English Language and Literature ETDs

Publication Date

6-12-1962

Abstract

This literary treatment develops the condition of suspended animation which reaches its completion in the Jamesian character in "The Ambassadors" who makes mock-sinister references to a 'product' which he never names. Literature with all its claptrap about the 'vital' issues of love and adventure on the battlefield and in the drawing-room--this ridiculous cud chewed over and over makes me gag. Even the current prattle about 'existence' is an evasion, perhaps the supreme evasion...

The success of an 'embattled style' lies in the poet's ability to sustain generalisation without abstracting it from living experience. A limit of individuation must be transcended as a matter of course. Abstractions like Work and Space and Total Mobilization are different in kind from abstractions like Honor and Glory. The attempt might be defined as intertwining the languages of war and peace in such a way that in the end no distinction can be made between them. To draw connections or to pretend that language is the representation of thought would be false. Connections must be abolished, and the real essence of a language, command, must take its place.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

Morris Freedman

Second Committee Member

J.M. Dickey

Third Committee Member

Norton Barr Crowell

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

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