This thesis investigates spectator expectations of Milton’s Comus. A comparative analysis between Comus, and Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue and Masque of Queens shows that the first...Show moreThis thesis investigates spectator expectations of Milton’s Comus. A comparative analysis between Comus, and Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue and Masque of Queens shows that the first presents, to its original audience, its primary virtue of temperance with important novel characteristics. While Jonson’s two masques were presented to their audiences in a conventional manner, Milton drastically altered the masque’s conventional characteristics and the meaning of the primary virtue to the spectators. This thesis will therefore discuss that Comus’ performance resulted in new manner of presenting a primary virtue. It will prove that in Milton’s masque, contrasting the other two, spectators were confronted, rather than complimented by the conditional nature of temperance.Show less
This thesis explores intersections between scientific, fictional and religious discourses in Milton's Paradise Lost and Cavendish's Blazing World, and the threat the scientific revolution posed to...Show moreThis thesis explores intersections between scientific, fictional and religious discourses in Milton's Paradise Lost and Cavendish's Blazing World, and the threat the scientific revolution posed to religion. Especially the development of optical instruments is taken into account.Show less
Upon first impression, the so-called anti-feminist ranting in lines 2414 to 2428 of the fourteenth century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appears patently misogynistic; however, in analyzing...Show moreUpon first impression, the so-called anti-feminist ranting in lines 2414 to 2428 of the fourteenth century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appears patently misogynistic; however, in analyzing the poem as a whole using Dominique Battles's pre-Conquest and post-Conquest dichotomy together with a close analysis of the linguistic and specifically the semantic qualities of the speech in relation to the rest of the text, it is possible to view this ostensibly anti-feministic diatribe in a new light. In this thesis, it is argued that this uncharacteristically gruff speech that the otherwise courteous Sir Gawain articulates can be placed in the category of cursing or swearing, where the literal meaning of the words are given less valuation than the underlying semantic conveyance of an emotional and psychological catharsis.Show less
