Through four hundred years of accumulated disparaging comments from critics, revenge plays have lost much of the original luster they possessed in early modern England. Surprisingly, scholarship on revenge tragedy has invented an unfavorable lens for understanding this genre, and this lens has been relentlessly parroted for decades. The conventional generic approach that calls for revenge plays to exhibit a recurring set of concerns, including a revenge motive, a hesitation for the protagonist, and the revenger’s feigned or actual madness, imply that these plays lack philosophical depth, as the appellation of revenge tends to evoke the trite commonalities which we have created for the genre. This dissertation aims to rectify the provincial views concerning revenge tragedies by providing a more complex, multivalent critical model that makes contemporary the outmoded approaches to this genre. I argue that Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, and the ways in which it engages with new historical interpretations of early modern drama, functions as a discursive methodology to open up more creative interpretative possibilities for revenge tragedy. Carnival readings expose gaps in new historicism’s proposed systems of omnipresent power, which deny at every turn the chance for rebellion and individuality. Rather than relegating carnival to an occasional joke, quick aside, or subplot, revenge plays explore carnivalesque concerns, and revengers plot their vengeance with all the aspects of a carnival. In these plays, revengers define subjectivity in terms of the pleasure-seeking, self-serving urges of unofficial culture; negotiations for social change occur in which folk culture avoids a repressive, hierarchal order; and carnival play destabilizes courtly systems that track, classify, pigeonhole, and immobilize individuals.

This essay discusses the aspects of Carnival in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the opposition between ordinary official life and the Carnival. Peter Burke’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on the Carnival are used throughout the analyse of the poem mainly with focus on four different aspects; food, sex, violence and games. The essay also discusses the questioning of rank, which was central to the spirit of the Carnival where all were considered equal.  Gawain is the protagonist who throughout the poem manages to resist the spirit of the Carnival despite being challenged by three different antagonists who in their on ways symbolise the Carnival; the Green knight with aggressive and mocking speech, the Lady of the Castle who acts as the seducer and Lord Bertilak who in his three hunts shows that he embraces the spirit of the Carnival.

ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on Bakhtinian¡¦s three approaches, chronotope, carnivalesque and heteroglossia in David Henry Hwang¡¦s M. Butterfly. Since it is released, most critics mainly emphasize on the relationship between Gallimard and Song Liling. Gay issue becomes an underlying theme when readers study this play. Therefore, my thesis, based on Mikhail Bakhtin¡¦s theory, will analyze the parodic functions produced by Hwang to oppose to the empirical ideology in Madame Butterfly. The introduction, Chapter one, begins with a short summary of M. Butterfly and an overview of the theoretical frame of Bakhtin¡¦s theory as well as an explanation of the connection between Bakhtinian approach and M. Butterfly. In Chapter two, I discuss how chronotope, time and space, affects Gallimard. Chronotope represents changing concepts that appear in different situations. From Gallimard¡¦s prison to Song Liling¡¦s apartment, each event is considered a crucial form-shaping ideology. Chapter three chiefly deals with Song Liling¡¦s transvestism and Bakhtin¡¦s carnivalesque. Song Liling, like a carnival clown, turns over the western authority by masquerading her/himself and brings forth the concept of equality of all races. Chapter four aims to manifest a multiple constructed society. Bakhtin¡¦s heteroglossia designates to destroy the unification and centralization that colonialists use to dominate the non-white. Heteroglossia helps reveal the centrifugal discourses saturated in the society to secure the oppressed voice in this play. In the concluding chapter, I reiterate the analysis of M. Butterfly and Bakhtin¡¦s three approaches as well as describe the consequence of western ideology.

This thesis employs the concept of 'voice' in order to explore the variety of dialogic relationships between men and women in seven Shakespeare plays. Here, 'voice' is defined as an ideological position held by a character and voices within a dialogical relationship test dominant social ideas. In doing so, the aim is to explore how employing a linguistic approach allows us to develop a more nuanced perspective towards women and female voices in Shakespeare. Taking the early modern tradition of an all-male-cast into consideration, this project acknowledges the tension between the idea of embodiment and voice; however, it argues that even though there is no biological female body of the Shakespearean stage, there is a female voice. Dialogism, of course, derives from the work of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. These 'voices' are analysed in the context of a theoretical framework informed by his writings on the novel, which are also increasingly being used to make sense of drama in line with Bakhtin's own awareness of a nascent dialogism in Shakespearean drama. 'Polyphony', in particular, assumes a separation between the author's and the characters' points of view. Thus, this project considers Shakespeare's texts as dialogic and his plays as a dialogue of voices, in which the characters have the capacity to hold dialogical relationships where no voice holds more importance than any other. This is significant because these conflicting voices are what make the Shakespearean text different from those in which a single voice is heard - that of the author, for example. As this study talks about an oppressive authoritative/patriarchal language, a dialogic approach unlocks the languages of the others which it tries to marginalise and silence. The research reveals a complex relationship between space, time and voice. More precisely, the carnivalesque becomes visible in Shakespeare's use of innovative discursive devices, such as 'active parody', 'Menippean dialogue' and 'Socratic dialogue', which suggests a multi-toned and ambiguous female voice; a voice that has the capacity to covertly and overtly oppose and challenge social ideologies surrounding gender. The thesis offers new perspectives on the presentation of women and speech. Importantly, it offers a more sophisticated and complex Bakhtinian framework for looking at carnival in Shakespeare. Additionally, a linguistic model of analysis also develops current scholarly use of Bakhtin's concept of carnival. Rather than viewing carnival as simply a time-space of betwixt and between, this project looks at carnival in the context of language (the carnivalesque). More specifically, it reveals how Shakespeare's female figures find pockets of carnivalesque space in everyday existence through dialogue. Thus, suggesting that emancipation is not limited to an allocated time or space, rather, it can also be achieved through language.

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Through four hundred years of accumulated disparaging comments from critics, revenge plays have lost much of the original luster they possessed in early modern England. Surprisingly, scholarship on revenge tragedy has invented an unfavorable lens for understanding this genre, and this lens has been relentlessly parroted for decades. The conventional generic approach that calls for revenge plays to exhibit a recurring set of concerns, including a revenge motive, a hesitation for the protagonist, and the revenger’s feigned or actual madness, imply that these plays lack philosophical depth, as the appellation of revenge tends to evoke the trite commonalities which we have created for the genre. This dissertation aims to rectify the provincial views concerning revenge tragedies by providing a more complex, multivalent critical model that makes contemporary the outmoded approaches to this genre. I argue that Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, and the ways in which it engages with new historical interpretations of early modern drama, functions as a discursive methodology to open up more creative interpretative possibilities for revenge tragedy. Carnival readings expose gaps in new historicism’s proposed systems of omnipresent power, which deny at every turn the chance for rebellion and individuality. Rather than relegating carnival to an occasional joke, quick aside, or subplot, revenge plays explore carnivalesque concerns, and revengers plot their vengeance with all the aspects of a carnival. In these plays, revengers define subjectivity in terms of the pleasure-seeking, self-serving urges of unofficial culture; negotiations for social change occur in which folk culture avoids a repressive, hierarchal order; and carnival play destabilizes courtly systems that track, classify, pigeonhole, and immobilize individuals.

The thesis is an attempt to relate aspects of Rozanov's writing to the Russian tradition of the word, as exemplified in the work of writers and thinkers, contemporary and near-contemporary to Rozanov. The first part establishes key features of this tradition through the work of writers such as Ern, Losev, Mandel'shtam and Averintsev. The relevance of Bakhtin for a reading of Rozanov, and of Rozanov for reading Bakhtin, is argued through an extended comparison of the two writers in the context of the Russian tradition of the word. Aspects of Rozanov's thought and formal expression, such as silence, intonation and the resisting of definition are discussed in relation to this tradition. The role of intimate genres and the reader is discussed with reference to Dostoevskii, Rozanov and Bakhtin. Rozanov's use of letters, footnotes and the idea of manuscripts is examined as a part of his battle with received literary forms. The second part looks at these various aspects of Rozanov's work in relation to his contemporary context; to the writing of the obscure 'literary exiles' and that of Solov'ev and Merezhkovskii. Rozanov's particular sense of the word is argued to be crucial in his attitude towards these writers. Rozanov's involvement with the decadents is discussed, and his exemplification of themes of sectarianism and apocalypse in his writing. The thesis ends with a look at the paradoxes of Rozanov's own role as a writer supposedly in battle with literature, and the relation between his need for words and his need for belief.

Theorists who endeavor to take sociality seriously have made substantial strides, but the phenomenological immediacy of experience has not been well explored or sufficiently addressed. This dissertation proposes an approach to cultural psychology that accounts for such experience. It addresses how authors such as Hubert Hermans, James Wertsch, Ken Gergen, Derek Edwards, and Jonathan Potter have tended to propose visions of cultural psychology that do not do justice to such experience, partly because they have different analytic interests. Regardless, there is a need in current theorizing in cultural psychology to address culturally orchestrated action in a way that includes experience. This dissertation attempts to address this need. To provide an alternative view on cultural psychology, this dissertation turns to the Russian thinker, Mikhail Bakhtin, and his notion of speech genres. The inherent sociality of embodied experience that is part of Bakhtins notion of speech genres is presented in contrast to the views of above-mentioned authors. This work presents a view of Bakhtins discussion of realism in relation to experience and sociality. This discussion leads to an alternative sociocultural understanding of individual agency that is central to the ontogenetic development of selfhood. The discussion then progresses to examine what Bakhtin can contribute to a psychology embroiled in postmodernism. Where self has been treated as socially constructed and changeable such that notions like faithfulness to oneself, which is generally thought to belong in the domain of a true core self, are rendered futile Bakhtin offers a view of embodied self that both requires and clarifies these notions. The proposed alternative concludes by addressing how research could be conducted for those interested in extending the proposed cultural psychology in an empirical direction.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-235). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Page xii is blank. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-209). Also available on the Internet.