The fear of able-bodied people pretending to be disabled was rampant in early modern England. Thieves were reputed to feign impairment in order to con charity out of well-meaning Christians. People told stories about these deceptive rogues in widely circulated prose pamphlets, sung about them in popular ballads, and even recorded their purported actions in laws passed to curb their counterfeiting. Feigned disability was especially prevalent--and potent--on the stage. Over thirty plays feature one or more able-bodied characters performing physical impairment. This dissertation examines the theatrical tradition of dissembling disability and argues that it played a central role in the cultural creation of disability as a category of identity. On the stage, playwrights teased out stereotypes about the non-standard body, specifically the popular notion that disability was always both deeply pitiful and, simultaneously, dangerously criminal and counterfeit. Fears of false disability, which surged during the English Reformation, demanded a policing of boundaries between able-bodied and disabled persons and inspired the first legal definition of disability in England. Rather than resolving the issue of physical difference, as the legal and religious authorities attempted to do, the theater revealed and reveled in the myriad complications of the non-standard body. The many plays that feature performances of dissembling disability use the trope to interrogate issues of epistemological proof, ask theological questions about charity and virtue, and, especially, explore the relationship between the body and identity. Fraudulent disability also had important literary uses as well; playwrights employed this handy theatrical instrument to construct character, to solve narrative problems, to draw attention to the manufactured theatricality of their dramas, and, often, to critique the practices of the commercial theater. Expanding beyond the medical perspectives offered by the few studies that have considered early modern disability, I argue that these performances emerge out of a complex network of literary, religious, and social concerns. For all that fraudulent disability may have been itself a type of fraud, trumped up by the state, the church, and the theater for their own diverse ends, it still wielded enormous influence in shaping notions of the non-standard body that are still current.

In medieval and early modern literature, people with psychological disabilities are commonly represented as nuisances, monsters, and pitiable wretches. This ableist paradigm is partly attributable to the fact that ‘mad’ characters evoke economic anxieties rooted in the socioeconomic climate of the societies in which the respective texts are created. Fictional ‘madmen’ are used as symbols of or scapegoats for economic problems such as rising poverty, price fluctuations, wealth inequality, and evolving inheritance systems. This exacerbates a prevailing belief that the psychologically disabled are undeserving of respect and care, or even that they are less than human. My goal in this dissertation is to document occurrences of this paradigm and analyse how they contribute to the cultural degradation and dehumanisation of people with psychological disabilities. Applying analytical frameworks provided by disability theorists regarding neurodiversity and sanism to medieval and early modern literature, this dissertation will attempt to expand and invigorate the conversation around disabled people’s cultural history. Each chapter finds the seed of its primary focus in scripture – for example, I examine Herod when discussing madness’s effect on the domestic realm and Noah when discussing madness in old age – and each proceeds in a generally chronologically fashion from scripture to medieval literature and finally early modern literature. The medieval texts I analyse are diverse and range from religious poems such as John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (c. 14th century) to the chivalric romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Likewise, the early modern texts under scrutiny include Ben Jonson’s city comedies and Shakespeare’s tragic Timon of Athens (1607). The wide-ranging nature of the texts I examine is intended to indicate that the ableist notions being unpacked are not limited by genre or period

This dissertation examines representations of sexual violence in Jacobean and Caroline comedy. / This dissertation examines representations of sexual violence in Jacobean and Caroline comedy. While representations of rape in early modern tragedy have received considerable attention, criticism has largely overlooked the extent of sexual violence in early modern comedy – in part because comedy tends to represent sexual violence in ways that do not match up with recognisable rape scripts. This project argues, however, that, like rape, the sexual violences of comedy “humiliate and induce fear, constraining the activities and choices of victims” (Anderson and Doherty 21). The study particularly examines dramatic representations of whore shaming, rape hearings, and cuckoldry in order to discuss how sexual violence is encoded in comic tropes, the comedic genre, and early modern culture generally. This systematic sexual violence took a daily toll on the lives of early modern women, limiting their ability to give meaningful consent, to control their bodies and sexual expressions, and to make choices within marriage. But while comedy often invites its audience to laugh at sexually violated women, rendering the violence they experience acceptable, it can also invite us to see that violence as violence – thereby challenging the ethics of our laughter. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis advisor: Mary Crane / “Motions of the Soul” explores and analyzes moments in the development of what I call an early modern poetics of religious desire, i.e. desire that has God as its referent. This poetics of religious desire builds upon but also departs from and transforms early modern Petrarchan and Ovidian poetics of secular erotic desire. I examine the poetics of religious desire in sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century metrical psalms, which are verse paraphrases of the lyric prayers that constitute the biblical book of Psalms. While much critical attention has been paid to seventeenth-century religious lyric poetry and its engagement with and response to contemporary secular love lyric traditions, much less attention has been paid to literary metrical psalms, which were the predominant form of religious poetry in the sixteenth century and, some have argued, the parent to the religious lyric poetry that flowered in the seventeenth century. This dissertation analyzes metrical psalms by Sir Thomas Wyatt, Anne Locke, Sir Philip Sidney, and George Herbert, exploring and demonstrating how these poets bring together the poetics of secular love poetry with the biblical poetics of the Psalms and contemporary theological and philosophical discourses on desire in order to develop a poetics of religious desire that illustrates and addresses early modern English culture’s interests and concerns in relation to desiring God. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

The early modern period of a time of religious renewal and upheaval that resulted in a wealth of new religious orders, particularly those for women. During this period of change, Catholic women responded to the threat of Protestantism by adapting the convent to their own needs. One of the most successful orders for women was the Congregation of the Visitation, founded by Jeanne de Chantal and François de Sales. The history of the Visitation tends to focus on de Sales rather than its cofounder de Chantal. This thesis attempts to reconcile this omission, detailing de Chantal's ability to demonstrate and enact her authority through the mode of letters. In doing so, this paper enters into a conversation on religious revival in the early modern period by illustrating the porous nature of the early modern convent and the role women had in shaping early modern religiosity. / History

Thesis advisor: Jean-Luc Solère / The debate about the causal status of Cartesian matter has been steadily brewing for the last few decades. In particular, there has been renewed interest in the question of whether Cartesian bodies can cause changes in motion in other bodies. Pitted against each other are two camps. The first consists of broadly causalist interpreters, who ascribe some sort of causal or active power to bodies; the second consists of occasionalistic interpreters (of body-body interaction), who maintain that bodies are devoid of all causal or active properties. There has been a notable pendulum swing in the last two decades, with the majority of recent publications favoring the causalist view. I aim to rebut these causalist interpreters and offer a new defense of occasionalism about body-body interaction. Along the way, I will break new ground in sorting out the details of Descartes’ views.The components of my dissertation can be viewed in two main groups. Chapters 1 through 4 will mount four independent arguments against the causalist view. Each of these chapters investigates Cartesian bodies at a different level of metaphysical analysis: in turn, I assess bodies in terms of their principal attribute or essence, in terms of their modes, in terms of physical forces, and in terms of God’s concurrent action. At each level of analysis I will argue on textual and philosophical grounds that Descartes does not ascribe active or causal powers to bodies. In chapter 5 and in the appendix, I will change gears and outline the details of my own occasionalist interpretation. In particular, I explain the basis and manner of God’s action on bodies. Here follows a detailed overview of each chapter. The first chapter focuses on extension as a principal attribute. I argue that Descartes neither does nor could ascribe causal properties to extension considered as a principle attribute. This is supported on two bases. First, I argue that the textual evidence does not favor a causalist reading of matter, but favors an occasionalist reading. For one thing, Descartes never ascribes secondary causality to matter itself; for another, Descartes appears to distinguish the causal status of bodies as “external causes” from the notion of secondary causality. This latter point will be shown to track the later distinction between occasional causes and secondary causes. Second, I argue that it would be impossible on metaphysical grounds for Descartes to claim that extension is causal. This is shown by first establishing the conditions for secondary causality in Descartes’ physics: a secondary cause determines changes in motion in a functional way (i.e. there is a necessary connection between specific pre-collision and specific post-collision states). Then I argue that none of the propria or properties of matter jointly satisfy this condition. The second chapter focuses on the modifications of matter. This is to block any suggestion that Descartes could attribute modes to matter which add properties not already contained in matter considered as a substance. I first establish the more general metaphysical thesis that no mode can add properties to a substance which are not already contained in that substance’s principal attribute. I infer secondly that Descartes therefore could not consistently attribute causal modes to matter, given that matter’s principal attribute is itself not causal. Third, I then have to explain in general how the properties of modes are contained in their substances. I argue that Descartes is committed to the thesis that the properties of modes are contained eminently in their substances. The third chapter focuses on a central concept of Cartesian physics: force. The results of collisions are determined by the forces of the colliding bodies. So if it turns out that force is a per se feature of Cartesian bodies, then scholars would have good reason for thinking that bodies are causal. I will argue that force is not a per se feature of bodies, but is rather a per aliud feature directly grounded in God’s causal action. In order to defend this thesis, I make a negative and then a positive argument. The negative argument takes aim at current scholarship. Over the past two decades there have been four distinct interpretive camps which all converge on the same interpretive thesis—namely, that force is indeed a per se property of bodies. I argue against each camp individually and then generally. My general argument is a significant and especially novel contribution to the literature, in that I show that the per se reading of force is inconsistent with Descartes’ formulations of the laws of nature. As for my positive argument, I present a new interpretation of Cartesian force which entails that force is ascribed to bodies per aliud by God’s direct, law-governed action. I argue that forces in particular, and physical tendencies in general, are best understood as (non-real) relations. A tendency for Descartes is the conditional relation between a mode’s instantiation in one instant and its continued instantiation in the next. I argue that this conditional relation is established by God’s direct action, in conformity with the laws of nature. Force is the comparative measure of tendencies which is used by God to determine which modes to preserve or instantiate after collisions. The fourth chapter considers a loose end, namely Descartes’ appeal to the scholastic notion of concursus. For the scholastics, the theory of concurrentism brought together the disciplines of theology, metaphysics, and physics by maintaining that natural creaturely operations depended upon direct and cooperative divine operation. Importantly, Descartes uses the terminology of concursus when explaining material change, which has led some scholars to argue that Descartes is committed to scholastic concurrentism. If this is true, then Descartes would be committed to the view that for every material change there would be a divine efficient cause and a creaturely efficient cause. But if there is a creaturely efficient cause, this by definition entails that bodies are efficient causes. My fourth chapter blocks this causalist reading on two grounds. First, I show that textually Descartes does not use “concursus” consistently with scholastic usage. Rather, as is the case with many technical terms which he appropriates, he subtly changes the meaning of this term. He uses “concursus” as a synonym for divine conservation or preservation. Second, I show that Descartes could not have been a concurrentist in the scholastic sense (which would be necessary for the causalist argument to go through). One thesis of concurrentism is the claim that the primary cause actualizes the secondary cause. But given Descartes’ ontology, he lacks the distinctions requisite for bodies to be capable of actualization. To be specific, he lacks any distinctions remotely analogous to a distinction between potency and act. The fifth and final chapter explains how God causes motion and changes in motion. This will involve clarifying the role of the laws of nature in explaining change. I will argue that the laws are general formulae describing how God causes motion in bodies. God’s action is thus the truth-maker of the laws. I will furthermore argue that God does not cause changes in motion because he wills the laws, but rather that the laws obtain because of the way that his nature leads him to redistribute the motion which he chose to create. I will also sort out some of the technical details of God’s decision to produce motion. The appendix makes a minor point about the nature of causality in body-body interactions. Based on conclusions from chapters 1 and 2, it is necessary to explain what sort of causality is involved in material changes. I argue that it is misleading to describe change on the model of efficient causality. Instead, it is best described in terms of “modal causality.” I will explain what upshots this has for understanding the radical departure of Descartes’ natural philosophy from scholasticism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Regardless of genre, Shakespeare’s plays open in many different ways on the stage. Some openings come in the form of a prologue and extend from it; others in the form of a framing dialogue; some may begin in medias res; and there is also a single case of an induction in The Taming of the Shrew. My dissertation, “Shakespeare’s Openings in Action: A Study of Four Plays from the Period 1591- c.1602,” subsequently referred to as “Shakespeare’s Openings in Action,” attempts to define the construction of openings in the context of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy and to understand texts which were written in the first place to be performed on a platform stage by actors experienced in theatrical practice. By analysing the playwright’s organization of the dramatic material, as reflected in the play-texts, I attempt to gauge how an opening set out to engage original audiences in the play, an essential function of theatrical composition, and to determine to what extent the play-text may be considered as an extended stage direction for early modern actors.1 What is the present state of scholarship in the subject? Although sparse, critical interest in the openings of Shakespeare’s plays can be found as early as 1935 in the work of A. C. Sprague, Shakespeare and the Audience. In more recent years, other studies have appeared, for instance, Robert F. Willson, Jr., Shakespeare’s Opening Scenes (1977), and a number of articles included in Entering the Maze: Shakespeare’s Art of Beginning, edited by F. Willson Jr. (1995). Existing scholarship provides a good general framework for further research into the openings of Shakespeare’s plays. In addition to the studies presented above, I shall draw on analytical approaches to play-text analysis which involve theatre practice, for example in the work of André Helbo, Approaching Theatre (1991), Anne Ubersfeld, Reading Theatre (1996), and John Russell Brown, Shakespeare’s Plays in Performance (1993); John Barton, Playing Shakespeare (1984), and Cicely Berry, Text in Action. London (2001). These works provide revealing insights into the theatrical possibilities of dramatic language and actor technique. 1The analytical method presented in this dissertation supplements studies made of the complex textual histories of Shakespeare’s plays by considering the staging and characterisation information they contain. In the case of multiple-text plays, it takes account of editorial scholarship and explains the reasons for choosing to analyse the material contained in one version over the other(s).

This thesis examines the interweaving metaphorical and material aspects of shipwreck in Renaissance French writing. In a period marked by proliferating transatlantic and other exploration on the one hand, and, on the other, by religious civil wars, the ship was freighted with new political and religious, as well as poetic, significance. This rich symbolism reaches its height in the moments where ships—both real and symbolic—are threatened with disaster. The thesis demonstrates that shipwreck does not function merely as an emblem or poetic motif, but as a part, or the whole, of significant modes of narrative. Shipwreck in this period is rarely, if ever, recounted as a purely aesthetic embellishment: the ethics of spectatorship and of co-operation are of constant concern. I argue that the possibility of ethical distance from shipwreck—imagined through the Lucretian suave mari magno commonplace—is constantly undermined, not least through a sustained focus on the corporeal. Examining the ways in which the ship and the body are made analogous in Renaissance shipwreck writing, I show how bodies are allegorised in nautical terms, and, conversely, how ships themselves become animalised and humanised. Secondly, in many of the texts in my corpus it is shown or anticipated that the description, narration and dramatisation of shipwreck has an impact not only on the bodies of its victims, but on those of spectators, listeners, and readers, too. This insistence on the physicality of shipwreck is also reflected in the dynamic of bricolage that, I argue, informs the production of shipwreck texts in the Renaissance. The dramatic potential of both the disaster and the processes of rebuilding is exploited throughout the century, culminating, as I show, in a shipwreck tragedy. By the late Renaissance, shipwreck is not only the end of a story; it forms, more often than not, its beginning.

The writings of John Aubrey (1626-1697) cover a variety of subjects, including natural philosophy, mathematics, educational theory, biography, and magic, among others. His principal scholarly interest, however, was antiquarianism, the early modern discipline which embraced subjects such as archaeology, anthropology, and palaeography. This thesis is a study of Aubrey’s antiquarian writings within the context of the European Republic of Letters. It begins with a revisionary survey of antiquarianism in England, 1660-1720, and proceeds to map his personal contacts and library before studying each of his major antiquarian works in detail. Aubrey emerges from this as a product of his time, but somewhat unusual in his eclectic use of the antiquarian tradition and his blending of antiquarian and natural philosophical methodologies. He was receptive to the latest scholarship, regardless of its origin, and his antiquarian writings were never mere antiquarianism, but moved beyond technical scholarship to address wider issues concerning the origins of English culture, the evolution of religion, the antiquity of the earth, and the nature of human invention. Aubrey is now best known for his so-called Brief Lives, a series of biographies of contemporaries, and this thesis also includes a chapter studying the Lives as a form of antiquarianism. It argues that their keen observation and unconventional form are due to a mixture of antiquarian minuteness with traditions of Theophrastan character-writing and Tacitean historiography and that previous readings of them rely too heavily upon an outdated view of Aubrey as eccentric and peripheral to the larger intellectual movements of the century. This thesis concludes with a reassessment of Aubrey’s scholarship and an argument that the patterns revealed highlight the insufficiency of current theories of antiquarian development in the early modern period. It also argues for the “literary” quality of Aubrey’s work and emphasises the importance of reading his antiquarian texts within the context of early modern definitions of literature.

"The Devil in the Detail" explores the rationality of magical belief on the early modern English stage. I examine how demons and demonic magic were depicted in the theatre, arguing that playwrights ascribed a sense of realism to the devil’s methods. In explaining the devil's modus operandi and exposing the limitations of his magic, the stage validates supernatural belief and depicts the devil’s craft as plausible. More broadly, this thesis is situated within the ongoing debate over the relationship between magic and scientific thought in early modern Europe, confirming that demonology was not an irrational superstition but a valid pre-science. Set against a background of witch persecution and the widespread belief that demons were a material reality, the devil was both the subject of prevalent intellectual inquiry and a popular figure on the early modern English stage, featuring in at least fifty-two plays between 1509 and 1638. Underpinning this particular brand of entertainment is a cohesive and consistent ontological framework that dictated the extent to which the devil could - and could not - operate in the material world, entirely in keeping with the dominant demonological thought of the time. "The Devil in the Detail" focuses on seven devil plays: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (c.1590), Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c.1590), John of Bordeaux (c.1590), Jonson's The Devil is an Ass (1616), Dekker, Ford and Rowley's The Witch of Edmonton (1621), Brome and Heywood's The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) and Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611). In each chapter, I demonstrate how these texts both adhere to orthodox demonology and emphasise the devil’s humanlike qualities. The final chapter presents the case for demonism in The Tempest.