The concept of a "'crisis' in masculinity" came to prominence in Britain and North America during the 1990s. This phenomenon developed out of several decades in which the notion of 'the subject' came under critical scrutiny, both from developments in postmodern and post-structuralist theory, and socio- cultural shifts informed by the politicised campaigns of second-wave feminism, gay activism and civil rights movements. In this context, the discursively central position of the white, heterosexual, middle-class male subject looked to be decentred by a host of radical projects that claimed identity positions as constructed and contingent. In exploring the resonance of the 'crisis' in mainstream playwriting practice of the 1990s and early 2000s, this study centres on a range of texts by contemporary British and North American male dramatists: Closer (1997) by Patrick Marber; The Shape of Things (2001) by Neil LaBute; Alan Bennett's The History Boys (2004); Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (1992 and 1994); Ray Williams's Clubland (2001) and Bondage (1992), by David Henry Hwang. Through evaluating strategies by which v privileged and 'marginalised' masculinities are portrayed, this thesis considers not only how far these works may appear to suggest a state of rupture in 'normative' masculinity, but whether they can be read as re- affirming or undermining binaristic and 'stable' notions of identity. These concerns take account of the various ways in which gender is articulated through 'race', sexuality, nationality and class. The primary theoretical framework is drawn from the field of post- structuralist philosophy, and, specifically, selected works by Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler and Homi Bhabha. Cultural studies and sociology provide a 'sub-strand' of theory, through analyses that interconnect the themes of masculinity and nostalgia. While the former trope enables psychoanalytic readings, the latter is apt for analyses of cultural texts produced at a time in which masculinity was deemed in a hazardous state of decline. It is in combining these threads with queer, feminist and performance theory, and philosophical accounts of the postmodern, that this thesis looks to reflect on how the male-authored dramas under discussion respond to or evoke the 'crisis' in masculinity, and what might thus be discerned about both this practice and the' crisis' discourse itself. Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. vi.

Cette thèse est l'aboutissement de huit années de travail qui ont portés sur la représentation de la défaite dans le théâtre du dix-septième siècle. Notre corpus comprend 75 pièces, 60 tragédies, 14 tragi-comédies et une comédie-heroïque jouées entre 1634 et 1663 et mettant en avant le thème de la défaite, telle que la définissent les dictionnaires de l'époque, c'est-à-dire la perte d'une bataille après une intervention armée qui peut aller des guerres externes ou internes, internationales, civiles ou religieuses, qui dominent dans les tragédies de la première période étudiée, soit les années 1634-1643, aux complots militaires ou privés qui seront plutôt l'apanage des pièces de la dernière période, soit les années 1653-1663. / This thesis is the outcome of eight working years wich concerned the representation of the defeat in the theater of the seventeenth century. Our corpus includes 75 plays, 60 tragedies, 14 tragicomedies and a heroic comedy played between 1634 and 1663 and putting forward the theme of the defeat, such as defined in the dictionaries of this time, that is the loss of a battle after an armed intervention which can go external or internal, internaltional, civil or religious years 1634-1643, in the military or private plots dominate in the tragedies of the first studied period, or which will be rather the priviledge of the plays of the last period, or the years 1653-1663.

Cette thèse propose une approche historique de l'esthétique théâtrale européenne qui entretient avec le réel une relation dynamique. Dans la programmation théâtrale au tournant du XXIe siècle de trois pays (France, Grande Bretagne et Pologne), un ensemble cohérent et significatif d’œuvres a pu être identifié comme relevant d’une catégorie particulière : le théâtre du réel. Cet objet d’étude nous a semblé un moyen pour comprendre non seulement une esthétique, plus ou moins partagée, mais aussi l’attitude de trois sociétés, distinctes mais en contact dans un cadre européen redéfini, face à un réel social, présent ou passé, évoqué sur scène entre 1997 et 2010. Dans la production théâtrale émerge alors une autre perception vécue de l’accessibilité du réel ainsi qu’un désir d’immédiateté des créateurs et du public. La matérialité du corps, l'effet de la véracité, la présence de témoins sur scène servent à créer un lien entre l'intime et le social. Une autre évolution sociale est ainsi perceptible. Dans les trois sociétés considérées le rapport entre les institutions théâtrales et les instances politiques qui les soutiennent changent. On demande au théâtre de participer au maintien ou à la reconstitution du « lien social ». En même temps, le politique comme instance spécifique fondée sur des conflictualités pacifiées, semble s’effacer au profit d’un consensus éthique, renforcé par un consensus sur l’idée d’un dépassement nécessaire des absolus culturels. Le théâtre est confronté à la question de la construction complexe et de la perception des identités, à un moment où la focalisation sur le tout-national est remise en cause. En mettant au cœur du projet théâtral le consensus social (réconciliation polono-allemande, réhabilitation de l’estime de soi des chômeurs, sensibilisation à la violence qui s’exerce dans l’histoire, avec les génocides), les artistes remplissent une mission éthique et préfigurent un certain état politique des sociétés contemporaines qui ne pensent plus le conflit politique et social selon un modèle binaire / In theatrical programming at the turn of the century in France, Great Britain, and Poland, a consistent and significant number of performances have been identified as belonging to one particular aesthetic: the theatre of the real. This object of historical study seemed to us a way to understand not only a particular aesthetic, more or less similar in these three countries, but also the attitude of the three societies, distinct, but sharing the same redefined European context, to a social reality, past or present, evoked on stage between 1997 and 2010. From theatrical creation at this time emerged a new perception of accessibility to reality, and also a desire for immediacy, for artists as well as for the spectators. The materiality of the body on the stage, the veracity, and the presence of witnesses are used to create a link between the intimacy of the spectator and the social dimension of the message. Another social change is thus perceptible. The relationship between theatrical institutions and the political bodies that support and finance them changes. The theatrical institutions are asked to participate in the maintenance or reconstruction of social "ties" and inclusiveness. At the same time, the politics seems to fade away in favour of an ethical consensus. By putting the consensus into the heart of the theatrical project (Polish-German reconciliation, rehabilitation of self-esteem of the unemployed, making the spectators sensitized to the violence exerted in history, including genocide), artists fulfil an ethical mission and foreshadow a political state of contemporary societies that no longer conceive the political and social conflict according to a binary model

Cette étude se propose de montrer comment Yukio Mishima a renouvelé l’art du nô tout en conservant de nombreux concepts dramaturgiques et esthétiques. Créant un genre nouveau, le nô moderne, l’écrivain a revitalisé ce théâtre en privilégiant son obsession du désir de mort. Greffés sur des nôs anciens, les pièces de Mishima revitalisent des figures et des mythes du passé dans un monde moderne dégradé, où la seule voie possible est celle qui mène à la douleur originelle, un retour vers un sacré dans lequel se lisent les obsessions et les rêves de mort du dramaturge. / This study offers to show how Yukio Mishima has renewed the art of nô while maintaining numerous aesthetic and drama concepts. By creating a new genre, the modern nô, the writer has revitalized this type of theatre, focusing on his obsession with death desire. Based on ancient no’s, Mishima's plays revitalize figures and myths of the past, in a deteriorated modern world where the only possible path is the one leading to original pain, going back to the sacred, which reflects the playwright's obsessions and dreams of death.

Despite the upsurge in fact-based and verbatim theatre in recent years (Fogarth and Megson 2009: 1), engagement with the form as a technique equally suitable for poetry has been especially limited. This thesis examines the deployment of verbatim methods in a series of poems which constitute the creative element, written in order to (re)present expressions of identity and ideas of imagined community during the 2011 riots in Birmingham. Located in the context of this particular disorder, United We Stand explores both individual and group experiences of the events that took place in Birmingham. The series of verbatim poems draws on data extracted from 25 semi-structured, life-story interviews with participants who lived or worked in the city during these incidents. In doing so, both the thesis and the creative practice that informs it critique Benedict Anderson s earlier model of the nation as an imagined community (1983; 1991; 2006). While quantitative network analysis is deployed to establish the ties between media channels and ordinary citizens that were maintained online through social networking, creative and reported responses published by these same media sources are analysed in relation to national narrative conventions (Billig 2001; Mihelj 2011). This demonstrates that new and popular media played a significant role in (re)presenting imagined communities in this setting. By providing evidence for the existence of these shifting imagined communities across various geographical, social and cultural scales, the thesis suggests that Anderson s decision to focus on the nation is problematic. It argues that his framework is partial and that a new definition of imagined community as both fluid and emergent is necessary. Literary context for the thesis is found in the origins and developments of verbatim; exploring early documentary theatre practice and contemporary verbatim productions by Richard Norton-Taylor, Alecky Blythe, and Gillian Slovo. Through an analysis of Bhanu Kapil Rider s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (2001), the thesis illustrates how existing poets have organised comparable methods in their own work. This culminates in a demonstration of practice as research by producing a ground-breaking body of work: United We Stand is a series of poems crafted through the deployment of verbatim methods. The thesis demonstrates that deploying verbatim methods in poetry is suitable for (re)presenting expressions of identity and ideas of imagined community in this context. By transforming the voices of ordinary people of Birmingham, United We Stand reflects the media narratives that precede it: the poems are a direct engagement with the same fluid and emergent imagined communities that they argue existed. More importantly, though, this thesis goes beyond contemporary techniques of verbatim and establishes the evolutionary nature of it as a poetic practice. The combination of verbatim methods and visual-digital tools that I deploy throughout United We Stand results in a new creative process which I have termed Digital Poetic Mimesis.

MA (English Literature) / Department of English / This study examines a selection of Post-2000 Southern African prison narratives. It primarily focuses on fictional narratives that were written in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Little critical attention has been given to fictional prison writing in Southern Africa considering that much critical attention has been accorded to autobiographies by political prisoners. The demise of autobiographical writing has led to the rise in the production of prison novels, hence the need to examine this evolving genre. This study is driven by the need to examine the construction and representation of subjectivity in the selected narratives. It explores how the prison is experienced, by paying attention to issues of criminality, identity, gender and power. This study begins with the examination of criminality and the representation of the function of the prison in Red Ink by Angela Makholwa (2007), followed by the exploration of gender and identity issues in A Book of Memory by Petina Gappah (2015). It further examines how the notions of power and counter-discourse are portrayed in The Violent Gestures of Life by Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho (2014). This study employs the method of close textual analysis of the selected narratives. It is underpinned by post-colonial theory, the paradigm of the Panopticon which is foregrounded by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison (1977) and Daniel Roux’s perceptions of the prison in Doing Time under Apartheid (2013). This study contends that notions of detention and imprisonment continue to play a central role in the production of selfhood in literary works. It is clear in the study that the prison is used as an institution to critique different phenomena regarding the prison experience. In this study, I clearly show that the selected narratives can be read as platforms for resistance against social ills that prevail in the post-apartheid/post-colonial society. I also argue that there is a thin line between fiction and non-fiction, apartheid/colonial and post-apartheid/post-colonial prison systems. The narratives I explore in this study reveal more continuities than discontinuities from the apartheid/colonial prisons. / NRF

Émile Augier, Alexandre Dumas fils et Victorien Sardou figurent parmi les dramaturges les plus importants du Second Empire (1852-1870). À travers cette étude, nous nous proposons d’examiner les comédies de mœurs de ces auteurs sous l’angle de la sociopoétique pour ce qui concerne les règles du savoir-vivre et les bonnes manières, examinées dans leur fonction dramatique et théâtrale. Nous nous sommes attachée à l’étude de l’esthétique théâtrale du savoir-vivre qui englobe le lieu (Paris), les personnages (les mondaines et demi-mondaines, les mondains et les domestiques) et les moyens de communication à distance (la lettre et les cartes). Nous nous sommes ensuite penchée sur le caractère spectaculaire du savoir-vivre, à savoir la «distinction» ou la mise en scène de soi, la gestuelle des salutations, les «toilettes tapageuses» et les arts de la table. Les composantes des codes de politesse permettent de parler d’une dramaturgie du savoir-vivre qui caractérise les comédies de mœurs. Cette dramaturgie, que d’aucuns estiment surannée, reflète toutefois les usages représentatifs d’une époque. / Émile Augier, Alexandre Dumas fils and Victorien Sardou appear among the most important dramatists of the Second Empire era (1852-1870). In this thesis, comedies of manners of these authors are considered from a “socio-poetical” point of view. Rules of etiquette and good manners are analyzed in their dramatic and theatrical function. Theatrical aesthetic of manners which includes locality (Paris), characters (mondaines and demi-mondaines, mondains and servants), and media of communication (letters and cards), is examined first. Afterwards, spectacular aspects of good manners are studied : “distinction”, greeting’s gesture, outfits and “arts de la table”. Components of rules of etiquette lead to think of a certain dramaturgy of good manners which are characteristic of comedy of manners. This dramaturgy, which is considered as ‘old fashioned’ by some people, reflects however typical manners of an epoch.