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This dissertation examines the arguments against tragedy offered by feminist playwrights in their "re-visions" of the plays of Euripides and Shakespeare. / In the first part, I maintain that feminist dramatic re-vision is one manifestation of an unrecognized tradition of women's writing in which criticism is expressed through fiction. I also argue that the project of feminist dramatic re-vision embodies a feminist "new poetics." / In the second part, I examine the aesthetics and politics of tragedy from a feminist perspective. Feminist arguments against tragedy are, in effect arguments against patriarchy. But it is the theorists and critics of tragedy---not the playwrights---who are unequivocally aligned with patriarchy. Playwrights like Euripides and Shakespeare can be seen to destabilize tragedy in their plays. / In the third part, I show how recent feminist playwrights (Jackie Crossland, Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Deborah Porter, Caryl Churchill and David Lan, Maureen Duffy, Alison Lyssa, The Women's Theatre Group and Elaine Feinstein, Joan Ure, Margaret Clarke, and Ann-Marie MacDonald) counter tragedy by extrapolating from the arguments presented by Euripides and Shakespeare in The Medea, The Bacchae, King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Othello , and by allocating voice and agency to their female protagonists.

Ob ein literarisches Kunstwerk von einer spaeteren Generation, im Lichte von dessen Zeit und Kunstanschauung, umgedichtet werden darf, ist eine Frage, die die Kunstkritiker und -historiker lange beschaeftigt hat. Diejenigen, die vor allem die Eigentuemlichkeit eines Genies preisen, werden jede Bearbeitung, jede Auslassung, jeden Zusatz, wodurch die urspruengliche Gestalt und das Wesen des Originals bedroht werden, bekaempfen. [...]

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The eighteenth century public sphere has been defined by Habermas in terms of its rational, critical style of debate and egalitarian ideals. In eighteenth century America the public sphere comprised mainly elite merchants. This group mediated between civil society and the state in order to influence government decisions. Motivated largely by commercial interests, they nevertheless claimed to represent the entire society. But around the mid-nineteenth century, the American public sphere began to expand, mainly due to the emergence of a middle class. Debate over Shakespearean drama had a profound effect on the ways in which 19th century civil society presented and considered arguments related to public issues. Increasingly, the credibility of an individual's public utterance, rather than his or her social or intellectual status, was of primary import in determining the merit of an argument. The discursive behaviour adopted in discussion of Shakespeare plays in numerous clubs and societies helped to form habits of rational critical debate which characterized public decision-making in the latter part of the century. Those largely excluded from public debate, such as blacks and women, began to publicly argue for rights previously extended only to white males. The major spread of mass entertainment and its perceived ills toward the end of the century, however, rendered Shakespeare the chief weapon in the resistance to modern vulgarity and commercialism. The wedge which developed in Shakespeare discussion between amateurs and academics at this time may be partly explained by a developing mass consumption mentality which Habermas contends segmented the public into protective, specialized minorities and an often uncritical mass of consumers.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1980.