This study examines the processes of signification for poisoned fictional objects indicated by the playscripts of all extant English Renaissance revenge tragedies which depict a character's murder by poison on stage. Discussion of these processes involves an understanding of the objects as signs, the methods of denotation and connotation which govern our understanding of such signs, and dramatic methods of manipulating sign-vehicles. In order to arrive at a coherent analysis, this study also examines many of the Renaissance English cultural codes in which poison plays a part. Because highly similar codes may be found in various contexts, four properties of poison take on the appearance of being inherent: invisibility, deception, corruption and poison/antidote duality. Renaissance authors, including the revenge-tragedy playwrights, frequently draw upon these properties in forming analogies to support their moral judgments By combining semiological and historical concerns, this study attempts to analyze the decoding processes of the spectator/participant as she watches the drama unfold and offers several possible interpretations of the dramatic action. Objects of particular interest include the poisoned sword and chalice of Hamlet, Gloriana's poisoned skull in The Revenger's Tragedy, the wine, arrows and incense of Women Beware Women, and, during a brief exploration of metaphorical poison, Desdemona's handkerchief in Othello Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's theological discussion of identity and representation in the Lord's Supper helps to define 'signs' and the drama in a Renaissance context. Cranmer's version of communion incorporates 'dramatic' conventions in manipulating the Eucharist which are similar to conventions used by the revenge-tragedy playwrights, including non-defective verbal explanation to compensate for iconographic incompleteness, and the maintenance of consistency in signification Cranmer and other theologians viewed Catholic liturgical practices as poisonous and idolatrous, and their anti-Catholicism was exploited by some revenge-tragedy playwrights, both to increase the audience's horror at the spectacle and to aid the audience's formation of moral judgments. In such plays as The Second Maiden's Tragedy, Kynge Johan and The White Devil, the anti-Catholicism explored by the manipulation of poisoned fictional objects collates into an elaborate anti-Catholic polemic / acase@tulane.edu

The first Fortune playhouse, far from being merely a rival to the Globe, housed a company that lay claim to a distinct theatrical tradition. Built in 1600 and situated in the northwest suburbs of Middlesex, the theatre represented the commercial and artistic aspirations of Phillip Henslowe and his son-in-law, the actor Edward Alleyn, who together brought the Lord Admiral's (later Prince Henry's) Men to the magnificent stage of the Fortune. There the players staged the best of their old repertory, notably the plays of Marlowe, and introduced new plays designed to please their predominantly middle-class audience, who had, in general, old-fashioned dramatic and conservative political tastes The tragedies were largely revivals, and the one extant new tragedy, Hoffman, continues the tradition of the Marlovian overreacher and the Kydian revenger. The history plays in the repertory reflect a distrust of Catholicism and an overt glorification of Prince Henry, the patron of the company, as the Protestant savior of England. The comedies, which reflect most clearly the tastes of the audience for which the bulk of the repertory was written, flatter the citizen-playgoers by romantically reconciling their apparently strict morality with their practical merchantilism. The repertory served the company well at least through the first decade of operation of the playhouse. Unfortunately, no new plays written for the company after 1611 survive. Events suggest, however, that the second decade would have been markedly less successful Overall, an examination of the repertory and history of the first Fortune reveals the distinctiveness of the company that, for too long, has been overshadowed by or incorporated into the critical evaluation of its more famous rival, the King's Men. By considering the Fortune in terms of its own strengths and weaknesses, we can gain a more accurate conception of the cultural milieu, which, in the drama at least, fostered various traditions / acase@tulane.edu

Late Victorian fiction often poses the trope of the rational, masculine mind, frequently associated with the figure of the male detective, in opposition to the stereotypically irrational, feminine mind. This binary underpins gender roles in Victorian sensation and detective novels, which both reinforce and trouble the simple vision of gender that these stereotypes imply. This dissertation examines and contextualizes the figure of the detective with its binary gender associations and the attempts it makes to negotiate and challenge the implicit tensions of contemporary gender roles. The sensational novels, Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862), Wood's East Lynne (1861), Collins's The Woman in White (1860), and Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds (1873), depict the victimization and aggression of orphaned young women; these melodramatic narratives thematize feminine dissatisfaction and demonstrate the potent, unofficial forces of surveillance and regulation in Victorian society. In general, these women have negative experiences with the law, which undermine their autonomy. Collins's The Moonstone (1860), Dickens's Bleak House (1852--3), and Collins's The Law and the Lady (1875) portray a young woman's interaction with the law in a manner that demonstrates her own capability and independence, whether the woman functions as subject of investigation, adjunct to it, or investigator herself. The detectives' own prejudices about gender and rationality are further challenged in an examination of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story 'A Scandal in Bohemia' (1892) and Sigmund Freud's 1905 case study of Dora. Finally, Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent ironically echoes and reworks the Victorian texts depictions of traditional gender roles and their faith in the efficacy of detection. Though many of these texts ultimately produce a limited, traditional vision of gender to create the apparent legal and moral order of the resolution, often, they also expand and even glorify women's positioning and abilities, offering a glimpse of greater feminine autonomy. While these texts do not envision the utopian possibilities out forth in 'New Woman' literature, the effect of these narratives exceeds their ideological limitations / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation contains a discussion of martyrs and martyrdom as it traces changes in the original meaning of the Greek word and the establishment of the martyr cultus. It also contains a review of the literature of martyrdom beginning with the biblical account of Saint Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles, continuing with the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede, The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine, and Acts and Monuments by John Foxe in order to determine criteria for martyrdom and characteristics common to Christian martyrs. Next, a review is made of the prose and poetic works of John Milton, and this review reveals Milton's expansion of the definition of martyrdom to include not only death, but also disgrace, torture, and imprisonment as a result of the profession of the true religion as found in Holy Scripture Using this information, an interpretation of Samson Agonistes is made in accordance with Milton's Christianity, and Samson is shown to be the archetypal Christian martyr who suffers disgrace, torture, imprisonment, and death attesting to the word of God. Milton also presents Samson with most of the attributes of a Christian martyr and though differences exist between Samson and the Christian martyr, they in no way negate his being an Old Testament type. Perfection as well as fulfillment is in the New Testament antitype, who is Christ Milton writes Samson Agonistes with Christian martyrdom in mind, and he presents Samson as a betrayer of God who suffers, repents, and has enough faith to dedicate himself to God's service again, if God wills it. Samson's regeneration and willingness to act are freely made decisions in accord with Milton's ideas of Christian liberty. Samson acquires a faith based on suffering, regeneration, and intellectual acceptance, and this faith contrasts with his early inherited faith / acase@tulane.edu

Throughout his career, Percy Bysshe Shelley experimented with the genre of the dream vision in attempts to identify and resolve conflicts between his poetic and political ambitions. Though critics have neglected the importance of the dream vision in the development of Shelley's thought and art, major poems such as Queen Mab, Laon and Cythna, and The Triumph of Life share formal and thematic characteristics that qualify them as adaptations of the genre. This genre study thus aims to close a lacuna in the criticism by reading certain poems of Shelley as examples of a specific kind of narrative that dramatizes visionary insight but places the experience in the context of a paradoxical fixation on materiality. As a pseudo-historical discourse, the dream vision also provides a medium for analyzing assumptions that govern historical discourse and its claims to truth and authority. This study asserts that the formal problems of interpretation in Shelley's visionary narratives disclose the poet's critical orientation to history and reveal an affinity between the dream vision and the contemporaneous emergence of the historical novel in the work of Walter Scott. Because Shelley's dream visions engage the same set of aesthetic dilemmas essential to Scott's formulation of the historical novel, this project argues for the importance of Shelley's generally uncredited contribution to the rise of realism as a dominant mode of expression in nineteenth-century literature / acase@tulane.edu

The dissertation explores the role of rape in the 'rise' of the novel, attempting to account for the surprising frequency with which rapes occur in early- and mid-eighteenth-century fiction. Narratives of rape to some degree 'enable' the increasingly restrictive domestic role constructed for women during the course of the century, though at the same time the gradual disappearance of such Stories from fiction is clearly owing to the eventual production of a feminized, Sentimental, masculine ideal. More importantly, eighteenth-century fiction uses rape, in all its ambiguity of intention and experience, to destabilize ways of knowing, and to explore the tenuous boundaries of identity The earliest novelistic narratives, 'amatory' works by Manley and Haywood, demonstrate that rape (as it takes form in fiction) gives rise to shattered fictions of identity and difficulty in representing the self. These authors demonstrate that a victim's physical, social, and psychological lives are violently disjoined by the act--and the consequences--of rape. This conjunction of themes--sexual violence and division of self--carries through the century. The dissertation examines the various uses of sexual violence in examples of popular fiction, moving from the work of Manley and Davys to Samuel Richardson's supposedly 'psychological' novel Clarissa. Sentimental novels by Burney and Inchbald are examined for their depiction of violence in the Sentimental family, while the terrors of Radcliffe's Gothic are highlighted by a comparison to Austen's illusory tranquility / acase@tulane.edu

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John Fletcher's last tragicomedy, A Wife for a Moneth (1624), has suffered unmerited neglect since the end of the seventeenth century. Although it is not unflawed, this play is a striking example of the playwright's unique tragicomic style. The play is included in the various eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century Beaumont and Fletcher collection, each of which is based mainly upon the text of the Second Folio (Fifty Comedies and Tragedies, 1679). With the exception of the Glover and Waller edition of 1907, which is little more than a reprint of the Second Folio text, all previous editions display the eclecticism characteristic of eigtheenth and nineteenth century editing. This old-spelling, critical edition, based on the authoritative text of the First Folio (Comedies and Tragedies, 1647), meets the need for a reliable text; it not only draws attention to this fine play, but also provides insight into John Fletcher's art in his more widely appreciated plays The Introduction to this edition begins with a discussion of the authorship of the play. John Fletcher's sole authorship has never been questioned. Nevertheless, a brief review of contemporary attribution and of linguistic and stylistic characteristics which support the assertion of Fletcher's authorship provides a foundation for the rest of the discussion. A review of various suggestions of sources for the play follows, leading to the conclusion that in most cases Fletcher drew on his potential sources only in the most general way Sections on Stage History and The Text document the rather few performances of this play and its history in print. The latter section also presents the rationale for selection of the First Folio as the copy text, and documents my extensive collation of copies of the First Folio text of A Wife for a Moneth In order to provide the reader with a sufficient sense of the intellectual milieu of the play, the Introduction also examines Fletcher's presentation of the themes of Absolute Monarchy, Melancholy, and Honor. This examination prepares for a consideration of the play as an example of the author's unique tragicomic style. The themes are less important in themselves than in the theatrical effects which they help to achieve. Fletcher's genius as an author of tragicomedy lies in his ability to produce certain effects: a series of startling events, rapid shifts of emotion, and a denouement which, while completely surprising, is well prepared-for in the course of the play. A Wife for a Moneth provides an excellent illustration of Fletcher's art The edition itself follows the dicta of W. W. Greg and Fredson Bowers, insofar as it preserves the significant accidentals of the copy text. In general, aside from the correction of obvious printing errors, the only emendations are those required to preserve the clarity of expression. The running commentary on the text provides the reader with insight into the linguistic, literary, and cultural background of the play / acase@tulane.edu

No longer considered as primarily a parody of the so-called School of Night, LLL has largely been regarded as a play about the acceptance of reality. This dissertation proposes that such a reading does not sufficiently credit Shakespeare's daring in writing a play which questions the nature of language and genre. In LLL, Shakespeare holds the mirror up to language, reflecting how it may be both properly used and abused; this theme, however, has implications which could not be contained within the traditional boundaries of comedy unless those boundaries were redefined. That Shakespeare does this is the argument of the study The concept of genre was closely allied with rhetorical tradition in Shakespeare's day; rhetorical analyses largely shaped the sixteenth century's definition of comedy. The explosion of dramatic activity in the Elizabethan era reflected the age's interest in rhetoric and debate; not surprisingly, the proper use of language and the form of its expression are themes which cross generic boundaries in the lyrical group of plays written by Shakespeare c. 1594-95: LLL, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream LLL expresses a skeptical attitude toward rhetoric which Chapter Two traces from Plato to the mid-seventeenth century. Shakespeare presents the abusers of language in LLL in a hierarchy: the lowest characters offend the least. The play's women, by insisting that their lovers reform their use of language, prevent any ultimately tragic mis-direction of rhetoric; they do not, however, prevent the 'sweet smoke of rhetoric' from obscuring the comic genre of the play Chapter Three examines the comic traditions which Shakespeare adapted to make this play end not 'like an old play.' Shakespeare emphasized the public spirit of comedy, requiring that both the immature courtiers of LLL and its audience learn the right use of language. Shakespeare's metadramatic techniques in the play reinforce this moral imperative Chapter Four closely examines the play from Marcade's entrance on, concluding with an argument of editorial preference for the 1623 Folio version of the play's end, which not only refers back to the play, but extends its influence outward to the everyday world / acase@tulane.edu

The increasing cultural authority of writers in the seventeenth century fosters the growth of many modern notions of authorship. I argue that the myth of the poet/musician Orpheus, whose skillful words civilized 'savage' early humans, provides the model for this more powerful role. The Orpheus myth intersects with key emerging discourses: the dynastic state and the nation-state, patronage and print, and gender and sexuality. Pursuit of Orphic laureateship emerges as a common thread in the careers of three very different poets, the professional and patronage writers John Dryden and Ben Jonson, and the anti-monarchist and scholar John Milton. In arguing for an Orphic laureate, I use evidence from Jonson's, Milton's, and Dryden's texts to establish the existence of a larger cultural pattern in the early modern period. I consider the Protestant embrace of text over ritual and the advent of print culture in conjunction with the application of musical theory in contemporary scientific discourses of medicine, political science, and rhetoric to establish the theoretical foundation for how Orphic magic influences human actions through music and texts. The ambiguities of the shift from patronage to print allow the Orphic laureates to magnify the threat of political censorship while using the new authority of critical expertise to reallocate this power to the academy. At the center of this effort are the formalization of the office of poet laureate and proposals to centralize cultural authority in a British Academy presided over by the chief critic, the laureate. The concept of the Orphic laureate also connects with Orpheus's reputation after his wife's death as a hater of women and the originator of male homosexuality. Laureates begin the later move toward biologically-based gender difference by reworking the traditional associations of women with the magic of creation and offering Orphic magic as the masculine, civilizing force that contains and shapes feminine Nature. One important result of these efforts is the trend among male writers to create all-male professional genealogies for themselves, lists that have formed many of our notions about canonicity and literary standards / acase@tulane.edu