[No abstract available] / Science, Faculty of / Zoology, Department of / Graduate

Concerning literary theory, this thesis promotes the view that Milton acceeded to the idea that in literature there exists a hierarchy of forms (ranging in order of value from the epic to the tragedy, from the tragedy to the comedy, and from the comedy to the lyric). The principal consideration throughout the work is whether the epic or the tragedy is the highest of all literary forms. Milton's debt to Plato and Aristotle is discussed, and his disagreement or agreement with Aristotle's evaluation of tragedy as superior to the epic is debated. This argument gives rise to an even wider problem, that of the relative merits and influences of Platonism and Aristotelianism and how those two forces, sometimes complementary, sometimes opposed, influenced Milton and the sixteenth-century Italian critics whom Milton acknowledges as worthy critics for a poet to follow, A further chapter is devoted to a fundamental point in literary theory which arises out of the previous considerations the proper place of the concepts of the general and the particular in poetry and in art generally. Milton's own attitude to particularization and generalization is, of course, the object of the speculation. The argument of the thesis, following upon this lead, devotes itself for a chapter to the manner and result of Milton's attitude, as it is shown by the construction of Paradise host. The consideration of his construction thence leads to what is probably the key to the understanding of the epic as a wholes the unequalled accomplishment of the most complete time-scheme found anywhere in poetry. The core of the thesis is presented in the consideration of Book IX of Paradise Lost, which is recognized as the tragedy within the whole epic, self-contained, and offering therefore itself as the answer to those (like Aristotle) who object to the lack of concentration and the overly diffuse nature of epics in general, The final chapter of the thesis points in a new direction. This question is asked: What is the value of Paradise Lost? And several of the emotional tests of value are considered, because of its integration with the thesis as a whole, there has been added a consideration of Samson Agonistes, with special reference to Aristotle, in the form of an Appendix. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Renaissance England was a period of tremendous flux; ideas about science, gender and knowledge or how we come to knowledge come under examination. These areas of flux intersect with the text examined here in their relationship to the key concept of nature. In John Milton’s, Paradise Lost, nature appears in various forms over sixty times. By first examining the word nature in relation to the ideas in flux during the period and next examining Milton’s use of the word in the epic, an overlooked yet significant aspect of his epic emerges. Milton uses the mutability of nature to further “justify the ways of God to man.” How his use of nature develops an association between nature and Eve is of even greater significance. In a carnivalesque inversion of the convention of the period, Milton’s development of nature in the poem and his development of the association of Eve with nature reveal an association of Eve with human nature.

The object of this study will be to call attention to the gradually developing interest in the poem and the varying interpretations of it.

No description available.

This thesis analyzes the hit television series Lost and how the characters Kate Austen and James ‘Sawyer’ Ford negotiate their gender performance on and off the island. From a critical rhetorical standpoint, this study further examines the stereotypical depictions of masculinity that are perpetuated though the media and how these depictions are either negated or adhered to by the previously mentioned characters. Overall, the major themes of masculinity that were found were the correlation between muscularity and masculinity as well as the display of aggressive and violet behavior to exert dominance. Ultimately, I argue that the gender performances of both Kate and Sawyer only serve to reinforce the heteronormative societal ideal that we are more uncomfortable with women who deviate away from expected gender performances than we are with male deviation. / Literature review -- Theoretical orientation -- Kate Austen analysis -- James 'Sawyer' Ford analysis -- Discussion. / Department of Communication Studies

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.114-125).

In this essay, I argue that the angel Raphael introduces a poetic sensibility into Paradise in order to provide Adam and Eve with “equipment for living” after the Fall. Unlike other critics who have interpreted Raphael as a poet, I focus on the implications of Raphael’s poetic teaching for postlapsarian life. I also call attention to the dangerous effects of Raphael’s “song,” which awakens Adam’s insatiable curiosity about forbidden subjects even as Raphael cautions him to practice temperance and “be lowly wise.” Raphael aims to both “delight and instruct” his audience through poetic discourse, but Milton shows him struggling as Adam’s delight interferes with the angel’s efforts to instruct him. I discuss Raphael’s attempts to mitigate Adam’s enthrallment at his words through disclaimers that remind him to remain temperate in his pursuit of knowledge and to resist subjection to beauty and pleasure—including the charm of “song.” Through Raphael’s meditations on the challenges of poetic representation, Milton reflects on the double-sided nature of his own craft. My essay seeks to reconcile the beneficial purpose of Raphael’s visit with its troubling effects. By reading Raphael’s careful efforts to temper and reorient Adam’s curiosity alongside Milton’s statements on the value of literature in Areopagitica, I explore Milton’s sense of how pleasure, doubt, and even temptation—if rightly tempered—can aid fallen humans in the cultivation of faithful obedience. / text

If There’s Anything I Can Do is a collection of nine connected short stories. Each story takes place in the fictional River City, and explores the lives of characters that frequent Cellar Door, a divey, basement bar in the heart of downtown. Bartenders, musicians, regulars, neighbors, fathers, brothers, and lovers make up the crowd at Cellar Door, and each story shows the importance of place within a community.

There have been many studies of keywords in Paradise Lost. Over the last fifty or so years words such as �wander�, �lapse�, �error�, �fruit�, �balmy�, �fall�, �hands�, among others, have attracted critics� attention. The present enquiry brings under scrutiny three linked keywords which have up to now escaped notice. These are the words �bliss�, �delight�, and �pleasure�. The fundamental proposition of the thesis is that Milton does not use these words haphazardly or interchangeably in his epic poem (though in other of his poetic productions he is by no means as fastidious). On the contrary, he self-consciously distinguishes among the three terms, assigning to each its own particular �theatre of operations�. Meant by this is that each keyword is selectively referred to a separate structural division of the epic, thus, �bliss� has reference specifically to Heaven (or to the earthly paradise viewed as a simulacrum of Heaven), �delight� to the earthly paradise in Eden and to the prelapsarian condition nourished by it; while �pleasure�, whose signification is ambiguous, refers in its favourable sense (which is but little removed from �delight�) to the Garden and the sensations associated with it, and in its unfavourable one to postlapsarian sensations and to the fallen characters. Insofar as the three structural divisions taken into account (Hell is not) are hierarchically organized in the epic, so too are the three keywords that answer to them. Moreover, in relating keywords to considerations of structure, the thesis breaks new ground in Paradise Lost studies.