Using art to understand contemporary society

There is a general tendency to assume that literature is not as beneficial a subject as science or technology. But a University of Malta Master of English student, Roberta Azzopardi, is carrying out research into the way works of art can be used to illustrate works of literature and using literature to promote an understanding of artist's contemporary society.

In her dissertation, entitled 'Interfaces Between Art and Literature in the Late Victorian and Modern Periods', Ms Azzopardi is debating the works of various writers including John Ruskin, William Morris, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, and using corresponding works of art that illustrate the ideas communicated by the writers.

For example, she asks questions such as "What is the parallelism between Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and a critical appreciation by Walter Pater, between the prismatics of Impressionism and Virginia Woolf's plight to 'record the atoms as they fall' and how the fragmental quality of T.S. Eliot's Wasteland can be compared to a painting by Picasso.

She told The Sunday Times: "The result is a gallery of creative representations communicating the individual's reaction to an evolving society which has experienced wars, advancing technology and the social truth that man has become a commercial product, a number."

Ms Azzopardi hopes to promote a more inter-disciplinary approach to the teaching of academic subjects given that, even at primary schools, there is often a hierarchy determining which subject has more importance than another.

Ms Azzopardi's research, which has involved visiting British libraries to consult rare documents, is being sponsored under the Malta Govern-ment Scholarship Scheme (MGSS).

This and forthcoming articles on MGSS-sponsored research are presented in collaboration with the National Commission for Higher Education.