Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Shakespeare's romances'
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Maillet, Gregory. ""Beyond a common joy": Criticism and the value of Shakespeare's romances." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9573.
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Aware that much recent criticism in Shakespeare studies has again made controversial the long assumed high value of Shakespeare's writings, my thesis is motivated and unified by one central question: how can literary critics "move closer to a true knowledge of the actual value" of Shakespeare's romances? This question itself provokes many other questions, however, and to answer these the dissertation falls in three distinct sections. Chapter one addresses fundamental philosophical questions, particularly what is knowledge, what is truth, what is value, and how many humans, in general, progress towards a true knowledge of the actual value of any object? My thesis follows E. D. Hirsch in distinguishing between meaning and value, interpretation and evaluation, and in arguing that both must be objects of knowledge for literary criticism. To answer the foundational question of what knowledge is, and how inquirers may move toward truth, my thesis adopts the epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and methodology of a twentieth-century Canadian Jesuit philosopher, Bernard J. F. Lonergan. My own first chapter concludes by arguing that, after one answers the question, "what is literature?", Lonergan's theological method can also provide a framework for literary critics who hope to be intellectually converted to the meaning of literature, aesthetically converted to its beauty, and morally or perhaps even religiously converted to its actual value. Yet rather than providing a 'Lonerganian reading of Shakespeare' my thesis illustrates what it means for a Lonerganian critic to pursue knowledge of Shakespeare. Chapter two of my thesis attempts to show that the methodology posited by Lonergan can be adapted to organize and apply a wide variety of Shakespearean criticism. In the third major section of my dissertation, chapters three through six, each chapter is devoted to a single romance and begins with a dialectical survey of each play's criticism, particularly the interpretative issues that have especially affected the play's evaluation. Attention is then focused upon a passage from each play which summarises the primary purpose that each play asks critics to evaluate. However, because value is offered by the entire dynamic structure and content of Shakespeare's play, my approach normally moves chronologically through each play and evaluates diverse aspects of its meaning. The values emphasized as the climactic conclusion of each romance then provide the foundation for an evaluation that is made within the broadest intellectual, moral, and religious horizons that I currently envision. This varied heuristic finds a wide variety of valuable meaning in each romance. In conclusion, the "joy beyond a common joy" felt by the characters at the end of The Tempest is an emotion common to the conclusion of each of Shakespeare's romances, and in each case occurs not only because these characters learn human virtue especially stressed by Christian teaching, but moreover because they experience the grace offered by the providential action of Divinity. In an implicity manner characteristic of medieval and Renaissance art, the apparently classical settings of Shakespeare's romances actually serve to teach Christian truth, and thus become valuable as Christian sacred art. The very nature of sacred art ensures that the evaluation of Shakespeare's romances must be an unending attempt to be converted not only to their aesthetic joys, but also to the value of life itself, particularly the Life who freely offers joy to us all. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Palfrey, Simon D. "Forward and backward voices : political analogy and indecorum in Shakespeare's late romances." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.241349.
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Equestri, Alice. ""Armine... thou art a foole and knaue": The Fools of Shakespeare's Romances." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11577/3424038.
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My thesis analyses in detail the comic characters of Shakespeare's romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest), in particular those created for Robert Armin, the leading comedian of the King's Men in the period. The first chapter focuses on the relationship between actor and role: after an introductory section where I give an overview of the life and works of Robert Armin along with the particular features of his clowning style as opposed to those of Will Kemp, his predecessor in Shakespeare’s company, I move on to consider the parts in the romances he was likely to have played in the early performances: Boult, Cloten, Autolycus and Caliban. In particular, I close-read the texts to highlight the clues pointing at Armin’s own person, physical characteristics, clowning style and outlook. The following chapters are devoted to a thorough discussion of each of the four characters, which are grouped according to their professions or social roles. So the second chapter examines the criminal fools in Pericles and The Winter’s Tale, where Boult and Autolycus are respectively a brothel male-bawd and an eclectic rogue. In the third chapter, then, we find Cloten and Caliban from Cymbeline and The Tempest, characters who display or are scorned for their real or alleged natural folly. In each case I consider the relationship between the role and Shakespeare’s sources as well as the influences from previous comic traditions, and the ways in which the character elicits laughter. An important part of the chapters, however, is dedicated to a contextualization of the characters in the social, historical and cultural environment of the period. So I analyse Boult as a representative of the flourishing economy of prostitution in early modern England and Autolycus as a multifarious mirror of the consequences deriving from masterlessness and vagrancy. With Cloten and Caliban, instead, I explore the theme of natural folly or congenital deficiency in medicine and society, considering how the texts describe their condition. Throughout the analyses I also seek to emphasise any additional links between the characters and the outlook of Robert Armin as expressed in his works, in order to give a further contribution to recent trends in research that view Shakespeare’s work as the result of a collaboration with his actors and in particular with his leading comedian. Finally, the conclusive chapter lists the analogies between the characters and the differences between them and the previous roles created for Armin in Shakespeare.La mia tesi propone un’analisi dettagliata dei personaggi comici nei romances Shakespeariani (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale e The Tempest) in particolare quelli creati appositamente per Robert Armin, attore comico di punta dei King’s Men in quel periodo. Nel primo capitolo traccio la presenza di Armin nei quattro testi, individuando cioè gli indizi che rimandano alla sua figura e alla tipologia di comicità tipica dei suoi personaggi precedenti in Shakespeare e di quelli presenti nelle sue stesse opere. I quattro personaggi creati per lui da Shakespeare vengono analizzati in profondità nei seguenti capitoli, raggruppandoli a seconda dei loro ruoli sociali o professioni. Nel secondo capitolo mi occupo dei fools criminali, considerando Pericles e The Winter’s Tale, dove i personaggi di Boult e Autolycus sono rispettivamente un ruffiano di bordello e un delinquente di strada. Nel terzo capitolo mi concentro invece sui personaggi che esibiscono o vengono discriminati per una reale od imputata deficienza congenita (natural folly): il principe Cloten in Cymbeline e Caliban in The Tempest. Per ciascun caso discuto il rapporto del personaggio con le fonti shakespeariane ed eventualmente con la tradizione comica precedente o contemporanea a Shakespeare, il ruolo all’interno del testo, e il modo in cui il personaggio suscita l’effetto comico. Una parte importante di questi due capitoli è dedicata ad un analisi storico-testuale dei personaggi in rapporto alla situazione storica dell’Inghilterra di fine Cinquecento/inizio Seicento per quanto riguarda lo sfruttamento della prostituzione, la criminalità derivante dal vagabondaggio (secondo capitolo, Boult e Autolycus), e la nozione di disabilità mentale in medicina e società (terzo capitolo, Cloten e Caliban). Nel corso dell’analisi dei personaggi cerco in particolare di evidenziarne le ambiguità e i tratti tragicomici, che sono importanti in relazione allo specifico genere drammatico a cui questi testi afferiscono. Inoltre, discuto la drammatizzazione dei personaggi in rapporto alla nozione di follia sia come depravazione nel tardo medioevo e nel rinascimento, sia come giocosa e risibile innocenza nei precedenti lavori di Robert Armin, cercando di dare ulteriore forza alle recenti linee di ricerca che vedono l’opera di Shakespeare come il risultato di una collaborazione con i suoi attori e in particolare con il suo comico principale. Il capitolo conclusivo raccoglie le analogie tra i quattro personaggi e mette a fuoco le differenze tra questi e i personaggi comici precedenti interpretati da Armin.
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Oesterlen, Eve-Marie [Verfasser]. "Action bodies / acting bodies : performing corpo-realities in Shakespeare's late romances / Eve-Marie Oesterlen." Hannover : Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), 2017. http://d-nb.info/1149829788/34.
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Gorin, Giulia <1991>. "Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest: Same Story, Different Versions? A Comparative Analysis of Shakespeare's Romances." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/17172.
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Late plays, Last plays, Romances and Tragicomedies are the most commonly used labels adopted by critics to describe and classify Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. These four plays were written by William Shakespeare between the years 1608-1611. Why are these works usually grouped together? Starting with Edward Dowden, several critics have observed that themes and motifs are repeated throughout each play. All four plays’ storyline follow a 3-steps pattern composed as follows: separation, quests and reunion.
The present study aims to investigate if these plays are four different versions of the same story.
To answer this question, I will make a comparative analysis of the plays by focusing on their common features. This dissertation is composed of an introductory chapter and three other chapters, each one pertaining to the analysis of one of these three steps. Reference will be also made to other relevant topics such as characters, time, music and magic.
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Rist, Thomas Charles Kenelm. "Counter-Reformation politics in Shakespeare's 'romance ' plays." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.397133.
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Fenstermaker, Rosemary A. "From tragedy to romance forgiveness in Shakespeare's last plays /." Instructions for remote access. Click here to access this electronic resource. Access available to Kutztown University faculty, staff, and students only, 1994. http://www.kutztown.edu/library/services/remote_access.asp.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1994.Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2843. Abstract precedes thesis as 2 preliminary leaves. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-115).
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Hays, Michael Louis. "Shakespearean tragedy as chivalric romance : rethinking Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear /." Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2003. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy045/2003004936.html.
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Gonzalez, Shelly S. "Anti-Romance: How William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” Informed John Keats’s “Lamia”." FIU Digital Commons, 2014. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1169.
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The purpose of this thesis is to analyze John Keats’s “Lamia” and his style of Anti-Romance as informed by William Shakespeare’s own experimentation with Romance and Anti-Romance in “King Lear.”
In order to fulfill the purpose of my thesis, I explore both the Romance and the Anti-Romance genres and develop a definition of the latter that is more particular to “King Lear” and “Lamia.” I also look at the source material for both “King Lear” and “Lamia” to see how Shakespeare and Keats were handling the originally Romantic material. Both Shakespeare and Keats altered the original material by subverting the traditional elements of Romance.
In conclusion, the thesis suggests that Shakespeare’s Anti-Romance, “King Lear,” and his general reworking of the Romance genre within that play informed Keats’s own experimentation with and deviation from the traditional Romance genre, particularly in “Lamia.”
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Crumbo, Daniel Jedediah, and Daniel Jedediah Crumbo. "The Comedy of Trauma: Confidence, Complicity, and Coercion in Modern Romance." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/626362.
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Stories engage a form of virtual play. Though they incorporate language and abstractions, stories engage many of the same biological systems and produce many of the same anatomical responses as simpler games. Like peek-a-boo or tickle play, stories stage dangerous or unpleasant scenarios in a controlled setting. In this way, they help develop cognitive strategies to tolerate, manage, and even enjoy uncertainty. One means is by inspiring confidence in difficult situations by tactical self-distraction. Another is to reframe negative or uncertain situations as learning opportunities, that is, to ascribe meaning to them. While both strategies are useful, each has limitations. In William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a king succumbs to the desire to make meaning where there is none, and nearly ruins himself in a self-composed tragedy. His friend restores his confidence and enables a happy ending—but only by deceiving him. This deception is benign, but the heroine of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa is nearly ruined by her abductor’s confidence game. Her “happy ending” is made possible only by reframing her rape and death as redemptive transfiguration—which, as many of her readers suggest, is a dubious affair. The hero of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man spends the first half of the novel eliciting his companions’ confidence in order to swindle them, and the second half trying to inspire himself with the same confidence. The novel ends with an ominous impasse: one must trust, but one ought not to. For Samuel Beckett, this impasse is productive. In his middle novels, thought itself emerges from the interplay of spontaneous bouts of irrational confidence and distortive, after-the-fact impositions of spurious meaning. Stories create (illusory) identities, elicit (dubious) hopes, and reinforce (false) assumptions in order to help us cope with the agonies of anticipation and loss, and to transform misfortune, accident, and misery into reward, retribution, and meaning—that is, in a comedy of trauma.
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Muller, Barbara. "Les métaphores dans les romances de William Shakespeare : 'Pericles', 'Cymbeline', 'The Winter’s Tale' et 'The Tempest' : des prescriptions rhétoriques à l’écriture dramatique." Thesis, Strasbourg, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016STRAC034.
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L’usage que fait Shakespeare des métaphores dans les romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale et The Tempest) contrevient aux prescriptions des traités de rhétorique anglais du XVIe siècle quant à l’élaboration de cette « figure du transport ». Les métaphores dans les romances sont marquées par une forte promotion de l’hybridité, que ce soit celle de la figure elle-même ou celle que le trope induit. Les métaphores que les rhétoriciens auraient pu qualifier d’inconvenantes et de cherchées trop loin contribuent à enrichir le genre protéiforme des pièces et la palette des émotions suscitées chez le spectateur. Elles ont aussi pour fonction de produire des effets catoptriques, de construire des identités sociales et sexuelles fluctuantes et complexes et de créer une dialectique subtile entre le visuel de la scène et celui de l’œil intérieur. Dès lors, le déploiement des métaphores au-delà des règles érigées par les rhétoriciens permet au dramaturge de révéler au mieux la diaprure du monde et celle des êtresShakespeare’s use of metaphors in the romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest) breaks the rules of decorum such as they were prescribed by sixteenth-century rhetoricians concerning the elaboration of this “figure of transport”. Metaphors in the romances tend to promote hybridity in a very powerful way. The figure, which relies on the art of grafting meanings, creates generic hybridity. Metaphors which may well have been deemed inappropriate and far-fetched by Renaissance rhetoricians are a means of strengthening the protean genre of these plays and producing an elaborate affective response in the audience. Moreover, they produce catoptric effects, build complex and fluctuating social and sexual identities and construct a dialectic relation that invites the spectator to approach the plays both with their physical and their inner eyes. Therefore, the development of metaphors beyond strict rhetorical rules enables the playwright to change perspectives and embrace a larger view of the world
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Ohlmann, Pascal. ""How shall we find the concord of this discord?" Musik und Harmonie in Shakespeares Romanzen und in zeitgenössischen Texten." Heidelberg Winter, 2004. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2771503&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
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Fujita, Natalia Giosa. "\'Algumas observações sobre William Shakespeare por ocasião do Wilhelm Meister\", de August-Wilhelm Schlegel; \'Resenha de \'Algumas observações sobre William Shakespeare por ocasião do Wilhelm Meister\", de August-Wilhelm Schlegel\'; de Friedrich Schlegel; \'Sobre o Meister de Goethe\', de Friedrich Schlegel: tradução, notas e ensaio introdutório." Universidade de São Paulo, 2006. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-11012008-112759/.
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O presente trabalho compreende traduções anotadas dos seguintes textos: \"Algumas observações sobre William Shakespeare por ocasião do Wilhelm Mei ster\", de August- Wilhelm Schlegel; \"Resenha de \'Algumas observações sobre William Shakespeare por ocasião do Wilhelm Meister\', de August-Wilhelm Schlegel\", de Friedrich Schlegel e \"Sobre o Meister de Goethe\", de Friedrich Schlegel, além de uma dissertação introdutória em que se procura alinhar as principais características da teoria do drama e do romance dos autores, tais como se depreendem dos textos traduzidos, e fazê -la contrastar com a doutrina neoclássica em vigência até então.The present work was presented as a Master\'s degree dissertation, and comprises the annotated translation of the following texts into Portuguese: \"Etwas über William Shakespeare bei Gelegenheit Wilhelm Meisters\", by August-Wilhelm Schlegel; \"Review of \'Etwas über William Shakespeare bei Gelegenheit Wilhelm Meisters\', by August-Wilhelm Schlegel\", by Friedrich Schlegel, and \"Über Goethes Meister\", by Friedrich Schlegel, beyond an introductory dissertation, in which the main features of the authors\' theories of drama and novel are sketched such as they might be deprehended from the translated texts, and contrasted to the neoclassicist doctrine so far dominant.
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Horn, Jennifer Susan. "The rehabilitation of The Shrew : romance, spankings, feminism, and the search for a happy ending in stage and film adaptations of Shakespeare's play." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2007. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-rehabilitation-of-the-shrew--romance-spankings-feminism-and-the-search-for-a-happy-ending-in-stage-and-film-adaptations-of-shakespeares-play(a151387a-0a7f-4ce6-bb61-d59d30ab5122).html.
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Patel, Rena. ""The Double Sorwe of Troilus": Experimentation of the Chivalric and Tragic Genres in Chaucer and Shakespeare." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1281.
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The tumulus tale of Troilus and his lover Cressida has left readers intrigued in renditions written by both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare due to their subversive nature of the authors’ chosen generic forms. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde challenges the expectations and limitations of the narrative of the chivalric romance. Shakespeare took the story and turned Troilus and Cressida into one of his famous “problem plays” by challenging his audience’s expectations of the tragic genre. I endeavor to draw attention to the ways in which both Chaucer and Shakespeare use the conventions of the chivalric romance and tragedy to play with the imbalances in the central relationship of Troilus and Criseyde/Cressida in the story. These imbalances are the source of experimentation in both texts that allows Chaucer to imbue tragedy in the chivalric romance and allow Shakespeare to undermine tragedy itself.
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Munoz, Victoria Marie. "A Tempestuous Romance: Chivalry, Literature, and Anglo-Spanish Politics, 1578-1624." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1479905568694913.
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Closel, Régis Augustus Bars 1985. "Diálogos Miméticos entre Sêneca e Shakespeare = As Troianas e Ricardo III." [s.n.], 2011. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/270174.
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Orientador: Suzi Frankl SperberDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-19T08:54:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Closel_RegisAugustusBars_M.pdf: 2038312 bytes, checksum: 7c1b1af36416b37e4e7597571df3f57d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011
Resumo: A presente dissertação tem por objetivo propor um diálogo entre duas obras dramáticas de grande significância, Ricardo III e As Troianas, no cânone de seus autores, respectivamente, William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) e Lucius Annaeus Sêneca (4 a.C - 65 d.C). A premissa inicial é a relação tradicional entre ambos, que atribui ao tragediógrafo elisabetano uma influência textual, temática e estilística originária do filósofo e tragediógrafo latino. Para o estudo dessas relações, limitadas ao escopo de duas obras, o trabalho foi dividido em três partes. No primeiro capítulo é realizado um percurso sobre toda a historiografia da crítica da influência que Sêneca teria exercido sobre os dramaturgos que escreveram durante a segunda metade do século XVI, na Inglaterra. Observa-se, principalmente, como a visão e a metodologia de se tratar o tema da influência se altera, ao longo dos anos, chegando, por exemplo, a ser negada por alguns críticos durante certo tempo, além da observação do delineamento do próprio objeto. Toma-se o cuidado, durante todo o trabalho de não fazer opção a favor ou negar a presença de Sêneca para não incorrer em extremismos. No segundo capítulo, busca-se, com base nos resultados do primeiro capítulo, a leitura histórica dos elementos temáticos e estilísticos lidos como derivados de ou influenciados por Sêneca. Neste ponto o foco distancia-se do campo de discussão crítica do fenômeno para o campo de crítica histórico-literária e os objetos focados, agora, são exatamente aqueles que anteriormente foram levantados como ?"senequianos". No terceiro capítulo, conhecida a história da influência e tendo sido feita uma gama de opções e leituras sobre a época de Shakespeare, inicia-se a leitura das duas obras. Tal abordagem preambular se fez necessária para que houvesse um embasamento tanto da crítica da discussão da influência, como da leitura histórica da cultura que produziu Ricardo III. Foi feita a opção de seguir com a leitura de René Girard sobre os conceitos de Teoria Mimética e Crise de Diferenças, pois tocam em noções basilares do mundo Elisabetano, apresentando, portanto, uma atmosfera na qual os diálogos poderiam situar relações de aproximação e afastamento entre a dupla de obras escolhida. Observa-se uma leitura mítica, muito rica politicamente, ao trabalhar com a história/mito conhecidos por ambas as obras
Abstract: This dissertation aims to propose a dialogue between two dramatic works of great importance, Richard III and Trojan Women, both canonic for their authors, respectively, William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) and Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD). The initial premise is the traditional relationship between them, which presupposes that the Elizabethan tragedies have textual, thematic and stylistic influence of the Latin philosopher and tragedian. In order to study these relationships, restricted to the scope of the two referred plays, the dissertation was divided into three parts. The first chapter is about Seneca's influence on playwrights who wrote along the second half of the sixteenth century in England. It focuses mainly the vision and methodology used to study the issue of influence and changes of views over the years, reaching, for example, the fact that the influence was denied by some critics for some time. It also observes the outline of the object - the relation between plays - itself. Along these considerations, I was aware that I should not propose or deny the influence of Seneca in order not to incur in extremism. The second chapter, based on the results of the first chapter, seeks to read the historical interpretation of stylistic and thematic elements as derived from or influenced by Seneca. At this point, the analysis moves away from the critical discussion to approach the field of historical and literary criticism. The focused objects are exactly those that have previously been raised as "senequians", like the blank verse, the tyrant and the presence of ghosts. In the third chapter begins the interpretation of both tragedies. This preliminary approach was necessary in order to have a critical foundation for the discussion of influence, as that one produced by historical reading of Richard III. The mimetic theory of René Girard and the Crisis of Differences offered fundamental notions for the Elizabethan world, which presented interlocution between both tragedies, so that it was possible to examine approaches and distances between the two chosen plays. It was observed a very rich mythical and political relation among the plays using the known versions of history/myth
Mestrado
Teoria e Critica Literaria
Mestre em Teoria e História Literária
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Smith, Michael Bennet 1979. "Disparate measures: Poetry, form, and value in early modern England." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11182.
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xi, 198 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.In early modern England the word "measure" had a number of different but related meanings, with clear connections between physical measurements and the measurement of the self (ethics), of poetry (prosody), of literary form (genre), and of capital (economics). In this dissertation I analyze forms of measure in early modern literary texts and argue that measure-making and measure-breaking are always fraught with anxiety because they entail ideological consequences for emerging national, ethical, and economic realities. Chapter I is an analysis of the fourth circle of Dante's Inferno . In this hell Dante portrays a nightmare of mis-measurement in which failure to value wealth properly not only threatens to infect one's ethical well-being but also contaminates language, poetry, and eventually the universe itself. These anxieties, I argue, are associated with a massive shift in conceptions of measurement in Europe in the late medieval period. Chapter II is an analysis of the lyric poems of Thomas Wyatt, who regularly describes his psychological position as "out of measure," by which he means intemperate or subject to excessive feeling. I investigate this self-indictment in terms of the long-standing critical contention that Wyatt's prosody is "out of measure," and I argue that formal and psychological expressions of measure are ultimately inseparable. In Chapter III I argue that in Book II of the Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser figures ethical progress as a course between vicious extremes, and anxieties about measure are thus expressed formally as a struggle between generic forms, in which measured control of the self and measured poetic composition are finally the same challenge Finally, in my reading of Troilus and Cressida I argue that Shakespeare portrays persons as commodities who are constantly aware of their own values and anxious about their "price." Measurement in this play thus constitutes a system of valuation in which persons attempt to manipulate their own value through mechanisms of comparison and through praise or dispraise, and the failure to measure properly evinces the same anxieties endemic to Dante's fourth circle, where it threatens to infect the whole world.
Committee in charge: George Rowe, Chairperson, English; Benjamin Saunders, Member, English; Lisa Freinkel, Member, English; Leah Middlebrook, Outside Member, Comparative Literature
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Montgomery, Kaylor Layne. "A Woman Trapped: Representations of Female Sexual Agency in Early Modern Literature." University of Akron / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1523228037122741.
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Smith-Laing, Tim. "Variorum vitae : Theseus and the arts of mythography in Medieval and early modern Europe." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0f4305c6-3c62-4f89-a3b2-d8204893fdfb.
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This thesis offers an approach to the history of mythographical discourse through the figure of Theseus and his appearances in texts from England, Italy and France. Analysing a range of poetic, historical, and allegorical works that feature Theseus alongside their classical and contemporary intertexts, it is a study of the conceptions of Greco-Roman mythology prevalent in European literature from 1300-1600. Focusing on mythology’s pervasive presence as a background to medieval and early modern literary and intellectual culture, it draws attention to the fragmentary, fluid and polymorphous nature of mythology in relation to its use for different purposes in a wide range of texts. The first impact of this study is to draw attention to the distinction between mythology and mythography, as a means of focusing on the full range of interpretative processes associated with the ancient myths in their textual forms. Returning attention to the processes by which writers and readers came to know the Greco-Roman myths, it widens the commonly accepted critical definition of ‘mythography’ to include any writing of or on mythology, while restricting ‘mythology’ to its abstract sense, meaning a traditional collection of tales that exceeds any one text. This distinction allows the analyses of the study’s primary texts to display the full range of interpretative processes and possibilities involved in rewriting mythology, and to outline a spectrum of linked but distinctive mythographical genres that define those possibilities. Breaking down into two parts of three chapters each, the thesis examines Theseus’ appearances across these mythographical genres, first in the period from 1300 to the birth of print, and then from the birth of print up to 1600. Taking as its primary texts works by Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate and William Shakespeare along with their classical intertexts, it situates each of them in regard to their multiple defining contexts. Paying close attention to the European traditions of commentary, translation and response to classical sources, it shows mythographical discourse as a vibrant aspect of medieval and early modern literary culture, equally embedded in classical traditions and contemporary traditions that transcended national and linguistic boundaries.
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IACUCCI, CAROLINA. "La fragilità dei Padri. Shakespeare romanzesco tra Antica Grecia e Mondo Nuovo." Doctoral thesis, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2158/1178199.
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The main aim of this doctoral dissertation is to highlight both the connections and the persistent dialogue between the tradition of the Greek Hellenistic and Imperial romance and the Jabobean-era Shakespeare’s late romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest). By means of three-fold analysis led from a narratological, literary and anthropological perspective, the present study investigates how Shakespeare’s late plays use the Greek romance materials in order to meditate upon such issues as the crisis of the patriarchal authority, the intergenerational struggles, the post-Puritan role of women in familiar, love, and marital relationships.
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Gallant, Mikala. "Ideal Rule in Shakespeare's Romances: Politics in "The Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest"." 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10222/35443.
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The Winter’s Tale (1611) and The Tempest (1611) are two of Shakespeare’s romances, written under the patronage of James I of England. While Shakespeare’s history plays have received extensive critical attention regarding their political commentaries, these have not. History raises political questions by nature; however, it is also important to look at the political dimensions of Shakespeare’s fictional rulers. The Winter’s Tale’s Leontes, and The Tempest’s Prospero, because of their invented natures, allow the playwright to explore contemporary political crises or questions with more freedom than history allows. Shakespeare’s political exploration of these men involves assessing their fitness to rule, comparing their transformations to texts concerning kingship, such James’s political treatises. These texts raise the possibility that Shakespeare is similarly investigating a model of the ideal king. Looking at the elements of power, knowledge, and patriarchy, my thesis focuses on what Shakespeare is suggesting about ideal rule and the ruler.
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Herholdt, Albert. "Trends in the criticism of Shakespeare's romances in England and Germany during the Romantic Era (1750-1850)." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/16773.
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Ciraulo, Darlene. "Tales of erotic suffering romance in Sidney and Shakespeare /." 2003. http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/uga%5Fetd/ciraulo%5Fdarlene%5Fr%5F200308%5Fphd.
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Bruce, Yvonne. ""...to do Rome service is but vain": Romanness in Shakespeare." Thesis, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1911/19357.
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Shakespeare creates a Rome in which he brings together and reinvents Rome's political and military brilliance and the work of its greatest poets and historians. As Shakespeare's Romans have become to a great extent "our" Romans, the critical tendency has been to ignore his manipulations and read these plays as promulgating and continuing a unified tradition of "classical" values.
But the line of descent is not so clear, and Shakespeare's Roman individuals are, in fact, diminished by this tradition. His Rome often seems to function less as a place name than as an incantation of history and ideology, while his individual Romans struggle to escape this cultural determination. They speak and act as though defining individual identity were simply a matter of defining this cultural entity, this "Rome," but reveal (in soliloquy, by juxtaposition with alternate social constructions, and through class conflict) their inability to construct cohesive private states of being. Shakespeare's Roman plays thus become tacit investigations into the core ethical foundations upon which Rome built its classical legacy.
Romanness in Shakespeare connotes a divided quality of being; the cultural legacy shared by all Romans makes every Roman an avatar of the state, but individual Romans cannot fully translate their shared history into present action. The conflict is one between the passive acceptance of a generic and glorious past, and the implementation of this past at the expedient level demanded by the action of the plays: determining reasons to kill Caesar in Julius Caesar, transferring martial prowess into bureaucratic efficiency in Coriolanus, and interpreting masculine glamor through the critical perceptions of a feminine culture in Antony and Cleopatra . The plays are linked by the gap between Rome as a cultural entity and its citizens, who are searching for a practical and individual ethic.
The chapters are organized as they illuminate this division. I introduce the major Roman plays with a general discussion of Rome's paradoxical status: as a system or culture it continually disappoints the citizens who turn to it for ethical instruction, while at the same time it produces individuals who identify completely with it. Next I discuss the stoicism of Julius Caesar as it is an emblematic philosophy of Rome's ethical failure. In Coriolanus, the nascent republic of Rome tries and fails to carve out a sphere of self-containment and self-renewal, a failure paralleled by Coriolanus' failure to adequately represent it. Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes Rome at its most powerful and most fragile. It is at the peak of its imperial efficiency, yet vulnerable to Cleopatra, and Shakespeare draws an imaginative and potential correlation between the apparently dissimilar states of Rome and Egypt. The final chapter looks briefly at Titus Andronicus and Cymbeline, as plays bracketing the major works (and Shakespeare's career) but sharing an ethical viewpoint that looks ahead to later seventeenth-century depictions of Rome.
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(6581312), Arielle C. McKee. "Moral Challenge and Narrative Structure: Fairy Chaos in Middle English Romance." Thesis, 2019.
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Medieval fairies are chaotic and perplexing narrative agents—neither humans nor monsters—and their actions are defined only by a characteristic unpredictability. My dissertation investigates this fairy chaos, focusing on those moments in a premodern romance when a fairy or group of fairies intrudes on a human community and, to be blunt, makes a mess. I argue that fairy disruption of human ways of thinking and being—everything from human corporeality to the definition of chivalry—is often productive or generative. Each chapter examines how narrative fairies upset medieval English culture’s operations and rules (including, frequently, the rules of the narrative itself) in order to question those conventions in the extra-narrative world of the tale’s audience. Fairy romances, I contend, puzzle and engage their audiences, encouraging readers and hearers to think about and even challenge the processes of their own society. In this way, my research explores the interaction between a text and its audience—between fiction and reality—illuminating the ways in which premodern narratives of chaos and disruption encourage readers and headers to engage in a sustained, ethical consideration of the world.
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Hall, Mark Webster. ""Repetition to the life" : liminality, subjectivity, and speech acts in Shakespearean late romance : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand." 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/754.
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One key debate in the critical reception of Shakespearean late romance concerns how best to approach the functionality of the dramatised worlds that constitute it. What I call ‘containment’ readings of late romance argue that the alternative realities explored in the plays – realities of miraculous revivals, pastoral escapes and divine interventions, – serve to affirm the inevitable return of extant power structures. Utopian readings dispute this, making the case that the political and existential destructurations exposed in these plays point toward a new orientation for the dramatic subjects they produce. With the aim of contributing to the debate between containment and utopian readings, I explore in this thesis how late romance produces its subjects. I interrogate the plays’ structures with the help of the anthropological model of the limen, which is shown to be a useful category through which to educe the meaningfulness of certain ritual sequences. The limen’s three phases – separation; limen; aggregation – are employed to make sense of the transitions that subjects undergo in the four plays studied: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. To study the liminality of these plays is, I argue, to study how dramatic subjects are produced therein, guided by the fact that their language shares properties with ritual discourse. When studying this discourse the focus falls on that class of language which impinges most lastingly on subjects: performatives. How performatives function in late romance will show us how real the changes induced in liminal subjects are. I examine the four plays in turn and find that their performative language produces subjects in a limen-consistent fashion. Aristocratic subjects are first of all estranged from those discursive practices that nourish their identity; their subjectivities are then glued back together in the ritualised, emblematising language of the limen. The conclusion I draw from my interrogation of the liminal patterns uncovered is that the functionality of late romance is broadly consistent with containment readings; I claim to have extended such readings, however, in showing that Shakespeare’s dramatisation of the state’s return to power usefully exposes its logic and symbolic grammar.