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The novel-criticism of Henry James has been allowed to overshadow the achievement of his English contemporaries, whose essays, letters, and periodical-articles show a highly articulate concern with many of the most fundamental problems of novel-writing. This study examines the whole body of critical opinion over the years 1860-1900, both in its detailed expression and in its general movements. The status of the novel as a genre is hotly debated during the first fifteen years or so from a predominantly moral view-point, and critics show themselves urgently concerned with its vast dominance over the literary scene and its influence on the behaviour of society. The old Evangelical suspicions remain, and those who defend fiction are usually obliged to do so in a utilitarian way, emphasing its provision of noble exerapla and strengthening maxims, and its effect on the imagination and the sympathies, which are the key to a virtuous life. After 1880, the moral respectability of novel-reading is fairly assured, in spite of continuing traces of doubt, and argument over the novel's general position is now concentrated on its claims to offer more than mere relaxation, many holding, to the end of the century, that this is the form's main function, but a growing number (especially among the novelists themselves) stressing, on the contrary, its "seriousness", its philosophic scope, and the imaginative heights to which it can attain. At the same time, the aesthetic status of the novel is slowly changing by the attempts of critics to define it vis-à-vis the other arts, to describe its history and its categories, and to enunciate its own laws, despite the opposition of many who continued to believe in spontaneity and informality. The new devotion by some to craftsmanship and the artistic conscience is the final factor in a status for the novel that remains, even in 1900, controversial and insecure. The central question of the novel's realism or non-realism is resolved for many critics in terms of a simple correspondence with life, a mirroring of normal experience without exaggeration or convention, and, above all, a portrayal of characters which affect the reader as if alive. This is widely challenged, however, sometimes only unconsciously, by the modifications necessary in order to give pleasure, the exclusion of dull or sordid subject-matter, the selection of "agreeable" characters, and an artistic treatment that is generally optimistic and consoling. More consciously, Idealism reveals itself in accounts of the novelist's temperament and imagination as a valid distorting medium, his subjectivity, "vision", or sympathy; and, again, in thoroughly non-Realist descriptions of a transcendental realm of Beauty, or Truth, or Essence, which the novel should represent, sometimes by use of the Type or the Symbol. The structural nature of the form is also used to distinguish it from life, especially with reference to the non-mimetic quality of artistic illusion, vraisemblance and compression. All of these traits, Realist and Idealist, are crystallized in the great disputes of the 'eighties and 'nineties caused by the advent of French Naturalism and the supposedly Realist school of Henry James and W. D. Howells; and proponents of Idealism, an unexpectedly numerous band, express their ideas with enthusiasm in their reactions to the revival of the Romance-form in the last two decades. The novel's representation of reality is also modified in various ways by its embodying various value-judgments, and the necessity for moral didacticism dominates many accounts, especially in the earlier years. The nature of the moral code to be observed by novelists is generally of more interest to critics than the specific manner of its implementation in aesthetic terms, and the values prove to be either vaguely Transcendental - the enshrining of the Moral Ideal - or more Empirical, based on social convention and the Christian tradition. The operation of values and ideas in fiction is usually examined by critics from the standpoint of their effect on the "moral sense" or the emotions of readers, or their origins in the moral nature of the artist himself, and comments on how the novelist's judgments are embodied in his Characterisation or in his use of the convention of Poetic Justice take us only a little nearer to the heart of the problem. Didacticism is also widely attacked, on the grounds that it causes unnaturalness and that values should be in some way dramatised and made inherent, but again, few details are given of this proper method, most accounts, like Leslie Stephen's and Saintsbury's, returning to the moral quality of the writer's imagination. Even enemies of traditional morality, like Pater, Swinburne, Henley, Moore, and Havelock Ellis, confine themselves to demanding fewer moral restrictions for the novel, and none denies - or satisfactorily explains - its essential moral or philosophical relevance. Lastly, novel-critics prove to have much to say on questions of technique, centered on the antinomy between the Novel of Plot and the Novel of Character, the organic unity of a novel, and the various problems of narrative-method. After the early favour given to "Character", a reaction occurs against the excessive character-analysis of the French and American schools, and 'plot' becomes a desirable and much-sought quality. The novelty of Henry James' methods is unappreciated, and the conservatism of novel-theory in this respect is most marked. Constructive unity, on the other hand, is a concept that receives much valuable elaboration, and, under various interpretations, is a reviewers' fetish at all times. The question of Point of View is also well-known to the period, the advantages and disadvantages of Omniscience and Autobiography being fully gone into, and, in one remarkable essay by Vernon Lee, is the subject of a full and intelligent discussion. The ageis criticism of fiction, then, despite its limitations, gives an impression of some width and insight, and, with its many unexpected characteristics, must be regarded as an important sector of Victorian literary theory.

Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard published fourteen discourses, across four collections, on Matthew 6:24-34. The repeated readings of the biblical text, whose themes include the choice between God and mammon, worry, what it means to consider the birds and lilies, and how to seek first the kingdom of God, converge with Kierkegaard's interest in anxiety, despair, worry, subjectivity, indirect communication, choice, the moment, and life before God. Accordingly, the discourses make connections with his larger works, elucidate frequently explored Kierkegaardian themes in recent scholarship, and contribute to his critique of nineteenth-century Copenhagen. Additionally, the collections present an interpretation of each verse and phrase of Matthew's text and, held up against modern Matthew scholarship, they correlate with and contribute to Sermon on the Mount and New Testament studies. Kierkegaard's reading of Matthew also holds implications for the practice of biblical interpretation as it promotes the importance of awareness of sin, interestedness, and appropriation as central to proper reading. His emphasis on Christ as the primary exemplar of Matthew's text adds an additional Christological element to his hermeneutic. Furthermore, the discourses serve as spiritual treatises which provide the reader with theological terminology to help confront the problem of worry and suffering. In light of a human being's distinctiveness as imago Dei, Kierkegaard elucidates ways an individual may respond artfully to the ongoing possibility of worry, a possibility which the discourses connect with Christian anthropology and external labels associated with possessions and status. The Matthew 6 discourses intimate Kierkegaard's sympathy with classic Christian spirituality and, in combination with the cultural-ecclesiastical critique, the creative exegesis, and the in-depth analysis of the cause of and cure for worry, his work emerges as an excellent example of spiritual theology.

published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study discusses Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's appointment to the Prussian Court of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Mendelssohn's relationship with the Court (both personal and professional) and the numerous difficulties encountered with this appointment. In addition, Mendelssohn's musical responsibilities and personal feelings toward the cities of Leipzig and Berlin, Berlin's choral traditions (including a brief history of the Berlin Domchor) will also be discussed. Mendelssohn's op. 78, op. 79 and Die deutsche Liturgie written for the Berlin Domchor reflect the sometimes competing demands of the traditional liturgical genres (e.g. Masses, psalms, motets), which are more "objective" in nature and the far more "subjective" elements inherent in the Romantic "ideal" of expression. This study deals exclusively with the unaccompanied choral compositions written for the Berlin Domchor with particular emphasis given to op. 78 - Drei Psalmen, and op. 79 - Sechs Spruche.

This study seeks to establish the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer over pro Baroja. In order to establish the parameters of said influence, pessimism is defined, and the world view of both philosopher and writer, their views on men and women; and common themes such as individualism, the idea of the preservation of the species, marriage, the futility of life, suicide, and education are examined. The chaotic, absurd and capricious world depicted by Schopenhauer finds its way into the writings of Baroja. The study of his protagonists and secondary characters provide an insight on how these fictional beings deal with this world of misery. In fact, these characters must create their own world and invent their own structure, which is in harmony with the thought of Schopenhauer, where the world is an idea or representation of the subject. The works of Schopenhauer included in this study are The world as will and idea, and a selection of essays from Parerga and Paralipomena. Eight of Baroja's novels are analyzed: La dama errante, La ciudad de la niebla, EI árbol de la ciencia, EI mundo es ansí, La sensualidad pervertida, EI gran torbellino del mundo, Las veleidades de la fortuna, y Los amores tardíos. The writer's Memorias are also considered in some detail.