Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Lyons, Richard

Committee Member

Pierce, Catherine

Committee Member

Kardos, Michael

Date of Degree

5-2-2009

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of English

Abstract

This collection of original poetry is preceded by a critical introduction that details how Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop’s similar aesthetics in poetry have influenced my own. The following poems focus on themes that challenge the nature of “manhood,” particularly the archetype of Southern masculinity, and highlight characters who struggle to understand themselves, their desires, and their society. The critical essay tracks how Bishop’s personifications, as she grows as a poet and as her narrator’s “drive into the interior” of nature, become harder to define and control and how this loss of control precipitates a jubilant self-awareness—an awareness of the limitations and frailty of language, of poetry, and of human understanding to fully comprehend and capture the vastness of the natural world. Ultimately, this essay points toward and helps articulate my own questions (and struggles) as a poet: How much do I conceal? How much do I confess?

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/15010

Download

Share

COinS