Date of Award

1973

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Abstract

This paper concerns itself with a comparison between Shakespeare's, play, King Lear, and William Dean Howells' novel, A Hazard of New Fortunes. In developing this comparison I have primarily. focused upon these two as works of social criticism. I have devoted the first part of my paper to an examination of some pertinent aspects of both the social environment in which Howells lived and the ways in which he transferred his developing concern with this environment to the pages of Hazard. I have been aided in this examination by my amateur interest in American history, as well as by my immediate familiarity with other of Howells' works. In treating Shakespeare as social critic, however, I have been forced to content myself with cautious little speculations (mostly derived from the critics) about the nature of the relationship between the Lear world and the Elizabethan one which surrounded its birth. It might be charged, therefore, that this paper is somewhat one-sided; and I sadly concede the justice of this charge.

Download

Share

COinS