https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/11620 2026-04-10T03:18:46Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/104040 Title: Johann Sebastian Bach : aria with 30 variations : an insight into its style, structure and interpretation Abstract: Considered to be the embodiment of eighteenth-century music, Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositional output, uses genres that had already been established, so that his influence lies in the way he inventively reinvigorated existing forms, moulding their structures to produce new original works. The Aria with thirty variations, popularly known today as the Goldberg Variations are significant from various perspectives. They are the largest set of variations to date and their scale was to remain unsurpassed until Beethoven’s Diabelli set. Structurally, they are perhaps the clearest example of Bach’s meticulous compositional methodology whereby every element can be seen to link to another, forming a complex whole. The canons too have their own particular development, as they progress from imitation at the unison through to the interval of a ninth. In addition, the all-important, though understated bass-line heard in the opening Aria is the underlying overall unifying factor of the whole work. While such patterns give these Variations unifying factors, Bach still maintains variety through a number of subtle techniques such as time-signatures, different characters, the irregular placing of minor-mode movements, as well as the number of contrapuntal voices employed in each movement. This work is also a unique example of eighteenth-century practices, moving away from convention by specifying a particular instrument. From a technical viewpoint, the Variations can be described as the highpoint of eighteenth-century virtuosity, whose technical demands are still regarded as challenging. From the circumstances of its composition, through to its standing in today’s mainstream repertoire, the researcher will examine what influenced Bach’s compositional method and how this work in turn influenced works by later composers. The core of the thesis will be an in-depth study on the structure of the Variations, where both its internal constitution as well as its overall architectonic structure will be examined. Different interpretations relating to the execution of ornamentation, rhythm and articulation employed through the centuries will be discussed with reference to various editions. Other performance issues relating to repeats, and tempos as well as choice of instrument will also be examined. Furthermore, these will be supported by examples from selected recordings by different artists who have performed the Goldberg Variations. Description: PH.D. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/102225 Title: Infertility in science fiction Abstract: This dissertation attempts a comprehensive and historical poetics of infertility in science fiction through a process of thematic and narratological typologisation, cross verifying various aspects of science in the genre with current and possible future trends. This work is particularly opportune in the contemporary critical climate, with an upsurge of critical attention in the genre in the midst of a renewed interest in interdisciplinarity, and with science fiction studies becoming increasingly present on the academic curriculum. The intersection of science fiction and medicine is vast and therefore an inescapably narrowing approach has been adopted, focussing almost exclusively on aspects of the genre that commingle infertility with science fiction, using thematic and narratological approaches. This methodology is indicative in obtaining a representative sample of the many attributes that are almost universally represented in the wider genre: the postulation of a novum and the resulting threat (such as infertility in the case of this dissertation, on an individual or racial scope) or adventure that is successfully dealt with by dint of team effort, loyalty, courage and leadership. While some of these fictional tropes and recycled devices may appear trite and cliched, authors continue to create innovative, intertextual and invigorating stories that challenge the reader's very ability to suspend disbelief. That much was never in doubt but the dissertation attempts to draw attention also to the further implications of this in literary studies generally and science fiction studies more particularly. The commonest trope that emerges from these narratives is that of the cautionary tale, and of how the excessive and Frankensteinian desire to wrest nature's secrets, suggests that hubris must meet tragedy. Yet another trope that has emerged is that of the almost fairy tale happy ending. Both of these tropes are expected by habitual SF readers in this inherently interdisciplinary genre which routinely and debonairly goes where no man has gone before. Description: PH.D.ENGLISH 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/101269 Title: The mystery of things : a Girardian reading of Shakespearean tragedy Abstract: Amongst the many recent and conflicting approaches to Shakespeare's works which one critic has aptly characterized as the 'balkanization' of Shakespearean studies, the still though hardly small voice of Rene Girard and his approach to Shakespeare's works have largely and unfairly gone unnoticed. His own most extensive exploration of the plays, contained in the book A Theatre of Envy, has not been taken up and elaborated in mainstream Shakespearean scholarship and remains strangely neglected if not studiously ignored by most critics. Indeed Girard's self-styled 'neo-mimetic' approach to Shakespeare's texts, barring his own book, still remains a largely 'undiscovered country' which few have ventured into, much less returned from to celebrate or complain. There have been some isolated cases of critics like Harry Berger Jr., James Calderwood and Naomi Conn Liebler who have utilized Girardian insights in their meta-theatrical speculations about Shakespearean drama and their interpretation of individual plays, yet no one has so far attempted a rigorous and systematic application of the Girardian theoretical model to the plays, in particular to the major tragedies. Girard himself was self-confessedly selective in his choice of the plays he treated, claiming it was largely dictated by illustrative, utilitarian and logistic reasons: Another problem was choosing the plays and specific scenes that would illustrate my discussion. This was an embarrass de richesse. I selected not the richest texts necessarily, but the most straightforward for my purpose. As a rule they are the first dramatization of whichever mimetic configuration they illustrate. This mode of selection explains why the plays about which I say little or nothing are often located at the end of the period in which the author cultivated the particular genre to which they belong ... In effect, except for a quite extensive treatment of Julius Caesar, a single chapter on Hamlet and a few scattered pages on some of the other tragedies, most of the tragedies are almost totally ignored. This is what inspired and gave impetus to the idea behind this thesis, which attempts to fill this lacuna in recent criticism by attempting to apply systematically and rigorously Girard's neo-mimetic approach to Shakespearean tragedy, focusing in particular on the classical four major ones: King Lear, Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth. Why tragedy and why these four? Aside from the more prosaic reason of limitations of length imposed by a doctoral thesis, there 1s their obvious 'canonical' status as being perhaps Shakespeare's supreme achievements in the genre conferred on them not just by Bradley but by most critics. Another strategically convenient explanation is that, with the exception of the single chapter on Hamlet, Girard himself has commented too briefly or not at all on the other three tragedies; they belong to the middle or_ 'the end of the period in which the author cultivated the particular genre' of tragedy that he programmatically underplayed. A more critically cogent reason is that the two major pillars of Girardian theory, namely mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism, together with the central role they play in the genesis and dynamics of human culture, arguably lend themselves more readily to the tragic genre, with its intense focus on the exploration of interpersonal and social conflicts and their devastating consequences that are often dramatically 'resolved' through some violent form of explicit or implicit victimage. A further reason is that in these later 'tragedies of consciousness' the arena of inwardness and subjectivity, starting with Hamlet, is infinitely richer and more complex and yields greater scope to the subtle exploration of mimetic desire and its conflictual aftermaths, within and around the hero, than in the earlier tragedies. Description: PH.D. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/100794 Title: Perceptions of teenagers on media images of women Abstract: This assignments looks into the perceptions of media images of women with an emphasis on how these perception may objectify women. This overview was carried out by the use of various websites, books and other reports and printed material available on the subject. A qualitative small-scale design is used as data is gathered by the use of unstructured interviews with women within the media field, together with focus groups held with teenagers. A thematic analysis is made after all the data had been gathered. Description: DIP.SOC.STUD. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z