The 19th-century fascination with madness led to a theatrical phenomenon most palpably represented in the operatic mad scene, where the insane heroine expresses her madness in an aria of ‘phenomenal difficulty’ (Ashley 2002). This research explores the representation of female madness as power in the mad scenes of two famously mad opera characters: Lucia from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) and Ophélie from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet (1868). The objective is to investigate the representation of female madness in the libretti, the musical scores and in visual performances, in order to challenge the notion of female madness as weakness. The research was conducted using a qualitative research paradigm. The study explored the depiction of female madness in various fields of artistic representation, and the concept of power and female power in literature, resulting in the novel interpretation of these enigmatic mad scenes. This was a hermeneutic study considered within an interpretive paradigm. The research was conducted in three stages: a literature review, a full score analysis and a visual performance analysis. The results show that the 19th-century gendered paradigm shift of madness to an overtly female disorder, led to various artistic interpretations of the madwoman, most notably in art, literature, theatre and opera. Opera proved to be the ultimate platform for the musical depiction of female madness, particularly due to the virtuosic vocal capacity of the coloratura soprano. In spite of social and political advancement, women were portrayed as weak in operatic plots. It was established that a delicate balance exists between power and powerlessness in the operatic mad scene. Both Lucia and Ophélie are women trapped in a patriarchal environment, and the onset of their madness is traditionally attributed to the weak default of their gender and their inability to process dramatic emotional events. However, the composers’ musical realisation of madness, as well as the embodied performance of both characters by the soloists, accentuates the interplay between madness as weakness and, most importantly, madness as empowerment. The study shows that the powerlessness associated with female madness is paradoxically reversed by the very factors that denote female madness in the operatic mad scene, namely gender and vocal virtuosity. Numerous musical and visual performance elements employed by composers and directors, notably depicting the madwoman as feeble, point to the empowerment of the seemingly ‘weak’ soprano. Musical elements used to portray madness include deconstruction, orchestration and high pitch. The study revealed additional musical elements, such as the inclusion of themes from previous acts of the opera, the use of specific instrumentation and a capella passages for soprano. The study argues that the characteristics that define female madness in music, namely gender and vocal excess, specifically contribute to the representation of madness as power. Elaborate coloratura vocal passages and scant orchestration are the two musical elements used by Donizetti and Thomas to assist in the depiction of female madness as power in the operatic mad scene. Consequently the study establishes that the extravagant vocal virtuosity displayed by the coloratura soprano casts the madwoman as powerful in the operatic mad scene. / Mini Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Music / Unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to critically evaluate Tom Stoppard’s application of chaos theory and quantum science in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, HAPGOOD and ARCADIA; and determine the extent to which Stoppard argues for the importance of human action and choice. Through critical analysis this study examined how Stoppard applies the quantum aspects of: (1) indeterminacy to human epistemology in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD; (2) complementarity to human identity in HAPGOOD; and (3) recursive symmetry to human history in ARCADIA. It also examined how Stoppard excavates the complexities of human action, choice and identity through the lens of chaos theory and quantum science. These findings demonstrated that Tom Stoppard is not merely juxtaposing quantum science and human interactions for the sake of drama; rather, by excavating the complexities of human action, choice and identity through the lens of chaos theory and quantum science, Stoppard demonstrates the fundamental connection between individuals and the post-Newtonian universe.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a nuanced play that illustrates revenge, madness, and complex relationships. The paper proposes a feminist reading of Hamlet and analyses the play’s central characters, Gertrude, Ophelia, Hamlet, Claudius, Polonius, and Laertes, and their behaviour under the influence of a patriarchal society. Furthermore, the study will focus on the ways in which Shakespeare represents Ophelia and Gertrude in the play. The study does a feminist reading of the play to investigate how Ophelia’s and Gertrude’s actions and behaviour are affected by the contemporary patriarchal society, and how it affects the male characters’ choices. This research allows readers to interpret female characters in several ways, and to see how women are forced to act and make choices in a contemporary patriarchy to be able to influence societal structures.

This dissertation examines the role of aesthetic activity in the pursuit of political agency in readings of several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet (1600), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), The Tempest (1610), the history plays of the second tetralogy (1595-9), Julius Caesar (1599), and Coriolanus (1605). I demonstrate how Shakespeare models political subjectivity—the capacity for individuals to participate meaningfully in the political realm—as necessitating active aesthetic agency. This aesthetic agency entails the fashioning of artistically conceived public personae that potential political subjects enact in the public sphere and the critical engagement of the aesthetic and political discourses of the subjects’ culture in a self-reflective and appropriative manner. Furthermore, these subjects should be wary auditors of the texts and personae they encounter within the public sphere in order to avoid internalizing constraining ideologies that reify their identities into forms less conducive to the pursuit of liberty and social mobility. Early modern audiences could discover several models for doing so in Shakespeare’s works. For example, Hamlet posits a model of Machiavellian theatricality that masks the Prince's interiority as he resists the biopolitical force and disciplinary discourses of Claudius's Denmark. Julius Caesar and Coriolanus advance a model of citizenship through the plays’ nameless plebeians in which rhetoric offers the means to participate in Rome’s political culture, and Shakespeare’s England for audiences, while authorities manipulate citizen opinion by molding the popularity of public figures. Public, artistic ability affords potential political subjects ways of not only framing their participation in their culture but also ways of conceiving of their identities and relationships to society that may defy normative notions of membership in the community.

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The role of Claudius in Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet has traditionally been affixed with the label of villain, coupled with a presumption of malice. This prejudice has plagued the role, relegating it to shallow melodrama throughout the majority of the play's 440 odd-year history. Although it has now become more commonplace to see him portrayed as a capable, intelligent, even initially likable king, this has only been the case for the past 50 years or so, and even so the label of villain and the assumption of malice persist and prevail even in contemporary practice. While the author is reluctant to insist on the benevolence of the King as imperative, they do contend that Claudius should not be portrayed as a villain. Doing so undermines the primary conflict - that of Hamlet vs. Claudius - cripples the possibilities for exploration of the King as a role, hinders the potential for Hamlet's journey, and absolves the viewer of active engagement by playing directly into expectations. Within this thesis, consideration of historical analysis and editorial tradition are utilized in order to demonstrate a progressively encompassing disregard that has led to the role's neglect. An account of the 2006 University of Central Florida Conservatory Theatre production is used to validate the necessity of avoiding a villainous portrayal of the King. A brief description of the author's ideal Claudius explores the realm of possibility opened by such non-villainous portrayal, and potential for the role's complexity is examined through a thorough voice/text analysis and brief discussion of Jaques Lecoq's movement equilibrium theory via appendices.