This dissertation examines beggars, gypsies, rogues, and vagrants presented in early modern English drama, with the discussion of how these peripatetic characters represent the discourses of vagrancy of the period. The first chapter introduces Tudor and early Stuart governments' legislation and proclamations on vagabondage and discusses these governmental policies in their social and economic contexts. The chapter also deals with the literature of roguery to point out that the literature (especially in the Elizabethan era) disseminated such a negative image of beggars as impostors and established the antagonistic atmosphere against the wandering poor. The second chapter explores the anti-theatrical aspect of the discourses of vagrancy. Along with the discussion of early playing companies' traveling convention, this chapter investigates how the long-held association of players with beggars is addressed in the plays that are dated from the early 1570s to the closing of the playhouses in 1642. In the third chapter I read Shakespeare's King Lear with the focus on its critical allusions to the discourses of vagrancy and interpret King Lear's symbolic experience of vagrancy in that context. The chapter demonstrates that King Lear represents the spatial politics embedded in the discourses of vagrancy and evokes a sympathetic understanding of the wandering poor. Chapter IV focuses on Beggars' Bush and analyzes the beggars' utopian community in the play. By juxtaposing the play with a variety of documents relating to the vagrancy issue in the early seventeen century, I contend that Beggars' Bush reflects the cultural aspirations for colonial enterprises in the early Stuart age. Chapter V examines John Taylor's conceptualization of vagrancy as a trope of travel and free mobility, and discusses the "wanderlust" represented in A Jovial Crew: Merry Beggars as an exemplary anecdote showing the mid seventeenth century's perceptions on vagrancy and spatial mobility. Thus, by exploring diverse associations and investments regarding vagrants, this study demonstrates that the early modern discourses of vagrancy have been informed and inflected by shifting economic, socio-historical, and national interests and demands.

This dissertation analyzes undertheorized grammatical and linguistic details of Shakespeare’s language. Using tools derived from the fields of linguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis, I trace the ways that Shakespeare’s speakers represent themselves in language, and how they position themselves relative to their interlocutors. Grounding my study in a selection of Shakespeare’s works in which questions of self-positioning are particularly fraught, I argue that the nuances of grammar that undergird the linguistic performance of Shakespeare’s speakers encode significant clues about interaction and interpersonal relationships. I maintain that the minute details of linguistic encounters, easily overlooked words such as modal verbs (particularly shall and will) and deictic markers (words such as I, this, and now), hold important information about speakers’ perceptions of themselves, their interlocutors, and their environment. Attention to such details, and to charged moments of linguistic encounter in which speakers must negotiate their modes of self-positioning, helps to illuminate the troubled processes of self-representation and changing self-perception. Chapter one focuses on Shakespeare’s sonnets, and suggests that these poems provide a productive model for the examination of the nuances of speech and interactive dialogue. I anchor my discussion in the particular resonance of the word shall in the sonnets, and explore the ways in which the sonnet speaker attempts to preserve linguistic control relative to a threatening interlocutor. The second chapter extends these concerns to consider how the speakers of Troilus and Cressida respond to a wide network of potentially threatening interlocutors. In this chapter, I focus on linguistic encounters such as arguments and gossip to examine the risks that speakers encounter when they enter the fray of communal discourse. My third chapter turns to Coriolanus to consider moments of aggressive linguistic collisions, in which speakers vie for the right to speak a potent and contested word such as shall. The fourth and final chapter analyzes Richard II through the frame of deictic markers and grammatical modes of self-reference to consider the protective strategies afforded by language in moments of crisis.

This dissertation analyzes undertheorized grammatical and linguistic details of Shakespeare’s language. Using tools derived from the fields of linguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis, I trace the ways that Shakespeare’s speakers represent themselves in language, and how they position themselves relative to their interlocutors. Grounding my study in a selection of Shakespeare’s works in which questions of self-positioning are particularly fraught, I argue that the nuances of grammar that undergird the linguistic performance of Shakespeare’s speakers encode significant clues about interaction and interpersonal relationships. I maintain that the minute details of linguistic encounters, easily overlooked words such as modal verbs (particularly shall and will) and deictic markers (words such as I, this, and now), hold important information about speakers’ perceptions of themselves, their interlocutors, and their environment. Attention to such details, and to charged moments of linguistic encounter in which speakers must negotiate their modes of self-positioning, helps to illuminate the troubled processes of self-representation and changing self-perception. Chapter one focuses on Shakespeare’s sonnets, and suggests that these poems provide a productive model for the examination of the nuances of speech and interactive dialogue. I anchor my discussion in the particular resonance of the word shall in the sonnets, and explore the ways in which the sonnet speaker attempts to preserve linguistic control relative to a threatening interlocutor. The second chapter extends these concerns to consider how the speakers of Troilus and Cressida respond to a wide network of potentially threatening interlocutors. In this chapter, I focus on linguistic encounters such as arguments and gossip to examine the risks that speakers encounter when they enter the fray of communal discourse. My third chapter turns to Coriolanus to consider moments of aggressive linguistic collisions, in which speakers vie for the right to speak a potent and contested word such as shall. The fourth and final chapter analyzes Richard II through the frame of deictic markers and grammatical modes of self-reference to consider the protective strategies afforded by language in moments of crisis.

This dissertation examines beggars, gypsies, rogues, and vagrants presented in early modern English drama, with the discussion of how these peripatetic characters represent the discourses of vagrancy of the period. The first chapter introduces Tudor and early Stuart governments' legislation and proclamations on vagabondage and discusses these governmental policies in their social and economic contexts. The chapter also deals with the literature of roguery to point out that the literature (especially in the Elizabethan era) disseminated such a negative image of beggars as impostors and established the antagonistic atmosphere against the wandering poor. The second chapter explores the anti-theatrical aspect of the discourses of vagrancy. Along with the discussion of early playing companies' traveling convention, this chapter investigates how the long-held association of players with beggars is addressed in the plays that are dated from the early 1570s to the closing of the playhouses in 1642. In the third chapter I read Shakespeare's King Lear with the focus on its critical allusions to the discourses of vagrancy and interpret King Lear's symbolic experience of vagrancy in that context. The chapter demonstrates that King Lear represents the spatial politics embedded in the discourses of vagrancy and evokes a sympathetic understanding of the wandering poor. Chapter IV focuses on Beggars' Bush and analyzes the beggars' utopian community in the play. By juxtaposing the play with a variety of documents relating to the vagrancy issue in the early seventeen century, I contend that Beggars' Bush reflects the cultural aspirations for colonial enterprises in the early Stuart age. Chapter V examines John Taylor's conceptualization of vagrancy as a trope of travel and free mobility, and discusses the "wanderlust" represented in A Jovial Crew: Merry Beggars as an exemplary anecdote showing the mid seventeenth century's perceptions on vagrancy and spatial mobility. Thus, by exploring diverse associations and investments regarding vagrants, this study demonstrates that the early modern discourses of vagrancy have been informed and inflected by shifting economic, socio-historical, and national interests and demands.

The question of adverbs and the meaning of the present perfect across varieties of English is central to sociolinguistic variationist methodologies that have approached the study of the present perfect (Winford, 1993; Tagliamonte, 1997; van Herk, 2008, 2010; Davydova, 2010; Tagliamonte, 2013). This dissertation attempts to disentangle the effect of adverbial support from the three canonical readings of the present perfect (Resultative, Experiential and Continuative). Canadian English, an understudied variety of English, is used to situate the results seen in the Early Modern English data. Early Modern English reflects the time period in which English has acquired the full modern use of the present perfect with the three readings. In order to address both these questions and current controversies over statistical models in sociolinguistics, different statistical models are used: both the traditional Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith, 2005) and the newer mixed-effects logistic regression (Johnson, 2009). What is missing from the previous literature in sociolinguistics that advocates logistic mixed-effects models, and provided in this dissertation, is a clear statement of where they are inappropriate to use and their limitations. The rate of adverbial marking of the present perfect in Canadian English falls between rates reported for US and British English in previous studies. The data show in both time periods that while adverbs are highly favored in continuative contexts, they are strongly disfavored in experiential and resultative contexts. In Early Modern English, adverbial support functions statistically differently for resultatives and experientials, but that difference collapses in the Canadian English sample. Both this and the other linguistic contexts support a different analysis for each set of data with respect to adverbial independence from the meaning of the present perfect form. Finally, when the focus of the analysis is on linguistic rather than social factors, both the traditional and newer models provide similar results. Where there are differences, however, these can be accounted for by the number of tokens and different estimation techniques for each model.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1933. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. [391]-400.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1933. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. [391]-400.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1912. / Bibliography: 2 p. at end.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

The question of adverbs and the meaning of the present perfect across varieties of English is central to sociolinguistic variationist methodologies that have approached the study of the present perfect (Winford, 1993; Tagliamonte, 1997; van Herk, 2008, 2010; Davydova, 2010; Tagliamonte, 2013). This dissertation attempts to disentangle the effect of adverbial support from the three canonical readings of the present perfect (Resultative, Experiential and Continuative). Canadian English, an understudied variety of English, is used to situate the results seen in the Early Modern English data. Early Modern English reflects the time period in which English has acquired the full modern use of the present perfect with the three readings. In order to address both these questions and current controversies over statistical models in sociolinguistics, different statistical models are used: both the traditional Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith, 2005) and the newer mixed-effects logistic regression (Johnson, 2009). What is missing from the previous literature in sociolinguistics that advocates logistic mixed-effects models, and provided in this dissertation, is a clear statement of where they are inappropriate to use and their limitations. The rate of adverbial marking of the present perfect in Canadian English falls between rates reported for US and British English in previous studies. The data show in both time periods that while adverbs are highly favored in continuative contexts, they are strongly disfavored in experiential and resultative contexts. In Early Modern English, adverbial support functions statistically differently for resultatives and experientials, but that difference collapses in the Canadian English sample. Both this and the other linguistic contexts support a different analysis for each set of data with respect to adverbial independence from the meaning of the present perfect form. Finally, when the focus of the analysis is on linguistic rather than social factors, both the traditional and newer models provide similar results. Where there are differences, however, these can be accounted for by the number of tokens and different estimation techniques for each model.