<p>Wordsworth is a mythopoeic or mythmaking poet. While the fell-sides, sheep-folds, and mountain roads of Cumberland-Westmorland provide an external reality in which his dramas can unfold, and while the shepherds, fell-folk, and travellers offer him the dramatis personae to people this natural stage, the drama is also, and perhaps even more so, an inner psychological ritual played upon the stage of Wordsworth's psyche, and the actors are just as much gods and goddesses and titans, representing the psychic forces which come into play in the various stages of his spiritual progress, as they are people.</p> <p>If one is to see this drama clearly, then, one must adjust one's eyesight as well to the dark inner landscape of the psyche in order to realize the full scope and quality of Wordsworth's pastoral. As he plainly warns us in the Preface to the 1814 Excursion, we must look</p> <p>Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-My haunt, and the main region of my song.</p> <p>Those people who, by their own unwitting habit, see only the outer landscape--the outer light of consciousness is so bright that they fail to see the shadows--will have only a one-dimensional view of his poetry, for, like all Titans, Wordsworth is a creature of the caves and mountain bases, and a good portion of him is inside and underground.</p> <p>In the earlier and more real part of his poetic career--the period of Lyrical Ballads, the fell-side tragedies, the 1805 Prelude--Wordsworth knows the true source of his energy, speaks and acts like a true son of Mother Earth, like a Prometheus unbound, and defends her interests as he knows how to do. The poetry is rich, insightful, and positive. There is noticeable, however, even as early as the 1805 Prelude, a conflict of allegiance developing in his work in which he reveals a being at odds with himself because his ego--with its illusions about human perfection and its unrealistic evaluation of himself as an epic poet with mastery over an external and public order of truth--is totally ignorant of another Wordsworth which is sleeping and unconscious--a source from which he needs to find out that life and people are imperfect and from which he could understand that his talents or propensities were better suited to pastoral--an internal and private order of experience.</p> <p>Such a conflict, if not healed by a fruitful communication between the two parts of his personality, can result in unhealthy polarization and even in disaster for his entire being. Wordsworth may have avoided disaster for a time by taking some cognizance of the pressures of his mortal or animal self and by adjusting his viewpoint to some extent to allow for its needs. But, obviously, he has not understood the warning of his unconscious (Dream of the Arab in Book V, and the Simplon Pass passage of Book VI, of The Prelude) soon enough or fully enough, for, instead of compensating for his excess idealism, he turns upon the oracle of his truth as though she were his enemy, and sets up exaggerated ego defences against her, secretly dreading her power. He gains a certain amount of outer security at the price of inner security and the death of his imagination.</p> <p>The Excursion (1814) illustrates the retrogressed and negative view of life he has come to hold as a result of his distrust and fear of the imaginative life, and also reveals him as almost totally unfit for any kind of epic endeavor or poetry aiming at a social and external order of truth.</p> <p>Since Wordsworth, as a poet, presumes to steal fire from heaven while he is grounded in the fire of the inferno-. tries to be an epic poet when he is really a pastoral one-he is caught at the deadly point of opposition between the warring principles of life, is fused and turned into stone, a Prometheus bound for his presumption, no longer having an inner life of his own or fighting for the truth of suffering humanity, but sounding hollowly as the oracle or propagandist of the otherworldly wisdom of the sky gods or aristocrats. For the balance of his long life, he is nothing but a fallen one, a titan groaning under the weight of the world, a "voice of ruin" unable to do anything but echo the barren clich6s of reactionary authority.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

An examination of the influence of medieval numerology and number theory upon the works of the Gawain poet, this essay seeks to connect the importance of numbers to the construction of the four poems. By examining such number theories as the Divine Proportion and marriage numbers, as well as Pythagorean number concepts of masculine and feminine numbers, a clear connection between the literature and the number can be found. The poet not only seeks to use numbers to impart important Christian doctrine to his readers in a subconscious way, he also demonstrates an extreme pre-planning of every line and layout of each poem upon the page. Continuing in current critical traditions of examining this manuscript as whole, "Pearl, " "Patience, " "Cleanness, " and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" are shown to join together in an interweaving of connectivity through number pattern and the repetition of important numerological concepts.

No description available.

<p>In his own time, the nirguna poet-saint Kabir was a controversial figure. He spoke ill of Islam and Hinduism alike, yet, in the end, both groups claimed him as their own. In this essay, various images of Kabir are discussed. Kabir as he appears in legends; Kabir as he appears in his poems; Kabir as a historical figure. But more importantly, Kabir as he is perceived as today. The image of Kabir, as it were. The question of ‘who Kabir was’ is posed to members of two groups in the city of Banaras, India — one group Muslim (Julaha), the other Hindu (Yadav).</p> / <p>Under sin egen tid var nirguna helgonpoeten Kabir, en kontroversiell figur. Han pratade illa som såväl Islam som Hinduism --- men till slut kom ändå båda grupperna att anamma honom som sin egen. I den här uppsatsen diskuteras olika bilder av Kabir. Kabir som han beskrivs i legender; Kabir som han träder fram i sina dikter; Kabir som en historisk figur. Men kanske viktigast av allt, bilden av Kabir idag. Frågan om "vem Kabir var" ställs till personer ur två grupper i staden Banaras, Indien --- en grupp Muslimer (Julaha), den andra gruppen Hinduer (Yadav).</p>

In his own time, the nirguna poet-saint Kabir was a controversial figure. He spoke ill of Islam and Hinduism alike, yet, in the end, both groups claimed him as their own. In this essay, various images of Kabir are discussed. Kabir as he appears in legends; Kabir as he appears in his poems; Kabir as a historical figure. But more importantly, Kabir as he is perceived as today. The image of Kabir, as it were. The question of ‘who Kabir was’ is posed to members of two groups in the city of Banaras, India — one group Muslim (Julaha), the other Hindu (Yadav). / Under sin egen tid var nirguna helgonpoeten Kabir, en kontroversiell figur. Han pratade illa som såväl Islam som Hinduism --- men till slut kom ändå båda grupperna att anamma honom som sin egen. I den här uppsatsen diskuteras olika bilder av Kabir. Kabir som han beskrivs i legender; Kabir som han träder fram i sina dikter; Kabir som en historisk figur. Men kanske viktigast av allt, bilden av Kabir idag. Frågan om "vem Kabir var" ställs till personer ur två grupper i staden Banaras, Indien --- en grupp Muslimer (Julaha), den andra gruppen Hinduer (Yadav).

Master of Arts / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders, Jr. / Today, Walt Whitman is considered a famous nineteenth-century American poet. At the outbreak of the American Civil War however, he was underrated and underappreciated by American readers. Three editions of his book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, were not received well by American readers and his future in writing looked bleak. This was despite the fact that Whitman’s literary friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote an encouraging review of the first edition, which Whitman included in the second and third iterations. Ironically, Whitman’s career made a turn for the better when his brother, George Washington Whitman, was reported to be among the wounded or killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. A dedicated family man, Whitman immediately boarded a train in New York and headed for Falmouth, Virginia, to check on his brother’s wellbeing. Whitman visited several makeshift hospitals before coming across Chatham Mansion, the temporary Union Hospital Headquarters. He saw at the base of a tree a pile of human limbs that had been tossed out of a first floor window following amputations. The scene was horrific and he paused to record what he saw in his diary. This experience forever changed Whitman the man and Whitman the poet and the transformation was evident in his subsequent writing, as Whitman first took on the persona of what I have designated as the Wound Dresser and years after the war the Good Gray Poet. This evolution changed the public perception of Whitman, and it occurred in phases. The initial phase was before the war, his work was considered obscene among American society due to his previous publications. The second transformation in Whitman was initiated by fear of personal loss when his brother was listed among the wounded and dead at Fredericksburg and the sight of the amputated limbs at Chatham Mansion. Had Whitman been exposed to the war slowly over time, the effect might not have been so profound, but Chatham was an earth shattering event in his life, as he admitted. The third phase was the result of daily exposure for years to the wounded and dying in the hospitals. He developed a personal connection with the men and was determined to stay with them, despite direct orders from hospital doctors that he should return home for his own physical and emotional recovery. His experience in the hospitals had transformed from a middle aged healthy man to a frail and brittle shell, evident in photographs of him during these years. The final phase was marked by the transformation in his writing. It was in this phase that Whitman created the most memorable and remarkable Civil War poetry that is still celebrated today. It was this poetry that caused American’s to revere him as the “Good Gray Poet.”

本論文以南宋遺民詩為研究主體，全文分為緒論、木論、綜論三篇，共十章，約十二 萬言，各章大要如下： 上篇緒論 第一章：前言。首釋遺民一詞之名義。次敘遺民詩人之界定，蓋南宋之亡也，遺民特 多，然何者當入遺民詩之人之列，可者當擯而不取，又文天祥可否稱為遺民詩人，本 節皆有詳述。期能為本文之研究，確立範疇與標的。 第二章：南未遺民詩之時伐背景。遺民詩之產生，係由於時代環垃以促成，是以本章 擬就南宋之政治環境、社會習尚、學術風氣三方面分論南宋遺民詩之時代背景。 中篇本論：重要詩人及其作品研究 南宋遺民詩人固多，然志節特出且有較多詩作傳世，足資研究者，但文天祥、謝枋得 、鄭思肖、謝翱、汪元量、林景熙六人耳，茲分六章，分生平傳略、作品分析、集評 三點探論其人及其詩。此外，並附錄南宋遺民詩人一覽表，就載籍所錄，詳加稽考， 以見南宋遺民詩人之概貌。 下篇綜論 第一章：南宋遺民詩之特色。本章以重要詩人之作品為主，再參諸其餘詩人之作，從 內容、風格、形式三方面，對南宋遺民詩所蘊含之特色，逐一剖析。 第二章：評價。就南宋遺民詩於時代上之意義，予以評價。

This thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on literary, art historical and textual sources to examine how the act of looking, images, and artistic and textual creation are both dramatized and problematized in the works of the Gawain-poet: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with some discussion of St Erkenwald, a work often attributed to the same author). Analyzing in detail the texts and illustrations in the Gawain-manuscript (British Library, Cotton MS Nero A.x), the thesis argues that the poet weaves together classical and biblical narratives, along with exegetical and iconographic traditions, in shaping his distinctive reflections on the use and making of images, body and performance, in response to late fourteenth-century religious controversies. The thesis starts by tracing a network of ideas about gaze, sin, body and text through late-medieval biblical and mythographical texts and images. Working text-by-text through the poet’s oeuvre, it then discusses the use of Ovidian materials and the motif of metamorphosis in his complex meditation on ethical and specifically gendered practices of reading, writing and looking. It concludes by assessing the poet’s idea of poetic creation and his own role as a creative artist. In doing so, it suggests that the poet’s self-conscious artistry works together with a consistent emphasis on humility in human’s relations with the divine. The thesis contributes to a growing scholarly interest in the Gawain-illustrations, and a developing focus on visuality in studies of late-medieval devotional and literary works. By linking the analysis of classical/biblical intertexts, visual traditions and the manuscript’s own illustrated texts, it suggests a fresh area of study for the Gawain-poet and his milieux.

No description available.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Michael Woolverton / To meet the demand of the 2007 Energy Bill will require a new approach to ethanol production in the United States. The question persists: how can the ethanol industry in the United States produce 21 billion gallons of ethanol from cellulosic sources? This challenge will require changes in the facilities currently manufacturing ethanol, the collection and storage methods to which the Midwestern farmer is accustomed, and a drastic change in farm production practices. Several different methods of cellulosic ethanol production are being examined. One such method is to change the focus from starch based ethanol to ethanol produced by harvest, collection, and manufacture from corn cobs. Research has included surveys, development of economic models, and focus group meetings to determine the feasibility of corn cobs as a viable raw material source for cellulosic ethanol. Findings indicate that: corn cob collection is feasible for the Midwestern farmer. According to the economic models presented in this thesis, Midwestern farmers can benefit economically from the collection of corn cobs. Further, the collection of corn cobs allows for current ethanol plants to be upgraded with new technology without major change in the manufacturing processes. The focus of this research was to determine which method of corn cob collection was preferable for Midwestern corn producers.