What this study will demonstrate is that Shakespeare's use of occult manifestations is not as superficial as it is sometimes said to be. On the contrary, it is the contention of this study that, especially in certain of the major tragedies, occult phenomena are integral to the main action, provide the play with essential motivation, and, in fact, are indispensable to a proper resolution.

Abstract TEACHING MOURNING By Julie Ann Crowder, MAE A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2011 Major Director: Sara Wilson McKay, Ph.D. Interim Department Chair and Associate Professor, Art Education As a researcher I sought to understand the following research questions: 1) What were the official policies and protocols that went into effect at William Fox Elementary School after the murder of the Harvey family in January of 2006? 2) What were the experiences of the staff and parents at William Fox Elementary School after the murder of the Harvey family? 3) What critiques and or suggestions do the employees and parents have of the personal or official policies or protocols, which were carried out after the murder of the Harvey family? The purpose of this research was layered. This research was necessary in order to create an accurate picture of the difficult emotional reactions of teachers attempting to teach students how to mourn while mourning themselves. Additionally, this study identified how teachers were able to continue about the business of every day life and education when they were dealing with difficult emotional issues. Participants at William Fox Elementary experienced the tragic death of the Harvey family on New Year’s Day 2006. This research illuminated possible new ways of looking at mourning, the public/media, and ways of handling these difficulties. This research could lead to the creation of new policies or protocols that would better serve the mourning populations in schools, which lose members to violence. The members of this study were William Fox Elementary employees or parents who were on present during and after the Harvey murders. Special attention was given to the IRB process. Seven participants who had a great deal of contact with Stella were selected. The PTA-funded Art Explosions teacher, Stella Harvey’s classroom teacher, the principal, the guidance counselor, a parent, the music teacher, and the librarian were all participants. Significant findings include: the importance of the speed and selection of information given to adults at the time of a tragedy, and the child information networks that form when children are not completely informed. Additionally a variety of information and thoughts are given on the subject of mourning, both public and private. Implemented and suggested healing techniques were investigated. Lastly, several uncomfortable issues that arose, such as race and rage were explored.

With such an indicative adjective as ¡§fortunate¡¨ in its title, Daniel Defoe¡¦s Roxana interests readers in how fortunate the heroine is and in what sense she is called fortunate. Finishing reading the story of Roxana, readers are also concerned about why the fortunate mistress ends up in calamity. Therefore, this thesis sets out to explore how Roxana fortunately becomes powerful and to explain why she ironically ends up a tragedy. In terms of the financial prosperity she achieves, it is apparent that Roxana can never make it without the fortunate blessing of her remarkable beauty. Being a beautiful woman, she attracts one powerful man after another, and this attraction is the source of her large fortune. In other words, this thesis focuses on the influence and power of personal beauty, and more importantly, on how Roxana uses her beauty to manipulate those powerful men to benefit herself greatly. Her power comes from the exertion of the power of her beauty. Although Roxana is fortunately beautiful, her fortune, however, is decided by her character too. Roxana¡¦s tragedy results from an ambitious mind, that cannot, however, reconcile itself to her chosen style of life. As a result, although she is living a seemingly comfortable life, her unbalanced and disturbed state of mind leads to nothing but a tragic ending. In sum, this thesis, adopting textual analysis, aims at tracing Roxana¡¦s power and tragedy in association with the most formative element of the story, her beauty. Recent research has shown that being beautiful translates into being privileged and favored in many respects, and Roxana¡¦s story bears out these findings in the eighteenth century. In addition, although Roxana¡¦s final tragic ending renders her a failed social climber, she is, however, truly a fortunate mistress, who, riding on the Wheel of Fortune, can always fortunately rise whenever she is unfortunately reduced. In other words, Roxana¡¦s beauty, power and tragedy are all her fortune and how they interrelate is the principal concern of this thesis.

Thèse--Uppsala. Without thesis statement. / Bibliography: p. [210]-213.

Inaug.-Diss.--Münster. / Vita.

Inaug.-diss.--Munich. / Lebenslauf. Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-diss.--Zürich. / "Teildruck. Die vollständige arbeit erscheint als band 5 der sammlung 'Wege zur dichtung', herausgegeben von Emil Ermatinger, Verlag der Münster-presse, Horgen-Zürich." "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [9]-11.

Inaug.-Diss.--Zürich. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis," p. [64].

This thesis explores the theme of evil in Senecan tragedy through the prism of his Stoic principles, as they are illustrated in his philosophic treatises, with special reference to de ira, de clementia, and naturales quaestiones. The introduction defines evil and situates this study in the historical context of Julio-Claudian rule at Rome. In addition, I sketch the relative chronology of Seneca’s works and chart Seneca’s interest in the myths on display in Greek and Roman tragedy. Chapter One, “The Beast Within,” investigates the contrast of the civilized and uncivilized behaviour of Seneca’s characters in the Phaedra, Thyestes and Hercules Furens. I argue that although Seneca’s characters represent themselves as creatures of civilization and the city in their rejection of wild nature and their embrace of the values of civilization, in their words and actions they repeatedly revert to the wild landscape and bestial appetites that lurk outside the safety of the city walls. In Chapter Two, “Anger,” I examine the emotion of anger as represented in the Medea and compare that tragic exploration with Seneca’s discussion of the emotion in the de ira, where it is called the greatest vice. I conduct an extensive comparative investigation of the language of Seneca’s treatise de ira and his tragedy Medea. Fitch contends that “the dramas do not read like ii negative exemplars designed to warn of the dangers of passion,”1 but I argue that here and elsewhere they do indeed. In Chapter Three on “Cruelty,” I discuss the theme of cruelty in the Troades with reference to the de clementia where Seneca develops the theme of cruelty as the opposite of mercy, in an effort to guide the eighteen-year-old emperor Nero to compassionate rule. However, Seneca takes up the question of cruelty not only in the treatise, but also in his moral epistles and in his tragedies, especially the Troades. There I show that Seneca employs tragedy to hold up a mirror to his audience so that they can see their own behaviour reflected in it. Chapter Four, on “Ghosts and Curses,” takes its starting point from Seneca’s well-known use of ghosts in his tragedies, a feature which had a great influence on Tudor and Jacobean drama. In Senecan tragedy, the presence of ghosts often threatens the safety of the living. I contend that there are four types of ghost in Senecan drama. In the conclusion, I show that Seneca’s tragedies can be read as a criticism of the powerful, and that his Stoic interpretation of human behaviour can be seen throughout his tragedies.

This study is an investigation of adaptations of the Greek tragic chorus since World War II, including the historical, political, and aesthetic contexts that gave rise to these adaptations. Influenced by recent work in the field of Classical Performance Reception and Linda Hutcheon’s work on adaptation, this thesis is designed not around a set of case studies, but around a variety of research questions, including: the current definition of “the chorus” and how it might include the “one-person chorus”; the techniques of mediation used by modern choruses and how they might relate to techniques of the ancient chorus; the connection between political adaptations and the encouragement of audience “complicity”; and the complexities involved in the production and reception of intercultural choruses. I begin by arguing that although August Wilhelm Schlegel’s conception of the chorus as an “ideal spectator” remains the most persistently popular model of understanding the chorus, it should be replaced with a new model based on the concentric frames of performance described by Susan Bennett. Through the use of this model, the chorus is revealed as a liminal, oscillating figure that mediates the action for the audience, and I argue that these qualities have made the chorus an attractive element of tragedy to modern adapters. In the case studies that are offered throughout, I further develop this model in order to analyze the ways in which modern choruses create relationships with audiences, as well as what political or ideological functions these relationships are intended to serve. The model that I develop encourages an engagement with both the intentions of adapters and the realities of reception, and I therefore explore not only how communication strategies of the chorus are intended to operate, but also the issues these strategies raise and the challenges adapters - and their choruses - encounter.