Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The Spanish Tragedy'

During the height of the English Renaissance, the revenge tragedies The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet were introduced to the English literary canon. In this essay, I will focus on the similarities that the protagonists, Hamlet and Hieronimo, share as prototypical avengers. Although Hamlet’s contribution to the genre should not be discredited, I will argue that the similar characterisation of Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy, portrays the same depth and entitlement to the acclaim as a prototypical avenger as Hamlet. Even though their portrayal may differ in tone, their shared commonality attributes equal complexity to both characters. I will compare and analyse the two plays in order to demonstrate that both characters should be considered prototypical avengers. The essay concludes that a reluctance to revenge and a tendency to contemplate the morality of the action is prominently shared by both prototypical avengers. Although critics generally infer Hieronimo is a less complex character in comparison with Hamlet, this essay will show how both avengers deserve equal credit. This essay illustrates this statement by juxtaposing their equal need to find justification before taking revenge, use of suicide to emphasise their moral dilemma, and comment on the tragic consequences of revenge.

At the heart of Thomas Kyd's revenge tragedy The Spanish Tragedy lies an arranged marriage around which all of the other action revolves. Bel-Imperia of Spain has been betrothed against her will to Prince Balthazar of Portugal, but she is no ordinary woman, and she has plans of her own. Bel-Imperia's unwillingness to participate in the arranged marriage is indicative of the rise of the companionate marriage; it represents a rejection of the arranged marriage that dominated upper class society in earlier years. This study seeks to throw light upon early modern attitudes towards marriage, focusing particularly on the arranged marriage, the companionate marriage, and the state marriage. Additionally, it examines the role of woman as peace-weaver, a practice that dates back as far as the Beowulf manuscript. Using historical as well as literary sources to delineate these forms, I apply this information to a study of the play itself, with an emphasis on its performative value. Since the proposed marriage dictates all of the action of the play, an analysis of the bartered bride, Bel-Imperia, is of particular importance. This essay examines her character in depth as well as her relationships with Andrea and Horatio, who love her; with Lorenzo, the King, and her father, who seek to exploit her; and with Hieronimo, who becomes her partner in revenge. Additionally, I contrast her with Isabella, one of only two other female characters in the play and conclude by delineating how my analysis would affect a performance of the play and by "directing" a hypothetical interpretation of The Spanish Tragedy.

This paper explores the depiction and function of madness on the Renaissance stage, specifically its development as trope of the English revenge tragedy from its Elizabethan conception to its Jacobean advent through a representative engagement of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. Madness in these plays selectively departs from popular conceptions and archetypal formulas to create an uncertain dramatic space which allows its sufferers to walk moral lines and liminal paths unavailable to the sane. “Madness” is responsible for and a response to vision; where the revenger is driven to the edge of madness by a lapse in morality only visible to him, madness provides a lens to correct the injustice. It is the tool that allows them to escape convention, decorum and even the law to rout a moral cancer, and, in this capacity, is enabling rather than disabling.

Thesis advisor: Irene Mizrahi
This study is an analysis of the theatre of the Spanish contemporary playwright Raúl Hernández Garrido. It explores in depth his tragedy Los engranajes and it applies (in a more referential manner) the results of this investigation to the rest of his plays: Los malditos, Los restos: Agamenón vuelve a casa and Los restos Fedra, included in the cycle Los esclavos. The author utilizes myth and greek tragedy intentionally in order to make readers reflect upon the concepts of destiny and the fragility of human action as well as the fragmentation, hopelessness and dissatisfaction of contemporary societies. My study demonstrates that the formal innovation of these plays and the use of tragedy as their argumental framework present not only a criticism about these concepts but also an approach towards change and a social ethic of hope founded in creative freedom and the cooperation between the text and all people involved in the creative process. As a theoretical frame of reference for my study I use texts from Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Friedrich Nietzsche, René Girard and Emmanuel Levinas. Their reflections about the genre of tragedy and/or the concept of the tragic shed light upon my analysis of themes such as human suffering, trauma, the abuse of power, violence and the ethics of responsibility in the works of our author
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Romance Languages and Literatures

The aim of this study is to demonstrate the destructive effects of infidelity in the old-aged husband-the young wife marriages which end up with tragedy. In John Ford&rsquo
s Love&rsquo
s Sacrifice (1633) and Lope de Vega&rsquo
s Punishment Without Revenge (1631), tragedy turns out to be the inevitable consequence of the plays since the motives of jealousy, honour, revenge and love converge and lead people to commit sinful crimes. Within this scope, the first chapter of the thesis is devoted to the historical information about the state of English and Spanish theatres together with the biographies of the playwrights. In the second chapter, the tripartite relationship between jealousy, revenge, and honour is dealt with based upon examples from the primary sources in a historical framework. The reasons and results of these themes are studied through the characters in the plays. The third chapter covers the theme of love, its history and its influence on characters. In this chapter, the nature of love between the characters and its consequences are examined. The conclusion asserts that the old-aged husband and the young wife create a mismatched union and accompanied with the motives of honour, jealousy and revenge, the institution of marriage breeds tragic consequences. The analysis of the above mentioned themes is based on a historical context and it is also concluded that although Love&rsquo
s Sacrifice (1633) and Punishment Without Revenge (1631) belong to the Renaissance age, both plays bear the influences of the Greco-Roman drama tradition. Thus, the similarities and differences between classical and Renaissance tragedy are demonstrated.

El presente estudio muestra de qué manera la tragedia simbolista de Federico García Lorca -nos referimos a Bodas de sangre, Yerma, La casa de Bernarda Alba y Doña Rosita la soltera- sigue presente en la dramaturgia femenina española contemporánea. Con el propósito de crear un diálogo intertextual que nos permita ver en qué medida estas obras influyen en seis textos teatrales pertenecientes a la escena española más reciente: El color de agosto, 1987, de Paloma Pedrero (1957); Atra bilis (cuando estemos más tranquilas…), 2000, de Laila Ripoll (1964); El matrimonio de Palavrakis, 2000, de Angélica Liddell (1966), Como si fuera esta noche, 2002, de Gracia Morales (1973), Las voces de Penélope, 1996, de Itziar Pascual (1967); y Selección natural, 2007, de Pilar Campos Gallegos (1973). Todos ellos representados o editados entre las primeras décadas de la democracia, esto es, entre el «renacer» de la dramaturgia femenina (años 80) y el 2011, año en el que iniciamos nuestra investigación. El diálogo intertextual resultante presenta dos lecturas; una que presta atención a la temática de las obras y nos deja ver el conflicto dramático, el trazado psicológico y social de los personajes, la organización de la acción, del espacio y del tiempo. Y una segunda lectura que atiende al simbolismo del texto, a las imágenes que están dotadas de doble significación. Esta segunda lectura nunca es contradictoria de la primera, sino complementaria y muestra la hondura poética y la universalidad que contiene la obra, rasgos imposibles de trabajar en la primera lectura. Silenciadas durante siglos, es de esperar que su escritura se dedique/decante, en primer lugar, por cuestiones de género. Haciendo de su obra una acción combativa y política, de la que no hemos encontrado modelos femeninos anteriores, pero sí el teatro de Federico García Lorca. Con el que no sólo comparten la misma misión artística, esto es, el exterminio de la sociedad androcéntrica, sino, además, la extraordinaria capacidad de presentar un teatro impregnado de poesía, en el que combinan tradición y vanguardia y consiguen un teatro muy personal. El enfrentamiento entre el amor y el desamor, la vida y la muerte, la sociedad y el individuo, la vejez y la juventud, la fertilidad y la infertilidad,... entre muchos otros eternos opuestos, pueblan sus letras y por encima de todos, dos fuerzas que resumen sus obras: «principio de autoridad» y «principio de libertad». Puesto que, tanto Federico como las dramaturgas defienden por encima de todo la libertad personal, al derecho de escoger individualmente frente a las convenciones sociales aunque esto suponga una tragedia. Preocupación universal que afectaba a la época anterior a la II República y sigue afectando en la actualidad. Sin embargo, y aquí radica la diferencia, lo que verdaderamente separa los personajes de la dramaturgia lorquiana de los de las autoras contemporáneas es la impronta de una época que resolverá de manera bien distinta los conflictos de sus personajes. Lo interesante de este primer enfrentamiento que proponen sus escritos es reconocer entre líneas un segundo enfrentamiento que nada tiene que ver con su condición genérica, histórica y social, sino metafísica. Nos referimos al sentimiento trágico de la vida. De esta manera, pasan a ser las continuadoras de un pensamiento que entronca con la filosofía alemana del XIX y del existencialismo del XX. Reconociendo ese tiempo que se les escapa, esa desilusión que tiene el vivir, o lo que es lo mismo, ese sentimiento de desgarro que sufren al aceptar su esencia finita. Situándose, de este modo, en el territorio de lo trágico existencial, que es el mismo en el que se sitúan Federico García Lorca y los grandes escritores.
This study shows how the symbolist tragedy of Federico Garcia Lorca - specifically Bodas de Sangre, Yerma, La casa de Bernarda Alba and Doña Rosita la Soltera - is present in contemporary Spanish female drama. We have created an intertextual dialog which allows us to see to what extent these plays influence six theatrical texts belonging to the present-day Spanish scene: El color de agosto, 1987, by Paloma Pedrero (1957); Atra bilis (cuando estemos más tranquilas…), 2000, by Laila Ripoll (1964); El matrimonio de Palavrakis, 2000, by Angélica Liddell (1966), Como si fuera esta noche, 2002, by Gracia Morales (1973), Las voces de Penélope, 1996, by Itziar Pascual (1967); and Selección natural, 2007, by Pilar Campos Gallegos (1973). All of these plays have been produced or edited during the first decades of democracy, that is, between the renaissance of femenine dramaturgy (1980s) and 2011, which is when we began this investigation. The resulting intertextual dialog presents us with two possible readings; firstly, one which focusses on the plays' themes and looks at dramatic conflict, the characters' psychological and social outline, and the organization of action, space and time. Secondly we propose a reading which focusses on the text's symbolism, on the images which are full of double meanings This second reading is not contradictory to the first, rather it complements it, showing the poetic depth and universality contained in the play, features which are impossible to derive from the first reading. Silenced for centuries, it is no surprise that these women's writing focusses primarily on the question of gender, making their work a militant and political action the like of which we have not seen in previous female authors. This aspect is, however, clearly present in the work of Federico García Lorca, with whom the authors not only share an artistic mission - the downfall of male-centred society - but also the extraordinary capacity to present a theatre steeped in poetry where tradition and modernity combine to create a very personal creation. The interesting thing about this first reading offered by their works is to recognize between the lines a second reading, which has nothing to do with the writers' gender or socio-historical condition, but rather is related to their metaphysical condition, namely the tragedy of life. In this way, these writers are representatives of an idea which connects both with 19th-century German philosophy and the Existentialism of the twentieth century, recognizing that time escapes them, that life is disappointment, and the ripping sensation which they suffer upon accepting their mortality, placing themselves thus alongside great writers such as Federico García Lorca in the territory of existential tragedy.

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Was Federico García Lorca a political agent? This is the question that frames the research here presented. However, this question must be split in two in order to be properly answered: first, who was García Lorca, taking into account his life and work; second, the several possibilities for political action. Politics is not restricted to the institutional realm, but permeates individual and societal relationships, being present both in public and private affairs, touching and being touched by art. A tragic artist, Federico García Lorca constitutes the main focus of this research. To find the politics in Lorca, it is essential to understand the relationship between his art and his life and society. With that in mind, the investigation starts from both external and internal analyses of Lorca's works. The external analysis explores Spain before its Civil War, given the importance of the period which is mirrored in Lorca's works. For internal analysis, the theatrical pieces Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba were analyzed to investigate both the relationships among characters, and the social conventions shown in these works. Furthermore, a number of conferences and interviews with the author are employed in a dialogue with the theatrical works, with the goal of understanding his relationships with art and society. García Lorca's art, voiced by flamenco, communicated with his society and received an answer: death by firing squad. Lorca wasn't limited to his own time and space, but survives today, be it through his deeply disquieting art, or be it through his still mystery-shrouded death
Federico García Lorca foi um agente político? Sobre este questionamento se desenvolve a presente pesquisa. Porém, para responder a essa pergunta, é fundamental dividi-la em duas, voltando um olhar para quem foi García Lorca levando em consideração sua vida e obra e outro olhar para as diversas possibilidades de atuação da política. A política não está apenas no âmbito institucional, mas permeia as relações dos indivíduos e sociedades, se faz presente nos âmbitos público e privado, alcançando e sendo alcançada pela arte. Artista trágico, Federico García Lorca é o foco central deste estudo. Para buscar a política em Lorca, é fundamental entender a relação de sua arte com a sociedade e a vida do escritor. Para tanto, a investigação parte de uma análise externa e uma análise interna a obra de Lorca. A análise externa mapeia a Espanha que antecede a Guerra Civil Espanhola, tendo em vista a importância desta época que se encontra refletida na obra de Lorca. Para análise interna foram escolhidas as obras teatrais Yerma e A casa de Bernarda Alba, sobre as quais é feita uma análise das relações das personagens entre si e os códigos sociais que essas obras expõem. Além disso, são usadas para dialogar com as obras teatrais algumas conferências e entrevistas do autor, com a finalidade de entender sua relação com a arte e com a sociedade. A arte de García Lorca, entoada pelo flamenco, dialogou com sua sociedade e recebeu resposta desta: seu fuzilamento. Mas Lorca não coube em seu tempo e espaço e transborda para os dias de hoje, seja por sua arte, profundamente inquietante, seja por sua morte, até hoje envolta em mistérios

In his Book of the Courtier, Castiglione appeals to the Renaissance notion of self-fashioning, the idea that individuals could shape their identity rather than relying solely on the influence of external factors such as birth, social class, or fate. While other early modern authors explore the practice of self-fashioning—Niccolò Machiavelli, for example, surveys numerous princes identifying ways they have molded themselves—Castiglione emphasizes the necessity of modeling one's-self after a variety of sources, "[taking] various qualities now from one man and now from another." In this way, Castiglione advocates for a self-fashioning grounded in a discriminating kind of synthesis, the generation of a new ideal form through the selective combination of various source materials. While Castiglione focuses on the moves necessary for an individual to fashion himself through this act of discriminatory mimesis, his views can explain the ways authors of the period use source material in the process of textual production. As poets and playwrights fashioned their texts, they did so by consciously combining various source materials in order to create not individuals, as Castiglione suggests, but characters to represent new cultural ideals and values. Early moderns viewed the process of textual, as well as cultural production, as a kind of synthesis. Creation through textual fusion is particularly common in early modern accounts of the heroic, in which authors synthesize classical conceptions of the hero, which privilege the completion of martial feats, and Christian notions of the heroic, based on the contemplative nature of Christ. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how Thomas Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy (1585), Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1590), William Shakespeare in Titus Andronicus (1594), and John Milton in A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle (1632) syncretized classical and Christian notions of the heroic ideal in order to comment upon and shape political, social, and literary discourses. By recognizing this fusion of classical heroism with contemplative heroism, we gain a more nuanced understanding of the reception of classical ideas within an increasingly secular society.

En réponse au traumatisme de la division nationale suscitée par la guerre civile et cristallisée pendant le franquisme, la figure d’Antigone resurgit avec force dans la dramaturgie espagnole. Le parcours de résistance de cette héroïne grecque devient, sous la plume des auteurs espagnols du XXème siècle, l’emblème de la « juste mémoire » (Ricœur, 2000). Partant de l’hypothèse que le corpus des Antigones espagnoles constitue un ensemble relevant d’une dynamique commune de relecture de l’histoire, cette thèse recherche, à travers un travail comparatif des structures et des symboliques, la cohérence des versions catalanes, galiciennes et castillanes, de l’exil comme de l’intérieur, pour la période comprise entre 1936 et 1989. Dix-huit pièces sont ainsi mises en perspective pour démontrer la conquête de discours mémoriels et compensatoires à partir des sources hypotextuelles que constituent la tragédie de Sophocle, mais aussi les autres versions théâtrales du mythe. La première partie examine les procédés de réécriture du mythe, de l’histoire et de la tragédie, pour qualifier les pièces et déterminer un éventuel noyau mythique ou un schéma référentiel récurrent. La notion de « (re)configurations contemporaines » au prisme du contexte politique émerge alors pour désigner les objets de ce travail. La deuxième partie analyse les convergences esthétiques et les motifs récurrents dans les textes, car les Antigones espagnoles contemporaines placent au centre de la scène la métaphore de la marge pour figurer l’exclusion politique, ou encore celle du chemin pour représenter les destins brisés et l’exil. Fondamentalement, ces œuvres forgent un tombeau littéraire pour les défunts oubliés, mais aussi un monument en l’honneur des invisibles. La dimension esthétique de cette place théâtrale compensatrice ouvre une réflexion sur son sens cathartique dans une société en recomposition pendant la Transition. En effet, le troisième volet de cette thèse est centré sur la théâtralisation de l’histoire : il s’agit d’étudier les dispositifs de déconstruction des récits nationaux à travers les différents réagencements du mythe des Labdacides. Cette clé de lecture révèle les stratégies de démythification-remythification qui président aux nouvelles charges sémantiques des épisodes mythiques, dépeignant un autoportrait déformant de la communauté espagnole en crise. À l’horizon de ces pratiques de réécriture, se lit la conception d’une époque historique comme une épopée, que la parole cérémonielle et le dispositif scénique peuvent contribuer à purger, par une distance qui englobe un large prisme, de la sacralité au grotesque
Echoing the traumatic conflict within the nation caused by the Civil War and crystallized during Franco’s era, Antigone’s reappearance was extremely intense in Spanish dramatic creation. In contemporary rewritings, the resistance of this tragic character from Greek mythology turned out to be the emblem of a “fairer memory” (Ricoeur, 2000). This work asserts that the Spanish Antigones converge and share a common signification when it comes to rewriting History; and resorts to a comparative study of structures and symbols to shed light on the continuity between the Castilian, Catalan and Galician versions, between those written in exile or not, from 1936 to 1989. In order to establish the common dynamic, eighteen plays are compared, whose key idea is to create a memorial and a redeeming discourse based on the Greek sources but also inspired by other versions of the tragedy. Therefore, the first part examines the strategies implemented to rearrange the mythical pattern, the historical context and the tragic genre. This leads to the conclusion that there is no permanent mythical core nor a fully recurrent referential scheme. As such, the notion of “contemporary (re)configurations” through the prism of politics seems relevant to describe the rewritings. The second part analyses the aesthetic convergences and the recurring themes and metaphors throughout the texts and concludes that in the contemporary Spanish Antigones, the image of the margins embodying exclusion takes on centre stage while the image of the path is resorted to in order to evoke broken destinies and exile. Basically, these plays create a literary tomb for the forgotten deceased but also a monument in honour of the invisible –alive– ones. The aesthetic dimension of this compensatory play requires a reflection upon its cathartic sense in a transforming society during the Transition to democracy. Indeed, the third part of this work focuses on the dramatization of History, making it crucial to study the scenic devices that dismantle the official stories and political myths. This reveals the strategies of “demystification” followed by new mythifications that portray a distorting image of the Spanish community in crisis. Ultimately, these practices of rewriting show that the playwrights conceived their time as an epic and mythical phase which could be purged by theatrical ceremonial thanks to a distancing effect that covers a large prism, from sacred to grotesque

If Shakespeare contributed the additions to the 1602 edition of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish tragedy, he did so at the time he was writing Hamlet. The additions were written anonymously, but contemporary references to playwrights and their works, publication records, and documented theatrical transactions have provoked the authorship controversy for centuries. Recent studies have attempted "fingerprinting” and "DNA" analysis of verbal structures to solve the case once and for all, but this study moves beyond the (impossible) task of trying to "prove" that Shakespeare wrote the additions and instead seeks to recreate a hypothetical scenario to show why and how Shakespeare may have written them. Using the loose structure of a modern recreation of a cold-case crime, this study contextualizes the additions and the authorship controversy they have inspired, situating the case in its earlier manifestations and in present-day criticism. It will be shown why Shakespeare would have been the ideal candidate to revise The Spanish tragedy: he was familiar with Kyd's work, was known for revitalizing older works, knew the players, and was a writer for hire. It will be argued that the publisher of the additions, Thomas Pavier, followed Shakespeare throughout his career and saw a marketing opportunity to capitalize on three trends: title pages that advertised newness, nostalgia for old texts, and a market for Shakespearean language. This essay will trace the hypothetical steps to see how Shakespeare's additions might have been written, dispersed, rehearsed, acted, and printed. Ultimately, the additions will be situated as a hypothetical middle step between Kyd’s Ur-Hamlet, The Spanish tragedy, and Shakespeare's Hamlet.
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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
The authorship of the five additions to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy remains a conundrum. Ben Jonson was first thought responsible, but a majority of scholars argue against his involvement. Other candidates have been proposed, namely Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, William Shakespeare, and John Webster. Past attribution studies have mainly focused on Shakespeare due to the fourth addition, the Painter’s Scene, which has been perceived to exhibit Shakespearean quality. John Nance’s lexical study of the fourth addition makes a most compelling case: Shakespeare’s hand is almost certainly present. Warren Stevenson, Hugh Craig, Brian Vickers, and Douglas Bruster have also supported an attribution to Shakespeare; however, their research errs in assuming a single author wrote all five of the additions. This assumption is disproven by Gary Taylor’s work on the first addition, which is the first to identify Heywood, not Shakespeare, as its likely author. Taylor’s conclusion emphasizes that the additions could embody revisions by more than one playwright, such as in the case of Sir Thomas More. Therefore, the authorship of the other additions must remain conjectural until further study. My thesis is the first to independently explore the third addition’s authorship, and based on lexical evidence, the following analysis disproves claims of Shakespeare’s presence within the third addition.

My dissertation is in two parts. First, it develops a philosophical concept of “tragic uncertainty,” derived from early twentieth-century Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. Secondly, it demonstrates ethical application of tragic uncertainty to human societal events. The ethical imperative created from tragic uncertainty—and not either tragedy or uncertainty alone—is the following. Given a tragic situation with a great degree of uncertainty, people living with doubt, mental despair, and perpetual anguish because of it should be provided relief. Generally, this relief should be in the form of therapy, by which I mean an affective and emotional release. Two important case studies are explored. One on corrupted political systems in the USA-Mexico border. The other in Honduras, on both climate change and corrupted political systems. These are explained and categorized as tragically uncertain. Corresponding, minimal practical solutions accompany the ethical imperative created to remedy tragic uncertainty.

This dissertation argues that in Renaissance discourses of the body the body is progressively evacuated of the spirit, as we move from texts of the late Medieval period to texts of the Jacobean period. Where New Historicists have suggested that the practice of “self-fashioning,” which dictates behaviour, speech and dress, takes place in the Renaissance, I argue that there was a material self-fashioning of the body occurring simultaneously. Such corporeal fashioning, motivated by desire for physical improvement, frustrates the extent to which the soul shapes the body. My Introduction lays theoretical and historical groundwork, situating the body/soul relationship in relation to Christian theology, Senecan-Stoicism, Epicureanism and philosophical materialism. Discourses of artistic creation, informed by neo-Platonism, also influence corporeal fashioning in that the most radical bodily modifications are imagined through literature, where artificers are often privileged as creators. Chapter One examines “The Miracle of the Black Leg,” a transplant, by the doctor-Saints Cosmas and Damian, of a Moor’s black leg to a white Sacristan, whose gangrenous leg is amputated. In written and pictorial representations Cosmas and Damian, initially figured as Saints, are later presented as doctors who perform a medical procedure. Alongside the doctors’ increasing agency, the black leg itself, inflected by Renaissance notions of Moors and Moorishness, troubles the soul’s immanence in the body. Chapter Two examines Elizabeth I’s practices of bodily fashioning through her wigs, dentures and cosmetics. I argue that Elizabeth’s symbolic value, which includes components of monarchical rule, as well as attitudes toward female beauty, is always already pre-empted by her body. In Book III of The Faerie Queene, moreover, Edmund Spenser writes an alternative history of England through Britomart’s body to provide an heir to Elizabeth’s otherwise heirless throne. Chapters Three and Four perform close readings of Book II of The Faerie Queene, Thomas Tomkis’s Lingua, Thomas Middleton’s The Maiden’s Tragedy and Revenger’s Tragedy, and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. I argue that both the allegorical and theatrical modes demand a level of materialism that paradoxically makes the body the centre of attention, and anticipates Cartesian mechanistic dualism.
Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-25 22:59:31.67

Torture and the Drama of Emergency: Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare recovers the legal complexity of early modern torture and makes it central to an account of the anti-torture politics of the English stage. More people were tortured in the 1580s and 1590s than at any other time in England's history, and this sudden increase generated a backlash in the form of calls for the protection of liberties. Chapters on plays by Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare show how theater contributed to this backlash by means of its unique ability to present on the public stage the otherwise private suffering characteristic of state torture. Above all, these playwrights alerted audiences to the dangers posed by the concentration of absolute power in the hands of the monarch. The introduction and first chapter of Torture and the Drama of Emergency demonstrate that although torture was unknown to common law, it was executed in the context of a state of emergency. The second chapter presents Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy as resistance literature: rather than critiquing Spanish cruelty, as its setting implies, the play indicts English torture. Kyd uses the genre of revenge tragedy, enormously popular after and because of his play, to argue that torture is a form of revenge the state itself might carry out. Chapter three, on 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, argues that Tamburlaine transforms the world into a military camp by extending martial law to everyone, everywhere. Marlowe's portrayal of the creation and rise of this totalitarian regime depicts the nightmarish consequences for the people when the state's power to extend martial law remains unchecked. The final chapter, on King Lear, argues that in his most pessimistic play Shakespeare suggests there is no escape from the state's ability to seize absolute power in times of crisis. Lear's moving but tenuous declaration of human rights remains a dream that cannot survive the state of emergency created when he divides the kingdom.
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