Masculinity and femininity in "The Mabinogion"

This thesis is submitted within the discipline of Women's Studies. It attempts to assess the life of women in a tribal society at the brink of dissolution. Wales at the eve of and during the first century of the Norman occupation is representative of such a society and historians admit that what little we know of its social conditions can be gleaned from the pages of the narrative prose collection The Mabinogion. Consequently this study uses an interdisciplinary approach. Eight stories from The Mabinogion collection have been studied: The Four Branches, comprising Pwyll Prince of Dyfed, Branwen Daughter of Llyr, Manawydan Son of Llyr and Math Son of Mathonwwy; the story of Culhwch and Olwen and the Three Romances, comprising The Lady of the Fountain, Peredur Son of Efrawg and Gereint Son of Erbin. The Four Branches are a fourfold narrative held together by the figure of Sovereignty (formerly the Celtic goddess of the land), her chosen consort and her son. The protagonists are now represented as superhuman men and women and encoded in their lifestories are the rules for gender-related 'right' behaviour of princes and their spouses. The Three Romances still show the same constellation, but the figures of Sovereignty and her consort have been replaced by the Knight and his Lady with considerable loss of behavioural certainty for both genders. The romances are also indicative of growing economic insecurity. Culhwch and Olwen has been included for contrast and for its richness in folkloric motifs. Apart from studying the gender-roles in leading families at the time, the thesis advances the theory that The Four Branches may have been the work of a Welsh noblewoman - a theory based on the inherent knowledge of Welsh pre-Christian dynastic traditions, legal and political practices and the realities of women's lives at the time. The study also shows that the status of women and their legal rights in pre-Norman Wales were much more restricted and cannot generally be compared with that of women in England or Ireland.

Presbyterian ethos and environment in the novels of John Buchan : a religious and historical study

The aim of this thesis is to establish, from a historical and religious perspective, that the Presbyterian ethos and environment in which John Buchan was reared was the predominating influence in the writing of his novels. Presbyterianism was not the only influence on Buchan that determined the character of his stories. Buchan was by temperament a romantic, and this had considerable influence on his literature. His novels are romances, peopled by romantic figures who pursue romantic adventures. There are the signs of Buchan's romantic nature in the contents of the novels: creative imagination, sensitivity to nature, and expectations of the intrusion of other worlds, with destiny-determining events to follow. But Buchan had also an acquired classicism. His studies at Glasgow and Oxford Universities brought him in touch with a whole range of the master-pieces of classical literature, especially the works of Plato and Virgil. This discipline gave him clarity and conciseness in style, and balanced the romantic element in him, keeping his work within the bounds of reason. At the heart of Buchan's life and work, however, was his deeply religious nature and this, while influenced by romanticism and classicism, was the dominant force behind his work. Buchan did not accept in its entirety the Presbyterian doctrine conveyed to him by his father and his Church. He was moderate by temperament and shrank from excesses in religious matters, and, being a romantic, he shied away from any fixed creeds. He did embrace the fundamentals of Christianity, however, which he learned from his father and his Church, even if he did put aside the Rev. John's orthodox Calvinism. The basic Christianity which underlies all Buchan's novels has the stamp of Presbyterianism upon it, and that stamp is evident in his characters and their adventures. The expression of Christianity which Buchan embraced was the Christian Platonism of seventeenth century theologians, who taught and preached at Cambridge University, They gave prominence to the place of reason and conscience in man's search for God, They believed that reason and conscience were the ‘candle of the Lord’ which was existed every one. It was their conviction that, if that light was followed, it would lead men and women to God. They were against superstition and fanaticism in religion, against all forms of persecution for religious beliefs, and insisted that God could only be known by renouncing evil and setting oneself to live according to God’s will. This teaching Buchan received, but the stamp of his Presbyterianism was not obliterated. The basic doctrines which arose from his father's Presbyterianism and are to be found in Buchan's novels are as follows: a. the fear (or awe) of God, as life's basic religious attitude; b. the Providence of God as the ultimate determinative force in the outcome of events; c. the reality, malignity and universality of evil which must be forcefully and constantly resisted; d. the dignity of human beings in bearing God's image; e. the conviction that life has meaning and that its ultimate goal, therefore, is a spiritual one - as opposed to the accumulation of wealth, the achieving of recognition from society, and the gaining access to power; f. the necessity of challenge in life for growth and fulfilment, and the importance of fortitude in successfully meeting such challenge; g. the belief that, in the purpose of God, the weak confound the strong. These emphases of Presbyterianism are to be found in all Buchan's novels, to a greater or lesser degree. All his characters are serious people, with a moral purpose in life. Like the pilgrims of the Bible, they seek a country: true fulfilment. This quest becomes more spiritual and more dearly defined as Buchan grows in age and maturity. The progress is to be traced from his early novels, where fulfilment is sought in honour and self-approving competence, as advocated by classicism; to the novels of his middle years, where fulfilment is sought in adventures suggested by romanticism. In his final novel Sick Heart River. Buchan appears to have moved somewhat from his earlier classicism and his romanticism as the road to fulfilment. In this novel, Buchan expresses what, for him, is ultimate fulfilment: a conversion to God that produces self-sacrificing love for others. The terminally-ill Edward Leithen sets out on a romantic adventure that will enable him to die with dignity, and so, in classic style, justify his existence. He has a belief in God, but in a God who is almighty, distant and largely irrelevant to Leithen's life. In the frozen North of Canada, where he expects to find his meagre beliefs in God's absolute power confirmed by the icy majesty of mountain and plain, he finds instead God's mercy and it melts his heart. In a Christ-like way, he brings life to others through his death, believing that, through death, he will find life. There is sufficient evidence to give plausibility to the view that Buchan is describing in Leithen his own pilgrimage. If so, it means that Buchan found his way back to the fundamental experience of the Christian life, conversion, so strongly emphasised in his orthodox Presbyterianism home and Church. However, Buchan reaches this conclusion in a Christian Platonist way, through the natural world, rather than through the more orthodox pathway of Scripture.

Monsters: monstrous identities in young adult romance

Monstrous identities in fantasy for young adults often function as metaphors for cultural tensions about romantic and sexual relations between young people, and about how the young interact with the generation that precedes them. This essay considers four monster figures prevalent in Young Adult (YA) fantasy: the vampire, the werewolf, the monstrous mother, and the monstrous father and analyses their manifestation in YA romances by Robin McKinley, Stephenie Meyer, L. K. Smith and Maggie Stiefvater. It considers what these representations tell us about cultural anxieties over the sexuality of young women, and how they are positioned as reading subjects.