English Language and Literature Commons^™

Theaters Of Voice, Body, And Page: Beckett, Sophocles, Homer, Joyce, Barry A. Spence

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation makes a comparative study of Homeric Greek, Classical Greek, Modernist, and late modern works of storytelling with particular attention to strategies and techniques that achieve an exceptional degree of performative immediacy. As such, theater (the dramatic mode) forms a central concern, viewed as the fulfillment of direct performative embodiment—building on Aristotle’s idea of mimesis. An analysis examining multiple media demonstrates how oral epic poetry, Athenian tragedy, modern theater, the short story, and the novel can make use of seemingly disparate storytelling methods that share underlying mechanisms whose effects are decidedly theatrical. Four authors—Sophocles, Samuel Beckett, Homer, and …