Beyond surface reality: The aesthetic theme in Muriel Spark's fiction

Haripriya Ramadoss, Purdue University

Abstract

Muriel Spark's fiction, often considered as being religious in theme and content, is equally distinguished by the prominence of the artist figure, a repeated delineation of the creative process, and a probing of the technique and form of fiction itself. The presence of both artists and believers and their dramatic interaction in integrating the life of man with the life of values, far from being accidental, are highly dynamic elements in her vision of the mystery of life and man's abiding connection with the divine. The aesthetic theme is an integral part of Spark's artistic economy as is the religious--a point underscored by the fact that, very often, the artist and believer in her novels are one and the same person, the aesthetic and religious experiences marking certain crucial stages in the individual's quest towards meaning, towards soul making. This thesis explores what in Spark's fiction emerges as a profoundly ontological relationship between religion and a valid aesthetic. Spark's vision of the aesthetic activity as being essentially sacramental in nature is shown to evolve through four distinguishable phases. The first chapter examines the prominence of the metaphysics of faith in a mutually enriching relationship between belief and creativity. The second underscores the growing importance of self value which places the osmotic relationship between art and faith in a doubtful light. The third is a study of the demonic nature of the artistic activity which proves in Spark's handling of the theme to be, nevertheless, an affirmation of its sacramental nature even as an idol serves to recall the Image it apparently seeks to supplant. The last chapter focuses on the coming together of the ideas and motifs in the foregoing phases with the key figures achieving a human liberation made possible by the integration within the self of both their aesthetic vision and their abounding faith.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Rowe, Purdue University.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature

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