Early Modern Representations and Contemporary Appropriations

388 Pages·2016·1.28 MB·English

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Dissertations
Spring 5-1-2015
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Marvin Tyler Sasser
University of Southern Mississippi
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Sasser, Marvin Tyler, "Shakespeare and Boyhood: Early Modern Representations and Contemporary
Appropriations" (2015). Dissertations. 85.
https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/85
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The University of Southern Mississippi

SHAKESPEARE AND BOYHOOD:
EARLY MODERN REPRESENTATIONS
AND CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATIONS

by
Marvin Tyler Sasser

Abstract of a Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate School
of The University of Southern Mississippi
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

May 2015
ABSTRACT
SHAKESPEARE AND BOYHOOD:
EARLY MODERN REPRESENTATIONS
AND CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATIONS
by Marvin Tyler Sasser
May 2015
This dissertation demonstrates that Shakespearean boyhood, both in early modern
plays and contemporary reimaginings for young readers, critiques patriarchal and
hegemonic ideals through the rhetoric and behavior of boy characters. Although critics
have called Shakespeare’s boy characters indistinguishable, I find that they provide
Shakespeare a unique resource to offer persuasive skepticism about heroic conventions,
education, and political instability. This project begins by examining the lexical network
of boy in order to chart its uses in early modern England. The subsequent three chapters
establish how Shakespeare uses boys to comment on a range of ideal manhoods, such as
the chivalrous knight, the Herculean hero, the humanist man of moderation, and several
dramatic representations of the monarchy. Having established the diverse ways
Shakespeare uses boy characters to negotiate masculine gender ideals, this project then
investigates how Shakespearean boyhood is appropriated in contemporary children’s
literature. I discover that the gender features regarding Shakespeare’s boys noted in
previous chapters find expression in these later adaptations, and that the gender
complexities that exist in Tudor-Stuart drama and culture appear in these boy books and
point to a more fluid notion of gender identity than critics have hitherto considered.

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Methodologically, this project draws on masculinity studies, childhood studies,
and social histories of the family, as well as gender and adaptation theories to account for
the boy’s analogous function in early-modern plays and contemporary novels. The larger
significance of the project is in how it enhances our understanding of how Shakespeare
conceived of boyhood in his plays and how such plays have been reconceived in
contemporary boy books. By analyzing both the early modern representations and
contemporary appropriations of Shakespearean boyhood, I first demonstrate how the
playwright’s complex use of boyhood critically engages with some of the most pressing
issues regarding early modern masculinity and offers compelling skepticism about
conventional ideals of early modern manhood. Then, I establish how Shakespearean
boyhood resurfaces in these adaptations when children’s authors likewise depict varied
and complicated boys equally in dialogue with contemporary gender debates about
boyhood.
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COPYRIGHT BY
MARVIN TYLER SASSER
MAY 2015
The University of Southern Mississippi

SHAKESPEARE AND BOYHOOD:

EARLY MODERN REPRESENTATIONS

AND CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATIONS

by

Marvin Tyler Sasser

A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate School
of The University of Southern Mississippi
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Approved:

_Dr. Jameela Lares____________________
Committee Chair

_Dr. Joseph Navitsky_________________

_Dr. Mark Dahlquist___________________

_Dr. Eric L. Tribunella_________________

_Dr. Elizabeth K. Harris________________

_Dr. Karen S. Coats___________________
Dean of the Graduate School

May 2015
DEDICATION
Thank you to the Warders, Sassers, Wiggins, Daltons, Lawrences, and entire
Hardy clan for your support. I especially am grateful to the compassionate individuals in
these families who stoically refrained from asking “How much longer?” Thank you for
understanding.
I am blessed to have parents who championed my educational goals since
kindergarten, often at the expense of their own aspirations. I am grateful for their never
saying “no” when I needed money for the book fair or demanded that we visit the
Franklin Memorial Library. More specifically, I am grateful to my mother, Cheryl
Warder, for her dedication to teaching and travel and for keeping an old copy of Don
Quixote on her bookshelf. I am grateful to my father, Franklin Sasser, for teaching and
encouraging me to question and to think, lessons that continue to guide my professional
life.
Finally, I am blessed to have been able to spend my graduate studies with my
spouse and best friend, Jessica Sasser. We began our life together by studying and
traveling, and your companionship has been a lot of fun. Thank you also for enduring my
many digressions about Shakespeare and boyhood.
This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, for the root; to Jessica, for the
sunshine; and to Jameela, for the blossom.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Throughout the process of researching and writing this project, I have received
support and contributions from several professors, colleagues, and teachers.
Foremost, I am grateful for the privilege of having studied under Jameela Lares,
who has challenged and supported me throughout this process. To her I owe much of the
success of this dissertation; from Hattiesburg to London, she has been a benevolent
mentor. I also am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with an exceptionally
dedicated, diverse, and cooperative committee. The encouragement and expertise Eric L.
Tribunella, E. Kay Harris, Mark Dahlquist, and Joseph Navitsky have given to me
through comments and conversation is vast. The intellectual community they provided in
the classroom and throughout this project has made the process a delight, and I am
profoundly grateful for the enthusiasm they have shown for my work. I am moved
especially by Joseph Navitsky’s continued commitment.
At both the international and local levels, I have had the great fortune to be a part
of a number of scholarly communities that have variously shaped and informed my
research. I have benefited from and enjoyed lively discussions at the Shakespeare
Association of America and the Children’s Literature Association, both of which have
been pivotal to my graduate experience. I am pleased to have studied at the College of
Arts and Letters at The University of Southern Mississippi, and I thank the past and
present English Department heads and directors of graduate studies, Michael Mays, Eric
L. Tribunella, Steve Moser, Ellen Weinauer, and Monika Gehlawat, for supporting the
research, creative writing, and teaching of its graduate students. Further, I am thankful for
my MA experiences in the Department of Language, Literature, and Philosophy at
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Georgia Southern University, particularly David Dudley’s guidance and Richard Flynn’s
selflessness.
Librarians are a scholar’s best friends, and while I benefited from interacting with
several of the librarians at the Cook and McCain libraries, Ellen Ruffin, Nadine Philips,
Paul McCarver, Jennifer Brannock, and Durless Lumpkin have in various ways been
exceptionally kind, gracious, and helpful in diligently responding to my many requests.
I have heard that influential teachers are often the last people to slip from a
person’s memory. If so, I am fortunate to have had a lifetime of strong teachers. I am
indebted to Melba Todd, Francis Creech, Dana Durden, Ann Youmans, Martha Ward,
and Judy McWhorter for teaching me how to read and do book reports; to David Lamb
for teaching me how to conjugate verbs and diagram sentences; and to Sally Grover for
teaching me how to debate. Most importantly, though, I am indebted to Sally Grover for
introducing me to Shakespeare. Thank you.
My experiences in Willingham Hall and Knight Hall at Mercer University are
among the most significant of my life. In those halls, I learned from a number of brilliant
faculty, and though some of the most influential experiences were with professors whom
may no longer remember me, these individuals remain vital to my life. I am grateful to
Charlotte Thomas and Tom Trimble for refining my abilities to question; to Andrew
Silver and Mary Alice Morgan for introducing me to gender theory; and to John Stege
and Diana Stege for fanning my desires to study early modern literature. I discovered that
I was a teacher, however, because of Anya Krugovoy Silver and Stephen Bluestone,
whose beautiful teaching suggests that all teachers should be poets.
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I also am grateful, despite however unconventional to say so, to William
Shakespeare, whom I consider my most personal teacher and mentor. Thank you for
writing texts that reward rereading and sustained my interests and interrogation
throughout this work.
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