https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/120891 Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:50:24 GMT 2026-04-06T04:50:24Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/135061 Title: The influence of art on early modernist writing : a comparative study of D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’ and Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’ Abstract: This work and its abstract are both under embargo until the restriction is lifted. Description: Ph.D.(Melit.) Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/135061 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/131639 Title: ‘… draw thy breath in pain to tell my story’ : novelistic retellings of Hamlet : Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince, John Updike’s Gertrude and Claudius, and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet Abstract: Hamlet’s timelessness relies on how it touches upon fundamental aspects of the human experience: the protagonist’s profound grief following loss, his quest for identity amid deceit and betrayal, and his obsession with avenging his father’s murder. These themes reverberate through the corridors of literary history and have tempted many authors to take on the formidable task of engaging with Shakespeare’s play by retelling it in the context of their own worlds. While much has been written about the reimagining of Shakespeare’s plays, this dissertation attempts to bring together three texts which transform these themes into creative literature. The selected novels span three decades and each one approaches the source text differently. Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince (1973), discussed in Chapter 1, explores the intricate theme of identity through its protagonist Bradley Pearson, an indecisive narrator who grapples with selfhood and authenticity in a world of artifice brimming with pretence. John Updike’s Gertrude and Claudius (2000) imagines the backstory of two of Hamlet’s most enigmatic characters, Gertrude and Claudius. In the discussion around it in the second chapter, particular attention is given to how the seeds of the revenge which engulfs Hamlet are sown. Finally, Chapter 3 engages with Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, published in 2020. Here it is the grief of O’Farrell’s protagonist Agnes, (the name in the novel for Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife) that takes centre stage, but the chapter also reflects on what would have been Shakespeare’s own grief after the loss of his only son. The analysis of these three texts investigates, not only the enduring relevance of Shakespeare’s themes but also the diverse ways in which this seminal text is transformed and revisited. These novelistic retellings continue to influence contemporary understanding of literature by providing their own fresh and creative insights. This dissertation attempts to untangle some of these intricate connections between the past and the present, tradition, and innovation while celebrating the ability of Shakespeare’s works to transcend time and continue to capture the imagination. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/131639 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/131637 Title: The Southern woman : representations of the American female Southerner in the fiction of Pat Conroy and inter-mediatic adaptations Abstract: This dissertation examines contemporary fictional representations of the American Southern woman in literature and the media. This is done through a focus on a select range of the works of Pat Conroy (1945-2016) and on film adaptations of his novels. Fiction emerging from or written about the Southern United States is often dominated by the figure of the alpha male, and the region is typically presented as a space where traditional gender roles are upheld. The autobiographical fiction of Pat Conroy generally centres around the male protagonist who has come of age in the patriarchal South and struggles with his masculinity in the shadow of an abusive father, with female characters featuring less prominently. Film adaptations of Conroy's novels have followed a similar course. Yet, while Conroy's female characters do not appear central to themes in the writer's literary works and their adaptations at large, Conroy himself has described his own mother - the inspiration for many of his female characters - as a considerably more powerful force than his father. The dissertation takes its lead from this observation, in order to show that the female characters in Conroy's fiction are, at various levels, more significant than initially appears. The introduction presents an overview of the historical and cultural landscape of the South, subsequently underscoring predominant themes in Southern literature and exploring the significance of Conroy's legacy. This is followed by the first chapter, which examines fictional portrayals of the Southern woman throughout literary history and in the media. The second chapter analyses representations of Southern women in Conroy's fiction, through a discussion on the novels The Great Santini (1976) and The Prince of Tides (1986). Representations of the figure of the Southern woman in film adaptations of Conroy's works are then studied in the third chapter, through a focus on the films The Great Santini (1979) and The Prince of Tides (1991), and a comparative analysis of the portrayals of these female characters in literature and film is conducted. The fourth chapter addresses Conroy's depictions of the female Southerner in Beach Music (1995), with the aim of exploring whether these depictions constitute a response to film adaptations of his earlier works and the extent to which the novel helps shape Conroy's cultural legacy. Contemporary works of literature, film and television are considered in the Conclusion, so as to determine the ways in which portrayals of the Southern woman have evolved since the publication of Beach Music in the mid-1990s, and to evaluate whether such works echo and extend Conroy's perspective. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/131637 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126585 Title: The phenomenology of idlers and the revolt of the unique : an analysis of Shakespeare's creative nothing and its impact upon German philosophy Abstract: Chapter One commences with a brief exploration of idle literature throughout the course of medieval history starting with the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer. It is suggested throughout this chapter that idle literature becomes transformed with Shakespeare’s plays to suggest other meanings contrary to the medieval conceptions of idlehood. This progression of the idler as a character in literature is analysed in relation to Gregory M. Sadlek’s book, Idleness Working: The Discourse of Love's Labor from Ovid through Chaucer and Gower which studies the history of a love’s labour as a literary tradition that goes all the way back to the ancient times of Ovid up to Chaucer. This analysis continues to evolve as we move progressively into Shakespeare’s impact to the idler and how this affects German theatre and philosophy. Chapter Two places its critical lens into two of Shakespeare’s great tragic plays, namely Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. These tragedies are then studied alongside German philosophic texts in the Hegelian era. Since Hegelian philosophy and Shakespeare are both vast subjects, I will relegate my attention to one area of study. We will study idlers in Shakespeare and how this may have affected some German philosophers in their understanding of the idlers. Shakespeare’s King Lear to the idea of the idler’s art of doing nothing. King Lear will be seen as a play that transcends the limitations of Macbeth and Hamlet when it comes the theory of idlehood and the idea of the creative nothing that comes from Hegelian philosophers. In Chapter Three, the focus shifts to another character in Shakespeare, the idle character of Falstaff as he appears in Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part II and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Falstaff is studied in relation to Samuel Johnson’s The Idler and the philosophies of Hegel, Feuerbach, Edgar Bauer and Max Stirner. In Chapter Four there is an attempt to develop a strong connection between Max Stirner’s idea of the egoist and the character of Iago. In this Chapter, we study how critics like A.C. Bradley view Iago as an egoist and how Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own is the perfect book to understand what drives a character like Iago. The conclusion of this dissertation simply advocates for even greater possibilities of research towards idle literature beyond Shakespeare and German philosophy. It analyzes the potential of studying this field as if it were universal across all of history, all of language and all of literature. Description: M.A.(Melit.) Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126585 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z