1996 / 3 Prospero. Rivista di culture anglo-germaniche

Al centro di quest’articolo sta una questione intorno alla quale si è molto discusso ed è quella della fonte o delle fonti del Muspilli. Si tratta di un’opera a carattere dogmatico e moraleggiante sul Giudizio universale, scritta in versi allitterativi, in dialetto bavarese con frequenti tracce di dialetto francone meridionale. Dalle critiche più recenti si può desumere che la questione sia stata affrontata da un’angolatura nuova e diversa. Non si analizza più il testo con la fine di determinare la provenienza del materiale o di individuare nell’opera fonti e parti originarie singole, ma piuttosto si cerca di studiare la composizione, di illustrarne le caratteristiche proprie, di stabilire l’organicità e la coerenza interne e di pensiero. C’è quindi un tentativo di esaminare l’opera nel suo insieme con un metodo che l’autrice di quest’articolo ritiene il più giusto.

After giving a general introduction to the social, cultural, religious and political climate in Northern Ireland, the author comes to the central topic of this paper: Eugene Mc Cabe’s "Christ in the Fields". Mc Cabe’s trilogy, written between 1977 and 1979, is one of the works of literature which portrays Northern Ireland as a dangerous territory of fear and hatred and tries to tell us what it is like to live in a place like this. One of the most important features of Mc Cabe’s writing is the constant parallel between human and animal world: both are divided into two basic categories, the hunters and the hunted and since in Mc Cabe’s world there is no choice and no space for compromise, one either belongs to the first or is doomed to belong to the other. With his ability to universalize from the immediate particular Mc Cabe forces the reader to realize that the “blind bitter fields” of Northern Ireland are, in the end, a metaphor for the world and the human condition.

This paper analyses Mrs Humphry Ward’s novel "Helbeck of Bannisdale", which was first published in 1898. It illustrates how the theme of religious controversy between Protestantism and Catholicism and between the Church of England and the Evangelical sects, is treated by Mrs Ward with a remarkable inwardness with the subject, which carries a weight of conviction that is not always to be found in other novels dealing with the same theme. Mrs Wards manages to present a singularly unprejudiced analysis of the religious conflict between the two protagonists. Furthermore the delicate balance between the author’s instinctive rejection of Catholicism and her desire to be fair-minded in presenting some of its attractive qualities is maintained throughout the novel.