Honors Theses (English)

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    "The pearl poet" : an adaptation of "Sir Gowain and the Green Knight"
    (University of Oregon, 2001-06) Elliott, Lisa N.
    This adaptation of the 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, includes not only the action of the poem, but a month in the life of the poet and a modem reader experiencing the text for the first time. In each of these frames, the central characters go through processes of self-discovery that allow them to realize their own gayness and creative potential. The screenplay deals with how people in different time periods struggle with societal and personal expectations.
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    Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in contemporary fiction
    (University of Oregon, 2006-06) Le Chevallier, Anne Marie
    Called apparitions, the widespread phenomenon of appearances of Mary has been reported to occur since the apostle St. James the Greater roamed Spain, and it continues to this day. A folklore and following has developed surrounding her apparitions to the laity, poor, uneducated and young occurring, especially, in modem times. Contemporary authors have reinterpreted Mary and these apparitions in order to explore and understand their meaning. This thesis reviews both the history of Marian devotion and theology, and it narrates major, modem apparitions. It further examines how apparitions of Mary are portrayed in the three contemporary novels Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen, Bernardo and the Virgin by Silvio Sirias and Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson. These novels show the traditional representations of Mary and how this tradition is reinterpreted in a post-modem and contemporary lens: they portray the suffering and liberation of the characters and author through their relationship with Mary.
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    On The Same Side: Emulating A Writing Life In The High School English Classroom
    (2008-06) Wyatt, Taylor
    This thesis suggests that a modification in the way writing is taught at the high school level can make the subject more worthwhile and accessible to students. A look at the current English classroom shows that students are removed from their writing and disinterested in the subject. The aim of this study is to create an in-class writing environment that emulates the writing process, as it is practiced by professionals, using the strategies of accomplished authors as a model and incorporating ideas gleaned from educational materials as well. An incremental change made to the teaching of high school writing, one that allows students to interact with the material on a more individual basis and in an authentic way, may result in more capable student writers and also present them with the opportunity for personal growth.
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    "I shall weep though I be stone": Grief and Language in Andrew Marvell
    (2008) Henrichs, Amanda K.
    Through the centuries, critics have struggled with the poetry of Andrew Marvell, using diverse frameworks to examine his work. In this thesis, three poems – “Upon the Death of the Lord Hastings,” “Mourning,” and “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn” – will be read as elegies in order to examine how Andrew Marvell treats the intersection of language and grief in the elegiac form. Traditionally, the elegy is meant first to praise and lament the deceased, and then to console the survivors. However, Marvell actually undermines the supposed power of the elegy to move the mourner beyond her grief. In the elegy for Hastings, the power of grief is such that it affects the immortality of poetic art; in "Mourning," both readers and poetic interpreters fail to find any significance in Clora’s tears; and finally, in the "Nymph Complaining," Marvell links grief to poetry in an intricate, complex fashion, yet ultimately subordinates the survival of the living to the power of the dead. All told, Marvell exposes the elegy as a failed form, revealing that it does not (and indeed cannot) satisfactorily achieve its traditional goal of consoling the bereaved.