The just figure shape, harmony and proportion in a selection of Andrew Marvell's lyrics
- Authors: Gardner, Corinna
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678 -- Criticism and interpretation , English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2230 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002273 , Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678 -- Criticism and interpretation , English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
- Description: The phrase "the just Figure" - a quotation from Upon Appleton House - is the central theme of this thesis as it aptly describes Marvell's repeated use of shape, harmony and proportion to suggest morality and virtue. The poet's concern with geometrical imagery is conveyed by the word "figure", which also is another term for a metaphor or conceit. The word "just" suggests not only moral appropriateness, but also mathematical exactness or fit. The thesis consists of five chapters, each dealing with an aspect of the imagery of shape and form which pervades so many of Marvell's lyrics. The first chapter, "Moral Geometry", deals with the way in which Marvell uses the imagery of lines, angles and curves. In some poems the lines are curved, as in Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-borrow, where the graceful downward curved line of the hill conveys Fairfacian humility. Symmetry and circularity are discussed in the second chapter. The poet uses the perfect shape of the circle to depict objects which convey a moral significance. Similarly, several of the lyrics are themselves quasi-circular with their closing lines echoing their openings. Chapter Three deals with liquid spheres. Marvell explores the nature, shape and texture of tears in poems such as Eyes and Tears and Mourning; and in On a Drop of Dew uses the shape of the dew drop to suggest the perfection of the heavenly realm from which it has been parted. In several of the lyrics, Marvell places a frame around his poems to create an enclosed world in which his poetic creations exist. These enclosed, or framed, worlds are discussed in Chapter Four. The final chapter, "Beyond The Frame", describes how some of the lyrics suggest a move from the world within to the world beyond the frame of the poem.This can either be a movement from confinement to release, or from the seen world to worlds unseen. Shape, harmony and proportion are the qualities which Marvell uses to convey morality and humility and a vision of the world based on what is, in the various senses of the word, "just".
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- Authors: Gardner, Corinna
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678 -- Criticism and interpretation , English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2230 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002273 , Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678 -- Criticism and interpretation , English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
- Description: The phrase "the just Figure" - a quotation from Upon Appleton House - is the central theme of this thesis as it aptly describes Marvell's repeated use of shape, harmony and proportion to suggest morality and virtue. The poet's concern with geometrical imagery is conveyed by the word "figure", which also is another term for a metaphor or conceit. The word "just" suggests not only moral appropriateness, but also mathematical exactness or fit. The thesis consists of five chapters, each dealing with an aspect of the imagery of shape and form which pervades so many of Marvell's lyrics. The first chapter, "Moral Geometry", deals with the way in which Marvell uses the imagery of lines, angles and curves. In some poems the lines are curved, as in Upon the Hill and Grove at Bill-borrow, where the graceful downward curved line of the hill conveys Fairfacian humility. Symmetry and circularity are discussed in the second chapter. The poet uses the perfect shape of the circle to depict objects which convey a moral significance. Similarly, several of the lyrics are themselves quasi-circular with their closing lines echoing their openings. Chapter Three deals with liquid spheres. Marvell explores the nature, shape and texture of tears in poems such as Eyes and Tears and Mourning; and in On a Drop of Dew uses the shape of the dew drop to suggest the perfection of the heavenly realm from which it has been parted. In several of the lyrics, Marvell places a frame around his poems to create an enclosed world in which his poetic creations exist. These enclosed, or framed, worlds are discussed in Chapter Four. The final chapter, "Beyond The Frame", describes how some of the lyrics suggest a move from the world within to the world beyond the frame of the poem.This can either be a movement from confinement to release, or from the seen world to worlds unseen. Shape, harmony and proportion are the qualities which Marvell uses to convey morality and humility and a vision of the world based on what is, in the various senses of the word, "just".
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A literary study of paranormal experience in Tennyson's poetry
- Louw, Denise Elizabeth Laurence
- Authors: Louw, Denise Elizabeth Laurence
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 -- Criticism and interpretation Parapsychology in literature -- Research Romanticism -- 19th century -- Research English poetry -- 19th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2249 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002292
- Description: My thesis is that many of Tennyson's apparently paranormal experiences are explicable in terms of temporal lobe epilepsy; and that a study of the occurrence, in the work of art, of phenomena associated with these experiences, may be useful in elucidating the workings of the aesthetic imagination. A body of knowledge relevant to paranormal experience in Tennyson's life and work, assembled from both literary and biographical sources, is applied to a Subjective Paranormal Experience Questionnaire, compiled by Professor V.M. Neppe, in order to establish the range of the poet's apparently "psychic" experiences. The information is then analysed in terms of the symptomatology of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and the problems of differential diagnosis are considered. It is shown, by means of close and comparative analyses of a number of poems, that recurring clusters of images in Tennyson's poetry may have their genesis in TLE. These images are investigated in terms of modern research into altered states of consciousness. They are found to be consistent with a "model" of the three stages of trance experience constructed by Professor A.D. Lewis-Williams to account for shamanistic rock art in the San, Coso and Upper Paleolithic contexts. My study of the relevant phenomena in the work of a nineteenth century English poet would seem to offer cross-cultural verification of the applicability of the model to a range of altered-state contexts. This study goes on to investigate some of the psychological processes which may influence the way in which pathology is manifested in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson. But, throughout the investigation, the possible effects of literary precursors and of other art forms are acknowledged. The subjective paranormal phenomena in Tennyson's poems are compared not only with some modern neuropsychiatric cases, but also with those of several nineteenth-century writers who seem to have had similar experiences . These include Dostoevsky and Edward Lear, who are known to have been epileptics, and Edgar Allan Poe. Similarity between some aspects of Tennyson's work and that of various Romantic poets, notably Shelley, is stressed; and it is tentatively suggested that it might be possible to extrapolate from my findings in this study to a more general theory of the "Romantic" imagination.
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- Authors: Louw, Denise Elizabeth Laurence
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 -- Criticism and interpretation Parapsychology in literature -- Research Romanticism -- 19th century -- Research English poetry -- 19th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2249 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002292
- Description: My thesis is that many of Tennyson's apparently paranormal experiences are explicable in terms of temporal lobe epilepsy; and that a study of the occurrence, in the work of art, of phenomena associated with these experiences, may be useful in elucidating the workings of the aesthetic imagination. A body of knowledge relevant to paranormal experience in Tennyson's life and work, assembled from both literary and biographical sources, is applied to a Subjective Paranormal Experience Questionnaire, compiled by Professor V.M. Neppe, in order to establish the range of the poet's apparently "psychic" experiences. The information is then analysed in terms of the symptomatology of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and the problems of differential diagnosis are considered. It is shown, by means of close and comparative analyses of a number of poems, that recurring clusters of images in Tennyson's poetry may have their genesis in TLE. These images are investigated in terms of modern research into altered states of consciousness. They are found to be consistent with a "model" of the three stages of trance experience constructed by Professor A.D. Lewis-Williams to account for shamanistic rock art in the San, Coso and Upper Paleolithic contexts. My study of the relevant phenomena in the work of a nineteenth century English poet would seem to offer cross-cultural verification of the applicability of the model to a range of altered-state contexts. This study goes on to investigate some of the psychological processes which may influence the way in which pathology is manifested in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson. But, throughout the investigation, the possible effects of literary precursors and of other art forms are acknowledged. The subjective paranormal phenomena in Tennyson's poems are compared not only with some modern neuropsychiatric cases, but also with those of several nineteenth-century writers who seem to have had similar experiences . These include Dostoevsky and Edward Lear, who are known to have been epileptics, and Edgar Allan Poe. Similarity between some aspects of Tennyson's work and that of various Romantic poets, notably Shelley, is stressed; and it is tentatively suggested that it might be possible to extrapolate from my findings in this study to a more general theory of the "Romantic" imagination.
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A study of Tennyson's Idylls of the King
- Authors: Falconer, Marc Stuart
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892. Idylls of the king , English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2237 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002280 , Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892. Idylls of the king , English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism
- Description: This thesis is a study of themes and genre in Tennyson's Idylls of the King. I have not attempted to present a survey of the body of critisicm on the cycle, nor have I attempted a comprehensive comparison of the poem with any of Tennyson's sources. The first chapter is based on A. Fowler's study of genres and I follow the implications of his work in my reading of the Idylls. Tennyson blends various generic strands in his cycle, in particular allegory, epic, dramatic monologue and the Alexandrian idyll, to create a complex psychological allegory of epic scope which both draws on traditional genres and extends them. I believe the Idylls should be read as a cycle and in the order in which Tennyson finally presented them; the ordering process is as much part of the creative process as the actual act of composition. I have adopted Priestley's sensible division of the twelve poems which he says "falls naturally into three groups of four, corresponding closely to the three acts of modern drama" (1960, p.252-254)" The second chapter begins the sequential examination of the first four "spring" and "summer" poems beginning with the symbolic The Coming of Arthur. This idyll begins Tennyson's Arthurian mythopoeia, creating a poetic kingdom of the mind. The "act" closes with the Geraint and Enid idylls, all four works in this section ending happily. The third chapter deals with the idylls which plot the corrupting and ever-widening influence of the adulterous relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere, one cause of the destruction of the institution of the Round Table. Other causes of the demise of Arthur's order are the pernicious influences of the evil Vivien and Modred and the meaningless and sterile spirituality that prompts the quest of The Holy Grail. The last four idylls chart the final collapse of Arthur's realm, the utter disillusionment of individual idealism - personified by Pelleas, an anachronistic spring figure who appears in Camelot's bleak and hostile winter - and the complete social decay which is demonstrated by the fiasco of The Last Tournament. The tragic denouement of the cycle, on both individual and social levels, is evident in Guinevere, in which Arthur's wretched and traitorous queen understands Arthur's vision, but too late to save Camelot from ruin. In the final framing idyll, The Passing of Arthur, Tennyson's myth is elevated to the level of universal significance, the Idylls of the King becoming "not the history of one man or one generation but of a whole cycle of generations" (Memoir, ii, p.127).
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- Authors: Falconer, Marc Stuart
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892. Idylls of the king , English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2237 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002280 , Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892. Idylls of the king , English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism
- Description: This thesis is a study of themes and genre in Tennyson's Idylls of the King. I have not attempted to present a survey of the body of critisicm on the cycle, nor have I attempted a comprehensive comparison of the poem with any of Tennyson's sources. The first chapter is based on A. Fowler's study of genres and I follow the implications of his work in my reading of the Idylls. Tennyson blends various generic strands in his cycle, in particular allegory, epic, dramatic monologue and the Alexandrian idyll, to create a complex psychological allegory of epic scope which both draws on traditional genres and extends them. I believe the Idylls should be read as a cycle and in the order in which Tennyson finally presented them; the ordering process is as much part of the creative process as the actual act of composition. I have adopted Priestley's sensible division of the twelve poems which he says "falls naturally into three groups of four, corresponding closely to the three acts of modern drama" (1960, p.252-254)" The second chapter begins the sequential examination of the first four "spring" and "summer" poems beginning with the symbolic The Coming of Arthur. This idyll begins Tennyson's Arthurian mythopoeia, creating a poetic kingdom of the mind. The "act" closes with the Geraint and Enid idylls, all four works in this section ending happily. The third chapter deals with the idylls which plot the corrupting and ever-widening influence of the adulterous relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere, one cause of the destruction of the institution of the Round Table. Other causes of the demise of Arthur's order are the pernicious influences of the evil Vivien and Modred and the meaningless and sterile spirituality that prompts the quest of The Holy Grail. The last four idylls chart the final collapse of Arthur's realm, the utter disillusionment of individual idealism - personified by Pelleas, an anachronistic spring figure who appears in Camelot's bleak and hostile winter - and the complete social decay which is demonstrated by the fiasco of The Last Tournament. The tragic denouement of the cycle, on both individual and social levels, is evident in Guinevere, in which Arthur's wretched and traitorous queen understands Arthur's vision, but too late to save Camelot from ruin. In the final framing idyll, The Passing of Arthur, Tennyson's myth is elevated to the level of universal significance, the Idylls of the King becoming "not the history of one man or one generation but of a whole cycle of generations" (Memoir, ii, p.127).
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