This thesis examines how and why the English clown emerged and declined by focusing on jest-books and comic actors such as Tarlton, Kemp and Armin. The jest-book, Tarlton’s Jests is the key publication in the development of jester-clowns in Renaissance drama. This account traces the authoring, editing, and printing of jest-book publications, along with the transmission of their copy-texts to clarify the dissemination of theories of clownery. The thesis explores the English clown tradition based on the presences of Kemp and Armin, who in their writing practices link the development of clowning in print to the theatre stage. This study then offers a critical analysis of the influence of jesting heroes on comic characters in play-texts from Shakespeare to Dekker and Heywood. By considering the rich resources of jests appropriated by these playwrights, the various forms of the clowns’ development are clarified. The tradition and characteristics of the English clown resulted from a unique cultural synergy: the connection between the stage clowning of the time and its underlying theories. This interaction between societal change and the resultant cultural products is considered as an achievement of the Early Modern interdependence between print and performance.

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While the general idea is to illustrate how William Shakespeare reflected the contemporary conflicts and problems of the Elizabethan society, the particular aim of the thesis is to offer a close critical analysis of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2, Henry V and Henry VI Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 plays in an eclectic critical approach derived from the theoretical principles of New Historicism and Cultural Materialism. In order to provide a better understanding of the plays studied in the thesis, there is a presentation of the development of drama, both religious and secular, in the Reformation period. In addition to this, main features of Cultural Materialism and New Historicism are given. The English Reformation and its effects on drama have been given in the introductory chapter. In the first chapter, contemporary religious controversies as reflected in Shakespeare's 1 and 2 Henry VI plays are discussed. The second chapter deals with the reflections of contemporary social conflicts in especially the Jack Cade episode of Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI. In the third chapter, reflections of political conflicts in Shakespeare's Henry V, Henry V, and Henry VI plays are analysed in terms of the appropriation of commoners by the ruling class for the preservation of the dominant order. The thesis concludes that the plays are polyvalent in meaning and thus open to further academic discussions for the years to come.

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Between 1730 and 1789, the most striking experiments in French drama were the "comedie larmoyante" and the "Drame bourgeois". The study of English influences on these new forms falls into three divisions; the effect of English ideas on French theory, the use of themes from English sources by French playwrights, and changes in stage technique brought about in France by the assimilation to English practice. The theory of "comedie larmoyante" was not vitally affected by English ideas, because current prejudices hindered the spread of innovations from England introduced by writers like Prevost. On the contrary, the theory of "drame bourgeois", which Diderot worked out, and which Beaumarchais and Mercier subsequently modified, was more susceptible to English influence. This was because Diderot was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of ideas from England, and because circumstances favoured the reception of such ideas during the rise and growth of the new genre. Shaftesbury, Lillo, Moore, Young, and Richardson all contributed to develop the new form of tragedy in France, inspired its moral aim, its sentimental appeal, or its use of the bourgeois as a hero of tragedy. Johnson's critical work also had a certain effect on Mercier's conception of "drame bourgeois". Both "camedie larmoyante" and "drame bourgeois" borrowed themes from English novels, like "Clarissa" or "Tom Jones"; from plays like the "London Merchant"; from poems like the "Night Thoughts"; and from contemporary accounts of English life, like the "Spectator" papers. The personal influence of Garrick helped to introduce some changes in the style of acting on the French stage; and English practice encouraged the use of prose in tragedy, and the disregard of the "three unities" in France. English contributions to experiments in French drama in the eighteenth century reflected most of the significant movements in French thought that arose from contact with England, and the importance of such contributions is greater than is commonly believed.

From the production of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy in the late 1580s until the closing of the theatres in 1642 English tragedy was almost exclusively concerned with revenge. By the close of the sixteenth century, however, the influence of the tragedy of blood revenge for murder was almost exhausted. What revitalized revenge tragedy was the replacement of the theme of revenge for murder with that of revenge for honour. The first aim of this study is to consider the development of the concept of revenge for honour in drama and to see whether any corresponding development took place in prose fiction. From an examination of revenge tragedies of the period 1580 - 1605 a basic code of honour for drama is formulated. Thereafter it is demonstrated how important this code and its developments were in the work of the major Jacobean and Caroline dramatists: Tourneur, Webster, Chapman, Marston, Middleton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger and Ford, An examination of the prose fiction published between 1580 and 1640, and in particular the work of Lyly, Sidney, Greene, Lodge, Nashe, Deloney, Riche, Emmanual Forde and Richard Johnson, reveals that revenge for honour had by no means as great a significance for the prose writer as it had for the dramatist. Some reasons for this are suggested. The contrast between drama and fiction in this respect gives an indication of the difference between the creative imaginations of prose writers and dramatists in the period. In three appendices are tabulated: the applications of the word 'honour' in English drama, 1591-1640; the causes of dishonour in drama and fiction, 1580 - 1640; and the husband's revenge for adultery in English drama, 1603 - 1640.

This thesis on 'Shelley and the Dramatic Form' has been divided into an introduction, eight chapters and a conclusion. The introduction justifies the theme of the thesis by discussion of the comparative neglect of Shelley's dramas from the point of view of form. The first chapter deals with Shelley's interest in the living theatre with reference to performances in both England and Italy. The second reveals Shelley actually at work on the dramatic compositions of his wife Mary and his friend E.E. Williams. The third chapter shows the reciprocal dramatic influence of Byron and Shelley from the time of their first meeting in Geneva in 1816 to Shelley's death in 1822.The succeeding chapters analyse the dramatic form of Shelley's dramas in chronological order: Prometheus Unbound in Chapter IV, The Cenci in Chapter V, Oedipus Tyrannus in Chapter VI, Hellas in Chapter VII, Charles I in Chapter VIII. Prometheus Unbound and Hellas have been examined primarily from the point of view of dramatic form but a further treatment has been accorded to The Cenci. The thesis concludes with a brief assessment of Shelley's ability as a dramatist.

This study interrogates the ways in which biopolitics, as represented in Anglophone theatre from the 1970s to the present day, coerces and regulates postcolonial subalterns within the contemporary socio-political milieu. Using seven plays from three postcolonial regions – South Africa, India and Sri Lanka – the thesis comparatively investigates how internal and global biopolitical operations culminate in overt violence. Research questions explore the nuances of biopolitical trajectories, their tragic resonances and the way these biopolitical stratagems are theatrically articulated and challenged. This study is also concerned with the extent to which biopolitical praxis and consequent violence in these postcolonial territories is shaped by Western colonialism and its legacies. The corpus of plays encompasses: Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) and The Island (1973); Mbongeni Ngema’s Asinamali! (1985); Mahasweta Devi’s Mother of 1084 (1973); Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest (1999); Ernest Macintyre’s Rasanayagam’s Last Riot: A Political Fiction for the Theatre (1990) and Irangani: A Tragedy of Our Times (2009). The research frames its argument through current scholarship on postcolonial criticism, and draws on the works of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. Foucault’s work on the regulation of human beings through the production of power/knowledge serves as an initial medium of investigation into the praxis of biopolitics. Agamben probes the covert and overt presence of biopolitical violence in contemporary society, particularly through his concept of state of exception. By exploring convergences and divergences of biopolitical subterfuges, and through the juxtaposition of the subalterns’ subjection to violence, the study reflects critically on contemporary biopolitics through Foucauldian and Agambenian lenses. The thesis suggests that postcolonial Anglophone theatre foregrounds a potential to understand the biopolitical logic more meaningfully, and to be resistant to its strategies of coercion: Anglophone plays may contribute to the decolonisation processes, to react against internal and global forces of suppression.