On the assumption that different registers of translated drama have different functions and that they therefore present information differently, the aim of the present study is to identify textual features that distinguish an Afrikaans stage translation from a page translation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The first issue addressed concerns the nature and extent of lexical cohesion in these two registers. The second issue concerns my contention that the dialogue of a stage translation is more "involved". (Biber 1988) than that of a page translation. The research was conducted within the overall Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) paradigm but the analytical frameworks by means of which these aims were accomplished were derived from text linguistics and register variation studies, making this an interdisciplinary study. Aspects of Hoey's ( 1991) bonding model, in particular, the classification of repetition links, were adapted so as to quantify lexical cohesion in the translations. Similarly, aspects of Biber's (1988) multi-dimensional approach to register variation were used to quantify linguistic features that signal involvement. The main finding of the study is that drama translation register (page or stage translation) does have a constraining effect on lexical cohesion and involved production. For Act IV of the play an overall higher density of lexical cohesion strategies was generated by the stage translation. In the case of the involved production features analysed, the overall finding was that the stage translation displayed more involvement than the page translation, to a statistically highly significant extent. The features analysed here cluster together sufficiently to reveal that in comparison with an Afrikaans page translation of a Shakespeare play, a recent stage translation displays a definite tendency towards a more oral, more involved and more situated style, reflecting no doubt a general modern trend towards creating more appropriate and accessible texts / Linguistics / D. Litt. et Phil. (Translation Studies)

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present thesis deals with the impact of the ancient Greek farce on modem literature with specific reference to the play Kinkels innie Kabel (1971) by the contemporary Afrikaans author André P. Brink. This play is loosely based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, which in tum derives from Plautus' Menaechmi. Brink's play thus resonates with an entire European tradition. The relationship between the modem and the ancient farce is studied with reference to the concept of comedy. Comic effects, the difference between comedy and tragedy in respect of the handling of vital issues and the comic vision of the playwright are all taken into account. The analysis of the development of Athenian Old Comedy to the Roman Comedy refers to the contribution of Plautus and Terence to the continuation and revitalisation of Greek New Comedy. A comparison of these two playwrights reveals the characteristics of the farce and the difference between farce and comedy. The modem relevance of the farce is studied on the basis of Brink's text. For this purpose Plautus' original plot, the Shakespearian version and Brink's rendition are discussed and compared. On the basis of the similarities and differences in plot, caricaturisation, misidentifications, politics, fantasy, coincidence, irony, farcical violence, mechanical structure, temporal structure and linguistic register, the influence of the ancient farce on its modem counterpart is demonstrated. In addition to farce, Brink employs the classical devices of satire and parody to drive home his (political) message. Finally it is shown that the farcical in Plautus, Shakespeare and Brink serves a significant and serious thematic purpose. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verhandeling handel oor die impak van 'n antieke Griekse komedievorm, die klug, op moderne werke en denke. A.P. Brink se verhoogstuk Kinkels innie Kabel (1971) is 'n vrye verwerking van William Shakespeare se The Comedy of Errors. Laasgenoemde werk is weer op sy beurt gebaseer op Plautus se Menaechmi. In sy verwerking van Plautus en Shakespeare laat A.P. Brink die hele Europese tradisie deurklink. Die verhouding tussen die moderne klug en die antieke klug word bestudeer deur te fokus op die term komedie: die verhouding daarvan met lag en hoe die komedie van die tragedie verskil ten opsigte van die hantering van lewensproblematiek en komiese visie van die komedieskrywer, maak deel uit van hierdie bespreking. Die komedie se herkoms en ontwikkeling vanaf die Ou Komedie tot die Romeinse Komedie, val ook onder die soeklig. In aansluiting hiermee word Plautus en Terentius bespreek as twee komedieskrywers wat 'n rol gespeel het in die oorlewering en verlewendiging van die Griekse Nuwe Komedie. Hierdie twee skrywers word ook met mekaar vergelyk sodat die eienskappe van die klug geïllustreer word, en hoe dit in wese verskil van komedie. Die relevansie van die klug in moderne denke word bestudeer aan die hand van Brink se teks. In hierdie verband word daar 'n uiteensetting gegee van die oorspronklike Plautiniese verhaal, die Shakespeariaanse weergawe en die Brinkiaanse teks. Aan die hand van die ooreenkomste en verskille in intrige, karikaturisering, identiteitsvergissings, politiek, die fantasie-element, toeval, ironie, klugtige geweld, die meganiese struktuur, die tydstruktuur en taalregister word die invloed van die antieke klug op die moderne klug geïllustreer. Benewens die klug word Brink se werk ook verder beïnvloed deur twee klassieke middele, met name satire en parodie. Hiermee bring Brink sy (politieke) boodskap tuis. Ten slotte word die dieperliggende temas in Plautus, Shakespeare en Brink se werk bespreek deur aan te toon dat die werk nie net om die klugtige gaan nie, maar ook die meer ernstige.

This thesis argues that social debt profoundly transformed the environment in which literature was produced and experienced in the early modern period. In each chapter, I examine the various ways in which social debt affected Renaissance writers and the literature they produced. While considering the cultural changes regarding patronage, love, friendship, and debt, I will analyze the poetry and drama of Ben Jonson, Lady Mary Wroth, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Middleton. Each of these writers experiences social debt in a unique and revealing way. Ben Jonson's participation in networks of social debt via poetry allowed him to secure both a livelihood and a place in the Jacobean court through exchanges of poetry and patronage. The issue of social debt pervades both Wroth's life and her writing. Love and debt are intertwined in the actions of her father, the death of her husband, and the themes of her sonnets and pastoral tragicomedy. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596), Antonio and Bassanio’s friendship is tested by a burdensome interpersonal debt, which can only be alleviated by an outsider. This indicated the transition from honor-based credit system to an impersonal system of commercial exchange. Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608) examines how those heavily in debt dealt with both the social and legal consequences of defaulting on loans.

Renaissance and Baroque drama offers a view into gender dynamics of the time. What is seen is a development in the allowed expression and manifestation of desire by females, beginning from a point of near silence, and arriving at points of verbal statement and even physical violence. Specifically, in La Mandragola by Niccolò Machiavelli, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, and Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega, there appears a chronological progression, whereby using desire and its expression as a metric in conjunction with modern concepts of gender and sexuality to measure a shift in relation to what is and is not allowed to be expressed by women. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This dissertation considers the development of an ethics stemming from the Augustinian revival of early modern England, and the subsequent effect of this ethics on the literary culture of the period. The Preface claims that religious and textual communities operate according to a “cultural mobility” that eludes conventional neo-historicist approaches to literary culture, and Paul Ricoeur’s aphorism, “the symbol gives rise to thought,” serves as a model for thinking through this mobility. Augustinian ethics is a cultural phenomenon in the period, because people are thinking about Augustine, giving new life to his works through their own expressions of thought. After exploring the ways in which the Augustinian revival was brought about during the early modern period in the Introduction, one such expression of thought, John Donne’s relationship with early modern print culture, is examined in Chapter One. Following the theoretical outline of Augustine’s Christianization of Ciceronian rhetoric in his De Doctrina Christiana, it is suggested that though Donne’s aversion to the print publication of his poetry may have begun as a result of his “gentlemanly disdain” of the press, it ultimately found its sustenance in the form of an Augustinian ethic. Chapter Two examines the possibility of a metaphorical acquisition of Augustinian hermeneutics in the metadrama of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This hermeneutics ultimately calls into question the epistemological framework of Theseus’s skeptical aesthetics, suggesting that a more inclusive aesthetics based on charity can elevate the stage to its proper dignity. The last chapter turns from the communal implications of Augustinian ethics to its subjective implications by examining Augustine’s inner light theology and the role it plays in John Milton’s late poetry. Instead of falling in line with criticism that sees the simultaneous publication of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes as a dialectical meditation on the virtues of pacifism and the evils of religious violence, this reading suggests that the late poetry asserts the ethical rights of those who attend to the inner light, whether they be peaceful or violent. / text

Miguel de Cervantes’s novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha Part One (1605) and Part Two (1615) has delighted readers for centuries. The literary criticism analyzing just this one product of Cervantes’s literary genius is voluminous. In particular, the novel’s structure has received significant scrutiny, and discussions regarding its unity, or lack thereof, abound. This debate rages today with Cervantine experts still espousing various theories. Puzzling over this quandary and asking why a truly convincing explanation regarding the structure has not emerged, we arrive at a partial answer. We believe that there is unity in the Quijote and that Cervantes created a unified work by ingeniously taking full advantage of the elements of both the “Byzantine” and the chivalric literary traditions, combining them in a harmonizing synthesis. Moreover, he resolved the problem of unity within variety by establishing thematic consistency throughout. The purpose of our study is to explore the confluence of the “Byzantine” and chivalric literary traditions in works that precede Cervantes and to examine how Cervantes innovatively worked with this element in the Quijote of 1605. We present a panoramic view of works written between the thirteenth and the mid-sixteenth centuries, which reveal writers’ efforts to combine, consciously or unconsciously, the various characteristics of the “Byzantine” and chivalric literary traditions. For this project, we look at six representative works written in Spanish or Italian that represent significant antecedents to the Quijote and Cervantes’s unique method of synthesizing the traditions: Libro de Apolonio, Libro del caballero Zifar, Orlando innamorato, Orlando furioso, Palmerín de Olivia, Los amores de Clareo y Florisea y los trabajos de la sin ventura Isea. We investigate each author’s approach at coupling the two traditions and determine his/her degree of success in merging them artistically to produce a coherent whole. Our analysis reveals that not only does Cervantes systematically integrate the two literary traditions in his parody, but he also skillfully devises a way to unify thematically the delightful variety in his work. To wit, Cervantes embraces the theme of literature (fiction) and life (reality) and explores the need for distinguishing judiciously between them. / text

This thesis publicly displays the veracity of witchcraft and superstitious fables, which, many people believe to be irrational in nature. In this analysis, semiotics has been paraded in various versions from chapter to chapter-in order to illustrate the miscellaneous interpretations. The backbone of the investigation focuses on the philosophy and psychology of evil, a theoretical belief that is laid down by practical paradigms at the edge of each chapter. The point of departure of this investigation emanates from the Shakespearean literary work, Macbeth, which is popularly known for its inclusion of the witches in its illustration of the Scottish kingship. Therefore this thesis has adopted the practices of the witches and from there came out with what is commonly practiced by the Vatsonga people. Scotland, England, Germany and France of the 15th and 16th centuries were the countries best known as the most uncouthed centres for witchcraft and superstitions. Therefore leading stories from these European countries have made this project feasible. The study has leaked many of the unfounded stories about witchcraft and superstitions that were thought of as extraordinarily great but made real in this work. It has gone as far as windswept the kingship rites, coronation, the powers of the divine bones upon the anointed king, ritual ceremonies, causes of prosperity and failure, tales about stars, ghosts, reptiles, zombies and those hideous deeds that are not socially acceptable such as digging up of children's graves, convulsions, calling for rain, punishment meted out for a witch, prevention of adultery, changing oneself to a crocodile, rat, snake and many more stories. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

On the assumption that different registers of translated drama have different functions and that they therefore present information differently, the aim of the present study is to identify textual features that distinguish an Afrikaans stage translation from a page translation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The first issue addressed concerns the nature and extent of lexical cohesion in these two registers. The second issue concerns my contention that the dialogue of a stage translation is more "involved". (Biber 1988) than that of a page translation. The research was conducted within the overall Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) paradigm but the analytical frameworks by means of which these aims were accomplished were derived from text linguistics and register variation studies, making this an interdisciplinary study. Aspects of Hoey's ( 1991) bonding model, in particular, the classification of repetition links, were adapted so as to quantify lexical cohesion in the translations. Similarly, aspects of Biber's (1988) multi-dimensional approach to register variation were used to quantify linguistic features that signal involvement. The main finding of the study is that drama translation register (page or stage translation) does have a constraining effect on lexical cohesion and involved production. For Act IV of the play an overall higher density of lexical cohesion strategies was generated by the stage translation. In the case of the involved production features analysed, the overall finding was that the stage translation displayed more involvement than the page translation, to a statistically highly significant extent. The features analysed here cluster together sufficiently to reveal that in comparison with an Afrikaans page translation of a Shakespeare play, a recent stage translation displays a definite tendency towards a more oral, more involved and more situated style, reflecting no doubt a general modern trend towards creating more appropriate and accessible texts / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Translation Studies)

Scholarship has tended to depict John Owen as a “Reformed catholic” attempting a synthesis of Reformed principles with a largely Thomist doctrine of God. In this thesis, I argue that this depiction risks losing sight of those aspects of Owen's doctrine of God that are intended to support a distinctly Protestant account of the economy of grace. By an examination of the principles of divine government, I argue that Owen employs the theme of God's “dominion” in order to establish the freedom and gratuity of God's grace, and to resist theologies that might otherwise use the doctrine of creation to structure and norm God's government of creatures. In chapter one, I argue against prevailing readings of Owen's thought that his theology of the divine will is, in fact, “voluntarist” in nature, prioritizing God's will over his intellect in the determination of the divine decree. I show that Owen regards God's absolute dominion as an entailment of his ontological priority over creatures. Chapters two and three examine the character of God's dominion over creatures in virtue of their “two-fold dependence” upon him as both Creator and Lawgiver. Chapter four takes up Owen's theology of God's remunerative justice in the context of his covenant theology. I show here that his doctrine of divine dominion underwrites his critique of merit-theology and attempts to establish the gratuity of that supernatural end to which humans are destined. Finally, in chapter five, I examine the principles of God's mercy, expressed in the work of redemption, where I demonstrate how Owen's conception of divine dominion underwrites the freedom of God in election and his account of particular redemption.

My dissertation proposes that the history of early modern repertory theatre cannot be understood free from the history of disability. I argue that disability was a far more ubiquitous presence in early modern theatre than scholars have hitherto recognized. This is because playing companies represented disability through a manifold web of tools pervading the theatrical marketplace, including player identity, props, embodied acts, gestures, vocalizations, fragments of dialogue, and even the staging of locational places. Tracing disability’s overt and allusive ubiquity is essential for understanding how assessments of (dis)ability consistently informed spectators’ encountering and interpretation of staged drama. Chapter One places period commentary on stage players in dialogue with Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, arguing that ability and able-bodiedness were valued and idealized by playing companies and audiences alike. Chapter Two examines Robert Greene’s Orlando Furioso, Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, and George Chapman’s The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, proposing that leading players’ consistent embodiment of disability troubled a firm binary between disability and able-bodiedness in theatrical performance, as players’ stage identities consistently bore the residues of disabled performance. Chapter Three examines William Shakespeare’s Richard III and Othello, as well as Shakespeare and John Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen, arguing that even minute tics and gestures onstage evoked the memory of past and present disabled performance. Disabled characters were, this chapter argues, often self-consciously constructed upon one another in ways that allowed repertory theatre to both recount and rework its history of disabled representation. Chapter Four examines the anonymous The Fair Maid of the Exchange, Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday, and Robert Armin’s The Two Maids of More-Clacke, arguing that disability was essential to the conception of place in early modern theatre—especially within a repertory system in which “place” often depended upon tools of theatrical representation that bore the residues of past and present disabled performance.