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"All Hayll, All Hayll, Both Blithe And Glad": Direct Address In Early English Drama, 1400-1585, Michelle Markey Butler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines direct address in English drama from 1400 to 1585. All 91 non-fragmentary plays from this period were used in order to enable a comprehensive understanding of the technique. While direct address is widely acknowledged as a fundamental technique in early English drama, it is almost never studied, its effects and functions being assumed to be 'obvious' and 'natural,' and therefore neither requiring nor meriting focused consideration. This study shows that direct address was used systematically in early drama, and its effects could be quite sophisticated. To see this, it is crucial to consider the use of rhetorical …