Churchyards and crossroads: monuments, tombs, and commemoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama

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dc.contributorDrouin, Jennifer
dc.contributorMcElroy, Tricia A.
dc.contributorMcIver, Katherine A.
dc.contributorWeber, Harold
dc.contributor.advisorO'Dair, Sharon
dc.contributor.authorWhitver, Harry Austin
dc.contributor.otherUniversity of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned2017-03-01T16:26:08Z
dc.date.available2017-03-01T16:26:08Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.descriptionElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
dc.description.abstractThis project explores how tombs and monuments erected for the dead function in the early modern playhouse, both when used as stage locations in dramatic scenes and when invoked imaginatively by characters grappling with questions of identity, social position, and legacy. I examine Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, other contemporary writings about tombs, and surviving stone monuments of the period in order to contribute to an understanding of the complex ways early moderns viewed commemoration, memory, and their own mortality. Tombs of this era served to preserve information about the dead and to offer moral instruction to the living. The combination of text, symbols, and images on tombs conveyed information to both literate and illiterate alike. Audiences' familiarity with a range of tombs, combined with the flexibility of the early modern playhouse, allowed playwrights to utilize the symbolic potential of tombs in a variety of ways. Nonetheless, a majority of these symbolic deployments of tomb imagery gravitate into three broad categories. First, in the History Plays of the 1580s and 1590s, monuments serve as repositories of the mythic power of the past, helping individuals both remember ancestors and access their influence. This recording potential also allows the living to prepare their own enduring legacy. Second, tombs function on stage as legitimizing agents for fictions. A tomb need not tell a true story, and playwrights of the period frequently have their characters use tombs to support or preserve their own misrepresentative, edited, or fraudulent accounts of events. Finally, plays after 1600 tend to stress the power of tombs to serve as sites of spiritual and moral instruction. Tombs as illustrative of a complete life story fall out of fashion in the playhouse; instead of presenting a layered narrative, monuments become tools to turn the deceased into an exemplar of a variety of idealized virtues.en_US
dc.format.extent281 p.
dc.format.mediumelectronic
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.otheru0015_0000001_0000905
dc.identifier.otherWhitver_alatus_0004D_11093
dc.identifier.urihttps://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/1399
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.hasversionborn digital
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rightsAll rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.en_US
dc.subjectBritish and Irish literature
dc.titleChurchyards and crossroads: monuments, tombs, and commemoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean dramaen_US
dc.typethesis
dc.typetext
etdms.degree.departmentUniversity of Alabama. Department of English
etdms.degree.disciplineEnglish
etdms.degree.grantorThe University of Alabama
etdms.degree.leveldoctoral
etdms.degree.namePh.D.

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