The subjects of film and theatre belong to an extensive hierarchical debate that has remained prominent within the realm of performing arts since the introduction of cinema in the late nineteenth century. A plethora of scholars choose to argue in favor of the former, suggesting that film surpasses theatre as superior in both aesthetics and overall execution of naturalism; however, the argument is purely subjective and cannot be applied to all films and their corresponding plays. As a counterclaim, theatre continues to thrive as a prominent source of artistic entertainment globally, not only offering a contemporary twist to preexisting texts, but also impacting an audience in methods that film will never be able to do so. Maria Friedman’s High Society is a primary example that reaffirms how theatre can triumph the continual debate when compared to its preceding film – The Philadelphia Story – directed by George Cukor, both artistically and through its overall execution of the profound topics represented within the original text. This thesis will primarily juxtapose Cukor’s iconic film with Friedman’s revival of the former that was performed in 2015 at London’s Old Vic theatre, offering an innovative rebuttal to the preexisting debate as well as to affirm the argument of how theatre compellingly transforms the mundane.

This thesis analyzes the representation of disability in adaptations of Shakespeare’s Richard III in order to propose a theory of Prosthetic Adaptation. Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine’s film adaptation, and Patrick Warren’s manga adaptation, are closely read through the lenses of Adaptation Theory and Critical Disability Studies. Prosthetic Adaptation is the use and incorporation of disability in adapted texts in such a way that both the text and the portrayal/reading of the disability are mutually transformed. Close reading analysis is conducted with both Critical Disability Studies and Adaptation Studies lenses. The transformation of the texts and disability work together to push the boundaries of their genre/medium that they have been transformed into, using those broken boundaries to comment on disability itself. McKellen and Loncraine’s film uses archetypes of war films and shifts in tone to comment on the dangers of the disability stereotype and spectacle in film; Warren uses color and form to create a strong visual metaphor of the invisibility of disability to the able-bodied eye, commenting how disability is erased and removed from sociocultural context. It is through these commentaries that both the concept of disability and the texts themselves experience a broadening of potential meanings and a reshaping of boundaries.

This thesis describes how different 19th century poets and artists depicted elements of the medieval in their artwork as a means to contradict the rapid progress and metropolitan build-up of the Industrial Revolution. The poets discussed are John Keats and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; the painters include William Holman Hunt and John William Waterhouse. Examples of the poems and corresponding Pre-Raphaelite depictions include The Eve of Saint Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and The Lady of Shalott.

Exploring the process of designing, producing, directing and starring in a multimedia feminist re-interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in a contemporary social media landscape.

Shakespeare's ideas about free will and moral choice, as illustrated in his play Macbeth, may have been influenced by Dante's Inferno. Dante was known to Shakespeare's contemporaries, and therefore most likely to the Bard himself. Current literature has not conclusively addressed this topic, and a focused examination is important, because it offers both an additional perspective on free will in Inferno, and adds to the understanding of free will in Macbeth. Read at face value, Macbeth seems to bear no responsibility for his actions because they were preordained by the fates. Dante believed in free will, and Macbeth bears more than one similarity to his Commedia. Read through a Dantean lens, Macbeth has free will - even if choosing not to exercise it. Through the mere contemplation of the four reasons for not killing Duncan, Macbeth recognizes that he has the choice whether to become a traitor, with the consequences of suffering contrapasso damnation. But Macbeth elects to disregard the wisdom passed down in Dante's Commedia, and knowingly commits a heinously immoral act. Shakespeare uses his predecessor Dante as a tool to advocate for human agency and moral choices in a text that would otherwise be fatalistic. Both then and now, Shakespeare sought to influence his audiences' understanding of their own free will. One first has to believe in possessing free will, in order to use it to make the best possible choices. Dante and Shakespeare reaffirm our possession of free will to help us avoid individual and societal tragedies.

J.R.R. Tolkien was not only an author of fantasy but also a philologist who theorized about myth. Theorists have employed various methods of analyzing myth, and this thesis integrates several analyses, including Tolkien’s. I address the roles of doctrine, ritual, cross-cultural patterns, mythic expressions in literature, the literary effect of myth, evolution of language and consciousness, and individual invention over inheritance and diffusion. Beyond Tolkien’s English and Catholic background, I argue for eclectic influence on Tolkien, including resonance with Buddhism. Tolkien views mythopoeia, literary mythmaking, in terms of sub-creation, human invention in the image of God as creator. Key mythopoetic tools include eucatastrophe, the happy ending’s sudden turn to poignant joy, and enchantment, the realization of imagined wonder, which is epitomized by the character of Tom Bombadil and contrasted with modernist techno-magic seeking to alter and dominate the world. I conclude by interpreting Tolkien’s mythmaking as a form of mysticism.

This thesis will explore the segregation of detective fiction from the general fiction market between 1920 and 1940.

Argues that, without the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species," Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" and Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" would not have been written with their distinct style and themes, as evolution clashes with degeneration and female power (and the sexuality derived from that power) clashes with the new science. Stoker and Wilde combine the science of the late 19th century with the characters of their imaginations. Natural and sexual selection plays a part in these characters' core development. The mixture of sexuality, science and power in these two novels all combine to formulate what is known as Victorian sexology.

During the Great War, poetry played a more significant role in the war effort than articles and pamphlets. A campaign of extraordinary language filled with abstract and spiritualized words and phrases concealed the realities of the War. Archaic language and lofty phrases hid the horrible truth of modern mechanical warfare. The majority and most recognized and admired poets, including those who served on the front and knew firsthand the horrors of trench warfare, not only supported the war effort, but also encouraged its continuation. For the majority of the poets, the rejection of the war was a postwar phenomenon. From the trenches, leading Great War poets; Owen, Sassoon, Graves, Sitwell, and others, learned that the War was neither Agincourt, nor the playing fields of ancient public schools, nor the supreme test of valor but, instead, the modern industrial world in miniature, surely, the modern world at its most horrifying.

The nineteenth century critics appraised Shakespeare's heroines by standards different from those of the twentieth; consequently the two ages reached different conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to point out just what these differences are. A paper of this scope had to be narrowed in some ways. Otherwise a formidable array of heroines would have been enumerated, but little depth of research could have been shown. In the general conclusion the result would have been the same, as I have discovered through wide reading. To limit the subject only the most famous heroines could be included. The process of assembling a bibliography on the field of criticism of Shakespeare's heroines showed that some heroines bad been fully discussed, while others had been given little in the way of criticism. A great mass of material on a certain heroine, for example, would show that, since she was considered important by many writers of a certain period, she should be given consideration in this discussion. In this way the number of heroines discussed in this paper was limited to seven: Portia (in Merchant of Venice), Rosalind, Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cleopatra, and Lady Macbeth.