This dissertation traces confessional speech as a performative mode of social subject formation in English dramatic texts and non-fiction accounts from the early modern period. I explore the confessional speeches that pervade these works to illuminate a self-reflexive sense of the inherent intersubjective power invested in the term and idea of confession. I argue that inhabitations of confessions conventional roles expose a sustained interest in the ways in which the power of this discursive structure might be mobilized. Long established in formal religious and legal practice, and predicated on ritualized configurations of discursive power, by the late sixteenth century, confession had developed a diffuse and complex social currency. My exploration of texts such as Heywood and Bromes The Late Lancashire Witches, Rowley, Dekker and Fords The Witch of Edmonton, Fords Tis Pity Shes a Whore, and Shakespeares Othello, illuminates how representations of confession expose the fissures in and dislocations of the discourses of power that animate them. This dissertations investigation of the interrelated dynamics of performativity, subjectivity, and power proceeds from a theoretical constellation informed by the work of scholars such as Austin, Butler, Felman, Foucault, and Althusser. I draw on this critical apparatus in terms of historically and generically situated representations of confessional interlocution to suggest that its subjective effects are constitutively multiple and simultaneous, revealing the dynamic interplay of configurations and reconfigurations of discursive power at work amidst the normative structures that delineate it as a social ritual.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11302012-151125 |
| Date | 11 December 2012 |
| Creators | Wanninger, Jane Miller |
| Contributors | Lynn Enterline, José Medina, Kathryn Schwarz, Leah Marcus |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11302012-151125/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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