Lok, Joshua; (2025) Disharmoniously, Muriel Spark. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the works of Muriel Spark. It proposes “disharmonies” as an organising principle for reading Spark’s oeuvre; it draws out significant counterpoints from across Spark’s lesser-known work and better-known novels; it invests in a discovery of provisional principles behind her fondness for throwaway elements, non-sequiturs, and lack of resolutions. This thesis explores Spark’s literary criticism and journalism, poetry (including juvenilia and uncollected work), drama (Doctors of Philosophy, 1961), and radio plays and short stories in Voices at Play (1961), alongside expansions on some of her novels, which include the canonical (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1961), the controversial (The Driver’s Seat, 1970), and the purposefully confusing (The Hothouse by the East River, 1973). Engagements with the cutting edge of critical approaches to Spark notwithstanding, this thesis rehabilitates some of the older, ostensibly obsolete—though worthy—strains of criticism. This establishes a deeper continuity between waves of critical interests, and locates a significant, if oblique, coherence and consistency to her creative output. Archival and biographical research on Spark’s life, relationships, experiences, and trauma provide further context for and insight into her literary imagination and style. This thesis offers a counterpoint to the broader critical inclinations on Spark; it is informed by refreshed takes on formalism and diverse strands of aesthetic, music, and art theory. In all, it imagines her full oeuvre being signed off, collectively, as “Disharmoniously, Muriel Spark.”

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