This thesis investigates the shifting representation of trash and trifles in the literature and art of sixteenth and early seventeenth century England. It connects previously disparate critical fields – religion, politics, national identity, travel, literary criticism – in order to offer new perspectives on the period. The investigation of the terms ‘trash' and ‘trifles' at the centre of this project reinstates a crucial literary perspective to the historical study of early modern England's crises in spiritual and material value, whilst retaining a keen awareness of the importance of interconnected historical contexts ranging from the mercantile to the spiritual and the cultural. I have traced the connected development of the terms trash and trifles across the period 1519-1614, and closely examined their use in response to various crises in value, whether spiritual or mercantile. How writers of polemic and drama develop a language in which to articulate such crises, and the ways in which that language necessarily combines elements of both the spiritual and the mercantile, is a central theme. Key elements of this development are marked by Queen Katherine Parr's invective about the mercantile corruption of spiritual treasure with material papal ‘tryfles'; Sir Thomas Smith's assertion of the spiritual immorality of material ‘trifles'; Thomas Harriot and John White's presentation of the mercantile and spiritual benefit of exporting trash and trifles to the New World; and in the staging of trash and trifles in a series of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century plays which, I argue, were in part designed to mount a defense against anti-theatrical allegations regarding the effeminate valuelessness of playing. This thesis illustrates how the deployment of the terms trash and trifles in early modern England can be productively used to trace the shaping of the Protestant English commonwealth as a destinct, secure and valuable entity in an unstable and increasingly global post-Reformation world.

This thesis investigates how the size, structure and function of the family presented in Shakespeare's plays relates to an early modern understanding of the importance and function of the family. By examining domestic manuals, pamphlets, treatises and diaries from the early modern period, I establish what was considered normative domestic behaviour at the time and analyse Shakespeare's plays through these contemporary attitudes, specifically their treatment of privacy, household structure and medical beliefs surrounding reproduction and gynaecology. This thesis seeks to focus on the way in which people's positions in the family change over time, from infancy to adulthood, and how these relationships are represented in Shakespeare's plays. Beginning with marriage, where the family is first formed; I examine Othello and Macbeth, and show how the marriages in these plays, while tragic, are cherished and valued. Succession was integral to the legacy and sustainability of a family, which is the topic of the next chapter, in which I explore the notions of how children are conceived and raised in Richard III and The Winter's Tale. The transition from childhood into adulthood was fraught with change in both housing and legal circumstances, and this struggle in adolescence is clearly depicted in Romeo and Juliet, which comprises the third chapter. Aside from the familial relationships of husband and wife and parent and child, the most influential relationships were those of siblings, which I investigate in a number of plays in the fourth chapter. Finally, I focus on the traditional and complicated nuclear families in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet and Coriolanus, and analyse how the family is highlighted and valued in each of these plays. The thesis concludes that throughout Shakespeare's work, the family is privileged over war, nobility and absolute patriarchal control, emphasising that it is vital to understanding and analysing Shakespeare's plays.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma tradução comentada de parte do livro The Unfortunate Traveller: or, The Life of Jack Wilton, escrito por Thomas Nashe em 1594 e discute os desafios de traduzir pela primeira vez para o português esse romance picaresco escrito durante o período elisabetano. As alterações estruturais, lexicais e semânticas ocorridas na língua inglesa durante esses anos e as diferenças culturais entre a Inglaterra do século XVI e o Brasil da atualidade são algumas das dificuldades enfrentadas no processo tradutório dessa obra. O primeiro capítulo apresentará uma leitura crítica da obra, do autor e uma contextualização do romance picaresco. No segundo capítulo haverá uma explanação das duas teorias de tradução usadas nesta dissertação: as tendências deformadoras propostas por Antoine Berman (1985), que propõem identificar as variações encontradas nas traduções em relação ao texto original; e o modelo descritivo das Modalidades de Tradução elaboradas pelo Prof. Dr. Francis H. Aubert (1998, 2006), derivado do modelo pedagógico dos procedimentos técnicos da tradução (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958, 1977). No terceiro capítulo usaremos essas duas teorias como ferramentas para análise das escolhas tradutórias adotadas e suas implicações na escrita do texto na língua de chegada. O quarto capítulo trará a tradução de 50% do livro ao lado do texto original em inglês com notas e comentários no rodapé. / This work presents an annotated translation of a part of the book The Unfortunate Traveller: or, The Life of Jack Wilton, written by Thomas Nashe in 1594 and discusses the challenges of translating for the first time into Portuguese this picaresque novel written during the Elizabethan period. Structural, lexical and semantic changes in the English language over the years and the cultural differences between the sixteenth-century England and contemporary Brazil are some of the difficulties in the translation process of this work. The first chapter will present a critical reading of the work and the author. In the second chapter there will be an explanation of the two translation theories used in this dissertation: the comparative method of deforming tendencies proposed by Antoine Berman (1985), which proposes to identify the variations found in translations from the original text. And the second, the The translation modalities descriptive model developed by Francis H. Aubert (1998, 2006), derived from the pedagogical model of the technical procedures of translation (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958, 1977). In the third chapter these two theories will be used as tools to analyze the translation choices and its implications in writing the text in the target language. The fourth chapter will bring the translation of 50% of the book side by side with the original text in English with notes and comments in footnotes.