Revenge on the English stage has long been associated with Elizabethan and Renaissance revenge tragedies, and has been all but ignored in Restoration theater history. While the shortage of scholarly work on revenge in Restoration drama might seem to indicate that revenge is not a vital part of Restoration drama, I argue that revenge on stage in the Restoration is connected with important late seventeenth-century anxieties about monarchy and political subjecthood in the period. This dissertation examines how Restoration tragic drama staged during Charles II’s reign (1660-1685) depicts revenge as a representation of an unrestrained passion that contributes to the ‘seditious roaring of a troubled nation’ of which Thomas Hobbes writes in Leviathan. This dissertation suggests that we need to assess Restoration tragic drama’s employment of acts of vengeance in order to better understand how tragic drama of the period narrates crises of kinship, kingship, and political subjecthood. In chapters addressing blood revenge, rape, female passion, and personal ambition, I examine revenge in a number of Restoration tragic dramas written for the stage between 1660 and 1685. This project shows that characters’ claims to redress wrongs committed against the civil notion of justice collapse into private, individual desires that are pathological and destructive of the state. This project on revenge has the potential to shape the way we think about revenge on stage by calling attention to revenge as a sign of self-interest at the end of the seventeenth century, an age in which a shift in thinking about monarchy and personhood was taking place. Just as Hobbes warns against the “excessive desire of Revenge,” this dissertation shows how playwrights stage revenge as a warning about the potentially destructive consequences of revenge: revenge puts not only private bodies in danger but also the public well being of the state.

Some of the older actors of the Restoration provided a link between the pre- and post-Commonwealth stages by preserving their craft during the years from 1642 to 1660, despite the harsh and numerous restrictions enacted by the Parliament. Some of the younger players, on the other hand, quickly mastered their art and continued the tradition preserved for them by men such as Charles Hart and Michael Mohun. The greatest actors and actresses of the period certainly influenced the direction of Restoration drama in several ways. Thomas Betterton and Elizabeth Barry were so skilled that on several occasions leading dramatists asked their advice about dialogue, character development, and stage business. Other actors, such as Samuel Sandford and Colley Cibber, developed into great character actors, and the dramatists created roles especially suited to their talents. William Congreve 's admiration for Anne Bracegirdle's talent and beauty perhaps contributed substantially to the creation of the character of Millimant in The Way of the World. Actors such as William Penkethman and Joseph Haines often insured a play's success by their antics on the stage. In addition to the major figures of the period, a substantial number of competent minor actors and actresses mastered the character roles which appear with frequency in much Restoration drama. The Restoration players exerted an influence on both the direction and content of the drama of the period. A better understanding of their performances and personalities could well lead to a better understanding of the drama itself. I have followed the alphabetical listing of the actors and actresses given in Part I of The London Stage, making a few additions where I found them necessary. For the most part, each entry contains information on the player's first and last recorded performances and on his best roles. Whenever possible I have included commentary about his ability. In addition, I have tried to provide data about the character and personality of each player when possible. In some instances I felt that the physical appearance was important and included that information. Much of the information in each entry comes from Restoration and eighteenth century sources. John Downes's Roscius Anglicanus and Thomas Davies' Dramatic Miscellanies were especially valuable, as was John Genest's Some Account of the English Stage. In the twentieth century, the works of John Harold Wilson and Sybil Rosenfeld were very helpful. Finally, the massive scholarship of The London Stage pervades this dissertation. Without that work my task would have been impossible.

My dissertation explores the presence of physiognomy, which is the reading of faces and bodily affects to determine a person’s character. I investigate plays originally produced for the early English stage, ranging from the late Middle Ages to the Restoration. In this work I argue that the bodies within the selected plays exist as texts that are to be interpreted by readers and audience members alike. While embodiment theory has done excellent work in explaining the corporeality of the pre-modern body, it does not consider the body as a textual construction. My work aims to fill such a gap. My main methodology is historicist, both old and new. I employ the former insofar as I incorporate primary texts relevant to understanding physiognomy and its workings on the early English stage. I also use New Historicism since I cover many influences on physiognomy, including theology, politics, and philosophy of the mind. The first chapter probes the York Cycle’s biblical play The Conspiracy, as well as the morality play Mankind. I claim that physiognomy highlights the participatory aspects of both plays, as each contains bodies that help audiences learn of true piety. In the second chapter, I discuss Shakespeare’s problem plays All’s Well that Ends Well and Hamlet. I posit that the genre of problem play can best be understood as including works that contain incomplete or inaccurate physiognomic readings. For my final chapter, I analyze the tragicomedies Marriage a-la-Mode, by John Dryden, and The Widow Ranter, by Aphra Behn. I insist that examining the physiognomic readings can help us unite the dialectics between and among the multiple plots within each play. Over the course of these three chapters, I conclude that the body-as-text, understood through physiognomy, allows modern readers to better grasp pre-modern understandings of internality as it evolved from the Middle Ages to the Restoration. In addition, I contend that genre often dictates the ways in which bodies are constructed textually. In summary, the contributions of my work can be listed as the following: (1) I provide examples of how physiognomy can be used to support a variety of methodologies, including Marxism, feminism, and deconstruction. (2) I offer a more thorough history of physiognomy, ranging from the late Middle Ages to the Restoration. (3) My work with genre is unique among current scholarship that engages with physiognomy. In my conclusion, I suggest paths forward with this project, such as the use of other methods for interpreting the body as a text, consisting of anatomy, physiology, and allegory.

Of all of Austen<&trade>s works, Lady Susan tends to stand alone in style and character development. The titular character of the novella in particular presents a literary conundrum for critics and readers of Austen. In an attempt to understand the character and why Austen wrote her, Lady Susan has been considered as a œmerry widow (Lane), a Machiavellian power figure (Mulvihill), and an indication of Austen<&trade>s familiarity with gossip and adultery (Russell). Despite these varied and colorful readings, critics have failed to fully resolve the differences between Lady Susan and Austen<&trade>s more beloved, maidenly heroines such as Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliott.This paper delves into one explanation that has hitherto been overlooked”Lady Susan<&trade>s relationship to the Restoration rake character trope. In light of Lady Susan<&trade>s philandering, independent, and mercenary ways, as well as her likeable yet reprehensible personality, the connection to the Restoration rake is readily apparent. Reading Lady Susan as a rake better informs critical understanding of this character and sheds new light on Jane Austen<&trade>s own perspectives on gender, while also forming a dialectic for critics and audiences for their own perspectives on gender, gender roles, and acceptable behavior. To accomplish this task, this paper explores Austen<&trade>s own early experiences with theatre and her predilection for theatrical allusions, the rake character<&trade>s genealogy and influence on literature, and a close reading of the novella in context of Restoration comedies.

Until recent years, the historical moment of Charles II's return to England was universally accepted as a clear marker of the end of "the Cavalier winter," a welcome victory over theater-hating Puritans. To verify this historical view, literary historians have often glorified the role of King Charles II in the history of the "revival" of drama during the Restoration, whereas they tend to consider the Long Parliament's 1642 closing of the theaters as a decisive manifestation of Puritans' antitheatricalism. This historical perspective based upon what is often known as "the rupture model" has obscured the vibrant development of dramatic forms during the English civil wars and the ways in which the revolutionary energy exploded during this period continued to influence in the Restoration the deployment of dramatic forms and imagination across various social groups. By focusing on the generic development of drama and theatricality during the English civil wars, my dissertation challenges the conventional historiography of the English civil war literature, which has been overemphasizing the discontinuity between the English civil war and the periods before and after it. The first chapter shows how the theatrical energy displaced from traditional cultural domains energized an emerging cheap print market and contributed to the invention of new dramatic forms such as playlets and newsbooks. The second chapter questions the conventional association of Puritanism and antitheatricalism by rehistoricizing antitheatrical writers and their pamphlets and by highlighting the dramatic impulses at work in Puritan iconoclasm during the English civil wars. The final chapter offers the Restoration Milton as a case study to illustrate how the proposed historical perspective replacing "the rupture model" better explains not only the politics of Milton's Paradise Lost but also of Restoration drama.