FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES in SHAKESPEARE's PLAYS by ALAN
“BECOMES A WOMAN BEST”: FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS by ALAN MORRIS COCHRUM Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2015 Copyright © by Alan Morris Cochrum 2015 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the helpfulness and professional dedication of my dissertation committee chair, Dr. Amy Tigner, in shepherding this work to completion. I am also grateful to Dr. Jacqueline Fay and Dr. Kevin Gustafson for their willingness to serve as the other members of my committee, and to Dr. Jim Warren, who along with Dr. Tigner and Dr. Fay served on my comprehensive-exams committee. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Penny Ingram for her help during the prospectus process. I received a great deal of support over the years from many relatives, friends, and fellow students, for whose encouragement and prayers I am grateful. I would also like to thank my children, Lindsay, Blair, Nathaniel, and Alexander; my parents, Morris and Bonnie Cochrum; and my late mother-in-law, Jimmie Frazier. And, most important, this project could not have been completed without the constant love and support of my wife, Dr. Jennifer Cochrum, DPT. Nov. 9, 2015 iii Abstract “BECOMES A WOMAN BEST”: FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS Alan Morris Cochrum, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2015 Supervising Professor: Amy Tigner This dissertation argues that female characters in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Henry VIII, Richard III, Macbeth, and 1 Henry VI function as prophets in the style of the Old Testament.
[Show full text]