Harrowed Brine: Lyric Vapors and Spectral FormsdissertationsCunniff, M.J.creatorSmailbegovic, AdaAdvisorKatz, TamarReaderBurt, StephanieReaderBrown University. Department of Englishsponsor2025viii, 138 p.born digitalThesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2025thesesThis dissertation examines the spectral, thalassic, and atmospheric “elements” of lyric in the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins as well as two contemporary poets, Robert Lowell and Seamus Heaney. Drawing on ecocritically and theologically inflected close readings of several watery and airy incidents of poetic encounter, I argue that the liminal aspects of water, air, and mist/vapor are deployed by each of these poets to exemplify the aesthetic tensions between poetic form and formlessness and, in turn, to create the conditions for interrogating unresolved theological and metaphysical problems.EcopoeticsLyric poetryHopkins, Gerard Manley, 1844-1889PoeticsLowell, Robert, 1917-1977Heaney, Seamus, 1939-2013EnglishRPB20250707