This study is aimed to read Shakespeare's problem comedies, Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure into the historical and cultural context of dynamically-changing English Renaissance society at the turn of the sixteenth century. In the historical context of emerging capitalism, growing economic crisis, reformed theology, changing social hierarchy, and increasing sexual control, this study investigates the nature of complicated moral problems that the plays consistently present. The primary argument is that the serious and dark picture of human dilemma is attributed not to Shakespeare's private imagination, but to social, political, economic, and religious crises in early modern England.

Many scholars who study Plato and Shakespeare together focus only on erotic love between lovers or nonsexual love between others. A closer study of A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows that Shakespeare uses Plato’s concepts of the soul in addition to the Forms, the guide, as well as staging the varieties of love that can exist between two individuals and the dangers of loving the physical more than the mind. Shakespeare takes these ideas embedded in Symposium and Phaedrus and not only crafts his play accordingly, but also creates his own versions through his unique interpretations. These alterations appear reflected in the play’s sequence of events, the characters’ actions, and the merging of the faerie and human realms. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study aims at a reassessment of Turgenev's article "Hamlet and Don Quixote" in light of the literary sources which might have inspired it, and to analyze its relevance to novels and stories most directly related to it. Thus, the main purpose of the study is to highlight Turgenev's world view as contained in his article and illustrated by his chief male protagonists, some of his heroines and their interrelationship. / We also demonstrate the way in which Turgenev's original, avant-garde interpretation of Don Quixote played a key role in his literary career and made an important contribution to the study of Cervantes in nineteenth-century Russia. The psychological ideal proposed by Turgenev in his interpretation of Don Quixote challenges the commonly-held view of Turgenev as a pessimistic writer.

Falling within the ambit of the Department of English Literature but with interdisciplinary scope and method, the research undertaken in this thesis examines Michael Radford’s 2004 film production William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice using the Book History approach to textual study. Previously applied almost exclusively to the study of books, Book History examines the text in terms of both its medium and its content, bringing together bibliographical, literary and historical approaches to the study of books within one theoretical paradigm. My research extends this interdisciplinary approach into the filmic medium by using a modified version of Robert Darnton’s “communication circuit” to examine the process of transmission of this Shakespearean film adaptation from creation to reception. The research is not intended as a complete Book History study and even less as a comprehensive investigation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Rather, it uses a Shakespearean case study to bring together the two previously discrete fields of Book History and filmic investigation. Drawing on film studies, literary concepts, cultural and media studies, modern management theory as well as reception theories and with the use of both quantitative and qualitative data, I show Book History to be an eminently useful and constructive approach to the study of film.

This project arises from recent initiatives aimed at transforming Shakespeare studies in South African high schools, so as to make those studies more learner-centred and interactive, as well as a more useful communicative language-learning experience for second-language (L2) students. It is this interactive methodology that the present project seeks to extend to the relatively neglected area of Shakespeare's figurative language. Drawing on schema theory and response-based approaches to literature teaching, the project shows that figurative language is especially conducive to interactive treatment, whereby students might be encouraged to make sense of metaphors and similes out of their "background knowledge". Guidelines are indicated for putting this into practice in the L2 classroom; and on the basis of these guidelines, materials are developed for an interactive approach to Shakespeare's figurative language. The central phase in this development process involves trying out the materials in five African high schools and then analysing the data collected from them. The classroom try-outs were profitable in so far as they raised issues that had been overlooked in the earlier, theoretical, stage of the development process. A good overall response to the materials' learner-centred approach was indicated, although students experienced difficulties with certain essential tasks. Most seriously, while the materials were successful in accessing students' background knowledge in the form of associations, they were less successful in getting students to use this knowiedge in interpreting metaphors for themselves. Reasons for this feature, and others, are considered and solutions posited. Recommendations for implementing the materials in a larger teaching programme are made.

The changes and upheaval in English society and in English ideas which took place during the seventeenth century had a profound effect upon public and private perceptions of women and of women's various roles in society. A study of the drama of this period provides the means to examine the development of these new views through the popular medium of the stage. In particular, the study of adaptations of early drama offer the opportunity to compare the stage perceptions of women which were prevalent during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century with attitudes towards women which emerged during the Restoration and early eighteenth century; such an examination of these differing perceptions of women has not yet been undertaken. The adaptation of Shakespearean plays provide the most profitable study in this area; Shakespeare was not only a highly influential playwright, but was also one of the most adapted of all the early dramatists during the years of the Restoration. In order to facilitate this survey, I have selected plays which span the entire Restoration era, beginning with William Davenant's The Law Against Lovers and Macbeth as well as John Lacy's Sauny the Scot from the 1660's, through the late 1670's and early 1680's with Edward Ravenscroft's Titus Andronicus and Nahum Tate's The Ingratitude of a Common-Wealth, and finally into the reign of Anne Stuart with William Burnaby's Love Betray'd. The study of these plays offers the best opportunity for the examination, through the medium of the theatre, of the changes which occurred in the perception of women and their changing identity with the rapidly evolving society of Renaissance and Restoration English society.

Submitted by Marco Antônio de Ramos Chagas (mchagas@ufv.br) on 2017-09-11T12:37:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1626592 bytes, checksum: 69b34a8438d7230ddf4adba746581743 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-11T12:37:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1626592 bytes, checksum: 69b34a8438d7230ddf4adba746581743 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação propõe um estudo comparativo entre a peça inglesa Macbeth (1605-06), de William Shakespeare, e a adaptação sul-africana uMabatha (1969), de Welcome Msomi. Esta pesquisa é embasada pelos Estudos Comparados e pela Teoria da Adaptação através dos trabalhos de Linda Hutcheon (2013), Robert Stam (2008), Julie Sanders (2006), Daniel Fischlin e Mark Fortier (2000), e visa analisar as diferenças e similaridades da obra de Msomi em relação à obra shakespeariana, bem como as estratégias utilizadas pelo autor para criar a sua adaptação Zulu. São observadas, ainda, através da transposição cultural, as particularidades da peça sul- africana que a tornam uma obra singular como, por exemplo, a origem do autor, o período político em que a África do Sul estava imersa quando Msomi criou sua obra e, principalmente, qual peça shakespeariana ele escolheu para adaptar. Após uma profunda análise e discussão, foi possível perceber que a relação intertextual entre as obras é parte de um processo natural da constituição da Literatura. Verificamos, também, que este intercâmbio de ideias e inspirações está presente, também, nas relações entre as artes de modo geral e que, de forma alguma, este processo deve ser visto como algo negativo, legando às obras posteriores a conotação de “cópias” das obras-fonte. Detectamos, da mesma maneira, que não existe um texto “puro”, sem interferências textuais de outras obras, e que isso não retira em nada a originalidade de um texto, pois cada autor é único, e ainda que se trate de uma obra adaptada, há sempre a forma particular de o autor interpretar e trazer à vida a sua própria arte. É isso o que vemos em uMabatha. / This dissertation proposes a comparative study between the English play Macbeth (1605-06) by William Shakespeare and the South African adaptation uMabatha (1969), by Welcome Msomi. This research is based on Comparative Studies and Theory of Adaptation through the work of Linda Hutcheon (2013), Robert Stam (2008), Julie Sanders (2006), Daniel Fischlin and Mark Fortier (2000), and aims to analyze the differences and similarities of Msomi's work in relation to the Shakespearean work and the strategies used by the author to create his Zulu adaptation. It is observed yet, through the cultural transposition, the particularities of the South African play which make it a singular work, such as the origin of the author, the political period in which South Africa was immersed when Msomi created her work and, mainly, which play written by Shakespeare he chose to adapt. Upon a deep analysis and discussion, we perceive that the intertextual relation between the works is part of a natural process of the constitution of Literature. We verified also that this exchange of ideas and inspirations is also present in the relations between the arts in general and that in no way can this process be seen as negative, bequeathing the subsequent works the connotation of "copies" of the source works. We also find that there is no "pure" text without textual interferences from other works, and that this does not remove the originality of a text, since each author is unique, and even if it is an adapted work, there is always a particular way in which the author interprets and brings to life his art - and this is what we see in uMabatha.

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This study is concerned with the artistic use of classical rhetorical figures in Shakespeare's I Henry IV.After the Introduction, Chapter II examines the history of rhetoric, focusing on the use of the rhetorical figures in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Medieval Europe. Chapter III investigates rhetorical principles and uses of the rhetorical figures during the English Renaissance and examines the probable influence of rhetoric and the figures on William Shakespeare. Chapter IV discusses themes, characterization, structure, and language in I Henry IV and presents the contribution of the rhetorical figures to the drama's action and characterization. Chapter V considers the contribution of the figures to the major themes of I Henry IV and concludes that the figures, when used with other artistic elements, enhance meaning.

The following psychological interpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest is unique to articles on the same subject which have appeared in literary journals because it applies a purely Jungian reading to the characters in the play. Here each character is shown to represent one of the archetypes which Jung described in his book Archetypes ~ the Collective Unconscious. In giving the play a psychological interpretation, the action must be seen to occur inside Prospera's own unconscious mind. He is experiencing a psychic transformation or what Jung called the individuation process, where a person becomes "a separate, indivisible unity or whole" and where the conscious and unconscious are united.