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Butterfield, Ardis Ruth Teasdale. "Interpolated lyric in medieval narrative poetry." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245029.
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My doctoral research concerns the use of song within narrative works in the Middle Ages. I have concentrated first on the substantial tradition in Old French of incorporating songs in this manner; and second, on the importance of this tradition to Chaucer, a poet who includes songs in nearly all his narrative poetry, and who was deeply familiar with many of the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century French works of this type. In order to demonstrate the connection between this very large range of French narratives and Chaucer, it has been necessary first to define the French tradition on its own terms, since even by French scholars it has rarely been treated collectively, and some of the works have barely been explored. This assessment of the French material has involved a fresh attempt to define the lyric interpolations themselves, when (as in the majority of thirteenth-century works) they take the form of brief snatches of song known as refrains. Since the nature of these refrains has been a source of controversy among French scholars, my study begins by analysing them both as texts and as melodies, in order to assess their status and function within the narratives. I then go on to discuss works ranging from Jean Renart's Guillaume de Dole to Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, to the dits amoureux of Machaut and Froissart. The influence of this French tradition upon Chaucer is examined first of all in Chaucer's early poems, through his direct knowledge and assimilation of Machaut and Froissart and other contemporary French poets. It is then traced, more indirectly, through Chaucer's reading of Boccaccio and Boethius. I thus consider Chaucer's use of Boccaccio's Il Filostrato in the light of Boccaccio's own knowledge of this French tradition from his position in the Angevin court of Naples. In addition, by investigating French translations of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae, I examine the structural importance of this work as a prosimetrum both upon French narratives containing songs, and upon Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. In this way I aim to show that the influences upon his practice of combining lyric and narrative are both multiple and multiply connected. The aim of this dissertation is therefore two-fold: first, to contribute to the understanding of a substantial but little-known area of French studies, and second, to renew the discussion of Chaucer's relation to French love poetry by seeing his work as a late medieval development in England of a distinctive, and distinctively French mode of composition. Throughout the course of my work, my wider interest is in the way in which the juxtaposition of the two categories of lyric and narrative shows us that our understanding of medieval genre is in need of refinement. In particular, by taking account of the presence of musical notation in the manuscripts of several of the French narratives, I hope to suggest that some of our assumptions about the 'literary' nature of medieval genres should be revised, especially as works of this type often seem composed precisely in order to create and exploit contrasts of genre of a musical, as well as a poetic kind.
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Silva, Claudimar Pereira da. "Fulgurações do poético em O Som e a Fúria e Enquanto Agonizo, de William Faulkner /." Araraquara, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/182501.
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Orientador: Paulo César Andrade da SilvaBanca: Carla Alexandra Ferreira
Banca: Maria das Graças Gomes Villa da Silva
Resumo: A presente dissertação objetiva a análise da narrativa poética nos romances O som e a fúria (2004) e Enquanto agonizo (2010), do escritor estadunidense William Faulkner. A partir dos pressupostos teóricos cristalizados por Gérard Genette em Discurso da narrativa (1995), mais especificamente os conceitos de voz e focalização, pretende-se analisar como estes dois mecanismos operam na construção da sintaxe discursiva de três narradores previamente selecionados na obra faulkneriana. Trabalhamos com a hipótese de que os conceitos de voz e focalização, ou seja, o processo de enunciação e a instauração da perspectiva sobre a dimensão diegética configuram-se como fatores determinantes para a sedimentação da narrativa poética, respaldada nas técnicas de fluxo de consciência e monólogo interior, no aparato metalinguístico, na modulação lírica de tais vozes, e nas construções subjetivas desses narradores. O corpus de nosso projeto baseia-se em narradores-protagonistas, imiscuídos na ação, e que possuam tal maneira de narrar. Dessa forma, trabalharemos com três narradores provenientes de dois romances importantes da obra de Faulkner: os irmãos Benjy e Quentin Compson, de O som e a fúria, e Darl Bundren, de Enquanto agonizo.
Abstract: The present dissertation aims at analyzing the poetic narrative in the novels The sound and the fury (2004) and As I lay dying (2010), by American writer William Faulkner. Departing from the theoretical statements crystallized by Gérard Genette in Discurso da Narrativa (1995), more specifically the concepts of voice and focalization, we intend to analyse how these two mechanisms operates in the construction of the discursive syntax of three previously selected narrators in the Faulknerian work. We work with the hypothesis that the concepts of voice and focalization, that is, the process of enunciation and the establishment of perspective upon the diegetic dimension are the determining factors for the sedimentation of poetic narrative, backed in the techniques of stream of consciousness and interior monologue, in the metalinguistic apparatus, in the the lyrical modulation of such voices and the subjective constructions of these narrators. The corpus of our project is based on protagonists-narrators, immersed in the action and who possesses such way of narrating. In this way, we will work with three narrators from two important novels of Faulkner's work: the brothers Benjy and Quentin Compson of The sound and the fury and Darl Bundren, from As I lay dying
Mestre
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Wiewiora, Chris. "Side by side : a narrative poetry collection." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2009. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1338.
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This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.Bachelors
Arts and Humanities
English
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Haydon, Liam David. "'I sing'? : narrative technique in epic poetry." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2012. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/i-sing-narrative-technique-in-epic-potry(3d7d23da-ade0-424c-93a2-9b183283e30e).html.
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This thesis examines the genre of epic, and particularly Milton’s Paradise Lost. It argues that it is only in attending to the contextual interactions within Paradise Lost that its full meaning can be comprehended. It demonstrates that the poem not only narrates the Fall, but actively performs its consequences in its thematic and linguistic structures, which continually stress the impossibility of approaching perfect (divine) totality. Chapter one outlines the theoretical response to epic, read as a petrified genre in contrast to the newness, openness and linguistic flexibility of the novel. It then challenges these assumptions through a reading of the invocation to book III of Paradise Lost. The chapter closes by examining seventeenth-century writings on epic, demonstrating that Milton’s contemporaries saw the epic as defined by the possibility of didactic intervention into its context. Chapter two examines the forms of the epic metaphor, which serve as a temporal link between the ‘mythic’ past of epic and contemporary events. It then shows that the nationalistic impulse of epic was a method by which the mythic past of a country was deployed as an exemplary narrative for the present. The chapter closes by considering the ways in which shifts in national conception were mapped onto the epic. Chapter three outlines Paradise Lost’s thematic engagement with the concept of representation. It focuses on the twin images of the music of the spheres and the Tower of Babel, used in Paradise Lost to represent man’s relationship with God. It argues that the poem uses these tropes to explore the linguistic effects of the Fall. Both these images are deployed to suggest that postlapsarian expression is too open and ambiguous to properly portray divinity. Chapter four moves that discussion to a linguistic level, arguing that the poem is characterised by indeterminacy. It argues that Paradise Lost calls into question the possibility of expressing perfect truth in fractured, postlapsarian language. It shows that punning is the mark of fallen creatures in the poem, and suggests that the poem’s own puns exploit this category to linguistically question its own status as representation through performances of ambiguity. The conclusion synthesises these local readings of Paradise Lost into a reading of the poem as a whole. It argues that these individual instances demonstrate the poem’s continual reflexive concern over its theodicean project. By continually expressing ambiguity, at the level of imagery and language, Paradise Lost draws attention to its status as postlapsarian art, and the consequent impossibility of approaching the divine perfection exemplified by the celestial music or prelapsarian language.
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Koopmans, William T. "Joshua 24 as poetic narrative." B.C., Canada : W.T. Koopmans, 1990. http://www.ebrary.com/corp/libraries.jsp.
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Thesis (doctoral)--Johannes Calvijnstichting te Kampen. Theologische Academie, 1990.Ebrary ebook. At head of title:Theologische Academie, Uitgaande van de Johannes Calvijnstichting te Kampen. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
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Partridge, James. "The narrative poetry of Vladimir Holan, 1939-1955." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.573589.
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This thesis concerns itself with seven of the major Pribehy (narrative poems) written by the Czech poet Vladimir Holan between 1939 and 1955. It does not attempt a full analysis of all of the pribehy, nor does it rely on any preformed critical or theoretical apparatus. Various influences on Holan's poetry, including the importance of Russian poetry for Holan's wartime narratives, are initially investigated.The first narrative, Prvni testament, introduces the broader thematic and lexical perspectives. The analysis of Cesta mraku brings a further examination of influences and intertextuality, e.g. exploring the centrality of Milton in Holan's poetics. Suggestions for an approach to the prosody of the wartime narratives concludes this part of the thesis. An analysis of the post-war poem Navrat emphasises how Holan's mature presentation of themes such as Fate, suffering, innocence, spirituality versus corporeality, and the role of the poet begin to come into focus in the late 1940s. The account of Zuzana v lazni offers the most comprehensive exegesis in the thesis, showing how Holan combines historical sources, biblical and poetic resonances to shape Zuzana v lazni into one of the key poems in the cycle. The role of poet as prophet and outcast is further explored in analyses of three short narratives from the early 1950s. A discussion of the post-war free-verse prosody follows. The thesis concludes by showing how the poet figure metamorphoses into the poet-prophet, viewed as pari of the onward continuum of visionary poets. Holan's Pribehy are seen as meditations on poetry, the poet, and the act of engaged reading. Poetry, in Holan's view, is a unique medium through which to contemplate and grapple, through difficulty, with the enigmatic in human existence, exploiting complex potentials of imagery, myth and language.
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Morrison, Andrew Donald. "The narrator's voice : Hellenistic poetry and archaic narrative." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271310.
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Runstedler, Curtis Thomas. "Alchemy and exemplary narrative in Middle English poetry." Thesis, Durham University, 2018. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12593/.
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This thesis examines the role of alchemy in Middle English poetry from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England, particularly how these poems present themselves as exemplary narratives to raise moral points about human behaviour, fallibility, and alchemical experimentation. The introduction suggests the compatibility between the emergence of the vernacular exemplum and the development of alchemical practice and literature in late medieval England. I follow J. Allan Mitchell’s ‘ethics of exemplarity’ for reading the alchemical poems in this study, extending his reading of Middle English poetry to understand the exemplary and ethical values of alchemy in poetry, which in turn helps the reader to understand the good of alchemical examples in medieval literature. Reading these alchemical poems as exemplary reassesses the role of alchemy in medieval literature and provides new ways of thinking about the exemplum as a literary framework or device in Middle English poems containing alchemy. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the history of alchemy in the classical world, particularly its connection to metallurgical techniques and early theoretical developments, through to its transmission into the Arabic world before reaching late medieval Europe. The second chapter continues this history, focussing on the development of alchemy in medieval England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. I examine the importance and impact of several key alchemical figures or poets who write about alchemy including Roger Bacon, William Langland, Thomas Norton, and George Ripley, as well as discussing the legal and societal responses to alchemical practice in England. These chapters contextualise the role of alchemy in fourteenth and fifteenth-century Middle English poetry, and explore the growing interest in writing vernacular alchemical poetry. The third chapter concentrates on John Gower’s use of alchemy in the Confessio amantis, in which it is presented as a model for ideal yet unattainable labour. Following R.F. Yeager’s reading of Gower’s ‘new exemplum’ in the Confessio amantis ̧ I suggest that Gower’s alchemical section follows this new, emerging style of vernacular exemplary writing and can also be read on its own as an exemplary narrative, which recognises alchemical failure as a post-lapsarian decline and a sign of human shortcomings. In the fourth chapter, I examine Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, linking it to Gower’s use of the ‘new exemplum’ in the previous chapter to show how alchemy can be used within an exemplary framework to make points about moral blindness and human fallibility. The Canon’s Yeoman’s unreliability and dubious nature as a narrator suggest Chaucer’s subversion of the exemplary format, yet he still uses alchemy and exemplary narrative for moral purposes. The fifth chapter of this dissertation examines an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s The Churl and the Bird found in Harley MS 2407. Following Joel Fredell’s reading of the poem and Mitchell’s exemplary reading of Lydgate’s poem, I discuss the anonymous author’s use of alchemy as subject matter within the poem, particularly its presentation as an exemplum and how these added alchemical stanzas affect its exemplary reading. The sixth and final chapter focusses upon two fifteenth-century Middle English alchemical dialogues: one between Morienus and Merlin, and the other between Albertus Magnus and the Queen of Elves. Through the dialogue form, the characters in these poems collaborate in their alchemical pursuits, forming the moral examples that are consistent throughout the works studied in this dissertation. These identify the ‘right path’ to moral well-being and healthy living as well as successful alchemical practice and experimentation.
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Wright, Michelle. "Time, consciousness and narrative play in late medieval secular dream poetry and framed narratives." Thesis, University of South Wales, 2017. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentthesis/time-consciousness-and-narrative-play-in-late-medieval-secular-dream-poetry-and-framed-narratives(7cbf5e12-c655-4177-84f8-1445f1ffef85).html.
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This thesis considers time and narrative play in dream poems and framed narratives. It begins with a chapter on the history of time perceptions and time-telling, and explores how ideas about time influenced medieval writers. It also surveys some modern views on the history of time-measurement a nd its influences on culture and the collective consciousness. Chapter two, after analysing the treatment of time in the Roman de la Rose, surveys some of the ways in which modern criticism has evaluated and conceived the genre of secular dream literature that developed from the Roman de la Rose. Chapter three examines the innovative use of the convention of beginning a poem with a seasonal opening and theorises that this becomes a `language' open to adaptation and variation. Chapter four looks in detail at Froissart's L`Orloge amoureus and discusses the clock as a new object which, contrary to the views of cultural historians, was embraced by medieval writers, religious and secular, to symbolise a range of virtues, qualities and ideas. I argue that the clock inspired creativity rather than heralding a rationalisation of the mind that would stifle imaginative responses to this new technology. Chapter five explores metafictional and self-reflexive devices in Froissart's Joli Buisson de Jonece and Chaucer's House of Fame. I consider how these texts play with narrative time and sequence by writing the genesis of the text into the poem. Finally, chapter six examines ideas of closure in medieval dream poetry and looks specifically at the reciprocity and inconclusiveness of the Judgement poems of Guillaume de Machaut. Because the second poem reverses the decision of the first poem, it brings into question the authority of the text and the unity of the authorial voice.
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Marks, James Richard. "Divine plan and narrative plan in archaic Greek epic /." Digital version:, 2001. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p3026208.
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Askin, Trina. "That much poems /." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2007. https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=5060.
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Nightingale, Andrew. "Reanimating Alan : investigating narrative and science in contemporary poetry." Thesis, Anglia Ruskin University, 2013. http://arro.anglia.ac.uk/295466/.
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This practice‐based research is a long creative work about Alan Turing. It consists of a series that includes prose, narrative poems and visual poems. An accompanying critical commentary, which is split into three sections, addresses the relationship between narrative and seriality, ways in which scientific notations can be used in visual poetry, and aspects of biographical and civil poetry. A finalsection contains a selection of creative approaches to commentary that reflect on research in a manner that is complementary to the critical commentary. The research was carried out through a process of repeated planning and experimentation that has resulted in a variety of forms and procedures, ranging from the accessible and conventional to the idiosyncratic and experimental. A method of investigating narrative was created by allowing narrative and serial formsto intersect throughout the creative work. A means of bringing science and literature into relation was sought through a process of forceful combination of scientific notations with literary or occult materials. And alternative possibilities for biographical poetry were investigated through resistance to celebration and through experiment with formal propertiesin poetry that could be appropriate to Turing. The creative work and critical commentary find new models for the relationship between narrative and seriality in which the will to create narrative is not denied and seriality is not a mere absence of narrative. They find new means by which science and literature can come into contact through visual poetry. They help to define a unique role for poetry in biographical writing in the way that poetry allows the subject to be embodied formally. And they set up a productive dialogue between experimental andmore established writing strategies.
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Nightingale, Andrew. "Reanimating Alan: investigating narrative and science in contemporary poetry." Thesis, Anglia Ruskin University, 2013. https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/295466/1/thesis_reanimatingalan_andrewnightingale.pdf.
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This practice‐based research is a long creative work about Alan Turing. It consists of a series that includes prose, narrative poems and visual poems. An accompanying critical commentary, which is split into three sections, addresses the relationship between narrative and seriality, ways in which scientific notations can be used in
visual poetry, and aspects of biographical and civil poetry. A finalsection contains a selection of creative approaches to commentary that reflect on research in a manner that is complementary to the critical commentary. The research was carried out through a process of repeated planning and experimentation that has resulted in a variety of forms and procedures, ranging from the accessible and conventional to the idiosyncratic and experimental. A method of investigating narrative was created by allowing narrative and serial formsto intersect throughout the creative work. A means of bringing science and literature into relation was sought through a process of forceful combination of scientific notations with
literary or occult materials. And alternative possibilities for biographical poetry were investigated through resistance to celebration and through experiment with formal propertiesin poetry that could be appropriate to Turing. The creative work and critical commentary find new models for the relationship between narrative and seriality in which the will to create narrative is not denied and seriality is not a mere absence of narrative. They find new means by which science and literature can come into contact through visual poetry. They help to define a unique role for poetry in biographical writing in the way that poetry allows the subject to be embodied formally. And they set up a productive dialogue between experimental andmore established writing strategies.
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Miles, Rosemary. "The poetry of William Morris : desire, narrative and text." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.392202.
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Petrella, Bernardo Ballesteros. "Divine assemblies in early Greek and Mesopotamian narrative poetry." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cfd1affe-f74b-48c5-98db-aba832a7dce8.
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This thesis charts divine assembly scenes in ancient Mesopotamian narrative poetry and the early Greek hexameter corpus, and aims to contribute to a cross-cultural comparison in terms of literary systems. The recurrent scene of the divine gathering is shown to underpin the construction of small- and large-scale compositions in both the Sumero-Akkadian and early Greek traditions. Parts 1 and 2 treat each corpus in turn, reflecting a methodological concern to assess the comparanda within their own context first. Part 1 (Chapters 1-4) examines Sumerian narrative poems, and the Akkadian narratives Atra-hsīs, Anzû, Enûma eliš, Erra and Išum and the Epic of Gilgameš. Part 2 (Chapters 5-8) considers Homer's Iliad, the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod's Theogony. The comparative approaches in Part 3 are developed in two chapters (9-10). Chapter 9 offers a detailed comparison of this typical scene's poetic morphology and compositional purpose. Relevant techniques and effects, a function of the aural reception of literature, are shown to overlap to a considerable degree. Although the Greeks are unlikely to have taken over the feature from the Near East, it is suggested that the Greek divine assembly is not to be detached form a Near Eastern context. Because the shared elements are profoundly embedded in the Greek orally-derived poetic tradition, it is possible to envisage a long-term process of oral contact and communication fostered by common structures. Chapter 10 turns to a comparison of the literary pantheon: a focus on the organisation of divine prerogatives and the chief god figures illuminates culture-specific differences which can be related to historical socio-political conditions. Thus, this thesis seeks to enhance our understanding of the representation of the gods in Mesopotamian poetry and early Greek epic, and develops a systemic approach to questions of transmission and cultural appreciation.
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Riley, Megan E. "Found Cairn." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2014. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1828.
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Collier, Jordan Taylor. "Where My Own Grave Is." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2008. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12100/.
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The preface to this collection, "Against Expectation: The Lyric Narrative," highlights the ways James Wright, Stephen Dunn, and C.K. Williams use narrative to strengthen their poems. Where My Own Grave Is is a collection of poems that uses narrative to engage our historical fascination with death.
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Ortega, Devon R. "Tales Unsuitable for Children and Other Poems." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1365627898.
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Croset, Grégoire. "La narration en poésie : pièges et enjeux d'une terminologie difficile." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-43896.
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In this analytical research paper, the notions of narrator and narration in poetry are discussed in order to identify why the terminology in this particular genre is considered as problematic by most theorists. In its theoretical section, this paper focuses on Philippe Lejeune’s autobiographical and biographical pacts, and shows the limits of the two reading contracts in the poetical genre. Then, on the background of Brian McHale and Stefan Kjerkegaard’s works on segmentivity, this paper explains the narrative process that can be found in the visual form of poetry. Finally, discussing Brian McAllister and Marie-Laure Ryan’s works on narrativity, this study explains that a story is a mental image that the transposition to a media will transform in order to best represent according to its own limits. In its analytical part, and mirroring the theoretical part, this study focuses on identifying the narrator, the narrative process, as well as the degree of narrativity of four poems by David Diop, Charles Pennequin, Ilse Garnier and Pierre Garnier. Thoses poems, chosen on the ground that they are good representative examples of narrative poetry, lyric poetry and visual poetry, help test the theories in practice. The results show that in the narrative poem, although the identity of the narrator is hard to establish, the narrative process is clear and the degree of narrativity is high. In the lyric and visual poems on the other hand, even if the segmentivity theory helps ‘reconstruct’ the narration when linking words are missing, the difficulty to identify narrative events in the lyric poem and a story world in the case of the visual poetry makes the emergence of a story world, and in turn of a narrator, problematic.
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Bennett, Andrew. "John Keats and the reciprocity of Romantic narrative form." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.329486.
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Lawson, Lesley Margaret. "Sub-texts of writing in Ovidian narrative poetry c.1589-1602." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.298780.
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DeVito, Angela Ann. "Gendered speech in Old English narrative poetry: A comprehensive word list." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/280305.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to create a word list of male and female speech in those Old English narrative poems which contain dialogue, to use as a reference in determining what, if any, differences existed between the way male Anglo-Saxon poets constructed speech for their male and female characters. Using a specifically designed computer program and an on-line text of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, I electronically tagged those lines assigned to male characters, and then those assigned to female speakers, to generate two separate word lists. I eliminated all immortal speech (God, angels, demons), and all proper nouns as not germane to a study of male and female speech patterns. After I created the raw word lists, I parsed each individual word, and placed it under the appropriate headword. I further classified nouns, adjectives and pronouns according to case and number, and verbs according to person, number, tense and mood. In addition to the word lists, the dissertation includes a critical introduction, and a brief analysis of differences between male and female speech patterns in selected poems.
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Carpenter, J. R. "Writing coastlines : locating narrative resonance in transatlantic communications networks." Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2015. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/7825/.
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The term ‘writing coastlines’ implies a double meaning. The word ‘writing’ refers both to the act of writing and to that which is written. The act of writing translates aural, physical, mental and digital processes into marks, actions, utterances, and speech-acts. The intelligibility of that which is written is intertwined with both the context of its production and of its consumption. The term ‘writing coastlines’ may refer to writing about coastlines, but the coastlines themselves are also writing in so far as they are translating physical processes into marks and actions. Coastlines are the shifting terrains where land and water meet, always neither land nor water and always both. The physical processes enacted by waves and winds may result in marks and actions associated with both erosion and accretion. Writing coastlines are edges, ledges, legible lines caught in the double bind of simultaneously writing and erasing. These in-between places are liminal spaces – points of both departure and arrival, and sites of exchange. One coastline implies another, implores a far shore. The dialogue implied by this entreaty intrigues me. The coastlines of the United Kingdom and those of Atlantic Canada are separated by three and a half thousand kilometres of ocean. Yet for centuries, fishers, sailors, explorers, migrants, emigrants, merchants, messengers, messages, packets, ships, submarine cables, aeroplanes, satellite signals and wireless radio waves have attempted to bridge this distance. These comings and goings have left traces. Generations of transatlantic migrations have engendered networks of communications. As narratives of place and displacement travel across, beyond, and through these networks, they become informed by the networks’ structures and inflected with the syntax and grammar of the networks’ code languages. Writing coastlines interrogates this in-between space with a series of questions: When does leaving end and arriving begin? When does the emigrant become the immigrant? What happens between call and response? What narratives resonate in the spaces between places separated by time, distance, and ocean yet inextricably linked by generations of immigration? This thesis takes an overtly interdisciplinary approach to answering these questions. This practice-led research refers to and infers from the corpora and associated histories, institutions, theoretical frameworks, modes of production, venues, and audiences of the visual, media, performance, and literary arts, as well as from the traditionally more scientific realms of cartography, navigation, network archaeology, and creative computing. Writing Coastlines navigates the emerging and occasionally diverging theoretical terrains of electronic literature, locative narrative, media archaeology, and networked art through the methodology of performance writing pioneered at Dartington College of Art (Bergvall 1996, Hall 2008). Central to this methodology is an iterative approach to writing, which interrogates the performance of writing in and across contexts toward an extended compositional process. Writing Coastlines will contribute to a theoretical framework and methodology for the creation and dissemination of networked narrative structures for stories of place and displacement that resonate between sites, confusing and confounding boundaries between physical and digital, code and narrative, past and future, home and away. Writing Coastlines will contribute to the creation of a new narrative context from which to examine a multi-site-specific place-based identity by extending the performance writing methodology to incorporate digital literature and locative narrative practices, by producing and publicly presenting a significant body of creative and critical work, and by developing a mode of critical writing which intertwines practice with theory.
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Montjoy, Ashley Nicole. "Lost in Perception." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/42648.
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Lost in Perception is a manuscript of narrative poems that are unflinching honest explorations of the selfâ emotional states-of-mind such as anxiety and anger, and states-of-being such as feelings of self-worthlessness. Confessional in nature these poems derive from familial relationships, domestic abuse, desire, sex and/or a combination of the aforementioned. To an extent, Lost in Perception is a manuscript of a diarist. It features a number of poems concerning a romantic relationship with an alcoholic that present a cohesive narrative within the collection. The narrator in Lost in Perception views the self as divergent from the self it once was and should be againâ the self lacks well-being or wholenessâ to become whole again most of the poems turn toward the natural world. The narrator perceives the self as existing in an unnatural state and what exists in nature is harmonious. The narrator wishes to take something from nature and apply to the self such that the self becomes whole again. There are two primary landscapes within Lost in Perceptionâ Florida coastal lands and Southwest Virginia Appalachian foothills and valleys. The natural world is also the space where the narrator enacts an emotional response to work through personal turmoil. The narrator turns toward nature as a place to figure out and/or admit something about the self, rid the self of negativity and to articulate a desireâ primarily for change to occur. Lost in Perception is an unabashed and clear presentation of an individual who once felt whole, but who now feels broken or stuck.Master of Fine Arts
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Wisnom, Laura Selena. "Intertextuality in Babylonian narrative poetry : Anzu, Enuma Elish, and Erra and Ishum." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f8bccacb-e9ea-426c-b722-13f1a536a41c.
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Coxon, Sebastian. "The presentation of authorship on later thirteenth-century middle German narrative poetry." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285247.
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Pacheco, Heliana Soneghet. "Typography in traditional poetry : methods of segmentation in narrative poems and sonnets." Thesis, University of Reading, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.501348.
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The aim of this research is to investigate and analyse how narrative poems and sonnets, two types of traditional poetry, have been handled in books, in England, in terms of typographic presentation. It focuses on how far the earliest printed editions of a poem establish a pattern for its subsequent presentation, and how far other influences might determine the typographic form. The main focus of the analysis is segmentation, the visible division of the text into units which, to a greater or lesser extent, reflect its underlying structure. This division is seen through methods of segmentation in the opening and closing of the poem and, within the poem itself, through typographic features such as indentation, capitalization, line spaces and the placing of each poetic line on a new typographic line. These methods are related to the poetic whole, stanzas. rhyme scheme units, verse paragraphs and line.
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Arthur, Laura Charlotte Moughton. "Credita res auctore suo est : narrative authority in the poetry of Ovid." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:283e3f29-4295-42d6-a4c2-340cd85e21ef.
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Despite the prevailing interest in authority in Ovidian studies, studies have often focussed on Ovid's response to political authority in his individual works rather than narrative authority, the means by which the poet claims authority to narrate and constructs a persona that his audience will find persuasive and believable. Evidence of Ovid's interest in authority can be found throughout his body of work, but it is particularly explicit in the Metamorphoses, Fasti, Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, whose contrasting genres, content and mood allow Ovid to entertain an exceptionally broad range of different perspectives on authority. The primary bases of narrative authority in Ovid's poetry are age and memory, references to tradition, the prophetic/poetic status of vates, and sight, all of which had acquired a strong cultural and literary currency in Augustan Rome. Ovid challenges his readers not to believe things simply because of the authority of their narrator, encouraging them instead to engage with narratives and to critically evaluate their authority. He thereby undermines the traditional perception of authority as monumental and unchanging. Ovidian authority is a far more fluid concept, which acknowledges the inherent flaws in narrative as a transmitted medium. Narrative authority can be undermined, destroyed, or transformed, and is always open to being questioned. As such, it is in a constant state of change, and the reader is an active participant in its negotiation.
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Van, Heerden Lorinda. "The poetry of silence : perpetuating the profound burden : a female family narrative." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/18032.
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Thesis (MA (VA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis investigate the family narrative. While engaging specifically with my female family narrative, it essentially questions how and why we create and perpetuate this narrative of absence and presence. The acts of memory, autobiography, testimony and the subsequent creation of the archive are probed. Such probes attempt to enter the sphere of the unsayable and unsaid, partially lifting the female existence, identity and body from the silence surrounding the private and intimate realm she dwells in. The creation and recreation of meaning through the use and manipulation of time and language is examined through-out whilst continually reading absence as presence. This is done in order to locate and access the silent and forgotten. The thesis problematises the notion of the ‘I’ and the ‘initial’ through looking at the repercussions of the employing linearity. Ultimately, this writing process reveals the contradictions and dualities we both create and aim to obliterate within the individual and collective composition of the family narrative.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die familienarratief. Terwyl dit spesifiek die vroulike familienarratief bespreek bevraagteken dit hoe en hoekom ons die narratief van afwesigheid en teenwoordigheid skep en voortsit. Die dade van onthou, outobiografie, getuienis, en die daaropvolgende ontstaan van die argief, word gepeil. Hierdie ondersoeke poog om die sfeer van die ‘ongesêde’ en die ‘onsêbare’ binne te dring, en so die vroulike bestaan, identiteit en liggaam te bevry uit die stilte van die ‘private’ en die intieme terrein waarbinne sy woon. Die skep en herskep van betekenis deur die gebruik en manipulasie van taal en tyd word deurlopend ondersoek, terwyl afwesigheid as aanwesigheid gelees word. Dit word gedoen in orde om die stilte en vergete te vind en toegang daartoe te bewerkstellig. Die tesis problematiseer die begrip van die ‘ek’ en die ‘initiële’ deur na die reperkussies van die toepassing en gebruik van lineariteit te kyk. Uiteindelik onthul die skryfproses die kontradiksies en dualiteite wat ons beide skep asook poog om uit te wis binne die individuele en kollektiewe komposisie van die familie narratief.
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Stenke, Katarina Maria. "Parts and wholes in long non-narrative poems of the eighteenth century." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610756.
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Leis, Aaron. "Letters from Jack and Other Cadavers." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2010. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28449/.
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My dissertation, Letters from Jack and Other Cadavers, developed out of my interest in using persona, narrative forms, and historical details collected through thorough research to transform personal experience and emotions in my poems. The central series of poems, "Letters from Jack," is written in the voice of Jack the Ripper and set up as a series of poems-as-letters to the police who chased him. The Ripper's sense of self and his motivations are troubled by his search for a muse as the poems become love poems, contrasting the brutality of the historical murders and the atmosphere of late 19th century London with a charismatic speaker not unlike those of Browning's Dramatic Monologues. The dissertation's preface further explores my desire for a level of personal removal while crafting poems in order to temper sentimentality. Drawing on Wallace Stevens's notion that "Sentimentality is failed emotion" and Tony Hoagland's assessment that fear of sentimentality can turn young poets away from narrative forms, I examine my own poems along with those of Scott Cairns, Tim Seibles, and Albert Goldbarth to derive conclusions on the benefits distance, persona, narrative, and detail to downplay excessive emotion and the intrusion of the personal. Poems from the manuscript have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Sybil's Garage, The North Texas Review, and The Sheridan Edwards Review.
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Lowe, Jeremy. "Desiring truth : the process of judgment in fourteenth-century art and literature /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9463.
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Mack, Joseph Edward. "Teaching the Sermon: Lyric, Narrative, and T. S. Eliot." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/91374.
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This thesis is an examination of the subsection of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land that is aptly named "The Fire Sermon." The hybrid nature of this famous poem makes it open to a variety of readings, and these readings are often conflicting. Thus, the work, in spite of being a seminal text in literature, can be difficult to teach due to the complexity of the piece itself. This fact makes choosing a pedagogical approach to teaching The Waste Land a challenge. With the goal of making Eliot's poem more explorable, this thesis will undertake the task of an examination of "The Fire Sermon" using two distinctive theories. The theories in question are the theory of the lyric, exemplified by Jonathan Culler's writing, and the theory of heteroglossia established by Mikhail Bakhtin. However, that analysis will be merely a stepping stone for a more strictly pedagogical question that this project seeks to answer. That question is, namely, the query of which branch of contemporary theory, narrative or lyric, is more apt to present the issues inherent in "The Fire Sermon" in an effective and teachable manner. Both positions have a number of positive attributes and elements that make them uniquely suited to the examination of Eliot's writing.Master of Arts
Teaching poetry can be a difficult task. The basic question of “Why should I study poetry?” is one that many a professor has had to answer. While the scholarly community has done a decent job of articulating the value of the liberal arts, the specifics of how to teach difficult poetry is more of a gray area in scholarship. Certainly, a number of articles, opinions, and theories on how to best teach poetry exist, but creating a clear blueprint with examples of how to apply complex theories to a poem is essential to guiding new instructors into the field of teaching poetic works before an audience. This thesis is a work that shows several of the methods of studying poetry via an examination of several important poetic and narrative theories and the theorists that created said methods, and then the thesis undertakes a practical examination of a poem, a section of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The purpose of this thesis is to make critical theories and abstract ideas more applicable and valuable as usable tools in the classroom, rather than having them exist as ideas without a practical application. Knowledge is, after all, something made to be shared.
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Maynard, Katherine S. "Epic lessons : pedagogy and national narrative in the epic poetry of Early Modern France /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/8299.
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Sines, Benjamin P. "Letters of a Ruined House." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2015. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2007.
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Bissell, Michelle L. "The Barest Rib." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1257255944.
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Cutter, Weston. "After Horses." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/76958.
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After Horses is a a collection of narrative and verse poems centered loosely around the idea or theme of how to create meaning from the fracture and detritus of daily life. Also under obsessive consideration throughout: loneliness, the risk of human connection, the risk of a lack of human connection, the impossibility of language, hope as illuminating and good thing, hope as desperate and devouring thing, and an underlying fear and awareness of the fact that no one can be sure of what ultimately matters, anyway.Master of Fine Arts
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SHAFFER, C. LYNN. "SCRAPBOOK." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1004723342.
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Feuerstein, Jessica Joy. "The dark is melting: Narrative Persona, Trauma and Communication in Sylvia Plath's Poetry." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1342484373.
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McKie, Andrew. "A narrative exploration of the relationship between reading literature and poetry and ethical practice : narratives of student nurses and nurse educators." Thesis, Robert Gordon University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10059/659.
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The emerging dialogue between the arts and humanities and professional health care education is explored by considering ethical practice in nursing via several narratives of student nurses and nurse educators in one Scottish university. Adopting a narrative methodology based upon the literary hermeneutic of Paul Ricoeur, this thesis is presented as a ‘narrative research text’ in which my own role as a narrative researcher is critically developed. Utilising two different narrative frameworks, narratives are ‘constructed’ from data drawn from the research methods of focus groups, one-to-one interviews, reflective practice journals and documentary sources. Contemporary approaches in professional health care ethics education tend to share features of deduction, universality and generalisability. Their merits notwithstanding, perspectives drawn from the arts and humanities can offer valid critiques and alternative perspectives. Reading literature and poetry is offered as an engaged and interpretive contribution to a teleological ethic characterised by attention to ends (e.g. human flourishing), cultivation of virtue, telling of narrative, recognising relationality and in acknowledging the significance of contextual factors. These perspectives can all contribute to an ‘eclectic’ approach to ethics education in nursing. These narratives of student nurses support the careful inclusion of the arts and humanities within nurse education curricula for their potential to encourage self-awareness, critical thinking and concern for others. Narratives of nurse educators support these insights in addition to demonstrating ways in which the arts and humanities themselves can offer critical perspectives on current curriculum philosophies. These narratives suggest that the reading of literature and poetry can contribute to an eclectic approach to ‘ethical competency’ in nurse education. This is a broad-based educational approach which draws upon shared interpretive dimensions of the arts and humanities via engagement, action and response. This thesis contributes to current literature in the field of professional health care education by demonstrating the significance of findings derived from inclusion of a teleological ethic within ethics education.
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Voigt, Astrid. "Female lament in Greek and Roman epic poetry : its cultural discourses and narrative presentation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.403991.
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Treherne, Matthew James. "Liturgical imaginations : narrative, ritual and time in the religious poetry of Dante and Tasso." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2007. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284075.
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Welch, Mary T. "Early English religious literature : the development of the genres of poetry, narrative, and homily /." Read thesis online, 2009. http://library.uco.edu/UCOthesis/WelchMT2009.pdf.
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Escalera, Isaac R. "Americhicano." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2014. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/87.
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The title of my manuscript, Americhicano¸ is a play on the words American,Americana, and Chicano. It was my goal to write poems that would capture the shared experiences of Chicanos, Latin Americans and the vast people group we identify as “American.”
In the first part of my Statement of Purpose, I go into the politics and social commentary of why I chose this as the focus of my project. “Why I Write” is a continuation of that conversation, but more focused on my own personal experience and journey as a writer. In the Section titled, “On Narrative Poetry” I explore the tradition of narrative in poetry and culture and how the two come together within my own poetry. “Uncertainty and Possibility” talks about the duality of creation and the writer. Do we view the unknown as something scary or as an opportunity to be seized? “On Experimental Form: Erasures and the Avante-Garde” discusses the tension of pushing the boundaries as an artist while negotiating cultural tradition.
The last section titled, “Imitation and True Voice” discusses the ways in which a writer grows and continues to grow. The idea here is that we do not have a “true” or “authentic” voice, but rather that we are the culmination of voices and identities that are constantly in flux. This last idea is an echo of all the other sections, and hopefully one that will resonate throughout my growth as a writer and as a person.
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Souza, Valdir Aparecido de [UNESP]. "Rondônia, uma memória em disputa." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/103127.
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Esta pesquisa analisa a construção da memória por meio das representações contidas nos textos da narrativa histórica e da literatura poética do Estado de Rondônia. Para tal empreitada foram selecionadas as obras mais expressivas dos autores situados entre o período de vigência do antigo Território Federal do Guaporé (1943-56), depois Território Federal de Rondônia (1956-81) até a consolidação do atual Estado de Rondônia. A análise está focada no discurso destes autores e revela suas filiações e os seus pareceres. Tal memória fica aqui compreendida enquanto uma construção produzida por uma elite letrada, constituindo assim aspectos de representação enquanto projetos, de diferentes matizes, e que disputam entre si a hegemonia do discurso. Nesse sentido, as imagens das populações tradicionais aparecem delineadas a partir de conceitos estereotipados e marcados por um viés ideológico: a noção de vazio demográfico, as populações indígenas igualadas à natureza e o bandeirante como herói civilizador. Assim, as reflexões apresentadas neste trabalho, tiveram como base a eleição de um conjunto de narrativas em prosa e poesia, como também as imagens representativas dos símbolos de poder. Finalmente esta trajetória procura atravessar o interior dos enunciados, dialogando internamente com suas contradições e apontando para suas continuidades e recorrências.
This research analyses the construction of the State of Rondônia memory by means of the representations portrayed in the some texts of historical narrative and poetry of local writers. To reach that aim, the most representative works were selected from authors who wrote between the periods: 1943-56 (Guaporé Federal Territory), 1956-81 (Rondônia Federal Territory) up to the consolidation of the Rondônia State, after 1981. The analysis focuses these authors’ speeches and reveals their political affiliation and places from where they spoke their feelings - such memory is understood as product of highly educated elite which builds up projects of representation aspects, of different kinds, which fight each other the speech control. In this sense, the local images of the traditional populations appear designed from stereotyped misconceptions and ideologically biased: the notion of demographic emptiness, the rainforest populations leveled to nature and the “bandeirante” as a civilizing hero. Thus, the reflections presented in this work, had had as base the election of a set of narratives in prose and poetry, as well as the representative images of the symbols of being able. Finally, this trajectory seeks to go through the inside of enunciation, dialoguing internally with its contradictions and pointing with respect to its continuities and recurrences.
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Ahmad, Anjail Rashida. "Only violet can rupture like this /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3099606.
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Pech, David. "“An Unfinished Phrase”: Philosophy of life and language in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27494.
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Virginia Woolf’s novel, The Waves, is an expression and exploration of an authorial and philosophical crisis. The crisis is authorial, in that Woolf expresses deep uncertainty about the relation of the act and product of writing to life, and the crisis is philosophical, in that Woolf grapples with problems that are epistemological, ontological, aesthetic, and linguistic. Woolf’s authorial and philosophical crisis can be understood as part of the broader crisis of modernity. I argue that the crisis of modernity can be read as a crisis of “imaginaries,” and that the project of Woolf and the Modernists was to imaginatively develop new vocabularies with which to express, understand, and make, modern life. I suggest that the character Bernard pursues the central imaginative project of The Waves – to find the set of “perfect” phrases with which to tell the “true” story of life. I examine his attempts to find a semantically meaningful vocabulary by moving away from prose towards poetry. Correspondingly, I examine Bernard’s dissatisfactions with “telling” life through narratives, and consider whether the characters’ lives are better understood as episodes, or through Woolf’s profound “moments of being.” I explore the characters’ attempts to form a fulfilling vocabulary shared amongst a narrowing circle – as friends, as a couple, or as individuals. I also discuss the important role of silence in The Waves. I conclude by analysing Bernard’s final soliloquy, which closes the novel. I argue that his soliloquy presents a complex and philosophically compelling vision of life as vacillation, as evidenced by the “wave” motif, which runs through The Waves.
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Bertoncini-Zúbková, Elena. "Beyond the Utenzi: narrative poems by Theobald Mvungi." Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, 2012. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-91786.
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Some time ago I came across a tiny collection of poems called Chungu tamu by Theobald Mvungi. The author was born in Mwanga province (Kilimanjaro) probably in the Fifties, as he graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1975 and gained his M.Ed. degree in Nigeria (Ibadan) in 1978. He published his first collection of poems, Raha karaha, in 1982 and his third one, Mashairiya Chekacheka, in 1995. All Mwangi`s poems deal with social problems, but only those of the second collection are formally innovative. Five of the twenty poems of this collection tell a story and I am going to investigate three of them. It is striking and quite unusual in Swahili poetry to present the narration itself as another story. However, it is not the first time that it occurs in modern Swahili poetry. In fact, for instance Kezilahabi´s poem Hadithiya kitoto (from the collection Kichomi, 1974) opens with the scene of the narrator - the grandfather - sitting close to a fire with his grandchildren who want to be told a story, while roasting birds and potatoes. The last two strophes contain grandfather´s comment, i.e. a moral message. Thus the narrative act itself is represented, as it often happens in prose fiction. But whereas in Kezilahabi it only opens or frames the main story, in Mvungi the narrator´s interferences are intermingled with the main story to such an extent that in fact two parallel stories are narrated. I will call them the frame story and the main story.
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Jackson, Janet Ruth. "A coat of ashes: A collection of poems, incorporating a metafictional narrative - and - Poetry, Daoism, physics and systems theory: a poetics: A set of critical essays." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2018. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/2125.
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This thesis comprises a book-length creative work accompanied by a set of essays. It explores how poetry might bring together spiritual and scientific discourses, focusing primarily on philosophical Daoism (Taoism) and contemporary physics. Systems theory (the science of complex and self-organising systems) is a secondary focus of the creative work and is used metaphorically in theorising the writing process.
The creative work, “A coat of ashes”, is chiefly concerned with the nature of being. It asks, “What is?”, “What am I?” and, most urgently, “What matters?”. To engage with these questions, it opens a space in which voices expressing scientific and spiritual worldviews may be heard on equal terms. “A coat of ashes” contributes a substantial number of poems to the small corpus of Daoist-influenced poetry in English and adds to the larger corpus of poetry engaging with the sciences. The poems are offset by a metafictional narrative, “The Dream”, which may be read as an allegory of the writing journey and the struggle to combine discourses.
The four essays articulate the poetics of “A coat of ashes” by addressing its context, themes, influences, methodology and compositional processes. They contribute to both literary criticism and writing theory. Like the creative work, they focus on dialogues between rationalist or scientific discourses and subjective or spiritual ones.
The first essay, “An introduction”, discusses the thesis itself: its rationale, background, components, limitations and implications. The second, “Singing the quantum”, reviews scholarship discussing the influence of physics on poetry, then examines figurative representations of physics concepts in selected poems by Rebecca Elson, Cilla McQueen and
Frederick Seidel. These poems illustrate how contemporary poetry can interpret scientific
concepts in terms of subjective human concerns.
The third essay, “Let the song be bare”, discusses existing Daoist poetry criticism before considering Daoist influences in the poetry of Ursula K. Le Guin, Randolph Stow and Judith Wright. These non-Indigenous poets with a strong awareness of the sciences have, by adopting Daoist-inflected senses of the sacred, been able to articulate the tension engendered by their problematic relationships with colonised landscapes. Moreover, the changing aesthetic of Wright’s later poetry reflects a struggle between Daoist quietism and European lyric commentary.
The final essay, “Animating the ash”, reflects on the process of writing poetry, using examples from “A coat of ashes” to construct a theoretical synthesis based on Daoism, systems theory and contemporary poetics. It proposes a novel way to characterise the nature and emergence of the hard-to-define quality that makes a poem a poem. This essay also discusses some of the Daoist and scientific motifs that occur in the creative work.
As a whole, this project highlights the potential of both the sciences and the more ancient ways of knowing — when seen in each other’s light — to help us apprehend the world’s material and metaphysical nature and live harmoniously within it.
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Fields, Raina Lauren. "Last Rites for Uptown." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77480.
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This autobiographical poetry collection is about identity, belonging, and brokenness, dealing with the aftermath of a dead mother, a deadbeat father, and a decaying home filled with years of trash and memory. In many ways, this collection is a buildungsroman. For me, what seem like ordinary questions become a journey into memories and experiences that were once repressed. As a child of a hoarder, one who fielded questions from family, friends, and the Department of Human Service for almost twenty years, I am just starting to confidently address the many silences that were and are present in my family: my mother’s quest to hide her breast cancer and her subsequent death as a result of her secrecy; my father’s four other children that I have never met; and my grandparents’ military history spanning three continents in the 1950s and 1960s.Master of Fine Arts