Jinxed

My dissertation, Jinxed, developed out of my interest in the movement between the comic and the tragic by tracing the evolution of a romantic relationship. While employing biblical, classical, literary, and pop-cultural traditions, my manuscript has its most clear affinities with Renaissance poetry that navigates between the erotic and the spiritual. The sequence of poems recreates the character of Petrarch's Laura in the Little Redhead Girl, Charlie Brown's first love. My Laura, however, is a feisty secular Irish woman who simultaneously frustrates and attracts a religious narrator. To explore the multifaceted nature of their love, I employ a variety of poetic techniques, such as the repetition inherent in the villanelle to express the powerlessness of the narrator as he begins to fall in love. In "To a Young Philosopher," a sestina, one of the repeated words ("ephemeral") triggers a philosophical discussion that is a proposal of marriage. The manuscript also uses other forms such as the sonnet, Spenserian stanza, terza rima, couplets, and blank verse. Narratively, it ends with Charlie Brown after he has missed kicking Lucy's football, falling to earth literally and symbolically. Poems in the manuscript have appeared in journals such as The Wallace Stevens Journal, Talking River Review, and Passages North.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2003

Author dc:creator

• Davis, Richard

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bond, Bruce
• Vanhoutte, Jacqueline, 1968-
• Marks, Corey

• Jinxed
• Renaissance
• villanelle
• poetry
• creative

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Davis, Richard
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 53457830
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4335/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc4335

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc4335