| dc.contributor.author | Hotz-Davies, Ingrid. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:37:19Z | |
| dc.date.available | 1992 | |
| dc.date.issued | 1992 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINN80175 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/55335 | |
| dc.description | Recent discussions of Renaissance literature and culture, for example in the work of Stephen Greenblatt, Jonathan Goldberg, and Stephen Orgel, have altered us to the complex issue of power in the Renaissance. Thus we have been taught to see how power is asserted, maintained and disseminated, and how adversarial movements and traditions are contained by powerful agencies. In contrast, this thesis aligns itself with those who have expressed discomfort at such an exclusive emphasis on power and containment. While we have gained valuable insights into the mechanisms of power, such an emphasis is not suited to tell us how resistance "works," and it is the purpose of this thesis to elucidate some of the equally complex mechanisms of resistance in a broad selection of genres, texts, and authors. | en_US |
| dc.description | The thesis is divided into three sections containing two chapters each, and a conclusion which is also a coda of sorts. Section I focusses on drama and politics, and deals with the critical presentation of repressive sexual morals, the status of authority, and the abuse of power in Marlowe's Edward II, Shakespeare's Richard II, and Jonson's Sejanus. Section II centres on women's attempts to insert themselves into the literary discourses of their time in order to articulate their desire for a less constrictive societal model (Louise Labe's Debat de Folie et d'Amour), or in order to forge a voice suitable for the articulation of female sexual desire (Lady Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus). Section III, finally deals with the writings of seventeenth-century Quaker women (especially Margaret Fell) and lower-class men (especially Gerrard Winstanley), who tried to break the normative hold of the Bible and provide readings which would support a more authoritative position for their own class and/or sex. | en_US |
| dc.description | In all cases, a resisting stance is seen as an active engagement with available literary, historical, and religious traditions, while the public expression of such a stance may be expected to cause problems for the authors in a period which does not provide guarantees for free speech and individual freedoms. Here we will find that many authors seek to protect themselves from reprisals and criticism, and the thesis deals with the function of protective devices in these authors' works. Strategies of resistance will thus come to be seen as encoding strategies designed to protect the critical position in an engagement with available traditions. The conclusion draws on the notion of protective encoding strategies to show with the help of a modern example that sensitivity to these questions may be a valuable asset not only for our reading of older texts, but also for our dealings with more recent periods. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1992. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Literature, Comparative. | en_US |
| dc.subject | Literature, Romance. | en_US |
| dc.subject | Theater. | en_US |
| dc.subject | Literature, English. | en_US |
| dc.title | Strategies of resistance in selected Renaissance writers. | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
