This thesis will examine intensively “The Tower of Babel: A Morality” a significant work of Thomas Merton, a major spiritual writer of the 20th Century, entitled. In order to explore this play three other works which impacted significantly on the development of the drama will also be examined. These three works are: A poem also called “Tower of Babel”; a second poem entitled “A Responsory” and a musical work titled “The Tower of Babel: An Oratorio”. Even though Victor Kramer, a Merton scholar, noted the significance of the Morality, the existing literature has all but ignored the impact of “The Oratorio” and the drama. Until this author requested a copy of “The Oratorio” from the Merton Centre in Louisville, Kentucky the work had been known by name only and had never been analysed. Yet this work was a major development from the poem “A Responsory” and led to the creation of the Morality Play. This work argues that “A Morality” was pivotal in contributing to personal and spiritual change in Merton as well as developing a greater depth of social understanding in him. It will also argue that the work contained the seeds of future Merton writings. Writing the drama moved Merton towards a contemplative maturity based on communion not simply community. While many studies have alluded to the play none of them have studied it with this particular focus. This new focus is the discovery of the ways Merton attempted to resolve the dilemma he experienced between the paths of monk and poet and how, in doing so, he created for spiritual seekers a fresh inner significance for the Babel story. This work is opening up new ground for an understanding of the importance of Merton’s insights in the contemporary world. The methods used in this thesis are: 1. Contextualising, that is establishing the historical, social, spiritual and literary framework in which the poems and plays were written, and 2. Literary analysis. Part A of the thesis examines the monastic, spiritual, social, literary and academic contexts which brought Merton to the moment of writing the Morality. Part B is organised chronologically and is an intensive analysis of the poems, the Oratorio and the Morality Play. Part C identifies the seeds of future growth contained within the Morality play and points to some of the directions in which these seeds developed in later Merton works.

My Thesis body of work, The Mythos for the Mortal, presents visual interpretations of apocalyptic mythoi—past, present, and future. These works are both a conscious and unconscious response to childhood exposure to apocalyptic stories and form a visual record of social, political and religious interpretations of the apocalypse. The overarching theme of apocalypse (from the Greek word Apokalypsis, meaning ‘to unveil’ or ‘to reveal’) has allowed me to reconnect to my youth and heritage and has driven me to articulate more clearly a perspective regarding the future and what it will ‘reveal’ to us. I use the landscape as a stage to create narratives and metaphors expressing these ideas. These paintings and drawings are divided into four categories of apocalypse: historical, future, ecological, and personal.

The essay at hand is a New Historicist reading of C. S. Lewis’ dystopian fantasy novel That Hideous Strength. According to New Historicist theory it is informed by many disciplines, namely, philosophy, history, literary theory, theology, social science, and psychology, and it attempts to lessen injustices of race and class. The essay examines how satire operates in the novel, focusing on its societal targets: totalitarianism, laboratory animals, and education. Lewis’ philosophical idea expressed in his “The Abolition of Man” – that a society that averts from what he calls universal, timeless, objective values will eventually lead to a loss of that which is truly humane – is a main theme of the novel as well as for this essay. Another, complementary, main theme is that a cultivation of the heart is necessary for individuals of society since childhood if society is going to stay humane.

ANOTATION The work deals with translation and interpretation of the original Hebrew text of Genesis 11, making the use of synchronous exegetical method. The method focuses mostly on careful observation of multi-layered meanings of Hebrew terms, direct speeches, macrosyntactical markers, parallelisms and sentence constituents. To reach deeper dimension of the text, the work also takes into account the original non-vocalized text, graphical form of the text, consonances and metathesis. One of the most significant features of this work is the attention paid to the timeless nature of Hebrew verbs, which allows to read the narrative about human desire, pride, non-hearing, illusions, inner decay and the way back to God not as a story from the past, but as a lively anthropological message.

The focus of this study is to investigate what images of Sweden are transmitted in the novel The road to Ithaca (1994), by the Uruguayan author Carlos Liscano. The study focuses on the first half part of the novel for this taking place in Stockholm, Sweden, in the early nineties. The aim is to investigate by what literary strategies and literary subgenres the images of Sweden are transmitted.    The theoretical framework applied derives from studies of the literary genre of the picaresque novel and its bufonesco mood, such as the literary strategies irony and laconism. For the analysis Mieke Bal´s concept of focalization and semantic axes are used.      The study shows that in Sweden there are parallel worlds to the official world of the welfare state; in the shadow side of society there are the metecos, unwanted residents: the undocumented and the mentally ill. Through a picaresque and ironic style, the author shows that Sweden is a neat, clean, but culturally hermetic society; almost perfect on the surface, but with a lot of hidden “trash” beneath.    The welfare state of Sweden seams benevolent in its integrative intention, but is, at the same time, blind, or even worse, disinterested in the new reality of the country; that of the welfare state in dissolution and Sweden as a Tower of Babel.

The story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11: 1-9) has been interpreted in various ways down through the centuries. However, most commentators have ignored the genre of the text, and have not sought to interpret it within its mythological framework - therefore most interpretations are nothing short of babble. A working text is ascertained, and the complexity of the text investigated. The text is then identified as 'myth': within its mythological framework the tower is seen as a temple linking heaven and earth, ensuring the continuation of the royal dynasty (i e 'making a name'). When used by the Yahwist Levites during the Babylonian Exile, our story was inserted in the great Pre-History as polemic against the Babylonian concept of creation, temple, and dynasty; and served as both a warning and an encouragement to the Exiles. The post-exilic Priestly Writer re-interpreted our story as a warning to the returning exiles that their society, and their temple, should be reconstructed as YHWH determines. Interpreting the story as myth enables it, finally, to speak clearly into our context today, especially that of South Africa. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

The story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11: 1-9) has been interpreted in various ways down through the centuries. However, most commentators have ignored the genre of the text, and have not sought to interpret it within its mythological framework - therefore most interpretations are nothing short of babble. A working text is ascertained, and the complexity of the text investigated. The text is then identified as 'myth': within its mythological framework the tower is seen as a temple linking heaven and earth, ensuring the continuation of the royal dynasty (i e 'making a name'). When used by the Yahwist Levites during the Babylonian Exile, our story was inserted in the great Pre-History as polemic against the Babylonian concept of creation, temple, and dynasty; and served as both a warning and an encouragement to the Exiles. The post-exilic Priestly Writer re-interpreted our story as a warning to the returning exiles that their society, and their temple, should be reconstructed as YHWH determines. Interpreting the story as myth enables it, finally, to speak clearly into our context today, especially that of South Africa. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)