Sing unto God, all ye kingdoms of earth: a novel and critical essay

Simple item page
dc.check.date9999-12-31
dc.check.infoControlled Access, Partial Restriction
dc.contributor.advisorDenton, Danny
dc.contributor.advisorLaird, Heather
dc.contributor.authorDineen, Jamesen
dc.contributor.funderUniversity College Cork
dc.date.accessioned2026-09-30T08:43:13Z
dc.date.available2026-09-30T08:43:13Z
dc.date.issued2026-06-19en
dc.date.submitted2026-06-19
dc.descriptionControlled Access, Partial Restriction
dc.description.abstractIn accordance with UCC’s requirement for the PhD in Creative Writing, my thesis has two components: the critical and the creative. These components each concern a mythology of self (from Gk. mythos, lit. narrative). The critical component consists of an essay on Simone Weil (1909-1943). Presented as an appraisal of Weil's self-mythology, I show how a Homeric theory of force catalysed her demotion of Marx. I analyse how this theory, based on reciprocation, was parlayed into a non-systemic dialectical theosophy which discerns Truth in the crucifixion of Christ. Using a methodology of positive and negative associations over the cultural longue durée, key to my analysis is how, in delineating the apartness which defined Weil’s exceptional mode of being, she co-opted Plato to her unique perspective. The creative component, titled THUNDER / PERFECT MIND, is a literary novel in the form of a self-mythology. My female protagonist and narrator, Maraki, having fatally projected her resentment at an unjust world onto her beloved dog, finds herself residing at Eglington House State Care Facility. Amongst residents and administrators who view Female as Other, Maraki must negotiate not only this institution’s patriarchal/paternalistic power structure, but also the faith-way which she sees before her now as the only route to redemption. Can books authored in antiquity—texts which she has been reading—help her deal with the clanging reminders of having killed the dog-companion upon whose friendship and loyalty she had been so dependent? Though such as Aristotle’s Poetics, Livy’s The Early History of Rome, the Agricola of Tacitus, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, provide Maraki with solace, and help protect her from the Eglington method, she comes to the realisation that there is one book bequeathed to us in which the high-most truth is told. Inspired by the authority of the ancients, and with recourse to the utmost wisdom of the King James Bible, Maraki’s mythology of self is an extenuating appeal to Almighty God, a prayer for her soul’s salvation. THUNDER / PERFECT MIND is a novel of thresholds, one which finds its equilibrium at the limina which separate mental acuity from occlusion, incarceration from freedom, this world from the next. Set in the late 1970s, the narrative unfolds upon an island of the fictional Lesser North Atlantic Isles. The novel forms part of an in-development multi-text mythopoeia which, by way of a unique eschatology, depicts characters who are in this world but not entirely of it.
dc.description.statusNot peer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationDineen, J. 2026. Sing unto God, all ye kingdoms of earth: a novel and critical essay. PhD Thesis, University College Cork.
dc.identifier.endpage347
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/19371
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherUniversity College Corken
dc.relation.projectUniversity College Cork (College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, Graduate School)
dc.rights© 2026, James Dineen.
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectCreative writing
dc.subjectEnglish literature
dc.subjectAncient Classics
dc.subjectPhilosophy
dc.titleSing unto God, all ye kingdoms of earth: a novel and critical essay
dc.typeDoctoral thesisen
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen
dc.type.qualificationnamePhD - Doctor of Philosophyen
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Thumbnail Image
Name:
DineenJD_PhD2026.pdf
Size:
2.64 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Full Text E-thesis
Thumbnail Image
Name:
DineenJD_PhD2026_Partial.pdf
Size:
2.71 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Partial Restriction
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
5.2 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Research Theses
College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences - Doctoral Theses
English - Doctoral Theses