Morrissey, Ted

Dr. Ted Morrissey has been a Lecturer in English at the University of Illinois and Benedictine University, and he currently teaches in the M.F.A. writing program at Lindenwood University. Dr. Morrissey is the author of The Beowulf Poet and His Real Monsters (Edwin Mellen Press 2013) which won the D. Simons Evans Prize for Distinguished Scholarship. He received his Ph.D. in English Studies from Illinois State University.

Beowulf Poet and His Real Monsters. A Trauma- Theory Reading of the Anglo- Saxon Poem

2013 0-7734-4464-5
Opens a new line of inquiry into the Old English poem, specifically trauma theory, which attempts to map the psychological typography of an author and his or her culture, that is, when the text appears to be wrought of traumatic experience. Indicators of a “trauma text” are narrative techniques often associated with postmodernism--expressly, intertextuality, repetition, a dispersed or fragmented voice, and a search for powerful language. The anonymous Beowulf poet made extensive use of all four narrative techniques, suggesting he and his culture were suffering some sort of traumatic stress. The author brings together knowledge from myriad disciplines, among them history, anthropology, sociology, biology, psychology, with special emphases on the branches of psychoanalysis and neuropsychology--and focuses his trauma-theory reading on the poem's original language.

Trauma Theory as a Method for Understanding Literary Texts: The Psychological Basis of Postmodern Hermeneutics

2016 978-1-4955-0485-3
This study examines the cultural factors that have caused writers to create narratives bearing the marks of postmodernism sometimes centuries before the postmodern era demarcation of WWII that demonstrate the characteristics which have becomes associated with postmodernism – namely, intertextuality, repetition, fragmentation, and language experimentation.