Mohammed Muayad Yousif

Assistant Lecturer

The Search for the True Self in Walt Whitman's The Song of Myself

This research handles how the American poet Walt Whitman (1819 -1892) is much concerned with the quest for the true self in his great poem, The Song of Myself. In fact, Whitman derives his search for the true self from diverse sources: personal, national, and mystical. The poem is a symphonic celebration of Whitman's vision of how a true sense of the self must be formulated in a way as to feel jubilant about his life. Hence, this paper is an attempt to shed light on Whitman's approach to the archetypal American and human self in his great epic, The Song of Myself. The paper concludes that Whitman strongly believes in a multitude of voices which are necessarily conducive to the formulation of a true self as adroitly portrayed in The Song of Myself.

Modern Bildungsroman in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Throughout the history of literature, literary movements and techniques have developed due to the instant progressive enhancement of human complexities in terms of feelings and individual experiences. Such literary innovations, especially during the modern era, have an instant relation with contemporary political interactions and new psycho-social and cultural studies. Bildungsroman as a traditionally used literary technique has been dramatically adapted to the modern era since the technique itself attempts to provide an account about the matured and one’s process of maturation. This study endeavours to inspect Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a modern bildungsroman, explaining the techniques that are used in this masterpiece. After introducing James Joyce as a modern novelist, a detailed definition will be offered about the concept of modern bildungsroman. This research comprises three sections: an introduction to James Joyce’s life, a definition of Bildungsroman, and a discussion of the novel in question.

An ecofeminist approach to Thomas hardy’s Tess of the d’urbervilles

Ecofeminism is a very recent trend in the arena of contemporary literary criticism. It studies the relationship between women and natural environment. Thomas Hardy is reputed for discussing how women and nature affect each other in all his novels. Thomas Hardy is concerned in his novels with such kind of ecocriticism, for his female characters are victims of the physical nature. Nature has many elements that exert much influence on characters. The use of birds is one of the most important means to show Hardy's concern with this subject. Hence, this research adopts an ecofeminist approach to Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Hardy adroitly portrays how Tess, the heroine of the novel, falls a victim to the patriarchal hegemony, and how nature reacts to Tess’s journey of suffering. In conclusion, Hardy has before his eyes the influence of Tess's physical and social environment on her personality. Tess always comes in connection with her surroundings; her happy and sorrowful moments are effectively conveyed through this connection. Such a relationship between man and environment is a pivotal issue in Hardy's novels.