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published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Battle has consistently been the most dangerous collective human activity. In battle, human beings risk serious wounding and even death. Consequently, the study of the motivation of soldiers in combat is important to Military history. Combat motivation in the army of eighteenth-century Britain merits study, since the subject as it pertains to pre-industrial armies has at present received little attention. The soldiers of Hanoverian Britain received motivation from several sources. Basic training in the eighteenth-century British army laid the foundations for certain relationships among military personnel which contributed to combat motivation. One such relationship was a network of primary ties among soldiers. The relationship between soldiers and officers was also important. The relationship between individual soldiers and the military institution as a whole also contributed to combat motivation. These relationships created a set of standards to which to army expected soldiers to react. When they reacted correctly, they were motivated to face the dangers of combat. / Master of Arts

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In 1982, Richard C. Frushell urged the necessity for a critical study of Susanna Centlivre's plays. Since then, only a handful of books and articles briefly discuss herand many attempt wrongly to force her into various critical models. Drawing on performativity models, my reading of several Centlivre plays (Love's Contrivance, The Gamester, The Basset-Table and A Bold Stroke for a Wife) asks the question, "What was it like to see these plays in performance?" Occupying somewhat uneasy ground between literature and theatre studies, I borrow useful tools from both, to create what might be styled a New Historicist Dramaturgy. I urge a re-examination of the period 1708-28. The standard reading of theatre of the period is that it was static. This "dry spell" of English theatre, most critics agree, was filled with stock characters and predictable plot lines. But it is during this so-called "dry spell" that Centlivre refines her stagecraft, and convinces cautious managers to bank on her work, providing evidence that playwrights of the period were subtly experimenting. The previous trend in scholarship of this cautious and paranoid era of theatre history has been to shy away from examining the plays in any depth, and fall back on pigeonholing them. But why were the playwrights turning out the work that they did? What is truly representative of the period? Continued examination may stop us from calling the period a "dry spell." For that purpose, examining some of Centlivre's early work encourages us to avoid the tendency to study only a few playwrights of the period, and to avoid the trap of focusing on biography rather than text. I propose a different kind of aesthetic, stemming from my interest in the text as precursor to performance. Some of these works may not seem fertile ground for theorists, but discarding them on that basis fails to take into account their original purpose: to entertain.

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This study examines the interaction between religious and national affiliations within a Dissenting denomination. Linda Colley and Jonathan Clark argue that religion provided the unifying foundation of national identity. Colley portrays a Protestant British identity defined in opposition to Catholic France. Clark favors an English identity, based upon an Anglican intellectual hegemony, against which only the heterodox could effectively offer criticism. Studying the Baptists helps test those two approaches. Although Methodists and Baptists shared evangelical concerns, the Methodists remained within the Church of England. Though Baptists often held political views similar to the Unitarians, they retained their orthodoxy. Thus, the Baptists present an opportunity to explore the position of orthodox Dissenters within the nation. The Baptists separated their religious and national identities. An individual could be both a Christian and a Briton, but one attachment did not imply the other. If the two conflicted, religion took precedent. An examination of individual ministers, specifically William Winterbotham, Robert Hall, Mark Wilks, Joseph Kinghorn, and David Kinghorn, reveals a range of Baptist views from harsh criticism of to support for the government. It also shows Baptist disagreement on whether faith should encourage political involvement and on the value of the French Revolution. Baptists did not rely on religion as the source of their political opinions. They tended to embrace a concept of natural rights, and their national identity stemmed largely from the English constitutional heritage. Within that context, Baptists desired full citizenship in the nation. They called for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the reform of Parliament. Because of their criticism of church and state, Baptists demonstrate the diversity within British Protestantism. For the most part, religion did not contribute to their national identity. In fact, it helped distinguish them from other Britons. Baptist evangelicalism reinforced that separate identity, as the nation did not outweigh spiritual concerns. The church and state establishment perceived the Baptists as a threat to social order, but Baptists advocated reform, not revolution. They remained both faithful Baptists and loyal Britons.