/library/oar/handle/123456789/51538 2025-12-20T20:42:29Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/51535 Title: War and peace in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry Authors: Farrugia, Marisa Abstract: Tribal conflicts, raids and vengeance were the raison d'etre of pagan Arab Bedouin life. However others preferred 'milk' than 'blood'. These themes are well depicted in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. This paper seeks to explain the motives of the Bedouins' battles as illustrated in their oral poetry together with peace as the theme. 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/51534 Title: Sur les devoirs des chevaliers de Malte : deux ouvrages de la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle Authors: Depasquale, Carmen Abstract: The spiritual aspect of the life of a Knight of St. John was of primary importance, as the ceremony of the profession of a Knight makes amply clear. However, many Knights, young and old alike, out of negligence or ignorance, often neglected their religious duties and led a worldly life. This situation worried other Knights who, having studied the Rule, recorded their observations and reflections and printed their works for the benefit of their brethren. One such work, published anonymously in Paris in 1712, was translated into Italian and published in Rome a year later. A second edition of the Italian version was published in Malta in 1758. Another work, written by the French Knight Luc de Boyer d'Argens was published at the Hague in 1739. The latter work differs from the former in that it not only dwells on the spiritual duties of the Knights but also on other duties that are of a more mundane nature, such as the knowledge they are expected to possess. It also contains some practical advice. The author concludes his work by reflecting on the ultimate duty of a Knight: that of sacrificing his life in the interests of the Order. 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/51533 Title: Memory, oblivion and nostalgia in Trezza Azzopardi's The Hiding Place Authors: Lauri-Lucente, Gloria Abstract: Shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize 2000, Trezza Azzopardi 's debut novel The Hiding Place is the devastatingly harsh but also deeply moving story of Frankie Gauci, his wife Mary, and their six daughters as seen through the eyes of Dolores, the youngest sister who slowly unravels the tragic secrets that haunt her past. Set in a Maltese immigrant community in Tiger Bay, Wales, and peopled with deeply flawed characters, The Hiding Place traces Dolores's journey through the seductive yet often terrifying labyrinth of memory, a labyrinth governed by its own primitive sense of familial law and order. Lyrical in one breath and stingingly realistic in the next, Azzopardi calls on her impressive mastery of language to weave an intensely self-reflexive story of guilt and innocence, absence and presence, fragmentation and plenitude and, above all, oblivion and memory. This paper focuses precisely on Azzopardi's treatment of memory as an instrument of reclamation and retrieval in the search for selfhood. Though memory is elusive and untrustworthy because of its polymorphic nature, at the same time it is endowed with a redemptive power capable of transforming the outside into the inside, denial into acceptance, and obscurity into revelation. 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/51516 Title: Writing beyond the pale : literature, literary theory, and the law of genre Authors: Callus, Ivan Abstract: It has sometimes been claimed that certain texts written by literary theorists defy categorisation. Neither critique nor fiction, and not even identifiable as a hybrid of both, such texts resist efforts to identify their generic affiliation. These texts might have been allowed to stand merely as indicators of their creators' whimsy were it not for the fact that their content and form, not to mention their problematic relationship with what literary theorists profess elsewhere, represent a provocation to literary criticism's established approaches and procedures. This paper reviews one such text, namely Jacques Derrida 's The Post Card, and more particularly the section entitled "Envois", in the light of his essay "The Law of Genre". It asks whether texts like "Envois" repay critical scrutiny which speaks of a-genericity and multi-genericity, and assesses their implications for the future of literature and literary criticism. 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z