Review of the Renaissance Cultural Crossroads Catalogue (RCCC) database, edited by Brenda Hosington.

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<p>The thesis examined is that the authors of The Spanish Tragedy, Titus Andronicus and The Jew of Malta are making a case for and against the protagonist as in a revenge trial, not as it would be conducted in an Elizabethan court, but as it might be constructed from the works of the Roman rhetors studied in the schools. The method is first to consider the advice given to orators by the Roman rhetors most commonly studied in the schools, which reveals that they emphasise the forensic oration and the dramatic quality of rhetoric, and all give instructions for conducting a case of revenge. Secondly, examination of the system of teaching rhetoric in Elizabethan schools supports the probability that rhetorical precepts would be applied to writing plays. Thirdly, scholarly opinion suggests that forensic rhetoric was already employed in pre-Elizabethan drama, although not in the form of a trial. Lastly, consideration of Elizabethan opinions on blood revenge suggests that its legal status as criminal homicide may have appeared over-simplified to a generation trained in the Roman rhetors' view of revenge as an issue meriting an equitable decision according to the circumstances of the case. This inference is supported by the sophisticated defence provided for the revenger in the plays which would not have been available in an Elizabethan court. Analysis of the plays according to the precepts revealed by the background material indicates that many structural, persuasive and argumentative features of The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus conform to the rhetorical techniques of the revenge trial. The same method of analysing the elements of the revenge trial apparent in The Jew of Malta highlights Marlowe's variations on Kyd's approach. The most important of these is his argumentative method which employs the resources of both rhetoric and logical dialectic to turn consideration of the case of the revenger into an attack on the audience.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis explores what the role of the artist provides to the colonial novel. Using William Plomer's novel Turbott Wolfe, the role of the Western artist in colonial South Africa is examined and critiqued, putting it in conversation with the art theory of Roger Fry and the Primitivism movement. In doing so, it explores themes such as desire, miscegenation, complexity, and carnival, showing that while artists partake in society, they also remain critical of it, responding to it in their artwork.

<p>This thesis examines the metaphorical expressions of Robert Southwell and John Donne in light of the instability created in metaphorical thought by Reformational debates. I argue that the theological doctrines regarding the Eucharist and Biblical interpretation had associated consequences for figurative thought and that the violence with which these doctrines were interrogated in early modern England created a crisis of figurative representation that contributed to the elaborate experimentation of metaphor (layerings, argued conceits, rapid transitions between tropes, etc.) found within the poetry of Southwell and Donne.</p> <p>My first chapter traces the theological landscape of early modern England, noting the continental Catholic and Protestant positions which defined the Reformational debates, as well as roughly locating the position of the English Church in the centre of these debates. While each of these doctrinal positions contains certain understandings about metaphorical thought, this chapter argues that it is the general uncertainty and the society-wide fluctuations between these ideas that defines my concept of the “theological aesthetic.” In my final two chapters I look at specific metaphors in the works of Robert Southwell (“Saint Peter’s Complaint,” “Christ’s bloody sweat,” and “The prodigal childs soule wracke”) and John Donne (“The Cross,” “Holy Sonnet 10: Batter my heart, three- personed God,” and “Holy Sonnet 2: I am a little world made cunningly”). Close analysis of these poems reveals that Southwell’s poetry often combines imagery and tropes in complicated ways to form multifaceted metaphors, while Donne’s poetry often functions as a meditation upon the possibilities of figurative language to create meaning.</p> <p>This thesis does not attempt to form a comprehensive theory of early modern metaphor, but rather examines how the theological debates of the Reformation questioned the representational efficacy of figurative language, allowing metaphor to be redefined by the experiments of early modern poets like Southwell and Donne.</p> / Master of English

<p>Drawing on Katherine Eggert’s discussion of Joan la Pucelle’s dramatic skills, this thesis argues that, through effective performances on the characters around them, the women of Shakespeare’s first tetralogy achieve and exercise extensive political power and that the male project of silencing these women through vilification and condemnation is an attempt to diminish that political power. The women in these plays are not born to the power they achieve, and it is not bestowed upon them by others. The female characters of the first tetralogy use theatrical power to enter and, in some cases, dominate the masculine world of political authority through their theatrical skill. They persuade, seduce, manipulate, and argue their ways through the highest circles of political authority and, transgressing patriarchal notions of political authority, they wield decidedly unfeminine power.</p> <p>These plays demonstrate the potential public impact and rebellious or resistant power of the female voice. In the first chapter of this thesis, I argue that these characters, through dramatically effective speech, exert significant female political agency. In the second chapter, I further contend that the male project of silencing these women's voices, expressed through gendered slurs and accusations of sexual misconduct, is a method of subduing the women’s political power. By examining the subversive women of Shakespeare's first tetralogy, this thesis explores the ways in which these characters use voice to enter and, in some cases, dominate the masculine world of political authority.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Utilizing the strategies of feminist criticism, this study seeks to define masculinity and the issues confronting it as presented in Books III and IV of Edmund Spenser’s <em>The Faerie Queene</em>. The thesis analyzes the means by which Spenser’s poem challenges conventional notions of violence as inherent to masculinity. This includes examining the tropological use of rape to represent masculine lust as animalistic, as seen in the various male pursuers and aggressors of Florimell and Amoret, and the metaphorical conceptualization of love as a violent conquest as a means of contributing to homosocial status elevation.Thus this study contributes to the understanding of the didacticism of Spenser’s allegory concerning the fashioning of a proper gentleman.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The longstanding relationship between honour and violence has obvious martial and chivalric overtones. The prevalence of the duel in early modern England points to the developing performativity and growing symbolic meaning of violence during the period, a codified violence that relied heavily on hierarchical guidelines. The duel helped to stabilize social notions of rank and masculinity, and became a means of culturally validating masculinity and reifying honour codes. This thesis frames a study of violence and its relationship to honour and masculine identity through analysis of dramatized scenes involving masculine honour in three of Shakespeare’s plays – <em>Twelfth Night</em>, <em>Henry V</em>, and <em>Hamlet</em> – with a concurrent investigation of contemporary policies and essays on civility and honour. I examine instances of public violence that directly relate to private or personal concepts of honour, as well as the ways in which honour is conceived of and transmitted both linearly, through generations, and horizontally through discourses of national or social honour to one’s duty. This study contributes to a sense of honour as a dynamic and omnipresent discourse in the early modern era, one that structured and dictated the lives of the Elizabethan aristocracy.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis analyzes the impact of the Dark Age of comics on Grant Morrison’s comic book series The Invisibles, specifically arguing that the traditional superhero figure enacts a certain narrative violence on the characters and text itself, both through direct violence and in the limiting of potential narratives. The first chapter establishes The Invisibles’ contemporary comic tropes, establishing Dark Age superheroes as an exceptionalist figures who use extreme violence to separate themselves from a perceived corrupt society. As such, this thesis moves from a psychoanalytic approach to heroism towards a schizoanalytic approach found in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, demonstrating how similar cycles of pathologization found in their critique of psychoanalysis also apply to The Invisibles’ attempt to innoculate itself against its own sensationalized violence. In doing so, the series eventually purges itself of the hero’s underlying ideological violences and attempts to actualize a Morrison’s own notions of utopia through the medium of comics, valuing multiplicities and the production of narratives to inform the experience of reality over a limitation of narratives based on violent conflict.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)