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Articles 271 - 300 of 361

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Reading With The Grain: On Vin Nardizzi’S Wooden Os: Shakespeare’S Theatres And England’S Trees, Steven Swarbrick Jan 2014

Reading With The Grain: On Vin Nardizzi’S Wooden Os: Shakespeare’S Theatres And England’S Trees, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

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Grafting Onto `The Jew': The Importance Of Being Jew-Ish To Early Modern English Christian Identity, Joan Blackwell Wedes Jan 2014

Grafting Onto `The Jew': The Importance Of Being Jew-Ish To Early Modern English Christian Identity, Joan Blackwell Wedes

Wayne State University Dissertations

The dissertation examines how Jewish figures in early modern plays, prose, and poetry moved beyond the uncomplicated medieval image of murderous villain and towards a more reasoned consideration of the Jew's position in Christianity as well as in English life. While there has been significant scholarship on early modern representations of Jews, particularly in drama, these studies have not examined how Paul's Letter to the Romans, in forming much of Reformation doctrine, was also crucial in forming attitudes towards and representations of literary and living Jews. My project uniquely combines history, biblical studies, and literary analysis to reveal how early …

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Neuroscience And Galen: Body, Selfhood And The Materiality Of Emotions On The Early Modern Stage, Devon Wallace Jan 2014

Neuroscience And Galen: Body, Selfhood And The Materiality Of Emotions On The Early Modern Stage, Devon Wallace

Dissertations

From antiquity until the turn of the nineteenth century, temperament, mood and personality were believed to exist within, be managed by, and interact with material substance. Before the medical revolution of the late seventeenth century, early modern theories of anatomy and medicine were primarily based on the writings of Galen, who lived in the second century but was him influenced by a much older medical and philosophical tradition. In this period, the playwrights raise the same central question that now appears in so many reactions to the increasingly accepted "neurocentric" world view: "to what extent do I have an emotional …

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Methods Of Revision In Sixteenth-Century English Cycle Drama, John Case Tompkins Oct 2013

Methods Of Revision In Sixteenth-Century English Cycle Drama, John Case Tompkins

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation contends that guilds-folk in sixteenth-century England made their own changes to the play-texts of civic drama and that these changes remain visible to us in the manuscripts which preserve the plays. Further, it argues that the actors and pageant-makers themselves often made these revisions, rather than the civic or ecclesial authorities traditionally credited for rewriting the pageants. These changes, introduced in production and transferred into the texts, helped keep the plays vibrant and successful throughout most of the sixteenth century and reflect the practical and local concerns of their participants. This work continues the historical investigations into pageant …

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Easier For A Camel: The Quasi-Christian Merchants Of Venice; A Literary Look At Economic History, Wayne Sandholtz, Dr. Brandie Siegfried Aug 2013

Easier For A Camel: The Quasi-Christian Merchants Of Venice; A Literary Look At Economic History, Wayne Sandholtz, Dr. Brandie Siegfried

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In a Shakespeare class during my junior year, I wrote a paper called “Easier for a camel: the quasi-Christian merchants of Venice” which examined the relationships between business virtue and Christian virtue in Shakespeare’s comedy The Merchant of Venice. Even though it was written centuries ago, I felt that the play had significant things to say to our modern capitalist society in which, just as in Shakespeare’s day, traditional sources of authority are being challenged by the combination of new technology with expanding economic opportunities. I decided to apply for and was given a grant from ORCA to further explore …

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"My Words Fly Up, My Thoughts Remain Below": Community And Penance In Early Modern English Drama, Benedict John Whalen Aug 2013

"My Words Fly Up, My Thoughts Remain Below": Community And Penance In Early Modern English Drama, Benedict John Whalen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines the vexed relationship between Christian doctrine, practice, and community in English Renaissance drama due to the abandonment of the sacrament of auricular confession during the Protestant Reformation. I argue that many English Renaissance dramatists were sensitive to the vast ramifications of the Reformers' theological understanding of penance, particularly in its emphasis upon a sinner's ability to accomplish unmediated contrition, and to be psychologically and emotionally satisfied thereby. By desacramentalizing and interiorizing penitential practices, the Protestant understanding of penance fundamentally changed the ways in which communities dealt with sins. As this dissertation demonstrates, many of the plays from …

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"Something Old And Dark Has Got Its Way": Shakespeare's Influence In The Gothic Literary Tradition, Natalie A. Hewitt Jan 2013

"Something Old And Dark Has Got Its Way": Shakespeare's Influence In The Gothic Literary Tradition, Natalie A. Hewitt

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines Shakespeare’s role as the most significant precursor to the Gothic author in Britain, suggesting that Shakespeare used the same literary conventions that Gothic writers embraced as they struggled to create a new subgenre of the novel. By borrowing from Shakespeare’s canon, these novelists aimed to persuade readers and critics that rather than undermining the novel’s emergent, still unassured status as an acceptable literary genre, the nontraditional aspects of their works paid homage to Shakespeare’s imaginative vision. Gothic novelists thereby legitimized their attempts at literary expression. Despite these efforts, Gothic writers did not instantly achieve the type of …

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Generative Space: Embodiment And Identity At The Margins On The Early Modern Stage, Sallie Anglin Jan 2013

Generative Space: Embodiment And Identity At The Margins On The Early Modern Stage, Sallie Anglin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In "Generative Space: Embodiment and Identity at the Margins on the Early Modern Stage," I argue that the early modern stage provides a space in which emerging, marginal and unsanctioned identities can be shaped through the physical interactions between characters and their environments. Spaces that are marginalized on the stage, set apart from the main action of the play, or considered culturally or environmentally offensive, harbor figures that are not socially accepted or alloto exist legitimately outside of those spaces. This is in some ways liberating to the characters, but at the same time their identities are contingent upon the …

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Machiavelli's People And Shakespeare's Prophet: The Early Modern Afterlife Of Caius Martius Coriolanus, Peter Iver Kaufman Jan 2013

Machiavelli's People And Shakespeare's Prophet: The Early Modern Afterlife Of Caius Martius Coriolanus, Peter Iver Kaufman

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Both Machiavelli and Shakespeare were drawn to Livy's and Plutarch's stories of the legendary field commander turned political inept, Caius Martius, who was honored with the name Coriolanus after sacking the city of Corioles. The sixteenth-century ‘coriolanists’ are usually paired as advocates of participatory regimes and said to have used Coriolanus's virulent opposition to power-sharing in early republican Rome as an occasion to put plebeian interests in a favorable light. This article objects to that characterization, distinguishing Machiavelli's deployment of Coriolanus in his Principe and Discorsi from Shakespeare's depiction of Coriolanus and his critics on stage. The essay that follows …

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Othello's "Malignant Turk" And George Manwaring's "A True Discourse": The Cultural Politics Of A Textual Derivation, Imtiaz Habib Jan 2013

Othello's "Malignant Turk" And George Manwaring's "A True Discourse": The Cultural Politics Of A Textual Derivation, Imtiaz Habib

English Faculty Publications

A critique is presented of the play "Othello" by William Shakespeare, focusing on a reference from Othello's final speech to an incident in Aleppo, Syria that the author attributes to the manuscript essay "A True Discourse" by George Manwaring, a companion of English adventurer Sir Anthony Sherley. Early 17th century British history, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and Queen Elizabeth I are mentioned, as well as references in the works to Turks and the censorship of English literature.

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Deconstructing The Supernatural In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Britney Marler Jan 2013

Deconstructing The Supernatural In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Britney Marler

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Of all Shakespeare's tragedies, Macbeth is by far the most supernaturally charged. The play opens with three witches who give Macbeth and Banquo a prediction that lays out the plot of the rest of the play. Macbeth sees a phantom dagger, hears voices, and is haunted by the ghost of his murdered comrade. The vast amount of supernatural events comes as no surprise considering that Shakespeare almost certainly wrote the play as a tribute to King James I, the British monarch whose belief in the power of witchcraft ran so deep that he led several witchhunts throughout Britain, in addition …

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Othello As An Enigma To Himself: A Jungian Approach To Character Analysis, Eric Iliff Jan 2013

Othello As An Enigma To Himself: A Jungian Approach To Character Analysis, Eric Iliff

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

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To Txt, Or Not To Txt: Shkspr.Mobi And Academia, Bella Victoria Smith, Ed Nagelhout Jan 2013

To Txt, Or Not To Txt: Shkspr.Mobi And Academia, Bella Victoria Smith, Ed Nagelhout

McNair Poster Presentations

This essay combats elitist academic attitudes assuming that all online content is not reputable and that online com­munication, specifically txtspk, defiles English. By exploring the tenants of open source and open access, particularly the benefits of free redistribution, online editions of Shakespeare’s plays prove to promote intellectual excellence and trans­parency, benefitting academics most. Similarly, the belief that txtspk is destroying the English language is a myth because modernizing and shortening words exist in all languages, including the first printed editions of Shakespeare’s canon. Finally, this essay addresses future concerns for online editions such as the copyright barriers over intellectual and …

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Reputation: A Destructive Force, Srisha Kotlo '14 Oct 2012

Reputation: A Destructive Force, Srisha Kotlo '14

2012 Fall Semester

In Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, a soldier “[seeks] the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth” (“Shakespeare”). Shakespeare portrays reputation as a bubble because just as bubbles are fragile and can pop at any moment, a man’s reputation is delicate and can be lost in an instant. Reputation and prestige are highly valued by characters in many stories and plays. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Cassio and Othello strive to preserve notable reputations while Iago intends to use reputation as a tool for manipulation, and as the play unfolds they get exceedingly desperate to defend their reputations. This …

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Marital Power Plays, Gina Liu '14 Oct 2012

Marital Power Plays, Gina Liu '14

2012 Fall Semester

William Shakespeare’s Othello describes the deterioration of the jealous Moorish general Othello’s marriage with Venetian noblewoman Desdemona. This domestic crisis, ignited by conniving manservant Iago’s careful manipulations, hinges upon one handkerchief, its significance within Othello’s and Desdemona’s courtship, and its engineered discovery in the bedchambers of Michael Cassio. Just as this small handkerchief assumes an integral role, the actions of Emilia, Iago’s wife, enable the fruition of his plots but ultimately result in his exposure and downfall; thus, Othello documents the decline of not one, but two marriages. The largest contrast between these two relationships is division of power, for …

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The Stage Is The Court And All The Players Merely Copies: Shakespeare's Antony And Cleopatra As Propaganda, Ginnye Cubel May 2012

The Stage Is The Court And All The Players Merely Copies: Shakespeare's Antony And Cleopatra As Propaganda, Ginnye Cubel

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In 1603 the world as England knew it changed. After forty-five years Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and last surviving Tudor was dead and James VI of Scotland was ascending the throne. Despite several differences between the new king and the old queen, there were similarities in their patronage of the arts. Enthralled by theatrical performances, one of James' first acts as king was to offer royal patronage to William Shakespeare's theatre company and give them the title, The King's Men. But it is likely that James' love of the theatre wasn't his only reason for patronizing Shakespeare's theatre troupe. …

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With This Ring, I Surrender: Politics, Religion, And Marriage In Shakespeare And Tudor England, Mara R. Berkoff Apr 2012

With This Ring, I Surrender: Politics, Religion, And Marriage In Shakespeare And Tudor England, Mara R. Berkoff

Honors College Theses

The ideas I wish to explore are the overarching themes of politics, religion, and marriage in the Turor period under the rule of King Henry VIII from 1509 to 1547. The popular opinion of the period on Henry VIII's behavior can be seen in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Henry VIII.

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Bound To Revenge: Multiple Revenge Tragedies In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Deirdra M. Shupe Jan 2012

Bound To Revenge: Multiple Revenge Tragedies In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Deirdra M. Shupe

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper will examine the notion of revenge, beginning with a history of the revenge tragedy genre (including its roots in the works of Seneca) as well as how the term was used to depict retribution during the Renaissance. A brief explanation of the differences between the different versions of Hamlet and why they are relevant to revenge accompanies the historical background. Using Shakespeare s Hamlet as one of the most famous examples of the genre, this thesis also explains multiple revenge tragedies occurring in the play and the common threads that unify them into a single piece of drama …

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The Crew / Of Common Playwrights: Collaboration And Authorial Community In The Early Modern Theater, Lacey Ann Conley Jan 2012

The Crew / Of Common Playwrights: Collaboration And Authorial Community In The Early Modern Theater, Lacey Ann Conley

Dissertations

As a consequence of the development of playwriting into an established profession in early modern London, a central paradox emerged: in order to secure a place within this authorial community, and also a place for the profession itself, playwrights needed to work toward the often contradictory goals of self-promotion and of validation of the profession at large. I confront this paradox by examining details about the backgrounds and careers of the twenty-nine professional playwrights working in the years 1580-1625. I use this information to categorize each author's interest and investment in the development of the profession of dramatist by defining …

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The King's Speech: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Shakespeare's Henry Iv, Part I, Chance Sweat Aug 2011

The King's Speech: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Shakespeare's Henry Iv, Part I, Chance Sweat

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholarship has explored the “Machiavellian” actions of Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 1 ; yet the classical rhetorical pedagogy of Renaissance Britain suggests that the speeches in the play lead to a transformation in Hal that is antithetical to the emergent understanding of Hal as a great manipulator. Falstaff uses the ruse of rhetoric instructor in order to construct a classical rhetorical argument for his own ends, and Henry IV gives a passionate yet formally adept (and classically rhetorical) plea to his son in order to incite change. An analysis of Falstaff and Henry’s arguments as well as …

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The Backwards Making Of A Heroine: Mary Cowden Clarke’S Girlhood And Its Importance In The Shakespearean Conversation, Jillian Caramanna May 2011

The Backwards Making Of A Heroine: Mary Cowden Clarke’S Girlhood And Its Importance In The Shakespearean Conversation, Jillian Caramanna

English

No abstract provided.

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Reviving The Latent Content Of Alchemy In William Shakespeare's Othello, Sarita Clara Rich Apr 2011

Reviving The Latent Content Of Alchemy In William Shakespeare's Othello, Sarita Clara Rich

Theses and Dissertations

While many of Shakespeare's alchemical allusions are noted for their language of positive regeneration and healing, the playwright's departures from these conventional uses of alchemy deserve further attention. This essay presents an examination of inversions in the redemptive alchemical paradigm of Othello, a play whose connections to alchemy are not announced by obvious references to gold making, the philosopher's stone, or other key terms relating to the discourse of the opus that a modern audience is likely to recognize. I argue that in Othello, alchemical allusions are more subtly deployed in the language that describes Othello and Desdemona's …

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Performing The Audience: Constructing Playgoing In Early Modern Drama, Eric Dunnum Apr 2011

Performing The Audience: Constructing Playgoing In Early Modern Drama, Eric Dunnum

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation argues that early modern playwrights used metadrama to construct the experience and concept of playgoing for their audiences. By staging playgoing in front of playgoers, playwrights sought to teach their audiences how to attend a play and how to react to a performance. This type of instruction was possible, and perhaps necessary, because in early modern London attending a professionally produced play with thousands of other playgoers was a genuinely new cultural activity, so no established tradition of playgoing existed. Thus, playwrights throughout the era from John Lyly to Richard Brome attempted to invent playgoing through their performances. …

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Oral Narrative And Disembodied Language In Othello And Hamlet, Michael Ferut Mar 2011

Oral Narrative And Disembodied Language In Othello And Hamlet, Michael Ferut

Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing

No abstract provided.

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"Sit Back Down Where You Belong, In The Corner Of My Bar With Your High Heels On": The Use Of Cross-Dressing In Order To Achieve Female Agency In Shakespeare's Transvestite Comedies, Heather Lynn Wright Jan 2011

"Sit Back Down Where You Belong, In The Corner Of My Bar With Your High Heels On": The Use Of Cross-Dressing In Order To Achieve Female Agency In Shakespeare's Transvestite Comedies, Heather Lynn Wright

MA in English Theses

In taking on their male disguises, Viola (Twelfth Night ), Rosalind (As You Like It ), and Portia (The Merchant of Venice ) are able to transcend the confines of their social roles and achieve agency and voice as both females and males. With their male disguises, they gain power and agency as lower-class males and as aristocratic females. This power correlates to the fact that they are not fully male. Their female attributes, ideas, and nature (the essence of their femininity) still come through. They are limited and marginalized as women not because of their intelligence …

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Pierced Through The Ear: Poetic Villainy In Othello, Kathleen Emerald Somers Nov 2010

Pierced Through The Ear: Poetic Villainy In Othello, Kathleen Emerald Somers

Theses and Dissertations

The paper examines Othello as metapoetry. Throughout the play, key points of comparison between Iago and Shakespeare's methodologies for employing allegory, symbolism, and mimetic plot and character construction shed light upon Shakespeare's self-reflexive use of poetry as an art of imitation. More specifically, the contrast between Shakespeare and Iago's poetry delineates between dynamic and reductive uses of allegory, emphasizes an Aristotelian model of mimesis that makes reason integral to plot and character formation, and underscores an ethical function to poetry generally. In consequence of the division between Iago and Shakespeare as unethical and ethical poets respectively, critical contention concerning the …

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Monstrous!: Actors, Audiences, Inmates, And The Politics Of Reading Shakespeare, Matt Kozusko Jul 2010

Monstrous!: Actors, Audiences, Inmates, And The Politics Of Reading Shakespeare, Matt Kozusko

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

This essay considers the use of Shakespeare as marker of authenticity and as a therapeutic space for performers and audiences across a number of genres, from professional actors in training literature to prison inmates in radio and film documentaries. It argues that in the wake of recent academic trends—the critique of "Shakespeare" as an author figure; the privileging of the text as a source of multiple, potentially conflicting readings—Shakespeare's function as cultural capital has shifted sites, from "Shakespeare" to the playtexts themselves.

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Shakespeare's Richard Ii And Henry V And Political Rebellions In The Reign Of Queen Elizabeth I, Sarah J. Scannell May 2010

Shakespeare's Richard Ii And Henry V And Political Rebellions In The Reign Of Queen Elizabeth I, Sarah J. Scannell

Honors Scholar Theses

The purpose of this thesis will be to examine how two acts of rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I influenced Shakespeare's writing of Richard II and Henry V, as well as the performance and publication of these plays. The treasonous plots and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in the 1580s, as well as the failed Essex Rebellion of 1601, resulted in a sensitivity towards any writings that seemed to support a coup d'état. Shakespeare, being a well-informed and fairly well-connected playwright, wrote passages in the afore mentioned plays that clearly reflect the political turmoil of the times. Thus, his plays …

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Uncommon Sense In Renaissance English Literature, Eric Byville Jan 2010

Uncommon Sense In Renaissance English Literature, Eric Byville

Dissertations

My project explores the distinctive union of Senecan tragedy and Elizabethan satire in Renaissance English drama, particularly the works of John Marston and William Shakespeare. Unlike Ben Jonson, who incorporated both Senecan tragedy and Elizabethan satire in his drama but did so in different plays (Catiline, Every Man Out), Marston and Shakespeare combined the two traditions in one and the same play, such as the former's Antonio's Revenge (1600) and The Malcontent (c. 1603) and the latter's Troilus and Cressida (1601) and Timon of Athens (c. 1606). They recognized and exploited a deep compatibility between the two traditions, a compatibility …

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The Covenant: How The Tension And Interpretation Within Puritan Covenant Doctrine Pushes Toward More Equality In English Marriage, Maren H. Miyasaki Nov 2009

The Covenant: How The Tension And Interpretation Within Puritan Covenant Doctrine Pushes Toward More Equality In English Marriage, Maren H. Miyasaki

Theses and Dissertations

The Puritans constituted a very vocal influential minority during the time of Shakespeare. One of their more interesting ideas was the doctrine of the covenant, which explained why a transcendent God would care for fallen human beings. God, for Puritans, voluntarily bound himself in a covenant to man. The interrelations of elements of grace and works make it difficult to interpret what a covenant should be like: more like a modern contract or more like a feudalistic promise system? Unlike a contract, God never ends the covenant even when humans disregard their commitment, but instead helps humans fulfill their obligations …

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