This thesis examines the difference in representation of Native Americans and white American settlers in six American western films from 1911 to 2017. Where it might be reasonable to think that the...Show moreThis thesis examines the difference in representation of Native Americans and white American settlers in six American western films from 1911 to 2017. Where it might be reasonable to think that the position of the Native American in the eyes of the general American public is ameliorated, the events of 9/11/2001 might prove this not to be the case.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis focuses on an under-researched element of Seamus Heaney's oeuvre, namely his four poetry anthologies. Adopting a 'bottom-up' approach, it analyses the anthologies themselves, combining...Show moreThis thesis focuses on an under-researched element of Seamus Heaney's oeuvre, namely his four poetry anthologies. Adopting a 'bottom-up' approach, it analyses the anthologies themselves, combining narratological and paratextual analysis with the close-reading of poetry in order to do so. Following this, it moves to consider their possible significance within different contexts related to Heaney's work more generally.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
closed access
This research aims to explore the reciprocal relationship between the arch-texts of Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea and late 20th century adaptations of them by four Irish poets and...Show moreThis research aims to explore the reciprocal relationship between the arch-texts of Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea and late 20th century adaptations of them by four Irish poets and playwrights. Based on a textual analysis of the original texts and adapted versions, I intend to disclose how the Irish adaptors borrow and rework the characters of Antigone and Medea and their well-known tragic stories in order to provide a critique upon tangible Irish socio-political issues. However, by adopting Antigone and Medea, the Irish authors do not merely use the two heroines as instruments for the satisfaction of their authorial aspirations, but they also provide answers to questions regarding the status and understanding of the two rebellious women that remain obscure in the originals. The research will be situated within Classical Reception Studies, a rather new field of research, which – unlike conventional Classics – focuses on the bidirectional process of adaptation arguing that by revisiting a canonical text, the pre-text is a changing object too. It will do so by using theories of reception of the Classics by Charles Martindale, Tim Whitmarsh, and Astrid Van Weyenberg. By doing so, I propose a contemporary understanding of the figures of Antigone and Medea, which liberates them from the moral ambiguity of their transgressive deeds, and instead, considers them as two heroines of Justice.Show less
This thesis sets out to discover how Achilles is portrayed in modern literature, more specifically in the way his duality (mortal and divine) is depicted, in comparison to Homer’s epic. This will...Show moreThis thesis sets out to discover how Achilles is portrayed in modern literature, more specifically in the way his duality (mortal and divine) is depicted, in comparison to Homer’s epic. This will be done by close-reading Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2011), Elizabeth Cook’s Achilles (2001), and Wolfgang Petersen’s film Troy (2004). In analysing these texts, I will focus on moments which spark an emotional reaction from Achilles. By comparing the moments from the three contemporary texts both to each other and in relation to the Iliad, in the translation made by Robert Fagles in 1990, I wish to explore in what way Achilles’ divinity and humanity is depicted. This will be done by using the methodological frameworks of intertextuality and the notion of adaptation and appropriation.Show less
This thesis takes a look at three texts that were written in a time when dementia had not yet become the focus of the attention it has been amassing these past years. Two of these texts are from...Show moreThis thesis takes a look at three texts that were written in a time when dementia had not yet become the focus of the attention it has been amassing these past years. Two of these texts are from England and one of them from the Netherlands, and they all, will be argued, contain depictions of dementia. These texts were written in a time when dementia was still seen, more or less, as a normal part of ageing, and even if dementia is never explicitly mentioned in either of the texts, by comparing these texts and the descriptions therein with contemporary medical literature about the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) it will be shown that the behaviour as it is described in the texts warrants a qualification of the described behaviour as being a depiction of dementia. This analysis will also include the depiction of the attitudes surrounding the described behaviour as collateral evidence for the qualification of the behaviour as dementia. It will further be shown that these representations of the disease in all three cases have a function beyond a mere depiction of a developing process, and that through the ways in which the descriptions are shaped, the process I designate as dementia becomes a metaphor for an underlying topic. For this, use will also made of an analysis of how in contemporary fiction dementia is represented and used.Show less
Articulating child consciousness poses authors with a double bind. Can children’s language be applied by adult authors to grasp the consciousness of a child? And can an adult still grasp and...Show moreArticulating child consciousness poses authors with a double bind. Can children’s language be applied by adult authors to grasp the consciousness of a child? And can an adult still grasp and emulate a consciousness that he himself has evolved beyond? This thesis analyses whether the portrayal of child consciousness in a selection of English Modernist fictional works is successful.Show less
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916. It was written “in several phases between 1903 and 1914” (Gabler 83). Eventually, in 1907,...Show moreA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916. It was written “in several phases between 1903 and 1914” (Gabler 83). Eventually, in 1907, Joyce began to write A Portrait, in its final form. “This reached the state of intermediary manuscript during 1907 to 1911. In 1913-14, the novel was completed” (Gabler 83). The five chapters of the novel deal with different stages of Stephen’s life, in particular, the periods of infancy, boyhood, and adolescence. The subject matter of the novel is Stephen’s mental and spiritual development to the point where he becomes the artist he aspires to be. The novel is very concise and depicts the major milestones in his life, people and events, that marked him and formed him as a person, and as an artist. The novel is considered as one of the most representative samples of modernist literature, because of its narrative technique. In A Portrait, Joyce abandons the style of narration which he had used in Stephen Hero, and instead he employs the so called ‘stream of consciousness’ and ‘free indirect discourse’. ‘Stream of consciousness’ is a narrative technique that attempts “to convey all the contents of a character’s mind—memory , sense perceptions, feelings, intuitions, thoughts—in relation to the stream of experience as it passes by, often at random” (Gray 274).Show less
