Date of Award

6-2011

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Suji K. Kim

Second Advisor

Cheryl Nixon

Third Advisor

Stephanie Kamath

Abstract

This poetry collection examines the different means by which established forms, ideas, and cultural norms influence our decisions and perceptions, as well as themes of linguistic corruption, abandonment, and the apocalypse. The topics are broad, and so is the range of poetic forms utilized and experimented with here, including the Shakespearean sonnet, the prose poem, the villanelle and the Medieval ballad. Medieval literature comes under particular scrutiny in the longest piece, an epic poem entitled "The Book of the Book" that allegorically details the evolution from Old to Middle English while incorporating Biblical episodes, bob-and-wheel stanzas, modern colloquial monologues, and an Anne Sexton pastiche. Throughout all of these different scenarios, the presence of the inherited idea is sometimes ominous, sometimes attractive, but always inescapable, even when its powers are seemingly diminished, and always shapes the trajectories of the new, even when it appears as foreign or incomprehensible.

Comments

Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through resources like Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global or through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users" link above.

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