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This sequential reading of Four Quartets attends closely to form, rhythm, image, idea, syntax, tone, and mood, examining the relations of one to another and of one part of the cycle to another. It draws on earlier studies which are mainly thematic, but it concentrates primarily on analysis of the poetry itself. Such a commentary does not set out to prove a single hypothesis, and therefore does not lend itself to simple summary. But it emphasises, inter alia, these features. 1. The Quartets are rightly read as a unified cycle. The first three, though relatively complete in themselves, are built upon and retrospectively modified by their successors in a complex pattern; and the recurring and developing themes are not fully resolved until the end of little Gidding. On the other hand, the five individual parts that go to make up each Quartet are not self-contained, and cannot properly be read in isolation. (Such readings fail especially to make sense of the Part IV lyrics. ) 2. The poetry is meditative lyric, or lyric meditation, rather than personal confession or philosophic statement. The poet's voice often speaks generically. The whole cycle - like each Quartet itself - begins with individual perception or experience and, through meditation upon it, broadens into universal statement at the end. The point of departure is generally some time - transcending experience; the concluding meditation generally relates the perceptions of the timeless to perceptions about the nature of art and the nature of love, both human and divine. 3. Despite occasional lapses, usually in Part II or Part III, assertions of large scale failure (in The Dry Salvages especially) are not justified by close scrutiny of the poetic texture. Analysis of structural, tonal, metrical and syntactic features vindicates even the alleged prosaically flat passages. 4. The poetry works largely with traditional imagery, plain diction, orthodox syntax and pervasive four-stress rhythm. There are several departures from all these, yet a rjght reading will see them as deliberate variations, for specific purposes, on the given norms. The general aim of the thesis is to demonstrate that the poems are less difficult in thought and peculiar in method than has often been supposed. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1989.

In the history of intercultural relationships, no country has exercised so great an influence on the English geographical imagination as Russia. From its humble beginnings as the kingdom of Muscovy, to the sprawling expanse of the U.S.S.R., Winston Chruchill’s famous “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” both captivated and repulsed English audiences. Cartographically split between Europe and Asia, the ambiguous nature of Russian culture not only undermined absolute “Orientalist” binaries separating East from West, but also contributed, through the epoch-making fin de siècle influx of Slavic aesthetic forms, to the birth of English modernism. The idea of “Russianess,” for pre-war audiences, proved crucial to unsettling received notions of art, ideology, and identity. This destabilizing effect is especially evident in the work of Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and D.H. Lawrence. Despite having largely been dismissed as “reactionary” and “xenophobic” in their political stances, the complex and variegated way in which each author engages with Russia, as this study demonstrates, suggests an underlying ambivalence in their writing. Rather than reflecting a geographic reality, Slavic society, in their hands, appears as a collective fantasy, an external manifestation of their own internal doubts, anxieties, and pre-occupations concerning “Englishness,” which serves to elucidate the conflicted and uncertain politics of twentieth-century avant-garde art.

While T.S. Eliot's mastery of the literary epigraph has often been noted, few detailed studies of his use of this technique have been attempted. The epigraph is found to be deeply rooted in the poet's fundamental aesthetic and philosophical belief, as revealed by his own critical writings. Similarly, Eliot's use of this poetic device is found to be consistent with the themes and motifs of his pre-Christian poems.Moreover, a close comparative reading of selected poems from the poet's pre-Christian period and the original works from which the epigraphs to these poems are taken demonstrates the internal thematic consistency of this body of work. Reading the poems in this manner reveals the poet's gradual movement from a despairing vision of the human condition toward a vision infused with the hopefulness of the Christian mystery. Such a reading, the study suggests, helps explain Eliot's conversion to Christianity and reconciles apparent conflicts in the poet's life and work.

E.E. Cummings' modernist poetry roots itself in nature. That it has not received overt ecosemiotic ("ecocritical") attention is surprising. This thesis reads Cummings' poetic oeuvre as found in his Complete Poems (1994) with a view to its ecological (whole, naturally interpenetrating) scope and dynamics. It builds upon existing criticism of Cummings' natural view and nature poetry (Norman Friedman). Although it mainly adheres to a close reading of the poems themselves, it also makes use of secondary sources such as Cummings' prose, notes, painting, and letters, in support of the ecological argument. It also draws from a broad basis of sources including various strands of ecological discourse: especially "ecocriticism" (William Howarth) as well as cultural ecology, deep ecology, and -- on an interdisciplinary basis -- ecology proper (Michael Begon). The thesis incorporates texts on modernist orientalism (Eric Hayot) since it argues that Cummings' ecology and his unique version of Taoism radically inform one another. Because relatively few sources exist that relate modernist poetry to nature (Robert Langbaum) the thesis consults a variety of modernist criticisms (Jewel Spears Brooker) with a view to the relations between the modernist sign and its outside natural context. Drawing upon sources further a field (Umberto Eco) the thesis offers a theoretical overview of the complication of natural context in the modem mindset as found in mainstream modernist discourse, structuralism (A.J. Greimas), and post-structuralism (Jacques Derrida). Amounting to a "semiotic fallacy", such a broad semiotic complication of sign-nature relations accentuates the importance of Cummings' poetry which remains at once modern and deeply connected to nature. Against this broad background, and in exploration of a zone of between-ness -- between opposites such as culture versus nature and East versus West -- Cummings' poetry is read hermeneutically to infer its various ecological dynamics. The main questions that the thesis examines are: What is the scope of Cummings' poetic ecology? What are its dynamics? How did critics respond to it? What reciprocal light does it shed on the poetic ecologies of the mainstream modernist poets T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound? The thesis demonstrates that the extent of Cummings' poetic ecology is considerable: it involves his various poetic categories (such as lyricism, satire, and visual-verbal poems) from early to late in his career, as well as a gradual Taoist crisis in his development (more or less from the 1930s to the 1950s). A sequence of ecological dynamics from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching are applied to Cummings' poetry, including humility (smallness and earthiness), flexibility (an osmotic semiosis), serendipity (or synchronicity), a singular ideogrammatic style (Nina Hellerstein), iconicity (Michael Webster), an open-ended cross-stitching of oppositional expectations, and "flow" or signs that open out contextualizing possibilities faster than the reader can close them down. As the thesis further shows, these dynamics ultimately centre on Cummings' third dimension or voice beyond static and entrenched opposites of the relational and oppositional mind. The exploration concludes with a concise examination of additional instances of the third voice such as a yin tendency (restoration of femaleness), followed by an ecosemiotic analysis of two key ecological poems, the leaf poem (“l(a”) and the hummingbird poem (“I/ never"). The latter acts as an osmotic mandala that carries the modernist sign into active and complete earth, with the reader acting as the creative and collaborating intermediary. The focus then shifts to the critical reception of this poetic ecology, and finds that influential critics (R.P. Blackmur) tended to misappropriate it as a form of non-intellectuality. For example, Cummings' ecological flexibility was perceived as childish sentimentality. The boundaries of Cummings' poetry were perceived not to be "hardened" or "objective" enough. These receptions were based on a particular mainstream modernist view of the intellect, informed by Eliot's objectified and ambivalent early stance. Due to this, critics tended to overlook or dismiss that central value of Cummings' poetry -- its ecology -- in favour of a more predominant and dualistic alienation from and even cynicism towards natural integrity. These in-depth revisitations reveal that Cummings' major minor status embodies an ecological achievement: his poetry managed to move between and beyond the overall dualistic mainstream modernist ecological dilemma that is marked by the major versus minor categorization. Based on this thorough exploration of the elusive ecological dynamism of Cummings' poetry and its critical reception, the thesis turns its focus to Eliot's and Pound's poetry. The early, major works such as The Waste Land (1922) are read from the perspective of Cummings' poetic ecology, informed by the knowledge that a deep-seated double-ness towards ecology would be expected in these major works. An analysis of the mainstream modernist objectification of the sign with its concomitant and sealed-off alienation from its outside context and nature follows - the focus is on selected texts such as "Prufrock", "Tradition and the Individual Talent", and the Cantos. Eliot's and Pound's respective searches for and achievements of a third voice are subsequently examined, as found (for example) in the DA sequence of The Waste Land, 'The Idea of a Christian Society", the Four Quartets, Cathay, and the "Pisan Cantos". Centring on this prevalent and underemphasized third voice, the thesis posits an ecological reconfiguration of Cummings', Eliot's, and Pound's respective modernist projects. It demonstrates that Cummings' poetic ecology is central to the other two poets in terms of this voice. In provisional conclusion the thesis calls for a critical shift towards a more intense engagement with "smaller" modernist poetries such as Cummings', with a view to an increasing understanding of the ubiquitous, complex, and sometimes complicating "green" layer of the modernist poetic palimpsest. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003.

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Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 161-174) Also available in print.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 161-174) Also available online.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-126).

Zugl.: Leeds, University, Diss.