This dissertation studies the representation of calendars and the idea of custom in Tudor English literature. Social historians have demonstrated that the early modern English calendar was anything but stable, and that the nature of days and their observances was often hotly disputed. This is a study of how authors of literature reflected and produced calendar consciousness in the face of changing systems of time reckoning. I focus upon texts which explore alternative models of social time: Thomas More's Utopia, Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calender and Faerie Queene, William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and a cluster of texts published in 1603. These works share the recognition that calendars are at least as much the product of custom as they are of nature, and are therefore potentially open to social adaptation and political appropriation. The idea of custom as "second nature" is both an object of study in the dissertation and provides its general methodology and theoretical orientation. In early modern usage, "custom" could refer to much of what we might call both "ideology" and "culture." In its most general sense, however, custom simply referred to individual habit and social praxis, and was one means by which particular activities could be politically legitimated. My goal is to demonstrate what many early modern authors recognized: that a calendar is both a product of custom and a framework within which social behaviour is produced. When confronted with other systems of temporal organization, authors were encouraged to reflect upon their own, and to consider the possibilities in alternative social orders.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.19539 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Holmes, Christopher |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002021324, Theses scanned by McGill Library. |
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