English literature

ABSTRACT

Women as Gifts and the Triple Hecate Myth in Shakespeare's

Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline

Women are placed into sexual roles by the patriarchal system in which we live. Gayle Rubin terms this a "sex/gender system" and explains that within this system women are exchanged as "gifts" between men to form kinship ties. The sexual roles this system creates are embodied in the "Triple Hecate myth." Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft in Ancient Greece and was known to have three faces: Maiden, Nymph and Crone. The Maiden is in girlhood and the label is applied to any woman before she becomes sexually active. The Nymph is a sexually active woman who lives within the norms of society. A sexually active woman who lives outside those norms is a Whore. A Crone is a woman who has passed menopause. She is seen as either a wise elder or a wicked stepmother figure.

In Shakespeare's plays Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline, the female protagonists Cleopatra, Imogen and Cressida are all trying to control their own destinies and rise above or manipulate this patriarchal system of control. These three women are travelling through the "Triple Hecate Myth." Cleopatra begins a Whore and ends a Nymph, Imogen begins a Maiden and ends a Nymph, and Cressida begins a Maiden and ends a Whore. They each also problematize the "gift" exchange system either by attempting to self-exchange (Cleopatra and Imogen) or by being exchanged multiple times (Cressida).

Keywords: William Shakespeare, Triple Hecate Myth, Gift Exchange, Gayle Rubin, Cymbeline, Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, Feminist Criticism, Classical Studies

Author Keywords: Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, Gayle Rubin, Shakespeare, Triple Hecate, Troilus and Cressida

This thesis proposes that Benjamin Britten's 'Peter Grimes' leads its audience toward actively constructing an attitude toward its maskless protagonist. Grimes's tragedy results from the social construction of his character from ambiguous and unseen actions. Utilizing the theories of Hannah Arendt and Carl Jung, this thesis proposes that Grimes may have resisted tragedy by constructing a public persona for himself. This thesis analyses the opera's music and narrative according to the difference between Grimes's lack of a public persona and the Borough- members' construction of a mask for him. A central contention of the thesis is that as another element of Britten's persona, Peter Grimes permitted the composer's entrance into the public sphere, despite his private inclinations and illegal sexuality. Like the opera's drama, the opera's "Sea Interludes" reveals the tragedy resulting from the failure to construct an attitude toward the public world. These "Sea Interludes" work alongside the opera's drama to induce the audience into a common perception of the opera's whole. Through ironic relation to the opera's musical and narrative parts, Benjamin Britten induces his audience's construction of personae, thereby bringing himself and them into a shared public realm.

Author Keywords: Benjamin Britten, E. M. Forster, English Opera, Montagu Slater, Peter Grimes, W. H. Auden

The university newspaper is a vital aspect of the university public, as it provides a platform for students to voice their opinions on topics pertaining to the culture of their university and gives students critical information about what is happening on campus. This thesis uses the University of Regina's The Carillon as a case study to evaluate how university newspapers interact with and influence their publics. In Chapter One, I detail the history of The Carillon, and how the radical atmosphere of the 1960s influenced the newspaper's growth. In Chapter Two, I explore how The Carillon uses facets of digitality—such as their website, multimedia, and social media—to increase its readership. The chapter examines how these digital platforms reach The Carillon's publics more efficiently, but still adhere to the traditions established by the newspaper from its inception. Finally, in Chapter Three, I assess the success of university newspapers which have transitioned to a strictly digital presence. For this assessment, I use the University of Alberta's The Gateway and the University of Prince Edward Island's The Cadre as case studies, and argue that The Carillon can learn from these digital newspapers to become more effective in using digital media to reach its student public. Altogether, this study of university newspapers offers a guide on how to maintain a balance between materiality and digitality, while also preserving the university newspaper's legacy and traditions.

Author Keywords: Digitality, Journalism, Materiality, Publics, The Carillon, University Newspapers

My analysis of twentieth century Mars science and fiction outlines how the ongoing dialogic between Mars science and fiction publics influences the American frontier dialectic and how Mars serves as the arena where this debate comes to life. It examines connections between myth, science, and fiction by tracing the evolution of historical and literary representations of the American frontier and understandings of Mars spanning the twentieth century. To illustrate these findings, I investigate the fictional visions of the planet in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, and Kim Stanley Robinson. Ultimately, Mars is revealed as a fictional frontier where a better way of living may be achievable by transforming the planet and ourselves. Finally, the planet's physical site holds a haunting potential value that inspires further research and new narratives, which informs the future use of Mars in American culture.

Author Keywords: Bradbury, Burroughs, Frontier, Mars, Myth, Robinson

This thesis explores the work of Black queer authors who write and reproduce cities in their texts. James Baldwin and Dionne Brand create knowable and readable spaces of the cities in which they write. By studying the work of these two authors, this thesis seeks to understand how Black queer people navigate city spaces, and how Black queer authors create a literary imaginary about the cities in which their novels are set. Thus, the cities of New York and Toronto become knowable sites through the novels of Dionne Brand and James Baldwin. Using Black queer theory, Black diaspora theory, and Black literary theory, this thesis engages with the novels, essays, and interviews of James Baldwin and Dionne Brand to determine that urban spaces are both liberatory and traumatic for Black queer people.

Author Keywords: Baldwin, Black Queer Studies, Black Women, Brand, Diaspora Studies, Lesbian

Artistic expressions such as writing, theatrical productions, music, and film arguably contribute to a culture's representation of itself to the outside world. Most cultures have been either read or misread through their artistic outputs over the course of history, although the Irish culture stands as a particularly misunderstood one. Through years of colonization and rebel warfare, the country's culture has acquired a particularly imagined depiction; violent, which through centuries has resulted in a flawed cultural imaginary today. This thesis presents this issue and proposes a means to better understand the Irish culture through a deeper understanding of the factors that have led the country's cultural imaginary to its current misrepresentative state. Through an exploration of texts, theatre, music, and film, this thesis uncovers the factors which have led to Ireland's current cultural depiction in hopes of creating a better understanding of the Irish culture.

Author Keywords: cultural imaginary, Ireland, Irish culture, Irish stereotypes, public image, stereotypes

My thesis proposes to uncover what I term an Emilian Philosophy in the reading of Emily Brontë's only novel, and suggests that Wuthering Heights reflects Brontë's vision of a society progressing toward social and spiritual reform. Through this journey, Brontë seeks to conciliate the two contrasting sides of humanity – natural and social – by offering a middle state that willingly incorporates social law without perverting human nature by forcing it to mold itself into an unnatural social system, which in turn leads to a "wholesome" (Gesunde) humanity. While Heathcliff embodies Bronte's view of a primitive stage of humanity, Hareton reincarnates the wholesome state of humanity that balances human natural creativity and cravings with Victorian unrelenting reason. Brontë treats Heathcliff's death as a point in life, in which mankind is emancipated from social constraints and is able to achieve ultimate happiness. This view of death is reassuring as it displaces the anxiety associated with death and separation. My study will highlight the influence of Friedrich Schiller's, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Philosophical writings and literary works, as well as the influence of the Franciscan Order in Catholicism and its founder St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and environment, in framing Bronte's philosophy to propose a social and religious reform anchored in nature.

Author Keywords: Friedrich Schiller, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Natural Education, Reincarnation and Reformation, St Francis of Assisi, wholesome (Gesunde) humanity, Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Parody has been a strategy within cultural production since the ancient Greeks: "paraodia" referred to a song sung alongside the main narrative thread of a dramatic work; the prefix "para-" also signifies "against." In A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-century Art Forms, Linda Hutcheon offers this core definition: parody is "a form of repetition with ironic critical distance, marking difference rather than similarity … [with] tension between the potentially conservative effect of repetition and the potentially revolutionary impact of difference" (xii). This and other aspects of Hutcheon's theory guide my interpretations of works by three contemporary artists working in Canada: Sybil Lamb's novel I've Got a Time Bomb; Ursula Johnson's (Mi'kmaq) three-part exhibition Mi'kwite'tmn (Do You Remember); and Kent Monkman's (Cree and Irish) exhibition Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience.

I argue that the presence of parodic elements in these artists' works enables them to do two things: to claim spaces that enable recognition of their subject positions, and to critique an aspect of hegemonic norms in contemporary society. I read Lamb's novel as a critique of the heteronormative gender binary via parody of the picaresque genre and of heteronormative discourse/language. Certain pieces in Monkman's exhibition parody the epistemological and display strategies of traditional Eurocentric anthropological museums and archives, as can Johnson's work; her sculptural-installations may also be read as parodying the traditions of Mi'kmaw basket-making. The work of both artists critiques colonial narratives that sought (and may still seek) to denigrate and/or erase Indigenous peoples; such narratives of cultural genocide were both tacitly and directly propagated by museums. I analyze these three artists' works, considering key features of parody (ambiguity; irony and "double-voicedness"; trans-contextualization; and humour), and their effects (defamiliarization; ontological instability; complicity; and laughter). Parody challenges the post-structuralist emphasis on the "decoder," (viewer/reader) reinstating the "encoder" (artist/author) as agent. Decoders recognize their complicity within the context of the hegemonic narrative, whether the heteronormative gender binary or colonialism, and may come to shift perception – as per Hutcheon's "potentially revolutionary impact."

Author Keywords: contemporary art, Indigenous art, museum history, parody, picaresque, transgender literature

This thesis explores Frankenstein's popular culture narrative, contrasting recent Frankenstein texts with the content of Mary Shelley's classic novel and James Whale's iconic films Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The research investigates how Frankenstein's legacy of adaptations function intertextually to influence both the production and the consumption of Frankenstein texts, referring to this complicated and contradictory intertextual web as "the Composite Frankenstein."

This thesis present the Composite Frankenstein as a hermeneutic by which to view Frankenstein's collaborative and cumulative identity in popular culture, drawing on the work of other scholars on adaptation and intertextuality. Sarah Milner investigates the context of the key Frankenstein texts, the novel and the 1931 film; this research's goal is to destabilize the perception of authorship as an individual's mode of production and to investigate the various social processes that influence text creation and consumption.

Author Keywords: adaptation, authorship, Frankenstein, intertextuality, James Whale, Mary Shelley

This thesis is concerned with how specific aesthetic elements function in various contemporary texts to distort, obscure, or illuminate the immoral actions and behaviours being represented. This thesis applies the moral status philosophy of Mary Anne Warren, along with the moral philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas and Zygmunt Bauman. Close reading and critical analysis are supported by Michele Aaron's theory of spectatorship. The sublime is explored in Dexter (2006) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), the uncanny in Battlestar Galactica (2003) and Westworld (2016), and the abject in The Walking Dead (2003) and World War Z (2006). The intentions of this project are to conduct a formal examination of the relationship between audience and text as it is filtered through aesthetic representation and moral frameworks. This thesis argues that aesthetic effects must be understood in connection to morality for active consumers to engage with these texts as sites for ethical consideration.

Author Keywords: aesthetic theory, moral status philosophy, Popular fiction, spectatorship, The Walking Dead, Westworld