History is a problem for the history plays. The weight of ‘true’ history, of fact, puts pressure on the dramatic presentation of history. Not fiction and not fact, the plays occupy the interstitial space between these opposites, the space of drama. Their position between the binary opposites of fact and fiction allows the history plays to play with history. They view history as a problem to be solved, and the different ways in which each play approaches the problem of history gives us a glimpse of how they attempt to engage and deal with the problem of creating dramatic history. Each history play rewrites the plays that preceded it; the plays present ‘history’ as fluid and shifting as competing narratives and interpretations of the past come into conflict with each other, requiring the audience to act as historians in order to construct their own narrative of events. In this way the plays dramatise the process of remaking history. This can be seen in the relationship between the two parts of Henry IV, which restage the same narrative in a different emotional key, and the way that Henry IV’s retelling of the events of Richard II from his own perspective at the conclusion of 1 Henry IV forces the audience to re-evaluate the events of the earlier play, reinterpreting the dramatic past and imaginatively rewriting the play in light of the new perspective gained on events. The history plays thus create a new, dramatic history, a history without need for historical precedent. The plays deliberately signal their departure from ‘fact’ through anachronism, deviation from chronicle history and wholesale dramatic invention. In this sense the plays deliberately frustrate audience expectations; knowledge of chronicle history does not provide foreknowledge of what will happen onstage. History in the theatre is new and unpredictable, perhaps closer in spirit to the uncertainty of the historical moment rather than the reassuring textual narrative of the chronicles.

This is a study of the multiple constructions and appropriations of Geoffrey Chaucer’s paternitas of the English literary canon. It examines the evidence from the compilatio and ordinatio of fifteenth-century manuscript anthologies containing the poet’s works, and it interrogates the social conditions of production of these codices, as well as the ideology informing their compositional and paratextual programmes. Conceptually, my thesis is underpinned by a broad engagement with manuscript studies, as the codices to which I attend become objects of bibliographical and codicological examination, while being scrutinised through a post-structuralist framework. This theoretical approach, which comprises Michel Foucault’s revisions o f historiography and the contiguous debates on translation practices and queer theories, allows me to read critically the socio-cultural situations which inform the plural incarnations and appropriations of Chaucer's paternal authority. My study is structured in four chapters. I begin in Chapter I by engaging with Thomas Hoccleve's literary and iconographic mythopoeia o f Chaucer who is positioned as the clerical and sober fons et origo of English vemacularity. In Chapter III interrogate the appropriations of this initial paradigm of paternal authorship and I demonstrate how fifteenth-century manuscript collections fabricate Chaucer as a courtly and lyrical Father whose work is validated by his affiliations to and reproduction of dominant aristocratic literary practices. Chapter III situates these hegemonic modes of composition and mise-en-page in the context of French manuscript culture with which Chaucer's patemality of the English canon is inextricably intertwined. These associations with the ‘master’ culture, however, disperse the Father's authority in an intervemacular site of linguistic and cultural negotiations. Similarly, Chapter IV engages with the displacement of Chaucer's paternitas in the material space of the codex, as the glossarial apparatus of the manuscript copies of his works articulates voices of dissent. No longer the stable patriarch constructed by Hoccleve, Chaucer occupies a fluid and permeable space of authority that can be inhabited by a polyvocality of hermeneutic voices and is, therefore, susceptible to perpetual acts of co-option.

This thesis examines the relationship between pedagogy and print in early modern England. I argue that while print held great educational opportunities, it also presented intense pedagogical challenges.  Writers had to overcome the difficulties of teaching a remote, anonymous readership and deal with the problematic status of their pedagogical publications as commodities.  These difficulties forced writers to employ sophisticated rhetorical strategies in order to facilitate instruction and privilege their educational ideals, resulting in a level of expressive activity in their writings which has often been underestimated. Chapter 1 considers the implications that the organisation of contemporary schools had for reading, and shows writers such as Roger Ascham and Edmund Coote appropriated spatial techniques of discipline to manage their readers.  Chapter 2 continues to re-evaluate the disciplinary thrust of schooling, demonstrating grammatical instruction performed a more complicated form of inculcation than previously appreciated. Chapter 3 develops the connection between educational authority and economic morality raised in Chapter 2, arguing educators such as William Kempe promulgated injunctions against the sale of wisdom to establish their pedagogical prerogative and discredit competitors.  Building on this, Chapter 4 examines how Thomas Elyot and Ascham apply discourses of giving in their prefaces to distance their writings from the pursuit of self-interest and establish a pedagogical bond with readers.  Finally, Chapter 5 investigates the impact of the Protestant valorisation of work on the self-presentation of pedagogues such as Richard Mulcaster and John Brinsley, arguing the idealisation of industry provided educators with a powerful new claim to authority.  I conclude that by the end of the sixteenth century, educators were coming to see their work as a skilled and honourable profession, and that the writers discussed in this thesis participated in this transformation.

This thesis has three main components: an exegesis; a novel, Between the Signs; and an experimental essay entitled ‘An Essay, Performed’ (to include a paper version, and a pilot of an accessible performed reading – documentation of which is included with this thesis on DVD). An Introduction explains how these elements fit together to form a cohesive and integrated thesis, and details what is explored in each of the five sections of the exegesis. The exegesis provides a creative perspective on, and a topical enquiry into, British and American Deaf literature, and addresses how my multidisciplinary background in theatre relates to, and helps illuminate an understanding of, Deaf literature. It considers how my understanding of Deaf literature has shaped my creative writing and, drawing on the work I undertook in theatre, investigates how other writers and practitioners could create more accessible texts. The exegesis includes a literature review; a reflection on writing Between the Signs; findings from two pieces of practice-as-research; and a field project in the form of five interviews with leading Deaf language artists in the UK. By generating unique creative insights into this underexplored literary vein, I produce a document that I believe will be of use to writers and practitioners who are creating Deaf characters or developing accessible texts. Set in Scotland in the lead up to devolution, Between the Signs is inspired by my work as a theatre practitioner and my subsequent study of Deaf literature. It is rooted in the theatre world and follows Maddie, a young drama school graduate, in her quest for belonging. The novel engages with Deaf literature and culture on a thematic level, exploring the notion of dual identities and the limitations of all forms of human communication. It has particular emphasis on the visual. The experimental essay, ‘An Essay, Performed’, is the result of one of my pieces of practice-as-research. It embodies elements of my practical, theoretical and literary enquiry; exemplifies some of my findings regarding accessible literature; and holds the key to where this work could go next. Extracts of this paper-based essay will be presented as a pilot of an accessible performed reading prior to the viva, and made available on DVD with this thesis.

This thesis employs translation theory in order to analyse a translation of William Shakespeare’s Othello by Anna Radlova, which was written and performed in Stalinist Russia. Radlova was the wife of Sergei Radlov, a respected theatre producer and director, who staged several productions of Othello in his wife’s translation. Their partnership therefore provides a fascinating example for theatre translation research of a close working relationship between translator and director. The thesis begins by discussing the elements of translation theory appropriate to such a task. Drawing on the theory identified, the next two chapters then set Radlova’s work in context. Chapter 2 offers new perspective on the history of Shakespeare, and specifically Othello, in Russia by analysing how his assimilation into Russian culture was affected by developments and trends in the practice of translation, while Chapter 3 provides the social background to the Radlovs’ work, assessing how their approach to Shakespeare was shaped by the tense political environment in which they were working. The close analysis of Radlova’s translation choices in Chapter 4, alongside comparison with the translations of Pëtr Veinberg, Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Lozinskii which preceded and followed her work, allows an assessment of the methods she employed to bring a newly Soviet Shakespeare to her audiences. The incorporation of archival material and contemporary reviews in the final chapter enables an examination of the effects Radlova’s translation tactics had on the play in performance. The thesis thus makes a contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the work of the Radlovs, while the focus on translations of Othello and the reconstruction of Radlov’s productions aims to add to the understanding of the Russian performance tradition of the play. The exploration of the reasons behind the popularity of Othello in the Stalinist period also provides insight into the potential for accommodation to the constraints of cultural politics under Stalin.

<p> Jane Austen&rsquo;s Pride and Prejudice, Christina Rossetti&rsquo;s &ldquo;Goblin Market,&rdquo; and Louisa May Alcott&rsquo;s Little Women are three works which focus on communities of women. Since women had such limited opportunities available to them in the nineteenth century, marriage was the most viable option for survival. An interesting connection found, though, among the literature written by women at the time is the way in which women thrive together in communities with each other&mdash;up until the men enter the scene. Once the men, or more commonly, one man who is also the future husband, disrupt these women-centered communities, the close bond among women is severed. These three authors envisioned a better option than marriage&mdash;a supportive sisterhood&mdash;safe, loving, and uninterrupted. How and why did women thrive together in these three fictional nineteenth-century communities? How did they communicate? In what spaces did these communities exist? In what ways did men disrupt these communities, and was it possible for women to regain a similar level of closeness with each other after the disruption of men (i.e. marriage)? This thesis looks at the various viewpoints and treatments each author brought to women&rsquo;s communities, their importance, formation, and men&rsquo;s intrusions upon them.</p>

Divided into three large chapters, this thesis explores sixteenth-century concepts of history, considers how those concepts appear in Elizabethan history plays on English history, and finally looks at Shakespeare’s first tetralogy of history plays. The aim of the thesis is to consider in some detail the wider context of historical and dramatic traditions in Tudor England to gain a better appreciation of how they influenced possible readings of Shakespeare’s early history plays. Chapter One looks at how medieval approaches were modified in the fifteenth century. St. Augustine’s allegorical method of biblical exegesis made it possible to interpret history from inside the historical moment by allowing historically specific incidents to stand for trans-historical truths. However, the sixteenth-century chronicle tradition shows an increasing awareness of the difficulties of interpreting history. Chapter Two looks at early English history plays outside of the Shakespearean canon. History plays borrowed the conventions of comedy, tragedy and the morality play to provide frameworks for interpretation. Nevertheless, early histories such as Kynge Johan, Edmund Ironside, Famous Victories, Edward III, The True Tragedy, and The Troublesome Reign did not fit comfortably within established dramatic modes, leading to history’s gradual recognition as a separate genre. Chapter Three looks at the contribution Shakespeare’s plays made to the developing genre. The un-unified dramatic structure of the Henry VI plays denies the audience a stable framework within which to interpret events. In Richard III, a clear tragic framework appears, but is undermined by a strong thread of irony that runs through the play. History appears in the tetralogy as a repetitive cycle of violence perpetuated by characters’ attempts to memorialise the past while failing to learn from it. The crisis presented by history is the necessity of acting on partial information, while the promise of fuller understanding is projected into an unknowable future.

Anglophone Pakistani literature has thrived in the country since its inception in 1947, but the past decade has witnessed a momentous development of this corpus and its readership, receiving formal recognition in Granta 112: Pakistan in 2010. Literary criticism on the subject, which was relatively limited when I started my research on Pakistani English writing in 2009, has since grown but there remains considerable scope for further study. My thesis focuses on the major works of four Pakistani writers, namely Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (2008), Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil (2008) and Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009). Using 9/11 as a marker, my thesis purports that Anglophone Pakistani writing counterbalances “post-9/11” discourse in American and British fiction which has tended not only to privilege the 9/11 moment as unique, but also assumed essentialist notions of victimhood, violence and identity in its representations. This literature, when it concerns itself with countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, focuses primarily on their perceived cultural peculiarities, frequently equating them with extremism, violence and female oppression, and thereby reinforcing the dominant non-fictional rhetoric of the international media. As part of this discussion, my study critiques not only Islamophobia but also refutes the erroneous use recent acts terrorism as a justification for rising Islamophobia. My thesis underscores recent Anglophone fiction’s attempts at destabilising the “single story” about Islam and Pakistan. This study examines the contribution of contemporary Anglophone Pakistani writers in providing alternative representational tropes on the subject of Pakistani identity and selfhood, thereby transforming and revitalising the conventional imagining of the country to the international readership. However, I argue that the work of Anglophone Pakistani literature does not stop here. I show that this reimagining of Pakistan operates within the framework of “transnationalism” and aspires to imagine a political state of “togetherness in difference”. Transnationalism is here conceived as attitudinal, covering human collaborations that link people across national boundaries. It is advanced as a progressive and productive alternative to the assumed cultural, political and economic dominations coded into globalization, which is critiqued for its subtexts of cultural and economic domination. Writing from positions of cultural and spatial uncertainty, these writers simultaneously “host” a rigorous interrogation of fundamentalism, violence and oppression in Pakistan but also strive to facilitate a more “hospitable” understanding of Pakistan internationally. Treading the perfidious fault-line between the binaries of home and abroad, native and foreign and extremist and moderate, these writers address two major issues: one, they intervene by exploding the alleged myths of multiculturalism in the so-called “West”; in characterizing this alternative scenario they effectively question the rise of “Islamophobia” and the ill-informed stereotyping of Muslims around the globe, especially after 9/11. Secondly, I argue that the literary resistance offered by these writers constitute a “zone of contact” between the global north and global south. Replacing the discourse of “us and them”, their fictions advocate the phenomenon of what Ien Ang has called “complicated entanglement”. This entanglement envisages a range of transnational narratives—feminist, political, economic and cultural. As border individuals who embody a complex fusion of cultural experiences themselves, these writers are appositely positioned not only to explore the contradictions of human experiences, but also imagine the possibilities of their resolution.

This thesis will locate the fantastic fiction of Lord Dunsany in a tradition of Irish writing, while simultaneously examining representations of Ireland within the texts themselves. Dunsany has been regarded – until now – as a marginal figure in Irish literature, but this study will show that he deserves a place in the canon. My research will demonstrate that, from his early involvement in the Abbey Theatre through to his late introspective novels set in Ireland, Dunsany throughout his life engages with Irish literary and cultural traditions. The first chapter will focus on Lord Dunsany’s theatrical writings which have been rarely staged since his death and have attracted little attention from scholars. By examining performances of the plays in Ireland and beyond, the links between the playwright and the national theatre will become clear. Building on this work on the plays, Chapter Two and moves on to an analysis of Dunsany’s novels – including The King of Elfland’s Daughter, his best known work – and places them within a historical context of conflict both at home in Ireland and throughout Europe. The next chapter looks at Dunsany’s later novels set in Ireland and questions why it is at this point in the 1930s, after decades of writing fantastic fiction, that the author chooses to locate his works in his own land. The same themes and ideas found in the novels are also prominent in Dunsany’s short stories which form the focus of chapters four and five. Chapter Four examines the stories set in Pegāna, the first tales he wrote and those which made Dunsany’s reputation as a writer of high fantasy, and locates their other-worldliness within the real world of twentieth-century Ireland. The last chapter deals with the later short stories, and brings Dunsany’s work up to date by using recent work on Irish postcolonialism and theories of Empire to analyse these narratives. The conclusion will consider Dunsany’s work overall, by way of close readings of texts from the beginning and end of his career which will allow us to trace the development of Ireland as a concept and as a literary influence throughout his writings.

This edition presents a fully modernised and annotated text of Samuel Rowley’s 'When You See Me, You Know Me', first performed by Prince Henry’s Men at the Fortune playhouse c.1604. The earliest extant playtext to represent King Henry VIII as a character on the early modern stage, When You See Me dramatizes a number of key events in the Tudor king’s reign including, as per the play’s subtitle, ‘the birth and virtuous life of Edward, Prince of Wales’. The play was first printed in 1605, with subsequent editions appearing in 1613, 1621 and 1632. Despite its apparent success on the Fortune stage, however, the play has become increasingly marginalized since the mid-seventeenth century, receiving only cursory critical attention. In addition to making the text of Rowley’s play accessible to a modern readership, this edition aims to rehabilitate When You See Me as an important dramatization of the Henrician Reformation; it also seeks to draw attention to Rowley and his long and influential career in the early modern theatre. The introduction to the edition is divided into two main parts, focusing respectively on the author and the play; the latter is subdivided to include separate critical, bibliographical and editorial introductions. The Critical Introduction provides information on the play’s composition and performance history, including aspects of its performance on the Fortune stage and its position within the extant company repertory; the Bibliographical Introduction considers the play’s entrance in the Stationers’ Register and the manuscript used as printers’ copy, as well as the physical manufacture of its first edition and the text’s treatment in later and modern editions; and the Editorial Introduction provides comment on the specific methodologies employed in the production of the edition, with particular reference to the Arden Early Modern Drama editorial guidelines upon which the text is based. The appendices provide useful supplementary information, including Rowley’s likely source material; doubling charts; current locations of extant copies; bibliographical descriptions; press variants; and photographs of the copy-text.