44 research outputs found
At the crossroads: the witch as a reflection of the female condition in modern and contemporary Portuguese drama
No full textDesde finais do século XIX, a figura da feiticeira tem sido evocada nas artes, assim como em estudos historiográficos, para refletir acerca da condição social da mulher. Hoje ainda, a feiticeira continua a ser uma importante figura de proa para movimentos feministas ocidentais, que a apresentam tanto como vítima arquetípica da violência patriarcal, quanto como modelo de emancipação feminina. Pensando nessas evoluções no cenário internacional e observando a presença da feiticeira na literatura de Portugal, o presente estudo busca entender o desenvolvimento de tendências comparáveis no contexto da dramaturgia portuguesa desde meados do século XX. A decisão de enfocar obras dramáticas foi motivada pelo desejo de analisar as potencialidades específicas deste tipo de literatura para a representação da feiticeira e pelo papel histórico do teatro como ferramenta de intervenção política. Foram escolhidas para análise quatro obras, duas das quais foram publicadas em 1959 O crime de Aldeia Velha, de Bernardo Santareno, e Comunicação, de Natália Correia , enquanto as outras duas foram lançadas em 2006 Feiticeiras, de Maria Teresa Horta, e Desmesura, de Hélia Correia. Essa cronologia dualística potencializa o estudo da figura da feiticeira em textos dramáticos escritos em contextos históricos sensivelmente diferentes, que tinham grandes implicações para a situação da mulher portuguesa. Além dessas questões, as quatro obras selecionadas também demonstram grande diversidade formal, permitindo a consideração de abordagens dramáticas distintas quanto à representação da feiticeira. Nesse sentido, vemos cada um dos dois anos de publicação das obras do nosso corpus como uma encruzilhada, ponto de concentração de preocupações variadas, a partir do qual podem ser contempladas perspectivas divergentes sobre o objeto do nosso estudo. A fim de melhor direcionar o nosso percurso, definimos três eixos orientadores em função dos nossos objetivos: corpo, palavra e comunidade. Nessa linha, vemos que, em O crime de Aldeia Velha, a feiticeira é representada primariamente como uma vítima de uma sociedade profundamente patriarcal, que sequestra até os relacionamentos tecidos entre mulheres. Por outro lado, Comunicação apresenta uma feiticeira-poetisa que, perseguida por causa das suas declarações magico-poéticos, sacrifica-se a fim de realizar uma revolução a nível cósmico. Já em Feiticeiras, Maria Teresa Horta vale-se do seu envolvimento com a segunda onda feminista em Portugal para retratar uma comunidade de feiticeiras que resistem valentemente à repressão patriarcal. Finalmente, Desmesura, uma releitura do mito de Medeia, desestabiliza visões da feiticeira como um modelo de emancipação feminina universal ao apontar para problemáticas levantadas pela crescente consciência da interseccionalidade. Ao longo do nosso estudo, essas considerações são elucidadas com referências a perspectivas teóricas desenvolvidas por estudiosas feministas, tais como Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous e Barbara Creed. Concluímos, assim, que o desenvolvimento da representação da feiticeira nas obras enfocadas reflete as mudanças que se têm produzido na condição da mulher portuguesa desde meados do século passado, assim como a evolução das pautas dos movimentos feministas do país, mas que as ideologias pessoais dos autores inflexionam profundamente a sua visão desses fatores, criando perspectivas únicasSince the end of the 19th century, the witch has been evoked in order to reflect on the social condition of women, both in the arts and in historical studies. Today, the witch continues to be an important figurehead for Western feminist movements, who present her both as an archetypal victim of patriarchal violence and as a blueprint for female emancipation. Bearing these international shifts in mind, and observing the presence of witches in Portuguese literature, this study seeks to understand the development of similar trends in the context of Portuguese drama written since the mid-20th century. The decision to focus on dramatic works was motivated by a desire to analyse the specific potentialities of this kind of literature regarding the representation of the witch, as well as by the historic role of theatre as a political tool. Four works were chosen for analysis, two of which were published in 1959 Bernardo Santarenos O crime de Aldeia Velha and Natália Correias Comunicação while the other two were published in 2006 Maria Teresa Hortas Feiticeiras and Hélia Correias Desmesura. This dualistic chronology allows for the study of the figure of the witch in dramatic texts from noticeably different historical contexts, with profound implications for the situation of women in Portugal. In addition, the four works demonstrate great diversity in formal terms, permitting the consideration of distinct dramatic approaches to the representation of the witch. In this way, we see each of the two years of publication of these works as a crossroads, a point at which diverse concerns are concentrated and from which diverging perspectives concerning our object of study can be contemplated. In order to provide a clearer path forward, we define three guiding themes: body, word and community. We can therefore see that, in O crime de Aldeia Velha, the witch is presented primarily as the victim of a deeply patriarchal society, which dominates even relationships between women. Comunicação, on the other hand, presents a poet-witch who is persecuted for her magical poetry, but who sacrifices herself to bring about a cosmic revolution. In Feiticeiras, Maria Teresa Horta channels her involvement with Portuguese second wave feminism, depicting a community of witches who valiantly resist patriarchal repression. Finally, Desmesura, a reinterpretation of the myth of Medea, destabilises visions of the witch as a possible model for universal female emancipation, highlighting issues raised by the growing awareness of intersectionality. Throughout our study, these considerations are elucidated with references to theoretical perspectives developed by feminist commentators including Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous and Barbara Creed. We ultimately conclude that the developments in the representation of the witch in the selected works reflect the changes that have occurred in relation to the condition of women in Portugal since the mid-20th century, as well as the evolution of the countrys feminist movements, but that the individual ideologies of each author inflect their view of these questions, thereby creating unique perspective
An analysis of a broad selection of the poetry and philosophical prose of James Beattie within its eighteenth-century context.
No full textThis study explores the significance and relevant contexts of the collected poems of James Beattie, within a detailed study of his own prose works and wider eighteenth-century intellectual debates. His position on the periphery of the literary canon means that this thesis deals largely with primary material, which permits a more thorough and objective analysis than has been conducted before. The first half of this study deals with Beattie’s poetic output. Chapter 1 focuses on Beattie’s first volume of poetry, Original Poems and Translations. In this chapter I analyse the poems within the context of other eighteenth-century poets, and explore Beattie’s engagement with patronage, the eighteenth-century conventions for success as a new poet, and poetic genius. Chapter 2 deals with Beattie's second volume, Poems on Several Subjects, to illustrate the evolution in his ideas concerning the usefti๒ess of poetry as a vehicle for philosophical investigation, and his engagement with eighteenth-century social and political issues. Chapter 3 explores his best known poem, The Minstrel: Or, the Progress of Genius. This chapter discusses the poem in its entirety and within the context of Beattie’s career as a poet and philosopher. Chapter 5 focuses on Beattie's final volumes of poetry, which represent his desire to control his poetic legacy. The second half of the study deals with selected critical and philosophical works, which provide insight into the development of Beattie’s poetry and express in prose many of the subjects in lus poetry. The most detailed attention in this section is given to the Essay on Truth, although there are also chapters examining other relevant critical works including Dissertations Moral and Critical. On Poetry and Music and On Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, and Beattie's collection of "Scoticisms." There are few modem critical studies of Beattie, and many of them are limited to The Minstrel and to specific areas of interest within this work. This study's comparative and interdisciplinary approach to Beattie’s poetry and selected prose aims to justify Beattie’s inclusion in our study of the eighteenth century. It is also intended to raise awareness of Beattie’s importance in the eighteenth-century and to illustrate his influence on three first- generation Romantic poets of generally recognised importance, namely Scott, Coleridge, and Wordsworth
Treasures of the University : an examination of the identification, presentation and responses to artefacts of significance at the University of St Andrews, from 1410 to the mid-19th century; with an additional consideration of the development of the portrait collection to the early 21st century
No full textSince its foundation between 1410 and 1414 the University of St Andrews has acquired what can be considered to be ‘artefacts of significance’. This somewhat nebulous phrase is used to denote items that have, for a variety of reasons, been deemed to have some special import by the University, and have been displayed or otherwise presented in a context in which this status has been made apparent.
The types of artefacts in which particular meaning has been vested during the centuries under consideration include items of silver and gold (including the maces, sacramental vessels of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, collegiate plate and relics of the Silver Arrow archery competition); church and college furnishings; artworks (particularly portraits); sculpture; and ethnographic specimens and other items described in University records as ‘curiosities’ held in the University Library from c. 1700-1838.
The identification of particular artefacts as significant for certain reasons in certain periods, and their presentation and display, may to some extent reflect the University's values, preoccupations and aspirations in these periods, and, to some degree, its identity. Consciously or subconsciously, the objects can be employed or operate as signifiers of meaning, representing or reflecting matters such as the status, authority and history of the University, its breadth of learning and its interest and influence in spheres from science, art and world cultures to national affairs.
This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the growth and development of the University's holdings of 'artefacts of significance' from its foundation to the mid-19th century, and in some cases (especially portraits) beyond this date. It also offers insights into how the University viewed and presented these items and what this reveals about the University of St Andrews, its identity, which changed and developed as the living institution evolved, and the impressions that it wished to project
Two eighteenth-century English adaptations of the Celestina : Celestina: or the Spanish bawd : a tragi-comedy; and the Bawd of Madrid.
No full textPhDThe introductory chapter discusses previous studies of Celestina
imitations and adaptations, and the position of early Celestinesque
works in Spanish literature. I then move further afield to investigate
the diffusion of the Celestina in the rest of Europe, especially in
England. Chapter II comments on the general influence of Spain on
English literature with particular reference to the two eighteenth-century
adaptations of the Celestina. Chapter III suggests some
implications of the simultaneous appearance of these two adaptations.
Chapters IV-VI are devoted to a closer examination of the dramatic
adaptation, A Tragi-Comedy; an investigation into its sources, and
the manner in which it remodels its original for the stages culminates
in a discussion of the adapters' identity. Chapters VII-IX deal with
The Bawd of Madrid; a biographical sketch of its author, Captain
Stevens, is followed by a discussion of which version of the Celestina
he used and of the sources for the description of Madrid in his first
chapter. Chapter IX looks at the way he reworks the Spanish Tragi-comedia
into a narrative account. I bring together in Chapter X
elements from both adaptations for purposes of comparison. The final
chapter shows the similarities between the fictional world of the
Celestina and the environment of early eighteenth-century London, and
I suggest why these English adaptations may have been particularly
apposite at this time
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Rural life in English poetry of the mid-eighteenth century
No full textThis thesis examines several mid-eighteenth century poems, assessing their portrayal of rural life, its literary and historical significance, and the aesthetic and ideological issues it presents. An introductory essay on developments in rural poetry sets the scene for two extended essays. The first essay is a comparative reading of the subject of rural labour in three poems: James Thomson’s The Seasons (1726-44), Stephen Duck’s The Thresher’s Labour (1730, 1736) and Mary Collier’s The Woman’s Labour (1739). The viewpoints of a professional poet (Thomson), a farm labourer (Duck), and a working woman (Collier) are compared in relation to kinds of work all three address as well as to individual labouring subjects. The responses of the three poets to such related issues as folk traditions, forms of charity and other ‘compensations’, are also compared. Some surprising similarities as well as instructive differences are located; and an interesting picture of idealistic and realistic, male-oriented and female-oriented attitudes to labour and labour-related themes emerges
The literary development of James Hogg
No full textFor most twentieth-century readers, the name of James Hogg, if it means anything at all, is inextricably linked with The Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which has been hailed as one of the most important of all Scottish novels. However, this was not always the case: in fact, his considerable reputation ln his own day was won not by The Confessions, which was read by few of his contemporaries, but by his poems, such as The Queen's Wake or The Pilgrims of the Sun, and by songs such as "When the kye comes hame" and "The Skylark" which were the mainstay of many an Edinburgh social gathering, and maintained their popularity throughout the century. However, towards its end, prominent literary critics such as George Saintsbury and Andrew Lang were already giving The Confessions of a Justified
Sinner the notice which was to raise it to the position of overwhelming dominance over the rest of Hogg's work which it enjoyed until the past few years. However, the recent publication after many years of absence from print of The Three Perils of Man and The Brownie of Bodsbeck, together with a volume of selected poems and one which reprints some of Hogg's best short stories, and the steady growth in the number of specialised articles on Hogg's work, notably ones by Douglas Gifford, Douglas Mack, and Alexander Scott, suggest that there is need to consider the rest of Hogg's output and the position The Confessions
holds in his development.
It must seem to many present-day readers that Hogg s wrltlng of The Confessions of a Justified Sinner was little short of miraculous, for to a reader who lacks any idea of the works that led up to it, The Confessions seems a surprlslng work to be produced by a fifty-five year old Border sheep farmer, who was confessedly illiterate
until the eighteenth year of his life. Earlier surveys of his career by Edith C Batho and Louis Simpson, while containing much interesting biographical detail and stimulating critical comment, have for the most part failed to discern any pattern in the author's career which can account for his achievement in this novel. The intention behind this thesis is to explain, by describing Hogg's literary development from the days of his illiteracy to the time when he could be treated an an equal by the foremost literary figures of his day, how far Hogg's success in The Confessions was the consequence of his experience in his earlier writing. This study will discuss to what extent the course of Hogg's career was affected by the unusual circumstances of his education, as he tackled in an acute form the problems faced by all writers in finding their own voice when under the influence of powerful literary examples.
The study is not meant to be a biography of Hogg, though certainly biographical details are included, and the discussion follows for the most part a chronological path: at all periods of Hogg's life the natural development of his talent came into conflict with the need to earn a living, while his confidence in his powers was frequently
drained by the personal insecurity which arose from his unusual background.
However, no new facts are presented, the details being taken in the main from Douglas S Mack's careful edition of Hogg's Memoir
of the Author's Life, supplemented by some of the information contained in the Hogg letters to be found in the National Library of Scotland.
Equally, this discussion is not meant to be an 'exhaustive survey of the sources of Hogg's works: no attempt has been made to identify every influence to which the author was exposed. It is the contention of this thesis that there is a self-evident model, about which the author was seldom secretive, behind each of his more important writings, and that of much greater interest than any list of all.
Hogg's sources is the consideration of how he coped with the knowledge that he was following in the footsteps of a predecessor,
and how far he succeeded in producing individual work while under those pressures. To that end, I have concentrated on the extent to which each of his most important poems and each of his longer stories is a consistent and coherent whole. This has involved me 1n a discussion of the form and content of each of these works in an attempt to establish whether the author has realised his intentions in it without being deflected by external pressures. A final chapter
discusses the pieces he wrote for the less formal context of the literary magazines of his day and seeks to determine the value of
these miscellaneous works, to which he devoted most of his attention in the last years of his life. Several other more peripheral discussions have been rendered necessary only because of the incomplete nature of Scottish Literature studies at the present time, when so much groundwork
must be done before one can begin to concentrate on more specific subjects
The Highlander
No full textThis thesis explores James Macpherson’s The Highlander (1758) in relation to originality, Scottish identity and historiography. It also situates the Ossianic Collections in the context of Macpherson’s earlier poetical and later historical works. There are three parts to it: a biographical sketch of Macpherson’s early life, the annotated edition of The Highlander, and discursive commentary chapters. By examining The Highlander in detail this thesis questions the emphasis of other Macpherson criticism on the Ossianic Collections, and allows us to see him as a writer who is historically minded, very aware of sources, well versed in established forms of poetry and thoroughly, and positively, British. The Highlander stands out among the corpus of his works not because it can give us insights into the Ossianic Collections, which is its usual function in Macpherson criticism, but because it can help us understand what it is that connects Macpherson’s earlier and later works with the Ossianic Collections: history, Britishness, tradition.
Macpherson’s poetical works are united by a desire to translate Scotland’s factual past into sentimental British poetry. In the Ossianic Collections he does so without particular faithfulness to his sources, but in The Highlander he converts historical sources directly into neo-classic verse. This is where Macpherson’s originality lies: his ability to adapt history. In different styles and genres, and based on different sources, Macpherson’s works are early examples of Scotland’s great literary achievement: historical fiction. Instead of accusing him of forgery or trying to trace his knowledge of Gaelic ballads, this thesis presents Macpherson as a genuine historian who happened to write in a variety of genres
First results from high redshift quasar searches in VIKING
No full textThis thesis presents the discovery of the first luminous z & 6.5 quasars in the VISTA kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy Survey (VIKING). After some basic quality control, quasar
selection is investigated via use of initial data supplementedwith detailedmodelling of the photometric and spatial distributions of stars of spectral type M, L and T, which are
known to be the cause of significant contamination in quasar colour selection spaces.
Optimised selection constraints are placed on detection significance and morphology
and the performance of a traditional colour selection technique is compared to a Bayesian
model comparison technique. The latter is found to offer a ∼10 per cent gain in completeness over traditional colour selection. Quasar candidates are ranked via Bayesian model comparison and a subset of the highest ranked objects are put forward for
follow-up imaging.
In June 2011, 44 high-z quasar candidates underwent deep optical i- and z- band imaging
on the ESO NTT. Just 6 of these candidates were found to have optical colours consistent
z & 6.5 quasars. Spectroscopic follow-up of these objects is ongoing, but thus far
three new quasars have been discovered at redshifts of z=6.5, 6.7, 6.9. This discovery
rate is consistentwith zero evolution in the rate of decline in quasar space density from
z & 6.4. This differs fromthe latest results from UKIDSS. Further results expected from these and other surveys will begin to constrain the true nature of quasar space density evolution in the near future. The discovery of three z ≥ 6.5 quasars in VIKING is a
significant highlight in the first year of VISTA science operations. These quasars will remain important probes of the high-z universe throughout the next decade.
At the boundary of place : rethinking the provenance of early Christian architecture
No full textArchaeologists and historians have sought to understand the architecture of the early church using methods common to their respective fields of inquiry. This has included an approach to architecture which classifies buildings according to type and style. Limitations of both method and evidence has led some scholars to conclude that there was no Christian architecture before A.D. 200. This present study intends to broaden the understanding of architecture beyond mere tectonics and realise its significance as a boundary of place with a view toward examining the foundations of early Christian architecture. Boundary and place are primary components of the cosmos within Judaism. The Hebrews came to understand the world according to a concept of holiness manifested as a scheme of circular boundaries ascending into the presence of God, located within the Temple. As an outgrowth of Judaism, the early Church held similar views of place and boundary which gave them an affinity for the Temple. By understanding architecture as a boundary of place we can connect the sacred places and boundaries of the Jews from Creation to the Land and Temple. The Church proclaimed Jesus as God incarnate and Himself the Temple transformed. The traditional view has been that the synagogue was the connecting link between the Church and the Temple, but the origins and role of the synagogue are now doubted. The predominance of the house in the life and ministry of Jesus combined with its prevalence in the NT and the early Christian writers indicates that the Christians understood sacred place in terms of their domestic reality. The house provided not only a strong ligature connecting Church and Temple, it was also an archetype for the Church’s sacred place and developing architectural boundaries
English spelling in the seventeenth century : a study of the nature of standardisation as seen through the MS and printed versions of the Duke of Newcastle's 'A New Method ...'.
No full textIn 2 vols.Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DX201006 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
