characterizations, victim-oriented relationships, and portraits of manipulator-less (per se) victims--and discussed. This structure has certain inherent flaws, but it does point up the various balances struck between comic technique and serious intent, an important concept in these stories. It also gave a certain framework to the examination, helping to keep it from either becoming a narrow "grocery list" of descriptive criticism, or a sprawling monster galloping off in all directions at once (a very real problem in an examination of such an unscholarly, unstudied writer). The main conclusion to be drawn from such a study seems to be that Dorothy Parker merits more serious literary attention. Her reputation as a wit has preceded her--not always positively, as she herself realised--and has perhaps prejudiced us against her genuine artistic worth. "Dorothy Parker: wasn't she the one who said . . .?" Whether she was or not should be immaterial. She wished most to be remembered for her short stories; the least we can do is read them. If a study of this nature can make them more interesting or more accessible, it has served its purpose. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1939. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-157).