THE DEATH OF DIONYSOS - ETD - Vanderbilt University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this dissertation would have been impossible, had it not been
for the support of several individuals and institutions. These include first of all my
advisor, Professor William P. Franke, whose encouragement, patience and keen critical
insight helped me to recognize problems in my analysis and pursue many a new and
essential avenue of thought and philosophy. I am grateful to the past and present chairs of
the Comparative Literature Program at Vanderbilt University, Professors Margaret A.
Doody and Earl. E Fitz, for allowing me the necessary time and leeway to pursue my area
of interest; likewise to the deans of the Vanderbilt Graduate School, especially Associate
Dean Richard L. Hoover, for granting me several extensions, without which I would not
have been able to finish my thesis. I likewise wish to thank Brigham Young University–
Idaho, my former employer, for a one-semester leave in 2001 that made it possible for me
to do essential research in Germany. I also wish to thank my wife’s and my own families
for their moral and even material support. And finally, and most importantly, I wish to
acknowledge the enduring love and loyalty of my wife Caroline and our three beautiful
sons, David, Benjamin, and Max. The boys cannot remember a time when Dad was not
working on his dissertation. The last six years were often difficult, at times even painful;
and the love that binds our lives together has only grown stronger and more certain as a
consequence.
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