Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Chekhov, The Doctor As Dramatist: A Study Of The Four Major Plays, Gloria Rhoads

Masters Theses

Studying the relationship of Chekhov's being a doctor to his being a dramatist reveals one reason for the scientific objectivity in his writing. Moreover, extensive reading of his letters and notes as well as careful readings of his plays leaves little doubt that he himself considered that his career as a doctor had a great impact on the plays he created.

Chekhov felt that a writer must not beautify reality or gloss over it but carefully present it as it is. He wrote that the writer must renounce subjectivity and report the grime of life along with the good; he …

Character Motivation And Definition Through Dialog In The Memory Plays Of Harold Pinter, Douglas E. Grohne

Masters Theses

Several critics have suggested that the plays of Harold Pinter are incomprehensible because the characters do not explicitly explain their actions and motivations. These comments come because the critics and audiences are conditioned to expect a playwright to in some way explain the motivations and personalities of his characters with a standard explanation given through explicit dialog, copious stage directions, or other means. But Pinter believes that it is dangerous for a playwright to design a play with one overall purpose in mind because the chances are that the purpose will be mistaken.

Pinter prefers to write in a realistic …

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Finds Reality: In The Comic Mask, Eva Marie Enis

Masters Theses

Scholars have considered the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus from nearly every perspective, but, at the same time, they have been hesitant to recognize the humorous incidents, particularly the so-called clownish scenes, as having a legitimate place even though much comic incident appears in Marlowe's source. Though scholars have acknowledged Marlowe's play to be a morality, they have not viewed Faustus as a morality character whose comic mask is his reality.

An examination of the morality tradition, with Marlowe's debt to the morality in mind, justifies the inclusion of much …

Ua35/11 Student Honors Research Bulletin, Wku Honors Program

WKU Administration Documents

Papers representative of the variety of scholarly research conducted at WKU.

• Adams, Kathy. The Appalachian Language
• Barnett, Philip. A Study of Deviant Behavior of XYY Individuals in Regard to Environment and Genotype
• Bell, Brooks. Loving, Loyal Linda Loman: An Interpretive Note
• Danhauer, Janice. Motivating Workers Through Job Design
• Davis, Barbara. The Transformation of a Man into a Man of Understanding in Murinbata Society
• Davis, Diane. The Argot of the Homosexual
• Jewell, Teresa. The Life Story of the Hero of World War I - Sergeant Alvin C. York
• Lanham, Wayne. Das Knarrenschiff and a Ship of Fools: A Study in Influence …

The Rite Of Initiation In Pinter's The Birthday Party, Richard C. Slocum

Masters Theses

The paper is an attempt to give full treatment to elements in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party which suggest the rite of initiation practiced in primitive societies. A few critics have touched upon the subject of initiation in the play, but they fail to discuss it in detail.

Extensive comparisons are made between Charles Eckert's summary of initiation rituals and the actions and characters in the play. The initiate is isolated from society as a preliminary to the rite of initiation; Stanley is isolated in a seaside boarding house. The initiate is secluded in a dark and threatening place; Stanley …

The Role Of Betrayal In Selected Drama Of Tennessee Williams, Craig E. Sanderson

Masters Theses

Much of the critical analysis of Tennessee Williams' drama concerns itself with the inherent conflict between ideals and reality in the universe as perceived by Williams. Such analysis, however, has not considered this conflict as a source of betrayal, or betrayal as a dominant theme in Williams' drama. In at least four of his plays it becomes evident how each of the individual characters in Williams' drama endures the conflict of reality and ideals, and the extent to which their respective approaches to the resolution of this struggle result in betrayal. Four plays--all regarded as among his most successful and …

The Troubled Ecstasy Of Yeats's "Purgatory" And "At The Hawk's Well", Gregory Michael Sadlek

Masters Theses

A great amount of W. B. Yeats's writing attests to his fascination with the preternatural. Indeed, it seems that Yeats felt the sacred experience to be somehow central in the living of a full life. Further, in his essay "The Celtic Element in Literature," he proposed that all great literature arises out of the passion which flows from the sacred experience. Yeats thought that drama as well as poetry, then, must plumb this core of life. And in his essay "The Tragic Theatre" he declared that great tragedy deals with feelings and experiences which are universal and timeless and which …

Illusion Vs. Reality In The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Glendora S. Plath

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Beckett's Manipulation Of Audience Response In Waiting For Godot, Robert Carl Themer

Masters Theses

This thesis examines one of the many paradoxes of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot--that although on the surface Beckett reduces his characters to the barest minimum in human terms, the spectator still finds himself, mysteriously, identifying with those pathetic stage creatures and their plights.

The dual purpose of this paper is to examine the methods Beckett used to foster this sense of spectator-character likeness and to assess its impact upon the spectator. It explores the contrast between the near-caricatures, Pozzo and Lucky, and the more complexly humanized Vladimir and Estragon. It discusses Beckett's universalization of character, time, place, and …

A Criticism Of Elder Olson's Poetic Method, Ernest Edward Force Ii

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Theme Of Othello, James Irving Krumrey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Performance Attitudes Toward Read Or Imagined Events In “Scenes Of Passion And Despair” By Joyce Carol Oates, Bruce Creed

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The object of this study is to examine the diction of “Scenes of Passion and Despair” by Joyce Carol Oates in an attempt to discover performative attitudes for the interpreter. The discussion centers on the theme of illusion and reality as it manifests itself in the story. Because this theme superimposes itself on diction, it becomes necessary to examine words in detail, searching for the manner in which words are used to create a certain degree of reality for each character of the story. The discovery of these realities reassures the interpreter that his is a faithful rendering of one …

Isolation In The Dramas Of T.S. Eliot, Jean Conway

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

T.S. Eliot is a monumental figure in literature. He distinguished himself as a poet in his youth, as a critic in his middle age, and as a dramatist in his later years. Because of the vitality of Eliot’s early literary works, his dramas are frequently bypassed by critics when discussing the major themes that interested him as an artist. The purpose this study is to examine thoroughly Eliot’s position on isolation and alienation as revealed in his seven plays: Sweeney Agonistes (1926), The Rock (1934), Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1949), The Confidential …

"Art For Truth's Sake" : James A. Herne As Social Critic And Literary Artist, Nancy Hoyt Lecourt

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

James A. Herne, 1839-1901, is generally considered to be the best American dramatist prior to O'Neill. His dramas represent the first American attempts at dramatic realism. His early plays are melodramatic in tendency, but soon he began to eliminate villains, asides, stereotyped characters, and other trappings of that earlier dramatic form. When Hamlin Garland saw Herne's play dealing with the drinking problem, Drifting Apart, he was convinced that Herne could be groomed into a sort of American Ibsen. Garland soon introduced Herne to William Dean Howells, and the two authors encouraged Herne in his quest for realism. The result …

Three Studies In Characterization, Diana A. Kohler

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

THE WOMEN OF BEN JONSON IN EPICOENE AND BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. This paper compares and contrasts the method variations that cause the women of Epicoene to be less interesting and more stereotyped than those of Bartholomew Fair.

Basically, in the women of Epicoene, Jonson used character types exclusively. The women were all "masculine," and remained that type throughout the play. In Bartholomew Fair, Jonson created versatility in the characters by including more information on the women through rhetorical "places," particularly the consilium or reason behind their actions. The multiplied places in the women in Bartholomew Fair, the changes in the …

An Analysis Of The Treatment Of Platonic Love In Ford's Nondramatic Works And Independent Tragedies, Kathryn M. Jackson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Optimism In The Drama Of William Saroyan, Joyce Ross

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Joyce Ross in May of 1972.

Gogol: An Overview, David Paul Allen

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

The Fool In Lear Exposes A Foolish Lear, Anthony John Cuccio

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Byron's Attempt To Reform The English Stage Through His Venetian Plays, Linda J. Fuller

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

The Uses Of Processions In Shakespeare's Plays, William F. Sodini

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

The Church In The Dramas Of T. S. Eliot, Rebecca Ellen Dunn

All Master's Theses

From the desolation of a sterile Waste Land populated by straw men, Eliot's dramas increasingly portray a world of great meaning and hope. His early dramas portray a hostile and insensible world which must be fought and completely rejected by religious persons who are called to martyrdom and sainthood. Eliot's acceptance of the material world and comfort with its society brings a steady transformation of his spiritual vision when at the end of his dramas the world is one of common people who strive to find meaning and "make the best of a bad job," illumined by a vision of …

John Skelton's Satire Of The Burial Rites Of The Roman Church In "Philip Sparrow", Jean M. Regone

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

The Stage Yankee In The Plays Of Eugene O'Neill, Sue Farquharson Law

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Concepts Of Suffering In King Lear, Emma Jean Westcot

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

The Function Of Some Comic Elements In The Wakefield Plays In The Towneley Cycle, Frances E. Whitehall

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Falstaff, A Product Of Historical And Moral Traditions, Emily Stacy Apelt

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Thomas Shadwell: The Sentimental Characteristics Of His Comedies, Ramona Hartley Hamby

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

The Hobbesian Villain In Dryden's Heroic Plays, Margaret Norman Simmons

English Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.

Literary Criticism Of Shakespeare's King Lear, Daniel Lee Burcham

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.