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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Human Rooms

Rybak, Charles A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1052328743

Abstract Details

2003, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
This dissertation, Human Rooms, a collection of original poetry by Charles Rybak, includes four sections consisting largely of narrative poems. A range of formal styles is incorporated, including sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, prose poetry, and a variety of free verse arrangements. The poems engage many themes, the most central being mythology in both its classical and contemporary manifestations. As the dominant theme, myth is juxtaposed with related themes, such as technology, information, popular culture, family history, and cultural history. In addition, these poems explore mythologizing and demythologizing as meaning-making processes that often fictionalize what is commonly accepted as factual. While these themes are social in nature, many of the poems detail the mythology of the self, focusing on isolated and exiled personas that struggle with the ability to make meaning; these figures often find themselves on the threshold of personal growth and change, yet are unable to achieve metamorphosis. The dissertation also includes a critical paper, "Absalom, Absalom! and the Performance of Literary Modernity." This paper examines two works: Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner and "Literary History and Literary Modernity" by Paul de Man, for the purpose of discussing Faulkner's novel as the formal performance of literary modernity. The paper's main objective is to isolate and discuss literary modernity as it exists stylistically, rather than as a movement merely defined by time period and canonical association.
Dr. Don Bogen (Advisor)
88 p.
Literature, English
poetry

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Rybak, C. A. (2003). Human Rooms [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1052328743

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rybak, Charles. Human Rooms. 2003. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1052328743.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rybak, Charles. "Human Rooms." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1052328743

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1052328743
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© 2003, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.