Literary Criticism
This is a collection of literary criticism from my undergraduate years in the English Department of BYU. My critical interests vary greatly. I became particularly interested in the role of tradition in literature. I've written a lot about T.S. Eliot in exploration of this subject. This interest also informs my exploration of Post-Colonialism and Asian American Literature.
The Course of Memory: Li-Young Lee and the American Tradition
This is my Honors Thesis for graduation from Brigham Young University. In it, I contend that Asian American poet Li-Young Lee participates in the American literary tradition by organizing and redefining memory so as to overcome its temporality and arrive at a universal divine origin. My argument is informed primarily by a close reading of Lee's "The Cleaving," a comparison of Lee's "With Ruins" to Frost's "Directive," a comparison of Lee's "Furious Versions" with Eliot's "Four Quartets", and Lee's comments to me during an phone interview. [more...]
Posted August 01, 2001
Selling Blackness in the 1930's: Comparing Audience Responses to Hughes' Mulatto and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
Despite the progressive atmosphere of the mid-1930's, the disparity between reactions to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Hughes' Mulatto reveals that America's stereotyped notions of blackness and resistance to racial progress contributed to an almost universal misunderstanding of Hughes' message. Even more disturbing is that both Hughes' and Gershwin's plays evidence the social and economic needs for commercial black theater to ironically reinforce the very stereotypes and social conventions that Hughes and other African American authors sought to overthrow. [more...]
Posted June 01, 2001
Li-Young Lee and the Course of Memory: A Case for Asian America's Place in the American Literary Tradition
The realization that Lee's poetry escapes the confines of an "Asian American" classification allows the reader to see that Asian American literature, at least in the case of Li-Young Lee, does not only fit in the American tradition—it is, because of its preoccupation with the loss of origin, the essence of the American tradition. [more...]
Posted April 15, 2001
Lord of Weak Remembrance: The Role of Memory in Prospero's Colonial Discourse
I suggest that Prospero's colonial discourse has manipulated Caliban's memory so that it perpetuates his otherness. Prospero's ability to turn memory into a "weak remembrance," both for himself and for those his colonial discourse grants him power over, allows him to re-author the past so that it justifies the present. [more...]
Posted April 15, 2000
The Colonized Colonialist: Gulliver and the Crisis of Colonial Discourse
Any reading of Gulliver's character that ignores the omnipresence of colonial discourse in both Gulliver's voice and Swift's conscience is incomplete. It is my intent to reconcile this "brainwashing" with colonial discourse by showing how Gulliver's colonial indoctrination throws him into the epistemological crisis of being both a colonizer of and immigrant to Houyhnhnmland. [more...]
Posted April 15, 2000
"Play Out the Play:" Social Implications of the Metadramatical Moment in 1 Henry IV II.iv.373-480
The metadramatical moment of Act II, scene iv, in which Falstaff and Hal take turns playing the part of the King, seems to argue against the notion that the peasantry and nobility are interchangeable. It is the intent of this essay to further explore the implications of this scene and to thereby attempt to reconcile those implications with the social criticism inherent to the common-man production of a play about nobility. [more...]
Posted March 15, 2000
Eliot and the American Tradition: Exploring the Unconscious Roots of the "Mind of Europe"
Eliot's preoccupation with the "mind of Europe" is the direct consequence of both Eliot's conscious attempt to escape a confused American tradition and his unconscious subjection to America's "melting pot" of Western civilization. It is my intent to show, through 19th century social commentaries and a selection of early 20th century articles from The Dial, the historical context behind this statement. [more...]
Posted December 15, 1999
Another Voice: T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," and the Changing Nature of Tradition
The timelessness of “Little Gidding.” The last Quartet, and Eliot’s final major poem, “Little Gidding” represents Eliot’s return to an understanding of tradition consistent with that expressed in “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” [more...]
Posted December 15, 1999
The Australian Cain: Colonial Fear in Judith Wright's "Bora Ring"
One of Australia's finest poets, Judith Wright's success lay in her ability to examine sensitive Australian issues from new perspectives. "Bora Ring" is no exception. Written in 1946, the poem attempts to shed new light on colonial Australia's treatment of the Aborigine. Wright highlights the fear that drove colonial Australia to mass genocide by presenting conflicting views towards the fall of Aborigine culture. She shows that colonial Australia's true fear was not of the Aborigine, but of a universal primeval darkness inherent to human nature. [more...]
Posted March 27, 1999