Date of Award

2007

Degree Name

English

College

College of Liberal Arts

Type of Degree

M.A.

Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Chris Green

Second Advisor

Art Stringer

Third Advisor

Katharine Rodier

Abstract

This creative thesis explores the different facets of Pink Floyd and their music, drawing inspiration from albums varying from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967) to Dark Side of the Moon (1973). Using images drawn from nature, the cosmos, and Pagan mythology, this thesis also incorporates biographical details found in Nicholas Schaffner’s important biography, Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey (New York: Harmony Books, 1991). There are also experiments with form in the poems, in that in many of the poems, instead of commas, there are tab spaces. Each space expresses the silence between each word. Poetic influences are important to mention as well: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Each of their books: Plath’s The Collected Poems (New York: HarperPerennial, 1981), Sexton’s The Complete Poems (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (New York: Doubleday, Doran, & Co,, 1940), and Dickinson’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1999) have influenced this thesis in terms of imagery, form, voice, and point of view. Whitman and Dickinson have also particularly influenced this thesis in terms of tone, for there is a spiritual, mystical tone in them, and also here. One example of this can be given from the thesis with the poem "The Other Side of the Moon:" "A blinking signal from another planet, / you are shamans / of the light, / blinding us with its brilliance" (8-11). All in all, this thesis looks at Pink Floyd and their music through them lens of the spiritual, using imagery, form, and tone to accomplish its work.

Subject(s)

Pink Floyd (Musical group)

Barrett, Syd.

Poetry - Themes, motives.

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