Well, mine also happens to contain the questions and ideas I'm currently planning for the dissertation, so here goes.
(My advising professor has yet to approve it, so it's very likely it will change a bit.)
I propose to be examined in Renaissance literature from the period of 1530-1642 with a particular emphasis on the drama of the period from 1580-1620, with some awareness of the influence of contemporaneous prose and poetry, both secular and religious. My main goal is to create a general survey of canonical works in drama and modern criticism, with an awareness of the influences drawn from and had upon both poetry and prose. My particular interest with relation to this project is concerned with ideologies of rulership and the influence of both gender and the supernatural on these ideologies.
My interests lie particularly in the way dramatists choose to stage – and not to stage – acts of treason and betrayal with relation to ideas of rulership and kingship in both historically-based and completely fictional works. Specifically, I am interested in the representation and language of rebellion against an established or perceived figure of monarchical authority. As a part of this exploration, I plan to focus on the legitimizing and delegitimizing of the acts and language of treason; the presence or absence of the supernatural, the gender of the person(s) involved, and the presence or absence of a “legitimate” ruler are all elements I consider particularly relevant to the examination of treason within Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.
With relation to gender, I am primarily concerned with the ways in which both women and ideas of “femininity” influence, corrupt, and de-authorize the legitimacy of rulership. In the Early Modern period, power in the hands of women was frequently represented as dangerous, uncontrolled, and even evil. Concerns with the body and gendered behavior – by both men and women – permeate the language and actions of early modern comedies and tragedies alike, with feminine behavior by men and masculine behavior by women considered a threat to the legitimacy and efficacy of power. Women rulers – and male rulers considered excessively feminine – are portrayed on stage as transgressive, their authority tyrannical or weak, and frequently prone to mismanagement, vice, and corruption. Finally, concerns with female power and authority give rise to questions of legitimacy, both in terms of the type of power wielded and the constant fear of bastardy and tainted bloodlines.
From out of these concerns arises a significant fear of the supernatural, particularly with relation to witchcraft and prophecy (though these are not restricted by any means to the female gender, the majority of dramas and historical cases that deal with the supernatural do concern women). Like concerns about gender and femininity, I would argue, fear of the supernatural – devils, familiars, demons, witchcraft, prophecy, and conjuration – is a manifestation of the fear of monarchical illegitimacy. Figures of evil on the stage – most often associated with witchcraft (and femininity) – serve not only to condemn acts of treason in the eyes of both divinity and society, but also to delegitimize the traitor while simultaneously providing a scapegoat for the act of treachery itself. Particularly of interest to me is the frequency of supernatural involvement (or at the least, invocation) in acts of betrayal, and the time in which issues of gendered evil coincide with both political treachery and monarchical illegitimacy.
The early modern anxieties concerning legitimacy, tyranny, gender, and prophecy (for they cannot, ultimately, be divided from one another) are all, I would suggest, particularly significant to the process of confirming or denying the viability of the treasonous act. The particular elements of gender and the supernatural – as they relate to rulership – appear in drama as a means by which the playwright can legitimate or condemn acts of both political treason and personal betrayal. The way in which the plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods portray both betrayer and betrayed – particularly with regards to their gender and association (or lack thereof) with a vilified (rather than sanctified) supernatural – is particularly concerned with questions of political, spiritual, social, and blood legitimacy. The powerful women on the early modern stage are quite often also women linked with or accused of witchcraft and prophecy, their authority condemning and rejecting their gender even as they attempt to escape the bounds of appropriate feminine behavior.
The fundamental questions which I seek to answer are all preoccupied with concerns of gendered power, legitimate rulership, and the appearance and condemnation of evil. What role – if any – can a figure of female authority hope to have on a stage that automatically vilifies her? Do women have an authoritative position on the early modern stage that is not corrupted by either supernatural or political evils? How does gender and the performance of gender influence the legitimacy of monarchy? How does gender – specifically femininity – alter the severity of treason and betrayal? Considering the automatic assumptions of female treachery and frailty, is an act of treason rendered more or less acceptable when performed by a woman? How does the gender of evil – female witches, prophets, etc. – alter the perception of that evil and the acts that evil commits? In the case of witchcraft, how does the presence of evil allow for authorial subversion of monarchical ideology? Finally, does the presence of evil on stage allow – and even legitimize – acts of treason and betrayal?
Within the scope of this examination, I also plan to look at issues of kingship, the concept of divine right, and ideas of monarchical limitations, tyranny, and the question of legitimate deposition of a king. I intend to examine contemporary texts such as Machiavelli’s The Prince, Elizabeth I’s letters and speeches, and James I’s Basilikon Doron, in addition to the circulating pamphlet debate on tyranny and kingship. I plan to rely upon secondary sources examining kingship and theatre, as well as sources discussing treason and regicide.
With regard to the role of women in the early modern theatre, I plan to examine secondary sources that discuss the role of women in both society and in drama, with particular attention to women in positions of subversion and power, including Marilyn French’s Shakespeare’s Division of Experience, Theodora Janowski’s A Woman in Power in the Early Modern Drama, and the ideas of gender performance put forth in Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble. I also intend to look at the pamphlet debates about the autonomy of women and appropriate gendered behavior – with particular emphasis on Katherine Usher Henderson and Barbara F. McManus’ Half Humankind – as well as sources that discuss the role of women in early modern witchcraft, including Diane Purkiss’ The Witch in History as well as histories of religion and evil both on and off the stage, including Stephen Greenblatt’s Hamlet in Purgatory.
With these particular questions of treason, femininity, witchcraft, prophecy, and rulership in mind, I am particularly interested in the following works: Tamburlaine parts 1 and 2, Edward II, Woodstock, The Spanish Tragedy, Jack Straw, Titus Andronicus, Richard II, Henry VI parts 1-3, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Maid’s Tragedy, The White Devil, The Witch and Women Beware Women. I also plan to examine several pamphlets concerning the appropriate behavior of women and the rising fears of witchcraft, including James I’s Daemonologie and The Damnable Life of Doctor Faustus, as well as Hic Mulier and Haec Vir and their surroundings.