Browsing by Author "Dr. M. Thomas Hester, Committee Chair"

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A New Reading of John Donne's "Song. Goe, and catche a falling starre."
(2003-12-11) Newton, David Travis; Dr. Brian Blackley, Committee Member; Dr. R.V. Young, Committee Co-Chair; Dr. M. Thomas Hester, Committee Chair
"Song. Goe, and catche a falling starre" has long been a popular Donne poem, but it has not received the critical attention given to others of the Songs and Sonets. Even in the frequent references to it in critical studies, those commentaries are only brief and general. Dismissed often as merely a comic poem without seriousness of theme, "Song" has been mostly only noted as "comic," "lighthearted," "cynical," "flippant," and "delightful," but not considered one of Donne's "better," "more serious" works. More often than not, the poem is dismissed as one of those deeply cynical poems about woman written when Donne was a young bachelor in and around the courts in London during the 1590s. Failing to consider its reliance on a fictive persona invented by an ironic wit, it has been noticed too often only as one of "Jack" Donne's so-called "misogynistic," "promiscuous" poems (like "The Indifferent") as exemplifying a Donne trend of remarking negatively on "Womans constancy." This study examines more thoroughly "Song. Goe, and catche a falling starre" within the literary and historical contexts of its composition in order to suggest that Donne creates such a speaker for more specific and significant ironic aims than the dismissive critics of the poem have noted. This thesis argues that Donne is intentionally mocking the Petrarchan poetry popular during the day and its idealization of woman. Additionally, Donne's poem is a reaction to the Protestant campaign of the Sidney coterie of politicians and poets who were fueling a Sidney poetic revival and promoting their religio-political agenda, by using the heroic death-in-battle of Sidney along with the publication of his works to fashion a Sidney legend, setting him up as the ideal English Petrarchan gentleman, courtier, and Protestant warrior. In "Song," Donne undermines this movement by pointing out the irony of Sidney's selection of Lady Penelope Rich — a known adulterer— as the idealized subject of Astrophil and Stella. Donne points to Sidney as his subject through a numerological code in the poem and through poetic allusions to the life and works of Sidney and his elegists.
The Second Coming of the Second Tetralogy: Shakespeare's Depiction of that "Which is, and Which was, and Which is to come"
(2006-04-24) Price, Trudy Jones; Dr. Michael Grimwood, Committee Member; Dr. M. Thomas Hester, Committee Chair; Dr. Brian Blackley, Committee Member
Shakespeare's second tetralogy is framed by various biblical types, images and allusions in order to dramatize a specific period in history in terms of divine history. Shakespeare develops the tetralogy's structure using the structure of the Bible, beginning with an image of Genesis and ending with an image of Revelation. The first play, The Tragedy of Richard II, portrays England as a fallen "demi-paradise," reminiscent of Eden, and Richard as a fallen man, a type of Adam whose tragic fall creates the need for a redeemer of England, as reccounted in the providential history of Genesis. This redeemer comes to life in his next two plays, The History of King Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 in the character of Prince Hal, who is depicted later to be "the mirror of all Christian princes." Henry IV, Part I dramatizes Hal's gradual "revelation" as that "redeemer" and also introduces Apocalyptic images in order to foreshadow the hardships portrayed in the next two plays. Henry IV, Part 2 "mocks [our] expectations" raised by Hal's success as one who will "Redeem...time" by allowing the play to linger on as we wait for Henry IV's imminent death. The tetralogy presents the Fall of man and need for a redeemer, the waiting time (chronos) that must be endured, and the season and fulfillment of that time (kairos) in order to show the audience how to seize their own kairos and live a life worthy of imitation, as Henry V did. An analogical reading of Henry V thus shows Henry to be a character created not to represent Christ, but to remind the audience that Christ is on His way and to provide them with a mirror of how to live according to His word, specifically as revealed in Revelation.
A Textual History of John Donne's "The Will"
(2003-11-20) McLawhorn, Tracy Elizabeth; Dr. R. V. Young, Committee Member; Dr. M. Thomas Hester, Committee Chair; Dr. Brian Blackley, Committee Member
The purpose of my thesis is to explain the process used to establish the copy-text of John Donne's poem "The Will" and examine the problems that arose in this process. I first consulted thirty-four manuscript versions and the seven seventeenth-century versions of this poem and transcribed these texts into files generated by the Donne Variorum Frame File Generator program. Collating these texts (using the Donne Variorum Collation software) allowed me to determine textual patterns and create a schema of textual relationships. The most significant verbal variant found among manuscript versions of "The Will" is the inclusion or omission of the third stanza (resulting in a 6-stanza or 5-stanza version). Based on the textual evidence and my interpretation of the poem, I believe that Donne first wrote a 6-stanza text and later revised this text to a 5-stanza version. The O'Flahertie text, referred to as H6 in the Donne Variorum, is a 6-stanza text that I use as the copy-text for "The Will." The O'Flahertie text is used because, based on my textual analysis, I believe this text to be the version that is closet to what Donne actually wrote. Along with the copy-text, my thesis includes a textual apparatus listing all variants, a schema of textual relationships, textual notes, and an interpretation of the poem.