Ask a Librarian

Threre are lots of ways to contact a librarian. Choose what works best for you.

HOURS TODAY

10:00 am - 3:00 pm

Reference Desk

CONTACT US BY PHONE

(802) 656-2022

Voice

(802) 503-1703

Text

MAKE AN APPOINTMENT OR EMAIL A QUESTION

Schedule an Appointment

Meet with a librarian or subject specialist for in-depth help.

Email a Librarian

Submit a question for reply by e-mail.

WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE RIGHT AWAY?

Library Hours for Thursday, March 28th

All of the hours for today can be found below. We look forward to seeing you in the library.
HOURS TODAY
8:00 am - 12:00 am
MAIN LIBRARY

SEE ALL LIBRARY HOURS
WITHIN HOWE LIBRARY

MapsM-Th by appointment, email govdocs@uvm.edu

Media Services8:00 am - 7:00 pm

Reference Desk10:00 am - 3:00 pm

OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Special Collections10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Dana Health Sciences Library7:30 am - 11:00 pm

 

CATQuest

Search the UVM Libraries' collections

UVM Theses and Dissertations

Browse by Department
Format:
Print
Author:
Alexander, William Joseph
Dept./Program:
English
Year:
2006
Degree:
MA
Abstract:
William Butler Yeats described early 20th century Ireland as a place where "the old world that sang and listened is, it may be for the last time in Europe, face to face with the world that reads and writes, and their antagonism is always present under some name or other in Irish imagination and intellect" (Samhain 6). My thesis examines the work of two authors who explore the tension between oral and literate narrative forms, and proves that both ultimately express this tension as an interfusional dialectic rather than the binary antagonism Yeats describes. My first chapter explores the interfusional qualities of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien deeply admired the Beowulf poet and the ancient historical moment in which that poem originates; a moment in which the singing and listening of traditional Anglo-Saxon scops came face to face with the reading and writing of Christian scribes. Tolkien created a similar fusion of traditional material and newer techniques, one that resonates simultaneously with the fusion of oral and literate modes evident in Beowulf and with the crisis of modernity in which 20th century nationalism and technological progress coalesce into two world wars. My second chapter deals primarily with James Joyce and his pseudo-autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as well as its abandoned first draft Stephen Hero; I also follow the implications of my analysis into select chapters of Ulysses. Assuming that Yeats is correct about the antagonism between orality and literacy in "Irish imagination and intellect" (in the early 20th century, at least), I set out to examine this conflict in Joyce's work. By focusing on phonocentrism (the assumption that speech is closer than writing to both interior consciousness and the reality language attempts to describe) in Joyce's stream-of consciousness technique and his treatment of the character Stephen Dedalus, I demonstrate how Joyce is attempting to break through hyper-literate, abstract and self-referential conventions and cognition into a more "natural" language, increasingly using mythic and folkloric material to do so (even as he mercilessly mocks the romantic idealization of such material). In both chapters I make use of Walter Ong's descriptions of the psychodynamics of orality and Jacques Derrida's deconstructive techniques. In closing I rely on Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory of reading to prove that interfusional literature, by approximating the aura of the aural in written literature, creates a reality-check to our assumptions and master narratives. Oral texts foster crucial consciousness.