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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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Mythical Method in T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"
Straková, Kateřina ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
By the use of mythical method, T. S. Eliot created a pattern of archetypal imagery in his poem The Waste Land (1922). This work focuses on the various interpretations of The Waste Land written from the perspective of archetypal criticism. Eliot's critics frequently interpreted the poem as a modern cultural artefact testifying to the ritual of death and rebirth. Examination of the approaches towards archetypal imagery contained in Eliot's work enables an exploration of the main thematic concepts of this literary composition - namely the lack of vital energy and longing for renewal. The poem incorporates archetype-based images into its symbolic frame, and at the same time exposes the sources of these variations on primal ideas. Vegetation myths and the Arthurian legends are recognized by the archetypal critics as the main references for the thematic structure of Eliot's poem. The archetypal analysis of Eliot's work was prevalent in the 1950-70s. Critics expanded upon the idea of the desired renewal of productive forces expressed in the poem. They identified this concept as anthropological in its origin, and traced the influence which James G. Frazer's theories about primitive ritual had on The Waste Land. Eliot coined the term "mythical method" in his essay on James Joyce "Ulysses, Order, and Myth"...
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Not Quite a Juggler of Identities: Joseph Brodsky's Translations within the American Literary Tradition
Tkacheva, Elena ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
This thesis discusses the difficulties in bringing Joseph Brodsky's poetry in English. It also attempts to locate Brodsky's poetry in relation to the multilingual American literary tradition by considering the factors that resulted in Brodsky being exceptionally successful in English, and the negative criticism of his translations and the original English poems. This research explores translation by considering the linguistic, literary and cultural factors involved in the transition of the poems from Russia (and Russian) to America (and English). It raises a set of broader issues connected with questioning the authority of the native speaker, the nature of the American literary tradition, and defining a good translation. Yet, it also considers the particularities of the literary niche of the exiled writers, the extend and the approaches to the transformations of English done by the authors-representatives of ethnic minorities, the appropriateness of Brodsky's manipulations with English and the connotations of certain elements of prosody in English and Russian. The thesis approaches the subject by discussing the difficulties of poetry translation specifically in the context of the Russian poetry translated into English with the main focus placed on Brodsky. It provides the overview of the debate around...
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Thinking Globally: Seamus Heaney and Dennis O'Driscoll
Zikmund, Jan ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Theinová, Daniela (referee)
In 2008, Dennis O'Driscoll published Stepping Stones, a book-length interview with the Irish poet and critic Seamus Heaney. When conducting the interview, O'Driscoll did not take a strictly chronological approach. Instead, he was interested in Heaney's literary influences, as well as his work and views on poetry. O'Driscoll's informed questions reflect his own thinking as both a poet and critic, and rather than playing the role of passive interlocutor, he confronts and challenges Heaney's views. The result is a discussion that is dynamic and revealing, providing insight into the minds of two significant Irish poets. The interview in Stepping Stones forms the basis of my bachelor thesis, which examines the friendship and exchange of influence between Heaney and O'Driscoll, who had known each other since the 1970s and had written essays on similar topics. My thesis focuses on three points of disagreement between Heaney and O'Driscoll: Eastern European poetry, American poetry and literary culture, and the poetry of last things. My aim is to introduce both poets' positions on each subject, and consider how their opposing views influenced each other's thinking on those subjects. The purpose of this thesis is to clarify why O'Driscoll was important to Heaney and explore how both poets influenced each...
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The Portrayal of Women and Men in Charles Bukowski's Fiction
Valdajeva, Božena ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
The subject of the present thesis is the author Charles Bukowski and as the title suggests his portrayal of women and men in the chosen works. This thesis strives to avoid presumption of Bukowski's personal sentiments and views, and instead focuses on the written word itself, namely on the Notes of a Dirty Old Man and Women. By choosing Notes of a Dirty Old Man and Women we will be able to discuss changes in Bukowski's attitudes throughout a set period of his life, during a time when attitudes towards women were changing. The pillars of the thesis are language and sexuality. Hence, this thesis challenges the image of crude and basic language not being worthy of literary acceptance. This thesis will show that such language was chosen deliberately. It will be explained, for example, that one of Bukowski's reasons for doing so, was to better reflect the minds of his protagonists. Similarly, sexuality, as one of the most discussed and criticised of Bukowski's themes will also be analysed. The object of this academic discussion is to show how Bukowski liberated the subject of sexuality by using humour and irony in his writing. Consequently, the thesis will also contextualise Bukowski in terms of time, place and personal development, in order to show progress and development in his work. It will be shown...
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