My thesis is that many of Tennyson's apparently paranormal experiences are explicable in terms of temporal lobe epilepsy; and that a study of the occurrence, in the work of art, of phenomena associated with these experiences, may be useful in elucidating the workings of the aesthetic imagination. A body of knowledge relevant to paranormal experience in Tennyson's life and work, assembled from both literary and biographical sources, is applied to a Subjective Paranormal Experience Questionnaire, compiled by Professor V.M. Neppe, in order to establish the range of the poet's apparently "psychic" experiences. The information is then analysed in terms of the symptomatology of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and the problems of differential diagnosis are considered. It is shown, by means of close and comparative analyses of a number of poems, that recurring clusters of images in Tennyson's poetry may have their genesis in TLE. These images are investigated in terms of modern research into altered states of consciousness. They are found to be consistent with a "model" of the three stages of trance experience constructed by Professor A.D. Lewis-Williams to account for shamanistic rock art in the San, Coso and Upper Paleolithic contexts. My study of the relevant phenomena in the work of a nineteenth century English poet would seem to offer cross-cultural verification of the applicability of the model to a range of altered-state contexts. This study goes on to investigate some of the psychological processes which may influence the way in which pathology is manifested in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson. But, throughout the investigation, the possible effects of literary precursors and of other art forms are acknowledged. The subjective paranormal phenomena in Tennyson's poems are compared not only with some modern neuropsychiatric cases, but also with those of several nineteenth-century writers who seem to have had similar experiences . These include Dostoevsky and Edward Lear, who are known to have been epileptics, and Edgar Allan Poe. Similarity between some aspects of Tennyson's work and that of various Romantic poets, notably Shelley, is stressed; and it is tentatively suggested that it might be possible to extrapolate from my findings in this study to a more general theory of the "Romantic" imagination.

From introduction: In the sixth book of The Faerie Qveene, the reader is presented with a vision of the Graces and their attendants dancing on Mount Acidale to the piping of a simple shepherd. Spenser identifies this favoured musician as Colin Clout and then goes on to pose a seemingly inconsequential rhetorical question. "Who knowes not Colin Cloute?” he asks. The note of confident pride which can be discerned in the query clearly reveals Spenser's peculiar interest in one of his most intriguing creations. It is almost impossible to read a representative selection of Spenser's poetical works without noticing the hauntingly frequent appearances of his "Southerne shepheardes boye". Colin appears or is named in no fewer than six of Spenser's poems.

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English Studies / M.A. (English)

This study consists of two volumes. Volume II contains the analysis of fifty-one songs by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) to poems by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). The analysis is based on a preconceived model which focuses on a critical examination of the texts and considers the basic elements of music in each song. Certain stylistic features are apparent from this study and are reflected in Volume I. After a biographical sketch of each artist and a discussion of the texts, a sample of the analysis is presented. The basic elements of music are then discussed: timbre, duration, pitch organization, dynamics, texture, structure, mood and atmosphere. Volume I concludes with a general statement on the stylistic features of the composer and considers the artists' genius in the light of the study. Finzi's setting of such a comparatively large number of Hardy poems is a result of the former's intense interest in English literature and sympathy with much of Hardy's personal philosophies such as the uselessness of suffering which fills an indifferent world. Finzi's settings are firmly embedded in tonal traditions but he explores a great variety of subtle atmospheres within the confines of tonality. The declamation of the texts is of superior quality and the composer achieves an individual language of expression unparalleled in the song-writing of the first half of the twentieth century in England / Hierdie studie beslaan twee volumes. Volume II behels die analise van een-en-vyftig liedere van Gerald Finzi ( 1901-1956) na tekste van Thomas Hardy ( 1840-1928). Die analises is gebaseer op 'n vooraf ontwrepte model op grond waarvan die tekste krities geevalueer, en die basiese musikale elemente bestudeer is. Sekere stilistiese tendense wat uit hierdie studie blyk, word in Volume I weergegee. Na 'n kort biografiese skets van beide kunstenaars en 'n bespreking van die tekste, word 'n uittreksel van die analise aangebied. Hiema volg 'n ondersoek na die basiese elemente van musiek: toonkleur, toonduur, toonhoogte, toonstrekte, tekstuur, struktuur en die skep van atmosfeer. Volume I sluit af met 'n samevatting van die stylkenmerke en 'n slotbeskouing van beide kunstenaars se geniale bydrae. Finzi se toonsetting van 'n relatief groot aantal gedigte van Hardy spruit uit sy intense belangstelling in die Engelse letterkunde en sy vereenselwiging met die persoonlike filosofee van Hardy - veral die gedagte van onnodige lyding in 'n apatiese wereld. Finzi toonset hoofsaaklik in 'n tonale styl, maar ondersoek 'n groot verskeidenheid delikate atmosfeerskeppinge binne die tonale raamwerk. Sy deklamering van tekste is van hoogstaande gehalte en die komponis bring 'n pesoonlike uitdrukkingsvorm, ongeewenaar in die liederkuns van die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu in Engeland, tot stand / D.Mus. (Musicology)

This thesis investigates the representation of the human life course in Old English poetry. It attends to constructions of the lifespan as a durational unit, as well as the ‘stages’ or discrete age-related experiences which together form patterns for life development, shared across a diverse range of texts. Throughout this study, the importance of close-reading is emphasised; the bulk of the analysis is concerned with issues of style, lexis and narrative. By these means, it becomes possible to perceive how concepts of the human life course shade into other networks of meaning: these include ideas of ensoulment and embodiment, life experiences of non-human entities, wider narrative patterns which impact representations of life progression, mechanisms and hierarchies of social role and communal existence, and systems of memory collection and the nurturing of ‘wisdom’. The introductory chapter addresses various possible modes of ‘life course’ structuring, in both Anglo-Saxon writings and modern scholarly traditions. Latin and Old English vocabularies of ageing are summarised and an overview is given of previous scholarship attendant on the Anglo-Saxon material. The following three chapters of the thesis then assess representations of different parts of the life course in different groups of texts. The second chapter is concerned with depictions of early life in the Exeter Book Riddles; it contends that these texts have been unduly passed over in discussions of ageing in Old English, seemingly due to their (mostly) non-human subjects. The third chapter addresses the treatment of early and late adulthood in the verse holy lives Andreas, Guthlac A, Juliana and Judith: it is in this chapter that concepts of the life course most clearly intersect with issues of social organisation. The fourth chapter is concerned with the characterisation of old age in Beowulf and Cynewulf’s epilogue to Elene, alongside other texts; the concept of ‘wisdom’ acquired through experience is closely scrutinised, and the verbal and poetic elements of good judgment are elucidated. This thesis concludes that Old English poetry presents human ageing in a manner which encompasses a diverse range of experiences and interrelates with a multitude of wider conceptual frameworks. As such, the texts do not subscribe neatly to an ‘ages of man’ idea. Nonetheless, attention paid to the patterns of human ageing which do emerge from the poems can facilitate more sensitive and productive readings of the texts themselves. The thesis closes with some examples of passages which may be newly interpreted and appreciated in the light of how the life course is conceived across the Old English poetic corpus.

Background: Grammars of Old English held at least until the 1960s that word orderin Anglo-Saxon texts was essentially “free”, that is, determined entirely or primarily by stylistic choice rather than syntactic rules.  Although prose word order has been shown to be regular in several models, the same cannot be said of poetry.  This study uses Nils-Lennart Johannesson’s Old English syntax model, operating within the Government and Binding framework, to establish whether the phrase structure of The Wanderer can fit into this model as it stands, and if not, whether a reasonably small number of additional parameters can be established in order to establish whether “free” word order is in evidence, or whether the word order of Old English poetry is regular in the same way as prose. Results: A full clause analysis showed that the majority of the clauses fit Johannesson’s model.  For those which did not, two modifications are recommended: non-compulsory movement of main verbs in main clauses from I to C; and the splitting and rightwards extraposition of the second part of coordinated NPs in which the first coordinated element is “light” and the second “heavy”.  This leaves a small number of clauses featuring constructions which do not occur frequently enough in the text to allow rules to be induced to explain them.  These must therefore be deemed irregular.  Conclusions:  While much of The Wanderer has been shown to be syntactically regular, some constructions could not be fitted into the existing model without the introduction of special parameters to excuse them.  This paper is intended as a pilot study for a larger project which will incorporate the other poems in the heroic tradition with the hope of inducing a complete syntax for them.  One part of that investigation will be to include these infrequent constructions in The Wanderer, to find comparable constructions in other poems and categorise them within the corpus.

British fiction and poetry explodes with textual visuality in the early twentieth century: color, shape, and form, as manifested in description, impression, and image. This dissertation computationally models that visuality, using the eye as a governing metaphor: retinal cones are modeled by inferring textual color, and retinal rods are modeled through object-detection via word sense disambiguation and categorization. Findings include a 93% increase in color expressions across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a 15% increase in the proportions of object and artifacts, and revealing correlations along lines of literary genre, subject heading, and more. These correlate with historical materialities such a dye manufacture, trends in the visual arts such as post-impressionism, and movements in literature such as imagism. A model of literary description, meanwhile, finds that, while visuality increases over time, proportions of description decrease, suggesting structural decompositions in fiction, occurring in parallel with disseminations of vision. NOTE: To view an interactive archived copy of this dissertation, please see the Columbia University Libraries Archive-It version here: https://wayback.archive-it.org/1914/20230920182940/https://dissertation.jonreeve.com/

Poetry often exists as a neglected form within high school English Language Arts classrooms. Whether taught with trepidation or avoided with anxiety, few teachers feel adequately equipped to teach the reading and writing of poetry. This may feel obvious in an era fixed on quantification of one variety or another. How could poetry—that, allegedly, most luxurious of linguistic forms—flourish in the STEM-nutrient-rich soil of contemporary educational priorities? By first charting the historical precedent for today’s poetry pedagogy, then considering why teachers bother to incorporate the form, and, finally, framing the classroom as a site for communal practice and formation, this dissertation works to build a robust sense of poetry’s educational possibilities for student and teacher alike. Relying on qualitative interview conversations with three public high school English Language Arts teachers who lead poetry-rich classrooms, I draw from the fields of English education, practice theory, educational philosophy, and ritual studies to offer a rehabilitated, prismatic conception of the teaching of poetry. Further, this dissertation argues for a definition of poetry teaching as a particular practice that embodies a character of community, quality of inhabitance, and concern with meaning in ways essential for our contemporary educational moment.

An examination of the stanzas of The Faerie Queene reveals a structural complexity that prosodists have not previously discovered. In the prosody of Spenser's epic, two formal prosodic orders function simultaneously. One is the visible structure that has long been acknowledged and studied, eight decasyllabic lines and an alexandrine bound into a coherent entity by a set meter and rhyme scheme. The second is an order made apparent by an oral reading and which involves speech stresses, syntactical groupings, caesura placements, and enjambments. In an audible reading, elements are revealed that oppose the structural integrity of the visible form. The lines cease to be iambic, because most lines contain some irregularities that are incongruent with the meter. The visible structure is further counterpointed by Spenser's free use of caesura and frequent employment of enjambment to create a constantly varying structure of different line lengths in the audible form. This study also examines precedents that Spenser could have known for the union of music and poetry. English lyric poetry written for existing melodies is analyzedand the French experiments with quantitative verse supported with musical settings are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the musical associations of the Orlando furioso, particularly its relation to the tradition of singing narrative poetry to folk melodies. Internal support for the thesis that Spenser deliberately employed musical techniques in his prosody comes from his use of the Tudor masque in the structure of the epic. Evidence is offered to show that the processional masque is the unifying foundation for the whole of The Faerie Queene, A characteristic of the sixteenth-century masque was its combination of art forms, and Spenser found a method for integrating the arts of music and literature. Spenser uses musical techniques in the prosody that he could have expected would echo musical experiences of his reader, thereby creating the accompanying music. The musical techniques not only unify the individual stanzas; they also integrate the prosody with the larger organizing plan of the epic,