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Political tendencies in Carl Sandburg's poetry
Dragounová, Jolana ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Delbos, Stephan (referee)
1 Abstract Behind the poetry of Carl Sandburg, a poet often underestimated and perceived as insignificant, hides a strong political voice that raises various questions due to its directness and straightforwardness with focus on plain style and everyday imagery. Though at first glance, Sandburg's poetry may seem transparent and frank, critics debate over his true intent. On that account, it is necessary not to disregard his personal life and political beliefs in the analysis of his work for it had a significant impact. The aim of this thesis is to analyze Carl Sandburg's poetry during the period of the 1920s and 1930s and describe the influence and reflection of his political views on his work. His political life provides quite a colorful picture. In the beginnings of his early career, we could notice his leftist tendencies in his poetry, which peaked in his adulthood, particularly when Sandburg became a member of the Social-Democratic Party. During his life as a journalist, he paid attention to the injustice inflicted on working-class men, women and even children, and he was concerned about their insufficient working conditions. Apart from contributing to socialist newspaper the International Socialist Review, he was also working on political campaigns of socialist leaders. In his essay "You and Your Job,"...
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Incest in the Nineteenth Century American Literature
Gudkov, Danila ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
The subject of this BA thesis is social and political reasons behind the incest fascination in 19th century America. My aim is to investigate the surprisingly common details prevalent in this area of American literature and to find and explain reasons behind their presence. In such stories, due to the fathers' infidelity a young man or women eventually end up in a situation of nearly committing incest with either their father or their own half sibling. Afterwards, the realization of said fact causes misery and often death to both parties involved. The mother's presence plays no role in this kind of novels, as she is either narratively absent or outright dead. This thesis will attempt to prove that abovementioned scenario is not merely a way to attract fame and riches but the representation of fears that plagued the population of New World. The works which will be discussed are Alice Doane's Appeal by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Marian and Lydia, Mentoria; or The young lady's friend by Mrs. Rowson, Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Herman Melville, The Power of Sympathy:or, the Triumph of Nature by William Hill Brown and Louisa May Alcott's The Marble Woman, or the Mysterious Model. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction in which I...
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Elizabeth Bishop: The Map of Her Life and Work
Nováková, Lucie ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
The aim of the thesis is straightforward: to provide readers with a glimpse into the life of Elizabeth Bishop but not to put emphasis on biographical details. The focus lies on her two most formative relationships with her fellow poets, namely Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell. The thesis aims to present five selected poems and to read them with acknowledging the mutual influences and, at the same time, it strives to provide specific instances of such influences. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the relationship with Marianne Moore. The two poets met during Bishop's Vassar years and their friendship lasted until Moore's death in 1972. From the teacher - mentored paradigm, their friendship evolved into an affectionate companionship. The thesis introduces their relationship while using selected letters, interviews and, to illustrate the matters more clearly, two of Bishop's poems, "The Roosters" and "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore." The first poem captures the breaking free from Moore's direct influence and additionally serves as a link to the second part of the thesis. The later poem is used to illustrate their reconciliation and to present the milestone that marks the shift of paradigms. The second part of the thesis presents Robert Lowell, who is the already mentioned link between...
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American Postwar Pilgrimage: The Beats in Paris
Kirlan, Margarita ; Delbos, Stephan (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
The main objective of this thesis is to study the high point of the Beat Generation's production in Paris between 1957 and 1960 and to determine why it encouraged their major contribution to literature, art and criticism worldwide in the last quarter of the 20th century and today. Though most were born and educated in the United States, many of the most important Beat writers journeyed across the world in search of artistic recognition and determined to perform literary experiments they had failed to execute back home. This thesis will provide an overview of the Beat pilgrimage to Paris, a city which has been coined "an arbiter of cultural value in the postwar era." The thesis also attempts to examine the1 ways the Beats' time in Paris was invaluable for their influence on literature beyond American borders and how their writing was shaped by the oeuvres of such French writers as Rimbaud, Proust, Gide, Apollinaire, St.-John Perse, Céline, Cocteau, Genet, Michaux and others. This thesis2 will survey the intersection between French and American culture and the influence of both on Beat authors and the list of works to be analysed includes but is not limited to Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (1956), and "Kaddish" (1959); William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959), The Soft Machine; Jack...
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Persephone the Wanderer:" Myth in Contemporary Women's American Poetry
Kecsöová, Dominika ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Delbos, Stephan (referee)
This thesis explores the relationship between the ancient Greek myth of Persephone and the poetry of contemporary U.S. women poets. Since myths do not have a single or authoritative version, they are open to re-writing and are palimpsestic in nature; thus myth in general serves as meta-narrative and is constantly re-written in different contexts. Works of four contemporary American poets are analysed: Louise Glück, Rita Dove, Jorie Graham and A.E.Stallings. These poets create alternative versions of the myth of Persephone; for Glück, Dove, Graham and Stallings, among many other women poets, the Persephone myth presents an opportunity to deal with the heritage of the classical era and themes of love, death and mother-daughter relationship. The potential for rewriting is apparent when considering the two main sources of the myth, the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter" and Ovid's Metamorphoses which also present slightly different narratives concentrating on particular aspects of the Persephone myth. Each of the four poets approaches myth in a slightly different manner, while working with the basic motifs contained therein. The objective of the thesis is to describe the differences and similarities between the four re- visions of the Persephone myth and to comment on the lasting influence of myth in...
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Behind Enemy Lines: The New American Poetry and the Cold War Anthology Wars
Delbos, Stephan ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee) ; Harris, Kaplan (referee)
Behind Enemy Lines: The New American Poetry and the Cold War Anthology Wars The New American Poetry, a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen and published by Grove Press in 1960, is perhaps the single most influential American poetry anthology in history. It not only brought some of the most important poets of the 20th century to international prominence, but it also created an editorial model that numerous prominent future anthologists would follow, and helped establish the image of American poetry as divided between competing camps of free verse and formal poets, or rebellious and academic poets, battle lines that were drawn when the anthology was published. At the same time, Allen's anthology established the United States as the center and the source of innovative anglophone poetry, despite the fact that such poetry was being written in numerous English-speaking countries during the post-war period. The origins and the legacy of this important anthology are complex, and have deep resonances in the way we think about poetry even today. Considering these facts, the time is right for a critical reexamination of The New American Poetry, utilizing information about the Cold War that has only recently come to light, as well as new ways of thinking about national and transnational literature which...
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Emersonianism, American Nationalism, and Nature in the Poetry of Robert Frost
Schröderová, Simona ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to analyse three major aspects of Robert Frost's poetry: first his relationship with Emersonianism, second with American nationalism, and third with the natural world. Besides the use of form and the focus on rhythm and meter, these three aspects are to a great extent characteristic of Frost's poetry, recurring in many of his poems. Analysing them provides a comprehensive view of the poet's work and illuminates his unique style distinguishable by its play of imagination, the often unnoticed ambiguity and even obscurity. The analysis will be based on close readings of Frost's poems, available critical material, and comparisons with other authors who deal with the same aspects and have influenced Frost's work. With Emersonianism this will include, besides Emerson's essays, the works of Thoreau and Whitman. The three authors had indubitably a great influence on Frost. Particularly their concepts of individualism, self-reliance and life in society can be traced in some of Frost's best known poems such as 'The Road Not Taken' or the 'Mending Wall'. Frost's take on them however, is much more complex than is generally believed. His development of these themes brings mainly indefinite results. Given that in the U.S. nationalism is a concept that often overlaps with individualism,...
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Swans and Contradictions in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats
Červený, Lukáš ; Theinová, Daniela (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
William Butler Yeats's 1919 collection The Wild Swans at Coole marked a transition in his poetry: from early songs rooted in Romanticism, the poet moves towards a style influenced by Modernism. Even though it is beneficial to examine Yeats's work in relation to the two major literary movements, it is necessary to bear in mind that his stance towards both remained problematic. This stylistic ambiguity is apparent in the collection's title poem and its central paradox: the poet's depiction of swans contains aspects of Romanticism and Modernism alike, yet it resists clear classification. Furthermore, swans feature here not only as poetic symbols, but also as physical bodies. Similar contradictory tendencies appear in Yeats's "Leda and the Swan". In this later poem from The Tower (1918), the poet emphasizes the symbolic value as well as the physical features of the animal. The swan as a beautiful rapist in "Leda and the Swan" also prompts a feminist reading, bringing us to the dichotomy between the poet and woman as object. This dichotomy is put on display in the last poem I discuss in detail, "Coole and Ballylee, 1931". In it, Yeats thematizes not only his life, but also his work and his relationship with the swans as mirrors of inevitable alienation. Chapters one and two trace the influence of the...
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Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism and the Poetry of W. H. Auden
Tůmová, Šárka ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Vít, Ladislav (referee)
The later views of W. H. Auden were influenced by numerous thinkers and intellectuals and one of the most important among those was the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. This bachelor thesis explores the influence that Auden's friendship with Niebuhr had on both his life and his poetry primarily in the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s. Niebuhr provided the theoretical framework for many of Auden's later ideas and thus helped him to find sense in his poetic vocation, as well as to resolve his more general ideological struggle. The thesis examines three major areas of thought in which Niebuhr's influence on Auden can be traced: Christianity, history and politics. Christianity, which is the focus of the first part of the thesis, serves as an ideological frame and provides a wider background for Auden's and Niebuhr's understanding of both history and politics. Niebuhr's theological opinions are introduced with primary focus on his understanding of Christian realism and the doctrine of original sin. Auden's approach to Christianity is discussed then, primarily in relation to his crisis of vocation and its eventual resolution. Most importantly, the two perspectives are compared, concentrating on Niebuhr's influence on Auden's religious thinking. Their related conceptions of the unconditional and...
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Us and Them: Presenting America 1948-1956
Zezuláková Schormová, Františka ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Delbos, Stephan (referee)
1 Abstract This MA thesis discusses contemporary US literature in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1956 in order to see how the US was represented through the chosen American writers and their works. The first two chapters look at how the parallel canon was established, both from historical and theoretical perspective. The third chapter discusses Langston Hughes as the representative of American poetry. It shows how Hughes was used to draw attention to racial inequality in the US. Howard Fast as the superstar of the "Czechoslovak America" is the focus of the fourth chapter. The cases of both Fast and Hughes show that contemporary US authors published in Czechoslovakia at that time were chosen for the way they depicted the US racial and social inequality and the repression of political opposition, and identified themselves as members of the so called progressive America. Reading Hughes and Fast from the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain contributes to Czech scholarship on the 1950s and adds new perspectives to the contemporary reconsiderations of American leftist writers.
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