Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2014, English

Salome: Reviving the Dark Lady is a rationale for an impending interdisciplinary reimagining of the literary Dark Lady for the early twenty-first century. The work comprises of poetry, dance, and film. This thesis recounts the history of beauty in the Early Modern Period and discusses the historical context of the Dark Lady to provide a frame for the journey of marginalized archetype into the twenty-first century. The choreopoem itself is built upon Salome, the character from Elizabeth Cary's1613 closet drama "The Tragedy of Mariam Fair Queen of Jewry." The choreopoem contains transliterated soliloquies of the princess interspersed through original poems and prose inspired by works of spoken-word artist Andrea Gibson, twentieth-century Afro-Scandinavian author Nella Larsen, and various literary and cultural critics.

Committee: Albino Carrillo (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; Bible; British and Irish Literature; Comparative Literature; Cultural Anthropology; Dance; European Studies; Experiments; Folklore; Gender; Language Arts; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Modern History; Religion; Scandinavian Studies; Theater; Womens Studies

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2014, English

In this paper, I investigate the possibility of servants participating in early modern dramas and the implications such performances had on class relations of that time. I argue that servants did likely perform in these dramas, using the voices of various characters to create a complex social commentary on the period's strict social structure. Through a close examination of early modern literacy rates, household politics, and private dramas, I determine that it is likely servants were capable of not only reading, but also performing in private dramas. Then, with a critical reading of Elizabeth Cary's biography and play, titled The Tragedy of Mariam, I show that early modern women often used private dramas to express their opinions of social and political issues publicly, specifically regarding gender politics. These two main points then allow me to come to my final argument. I conclude that servants might have used characters' lines to voice their own opinions regarding the constraints of class politics, allowing these servants to speak freely to the upper class that had authority over them.

Committee: Elizabeth Mackay PhD (Advisor); Ari Friedlander PhD (Committee Member); Margaret Strain PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Education History; Gender; History; Literacy; Social Structure