Reconsidering Literary Onomastics: Names and Naming in Faulkner and Morrison

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dc.contributorWeber, Donald
dc.contributorMarkley, Michelle
dc.contributor.advisorYoung, Elizabeth
dc.contributor.authorTishler, Rebecca
dc.date.accessioned2014-06-30T13:04:11Z
dc.date.available2014-06-30T13:04:11Z
dc.date.gradyear2014en_US
dc.date.issued2014-06-30
dc.description.abstractThe subject of this thesis is literary onomastics – the study of names in literature. My focus is on American literature, and, specifically, on two important authors within the genre: William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. My project is a multilayered analysis of the theory and its applications to literature. I begin in my Introduction with a review and critique of the theoretical origins of literary onomastics in addition to other past applications of the theory, so as to make clear the necessity of a new way of approaching literary onomastics. I then provide this revised approach with a new methodology that allows for a much broader and nuanced conceptualization of the function of names in literature. This methodology further provides a new point of comparison for Faulkner and Morrison, a favorite pairing for scholars of American literature. I then demonstrate the efficacy of my new methodology with close readings of Light in August (1932) and As I Lay Dying (1930) by William Faulkner, and Beloved (1987) and Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison. Although literary onomastics has been previously dismissed by some scholars as unproductive, my new methodology makes clear that names are not only an essential element of these particular authors’ literary projects, but also an expansive and illuminative means by which to analyze all literature.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipEnglishen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10166/3565
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.rights.restrictedrestricteden_US
dc.subjectliterary onomasticsen_US
dc.subjectFaulkner, Williamen_US
dc.subjectMorrison, Tonien_US
dc.subjectAmerican literatureen_US
dc.subjectPlatoen_US
dc.subjectCratylusen_US
dc.subjectAs I Lay Dyingen_US
dc.subjectLight in Augusten_US
dc.subjectBeloveden_US
dc.subjectSong of Solomonen_US
dc.titleReconsidering Literary Onomastics: Names and Naming in Faulkner and Morrisonen_US
dc.typeThesis
mhc.degreeUndergraduateen_US
mhc.institutionMount Holyoke College

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