In Anglophone postcolonial fiction of the twentieth century, myth is used as a framing device that contains and interrogates historical event, thereby functioning as a form of alternative history. Despite the prevalence of cross-cultural symbolic systems and radically hybrid forms of narration, the dominant method of reading myth in postcolonial literary criticism remains dependent on conceptual models that construct myth as originary racial narrative. This particular approach fosters readings of contemporary secular myths of “nation”, “land” or “identity” within culturally monolithic frames. I scrutinize the intersections between early structuralist approaches to myth, and later post-structuralist deconstruction of myth and suggest a postcolonial reading of myth as the ideological coded middle space between sacred and secular narrative. Focusing on four novels from Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Caribbean, I demonstrate the continued influence and adaptability of myth to narrate vastly different historical and socio-cultural contexts. Taking into account several major shifts in the conceptualization of twentieth-century myth criticism , I develop a critical vocabulary for comparative readings of myth which interrogates existing discourses on the categories of “archetype”, “ideology” and “symbol”. My approach is comparativist, and foregrounds the importance of locating myth within literary and socio-cultural context. The introduction to this study defines the field of myth criticism in relation to postcolonial fiction. I provide outlines of the theoretical positions drawn from Carl Gustav Jung, Roland Barthes, Northrop Frye and Bruce Lincoln and demonstrate the relevance of each in relation to reading myth in the four novels under survey. The first chapter looks at the way Alfred Yuson exposes mythic constructions of Filipino identity in The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café (1987). The second chapter provides a comparative study of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992) and Allan Sealy's The Everest Hotel A Calender (1998). This chapter analyzes Ondaatje and Sealy's employment of the Fisher King myth as a device for narrating radically different visions of postcolonial community. The third chapter analyzes the function of archetype as a vehicle for ideology in Wilson Harris's Jonestown (1996). The conclusion of this study suggests the way this method of analysis can provoke further critical inquiry in the field of postcolonial myth criticism.

This dissertation examines the way in which contemporary fiction is highly concerned with sovereign power and the state of exception, as described by Giorgio Agamben in State of Exception. While in the last decade Agamben’s work has provided a new locus for the study of state power, I argue that disquiet over the reach of state power into everyday life has existed in fiction since at least the 1980s. Reading James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo and William Gibson alongside Agamben’s theories of state power and the state of exception sheds light on fictional representations of modern developments in power, the state and the corporate world. Through close analysis of philosophical and fictional texts, I draw out the complex politics of contemporary novelists and underscore the importance of both fictional and theoretical representations of contemporary political power. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter One examines what I contend is new about Agamben’s work on power which is that, unlike Foucault, he accounts for the kind of power that may produce a concentration camp, and examines the place of this power at the heart of contemporary politics. Through analyses of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale¬ I examine the ways in which Agamben’s theories move us towards a clearer understanding of representations of state power in contemporary fiction. In Chapter Two I discuss sovereign power in Rushdie’s postcolonial India and England, and I describe how the national identities of citizens of, or migrants to, those countries take shape in a society whose very fabric is affected by power that is frequently unrestricted by the law or by democracy. In Chapter Three I consider the “aftermath” of sovereign power in the work of Kazuo Ishiguro. In particular, I argue that he represents the extent to which sovereign power conditions culture and society, and how contemporary art and intellectual thought have failed as effective countermeasures to the power that may produce the state of exception. In the final Chapter, I consider the ways in which violence constitutes a form of resistance to sovereign power in the novels of William Gibson and Don DeLillo’s White Noise; further, I assess Gibson’s new narratives of space as potential counters to the state of exception. While Agamben’s work provides an opportunity to highlight the extent to which sovereign power and the state of exception are at work in contemporary novels, I contend that fiction represents these phenomena and their significance more completely than Agamben is able to. The use of figurative and experimental language and narrative techniques is highly effective in conveying the nuances and the experiential realities of state power, thereby moving the reader’s understanding beyond the abstract and the conceptual.

This dissertation examines the way in which contemporary fiction is highly concerned with sovereign power and the state of exception, as described by Giorgio Agamben in State of Exception. While in the last decade Agamben’s work has provided a new locus for the study of state power, I argue that disquiet over the reach of state power into everyday life has existed in fiction since at least the 1980s. Reading James Joyce, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Don DeLillo and William Gibson alongside Agamben’s theories of state power and the state of exception sheds light on fictional representations of modern developments in power, the state and the corporate world. Through close analysis of philosophical and fictional texts, I draw out the complex politics of contemporary novelists and underscore the importance of both fictional and theoretical representations of contemporary political power. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter One examines what I contend is new about Agamben’s work on power which is that, unlike Foucault, he accounts for the kind of power that may produce a concentration camp, and examines the place of this power at the heart of contemporary politics. Through analyses of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale¬ I examine the ways in which Agamben’s theories move us towards a clearer understanding of representations of state power in contemporary fiction. In Chapter Two I discuss sovereign power in Rushdie’s postcolonial India and England, and I describe how the national identities of citizens of, or migrants to, those countries take shape in a society whose very fabric is affected by power that is frequently unrestricted by the law or by democracy. In Chapter Three I consider the “aftermath” of sovereign power in the work of Kazuo Ishiguro. In particular, I argue that he represents the extent to which sovereign power conditions culture and society, and how contemporary art and intellectual thought have failed as effective countermeasures to the power that may produce the state of exception. In the final Chapter, I consider the ways in which violence constitutes a form of resistance to sovereign power in the novels of William Gibson and Don DeLillo’s White Noise; further, I assess Gibson’s new narratives of space as potential counters to the state of exception. While Agamben’s work provides an opportunity to highlight the extent to which sovereign power and the state of exception are at work in contemporary novels, I contend that fiction represents these phenomena and their significance more completely than Agamben is able to. The use of figurative and experimental language and narrative techniques is highly effective in conveying the nuances and the experiential realities of state power, thereby moving the reader’s understanding beyond the abstract and the conceptual.

This thesis presents a critical edition in modern spelling of The London Prodigal, a comedy played by the King's Men and printed in 1605 by Thomas Creede for the publisher Nathaniel Butter. The title-page (photographically reproduced) attributes the play to William Shakespeare. This claim is assessed and judged to be mistaken. Both external and internal evidence have been examined in relation to eight possible authorship candidates; Thomas Dekker emerges as the strongest. The present text of the play is based on the 1605 Quarto. Collation of twelve copies revealed several press variants. The introduction treats the play's publication and stage-history and takes a critical look at its background and sources, plot and structure, setting, characters, style, themes, and role in the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. An attempt is made to determine the date of composition, as well as the author. A short section is devoted to conjecture about the manuscript copy used for the Quarto and to bibliographical deductions about its treatment in the printing-house. A full commentary glosses obscurities and enlarges on the play's literary, social, and historical allusions. There are textual notes on variants, emendations, and lineation. An appendix reproduces the parable of the Prodigal Son from the 1568 Bishops' Bible. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This thesis presents a critical edition in modern spelling of The London Prodigal, a comedy played by the King's Men and printed in 1605 by Thomas Creede for the publisher Nathaniel Butter. The title-page (photographically reproduced) attributes the play to William Shakespeare. This claim is assessed and judged to be mistaken. Both external and internal evidence have been examined in relation to eight possible authorship candidates; Thomas Dekker emerges as the strongest. The present text of the play is based on the 1605 Quarto. Collation of twelve copies revealed several press variants. The introduction treats the play's publication and stage-history and takes a critical look at its background and sources, plot and structure, setting, characters, style, themes, and role in the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. An attempt is made to determine the date of composition, as well as the author. A short section is devoted to conjecture about the manuscript copy used for the Quarto and to bibliographical deductions about its treatment in the printing-house. A full commentary glosses obscurities and enlarges on the play's literary, social, and historical allusions. There are textual notes on variants, emendations, and lineation. An appendix reproduces the parable of the Prodigal Son from the 1568 Bishops' Bible. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This thesis presents a critical edition in modern spelling of The London Prodigal, a comedy played by the King's Men and printed in 1605 by Thomas Creede for the publisher Nathaniel Butter. The title-page (photographically reproduced) attributes the play to William Shakespeare. This claim is assessed and judged to be mistaken. Both external and internal evidence have been examined in relation to eight possible authorship candidates; Thomas Dekker emerges as the strongest. The present text of the play is based on the 1605 Quarto. Collation of twelve copies revealed several press variants. The introduction treats the play's publication and stage-history and takes a critical look at its background and sources, plot and structure, setting, characters, style, themes, and role in the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. An attempt is made to determine the date of composition, as well as the author. A short section is devoted to conjecture about the manuscript copy used for the Quarto and to bibliographical deductions about its treatment in the printing-house. A full commentary glosses obscurities and enlarges on the play's literary, social, and historical allusions. There are textual notes on variants, emendations, and lineation. An appendix reproduces the parable of the Prodigal Son from the 1568 Bishops' Bible. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This thesis presents a critical edition in modern spelling of The London Prodigal, a comedy played by the King's Men and printed in 1605 by Thomas Creede for the publisher Nathaniel Butter. The title-page (photographically reproduced) attributes the play to William Shakespeare. This claim is assessed and judged to be mistaken. Both external and internal evidence have been examined in relation to eight possible authorship candidates; Thomas Dekker emerges as the strongest. The present text of the play is based on the 1605 Quarto. Collation of twelve copies revealed several press variants. The introduction treats the play's publication and stage-history and takes a critical look at its background and sources, plot and structure, setting, characters, style, themes, and role in the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. An attempt is made to determine the date of composition, as well as the author. A short section is devoted to conjecture about the manuscript copy used for the Quarto and to bibliographical deductions about its treatment in the printing-house. A full commentary glosses obscurities and enlarges on the play's literary, social, and historical allusions. There are textual notes on variants, emendations, and lineation. An appendix reproduces the parable of the Prodigal Son from the 1568 Bishops' Bible. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This thesis presents a critical edition in modern spelling of The London Prodigal, a comedy played by the King's Men and printed in 1605 by Thomas Creede for the publisher Nathaniel Butter. The title-page (photographically reproduced) attributes the play to William Shakespeare. This claim is assessed and judged to be mistaken. Both external and internal evidence have been examined in relation to eight possible authorship candidates; Thomas Dekker emerges as the strongest. The present text of the play is based on the 1605 Quarto. Collation of twelve copies revealed several press variants. The introduction treats the play's publication and stage-history and takes a critical look at its background and sources, plot and structure, setting, characters, style, themes, and role in the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. An attempt is made to determine the date of composition, as well as the author. A short section is devoted to conjecture about the manuscript copy used for the Quarto and to bibliographical deductions about its treatment in the printing-house. A full commentary glosses obscurities and enlarges on the play's literary, social, and historical allusions. There are textual notes on variants, emendations, and lineation. An appendix reproduces the parable of the Prodigal Son from the 1568 Bishops' Bible. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This dissertation examines the representation of adoption in early modern English drama in order to analyze the language of social and familial relations in early modern culture. I propose that although these plays often ultimately support the traditional idea of a birth family, adoption challenges conventional notions of the family by making artificial, non-consanguine relations appear natural, thereby exposing the family unit as a social construction. I suggest further that adopted characters complicate notions of biological inheritance through their negotiations of language, place, and power. My dissertation thus explores the connections between historical language use and social status in early modern England; it couples early modern rhetorical theories and treatises with modern linguistic theory, drawing upon recent sociolinguistic scholarship. The result is to show that understanding how language demarcates social position is essential to illuminating the cultural intricacies of the plays of the period. In Chapters 1 and 2, I investigate the social and economic repercussions of adoption. Chapter 1 discusses the previously overlooked cultural importance of horticultural metaphors of adoption in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and All’s Well That Ends Well. In this chapter, I explore the ways in which early modern culture explained adoption by depicting it in a particular kind of figurative language. Chapter 2 focuses on the economic consequences of, and motivations for, adoption in Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. In my final two chapters, I scrutinize the relations between the early modern family and linguistic practice. Chapter 3 explores the connections between genetics, physical likeness, and language in Lyly’s Mother Bombie and Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Finally, in Chapter 4 I investigate familial relation as a source of linguistic and social power. Middleton’s Women Beware Women, I argue, suggests that kinship exists within language and grants particular speakers linguistic and social authority.

This dissertation examines the representation of adoption in early modern English drama in order to analyze the language of social and familial relations in early modern culture. I propose that although these plays often ultimately support the traditional idea of a birth family, adoption challenges conventional notions of the family by making artificial, non-consanguine relations appear natural, thereby exposing the family unit as a social construction. I suggest further that adopted characters complicate notions of biological inheritance through their negotiations of language, place, and power. My dissertation thus explores the connections between historical language use and social status in early modern England; it couples early modern rhetorical theories and treatises with modern linguistic theory, drawing upon recent sociolinguistic scholarship. The result is to show that understanding how language demarcates social position is essential to illuminating the cultural intricacies of the plays of the period. In Chapters 1 and 2, I investigate the social and economic repercussions of adoption. Chapter 1 discusses the previously overlooked cultural importance of horticultural metaphors of adoption in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and All’s Well That Ends Well. In this chapter, I explore the ways in which early modern culture explained adoption by depicting it in a particular kind of figurative language. Chapter 2 focuses on the economic consequences of, and motivations for, adoption in Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. In my final two chapters, I scrutinize the relations between the early modern family and linguistic practice. Chapter 3 explores the connections between genetics, physical likeness, and language in Lyly’s Mother Bombie and Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. Finally, in Chapter 4 I investigate familial relation as a source of linguistic and social power. Middleton’s Women Beware Women, I argue, suggests that kinship exists within language and grants particular speakers linguistic and social authority.