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- Creators: Sturges, Robert
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Description
This dissertation makes the case to reclaim the typically negative term, coterie, as a poetic method and offers the epithalamium as a valuable object for the study of coterie conditions and values. This examination of the historical poetics of the epithalamium shows how the form was reappropriated by gay postwar poets and those in related social circumstances. This study applies and builds on theories developed by Arthur Marotti (John Donne: Coterie Poet), and Lytle Shaw (Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie) and subsequent critics to develop a coterie poetics, the markers and terms for which I have arranged here to demonstrate conscious "sociable" poetics. It is thus to our advantage to study coterie conditions and methods to open readers to insights into twentieth-century poets that have deliberately exploited reception among those in private and public spheres, just as their Early-Modern precursors did--often as a matter of survival, but also as formative practice. The key figures in this study wrote significant epithalamia or made major theoretical claims for coterie poetics: John Donne (1572-1631), W. H. Auden (1907-1973), Paul Goodman (1910-1972), and Frank O'Hara (1926-1966). O'Hara's poetry is approached as the apex of coterie poetics; his personal immediacy and obscure personal references should alienate and exclude--yet, they invite.
ContributorsEisenberg, Jeremy (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis examines Christopher Marlowe's poem Hero and Leander and George Chapman's Continuation thereof through a theoretical lens that includes theories of intimacy, sexuality and touch taken from Lee Edelman, Daniel Gil, James Bromley, Katherine Rowe and others. Hands are seen as the privileged organ of touch as well as synecdoche for human agency. Because it is all too often an unexamined sense, the theory of touch is dealt with in detail. The analysis of hands and touch leads to a discussion of how Marlowe's writing creates a picture of sexual intimacy that goes against traditional institutions and resists the traditional role of the couple in society. Marlowe's poem favors an equal, companionate intimacy that does not engage in traditional structures, while Chapman's Continuation to Marlowe's work serves to reaffirm the transgressive nature of Marlowe's poem by reasserting traditional social institutions surrounding the couple. Viewing the two pieces of literature together further supports the conclusion that Marlowe's work is transgressive because of how conservative Chapman's reaction to Hero and Leander is.
ContributorsHardman, Katherine (Author) / Fox, Cora (Thesis advisor) / Ryner, Bradley (Committee member) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
While tournaments, duels, and challenges were analyzed within literary texts prior to the 1980's, the most recent trend in scholarship has been to focus on how these proceedings fit into a historical context. Many authors have noted how medieval rulers used tournaments, duels, and challenges as a way to keep their militaristic knights under control; however, there has been relatively little study on the way that these three events function as a means of social control in medieval romances. This paper examines how the public nature of these events and the chivalric nature of their participants combine to subvert the agency of not only the nobles, but also King Arthur himself in four of the Sir Gawain romances, "Ywain and Gawain", "The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain", "The Awntyrs off Arthur at the Terne Wathelyne" and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
ContributorsWilhite, Amanda (Author) / Bjork, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis examines the use of the earth goddess figure in John Varley's Gaean Trilogy (1979-1984). In the figure of Gaea (Varley's alien goddess villain), the reader is presented with a host of popular culture feminine archetypes with connotations connected to the long-standing tradition of associating femininity and materiality, and Varley's literary examination, operating through the exaggeration of these archetypes, displays their essential flaws. The ultimate antagonistic functions of these archetypal figures, relative to the human characters occupying the world underwritten by them, suggests that Varley uses such figural archetypes to deconstruct, via their varied failures, both the archetypes themselves and the evocative symbolic contexts associated with them, therein demonstrating their inherent limitations and providing a cautionary tale that highlights the fallibility of projective archetypal construction-even seemingly positive ones. By examining these archetypes as performances of gender, the thesis illustrates Varley's integration, at the end of the 1970's, of second-wave feminist theoretical ideals into science fiction (a genre with a long history dedicated to the experimental examination of all social typology) initially sets up and then subsequently breaks down the archetypal villain, thus pursuing a political dimension as well. The narrative experiment in typology promotes a turning away from the ancient symbolic associations of femininity to explore a new kind of goddess, one not reliant on pre-existing archetypes but one more attuned to the emergence of "gender" itself as a construct used to define the feminine itself.
ContributorsPope, Geraldine (Author) / Lussier, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Cook, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposes that the personality has three components, the id, superego, and ego. The id is concerned with pleasure and gain, the reason it is often identified as a human's animalistic side. Additionally, the id does not consider social rules as closely and is the uncensored portion of the personality. The superego is the id's opposite; the superego considers social expectations and pressures immensely, is more self-critical and moralizing. The ego mediates the id and superego, and is understood as the realistic expression of personality which considers both the "animal" and human. A Fractured Whole: A Collection of Short Stories, explores Freud's construction of human personality in both form and content. Within the collection are three sections, each with a different pair of characters. Within each section, the same scene is written in the three "modes" of the id, superego, and ego, as three separate stories. The fifteen stories comprising this collection address the substance of daily life: sexuality, body image, competition, among other topics, to consider how a single person can balance the desires for personal pleasure and to satisfy social expectations. Writing the same scene in three "modes" allows for the observation of how the characters attitudes and actions alter under the influence of different parts of their personalities.
ContributorsOtte, Aneka (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
DescriptionA short, fantasy novel using essential characters, themes, and events as depicted in the Bible.
ContributorsMcDonald, Joshua Dave Mallrich (Author) / Facinelli, Diane (Thesis director) / Bruhn, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Though people are beginning to analyze the internet as an active social force, a seemingly insurmountable problem permeates all criticisms of the world wide web: how do we begin to frame the Internet as a subject of inquiry when its role in our lives is constantly shifting, continually slipping from definition, yet undeniably reconstructing a new human condition? I believe an answer may lie in placing the Internet within the context of the Faust Myth \u2014 a legend that has repeatedly been used to explore humanity's obsession with power. For my undergraduate honors thesis, I wrote and performed an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus in which I frame the Internet as a modern Faustian contract, and advocate a new approach to the use of technology.
ContributorsMunger, Adrielle Karen (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Sterling, Pamela (Committee member) / Finn, Ed (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
The following is a fantasy twist on the Christian Bible, set before the time of Adam of Eve. The plot follows the lives of the first humans before Adam and Eve, the Father's first attempt at creating humanity. Additionally, it follows the first generation of archangels on an adventure into the abyss. The work draws on theological, and mythological ideas including Greek mythology, Hasidic legend, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and even Dungeons and Dragons.
ContributorsWhite, Zachary Christopher (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Corse, Taylor (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Often when considering John Milton's greatest work, Paradise Lost, the general public operates under a number of assumptions which are patently false. One of these assumptions is that Milton was an orthodox Christian when writing Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. This thesis sheds light on the issue by examining his personal beliefs about the trinity in De Doctrina Christiana, defending the use of the treatise in analyzing the poems, and explaining how Milton uses veiled language in order to hide his heterodox beliefs. I contend that deriving an antitrinitarian mode of thought from De Doctrina Christiana and reading the poem with this antitrinitarian belief, the cognitive frame of reference in which Milton was when writing both poems, in mind is a more consistent reading of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained than reading both texts with a traditional, orthodox, Christian perspective. Examining a variety of selections from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, I demonstrate the powerful nature of the antitrintarian reading of Milton. Many passages, for example the invocation in the opening lines of Book III of Paradise Lost, become much clearer with an antitrinitarian reading. Reading the texts with an antitrinitarian view reduces ambiguity in the text and clarifies a number of passages and details which, from a Trinitarian view, are left completely unanswered in Paradise Lost. In addition to clarifying confusing passages, an antitrinitarian reading demonstrates Milton's masterful use of 17th century English Protestantism "buzz-words" to mask his true beliefs without compromising his personal religious convictions about the second member of the Christian Triune Godhead.
ContributorsGould, George Andrew (Author) / David, Hawkes (Thesis director) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
In the mid-twentieth century, a number of vital and quietly revolutionary gay male writers, including Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, and John Rechy, increasingly wrote about explicitly homosexual experiences and culture despite social and legal opposition. Both individually and collectively, these four authors ultimately merged disjointed identities to establish a tradition of visibility and resistance in the United States. Divided into four main sections, this thesis examines each author’s portrayal of homosexual experiences and culture through his distinct approach with a close literary analysis of various works. The first section considers Christopher Isherwood and how milieu affects his depictions of homosexuality in The Berlin Stories (1945), Down There on a Visit (1962), and A Single Man (1964). The second examines Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar (1948) and the relationship between homosexuality and masculinity. The third section looks at how James Baldwin writes about the intersection of homosexuality, race, nationality, and class in both Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Another Country (1962). Finally, the fourth section considers the emergence of queer communities built around resistance in John Rechy’s City of Night (1963). In addition to these literary texts, original reviews of each novel published in The New York Times capture their reception and acceptance into a mainstream American readership. Through their distinct approaches, these four authors collectively present a varied, although somewhat limited, look at the homosexual experience in postwar, pre-Stonewall America.
ContributorsBramlett, Charles Paul (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05