Henry James and Harold Frederic: Two Views of the American 1870s
This is a revised and updated version of my original Master's thesis. Acting on an observation by John Henry Raleigh that James' early novel Roderick Hudson and Harold Frederic's later novel The Damnation of Theron Ware have remarkable similarities, I expanded the study into ten areas for comparison. NOTE: Please excuse the unorthodox end and text note forms in this and subsequent pieces. I do know the correct forms, but the html program does not convert note forms accurately, so I had to improvise them. ;-)
Dickinson’s Carriage Ride: Early Critical Views and Speech Act Theory
An early review of criticism of Emily Dickinson's poem, "Because I could not stop for Death" which may still have some small merit.
Flannery O’Connor and Ontological Mystery
A study of five of O'Connor's short stories and their link to existential thought. (Pardon the sexist language of the citations; most critics were not politically correct even as late as the 1970s.)
Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, and John P. Marquand on Marriage
A study of three early 20th-century novels as they portray the institution of marriage. Surprisingly similar depictions!
A brief review of selected modern writers' attitudes toward the Romantic Movement. Includes Eliot, Pound, Hulme, and others.
Community in The Damnation of Theron Ware
Harold Frederic describes American religious, ethnic, and intellectual communities as they existed in the Upper Mohawk Valley of New York State in the 1870s.
Consider the Door A short article I wrote for the Pentecostal Evangel in 1985 that grew from a letter to a student about making choices.
Being revised -- A cursory study of the poetry (actually verse) published in the New York Times during the Civil War and its reflection of the attitudes of Times editor Henry Raymond.
The Blithedale Romance: A Review of Early Criticism An ancient review of criticism of one of Hawthorne's least known novels. I'm always for the underdog!
Welcome to the Lion's Den A short perspective on the teaching of creative writing. Originally published in the Evangel University yearbook, Excalibur.