Literature, Drama & Film

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    The making of an artist. Creating the Irishman Micheal MacLiammoir
    (The Liffey Press, 2015) Madden, Thomas
    The Making of an Artist is a fascinating portrayal of the formative years of Micheál MacLiammóir, actor, playwright, artist, linguist, raconteur and co-founder of the Gate Theatre. Born in Cockney London and christened Alfred Willmore, he moved to Dublin in his teens and set about creating an entirely new persona, becoming one of Ireland’s leading stage actors along the way. He immersed himself in Irish culture, becoming fluent in the Irish language, and was gripped by the social unrest in Dublin as Ireland fought for independence. The story of MacLiammóir’s development as an artist is told through hundreds of previously unseen letters and diary entries. Correspondence between the actor and his two closest friends, Máire O’Keeffe and Jack Dunne – many from exotic locales like Nice, Davos, Rome, Paris, Howth, London, Monte Carlo and Florence – provides a fascinating glimpse into MacLiammóir’s creative growth, as well as the literary milieu of 1920s Dublin. Lavishly illustrated with personal photographs and original artwork by MacLiammóir, this brilliantly researched book will make an important contribution to our appreciation of one of Ireland’s greatest artists. About the Author Tom Madden, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Theatre Studies, and was previously Director of Theatre Studies in NUI Maynooth. A graduate of UCD, Madden has also taught on many courses for St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, Dublin Business School and the National Association of Youth Drama He has represented Irish theatre with productions in Europe, America and Canada.
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    The knight on his quest : symbolic patterns of transition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
    (Associated University Presses, 1996) Sadowski, Piotr
    This book offers an integrated interpretative analysis of the major thematic aspects of the English fourteenth-century romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The chief aim of author Piotr Sadowski is to look at the contents of the narrative in their entirety and to take full advantage of the poem's exceptional and widely praised harmony of structure and design. Within that design, Sadowski focuses on the poem's presentation of the main protagonist and his adventures, seen first of all as a generalized metaphor of the human life understood as a spiritual quest, and, in a more historical sense, as an expression and critique of certain ideals, values, and anxieties that characterized the late medieval institutions of the court, chivalry, and the Church. Sadowski built the interpretive framework of Sir Gawain from an eclectic theoretical base that he believes is most valuable and useful in approaching medieval literature. The main focus of the study remains the literary text itself, created by an author who communicates his view of the world through the poem.
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    Systems theory as an approach to the study of literature : origins and functions of literature
    (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999) Sadowski, Piotr
    This text offers an alternative account of literary reception as communications-based. It seeks an alternative to post-Saussurean theories of language and discourse. The author makes a case for literature as a form of purposive human action in a world that is open to rational enquiry.
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    Dynamism of character in Shakespeare's mature tragedies
    (Associated University Presses, 2003) Sadowski, Piotr
    Dynamism of character in Shakespeare's mature tragedies applies the systems theory of character to the analysis of the psychological and dramatic consistence of the main characters from Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.
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    Gender and literature : a systems study
    (University Press of America, Inc., 2001) Sadowski, Piotr
    A Systems Study addresses the notion of gender as a "social construct," and presents evolutionary reasons for human psycho-behavioural differentiation along the lines of sexual dimorphism of the reproductive and the related functions, which produce the main genders of femininity and masculinity, corresponding roughly with the functions of procreation and competition, respectively. These two gender-oriented poles of human behaviour are intermingled in the individual mind to produce a mixture of gender traits that underlie personality and behaviour. A statistical model of the overlap of the masculine and feminine traits generates eight specific gender types: the feminine woman, the womanly women, the womanly man, the androgynous man, the androgynous woman, the manly man, the manly woman, and the masculine man. Characteristics of each type are offered together with examples from a wide range of literary texts.