The importance of the Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian Homily Books as the earliest monuments of continuous prose in Old West Norse has long been recognized, but to date the style of the homilies has only been given cursory treatment in short articles or general literary histories and has not been the subject of a special study. In my dissertation I have examined various aspects of Old West Norse homiletic prose style in an effort to show how the early homilists were able to take advantage of a Latin literary tradition to enhance the resources of their own language. The first chapter is a general discussion of rhetorical and "narrative" techniques in the Homily Books. Here those traits normally associated with Icelandic prose written in the so-called "popular style" are compared with stylistic features developed in imitation of Latin models. The second and third chapters of the thesis deal with native proverbs and learned sententiae in the homilies, with special reference to the use of the phrases at fagrt meala ok flatt hyggia and at bera dust I vindi. Chapter four is devoted to a discussion of metaphorical compounds. Commonplace metaphors and similitudes used in the homilies are set against their Latin background and compared with analogous figures in later Old West Norse religious literature. The next two sections are semantic studies -- chapter five, of the special use of sjooa in the sense "to ponder" in an Easter sermon in the Old Norwegian Homily Book, and chapter six, of the cryptic phrase vl ma mm sal a bita gras meó aórum salom found in a sermon on Judgement Day included in the same collection. The final chapter is an investigation of source-material for the sermon Postola mal in the Old Icelandic Homily Book. This piece illustrates the eclectic method of sermon-construction characteristic of most of the "original" compositions in the Homily Books.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1896 / "Published by authority of law and with the approval of the regents of the University." Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-74). Also issued in print and microfiche.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Boston University

215 pages / On the border between Beadle & Adam’s dime novel and Edwin Porter’s ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery, this dissertation returns to a period in American theater history when the legendary cowboy came to life. On the stage of late nineteenth century frontier melodrama, three actors blazed a trail for the cowboy to pass from man to myth. Frank Mayo’s Davy Crockett, William Cody’s Buffalo Bill, and James Wallick’s Jesse James represent a theatrical bloodline in the genealogy of frontier heroes. As such, the backwoodsman, the scout, and the outlaw are forbearers of the cowboy in American popular entertainment. Caught in a territory between print and film, this study explores a landscape of blood-and-thunder melodrama, where the unwritten Code of the West was embodied on stage. At a cultural crossroads, the need for an authentic, American hero spurred the cowboy to legend; theater taught him how to walk, talk, and act like a man. / Committee in charge: Dr. John Schmor, Co-chair; Dr. Jennifer Schleuter, Co-chair; Dr. John Watson, Member; Dr. Linda Fuller, Outside Member

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Lightning Flowers traces the psychological collapse of Waylan Dranger, an East Texas construction worker / folk artist. Waylan suffers from hallucinatory encounters with Reeve, his missing brother. Reeve often blames Waylan for his disappearance and implied death. Waylan also worries that Sam, his live-in girlfriend, will leave him before he can resolve his own increasingly erratic behavior. Largely, Lightning Flowers is preoccupied with the consequences of nostalgic thinking. Among others, the novel grapples with the following questions: What defines contemporary notions of "brotherhood"? To what extent does one's survival necessitate self-delusion? How do social stigmas inform our experience of mental illness?

abstract: The history of the American Old West has frequently been romanticized and idealized. This dissertation study explored four Arizona towns that developed during the era of the American Old West: Tombstone, Jerome, Oatman, and Globe. The study broadly examined issues of remembering/forgetting and historical authenticity/myth. It specifically analyzed historic tourist destinations as visual phenomenon: seeking to understand how town histories were visually communicated to contemporary tourists and what role historically-grounded visual narratives played in the overall tourist experience. The study utilized a visual methodology to organize and structure qualitative data collection and analysis; it incorporated visual data from historic and contemporary photographs and textual data from observations and interviews. Through a careful exploration of each town's past and present, the research proposed a measure to assess how the strength of visual connections between past and present impacted tourist impressions of each town. The analysis suggested that, due to a general lack of historic knowledge, tourist impressions were more closely connected to contemporary experiences and prior expectations of the American Old West than to historically-grounded visual narratives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2014

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