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Certificate for Approving the Dissertation MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Sonya Christine Lawson Parrish Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy __________________________________ Director (Dr. Katharine Gillespie) __________________________________ Reader (Dr. Susan Morgan) __________________________________ Reader (Dr. Whitney Womack-Smith) __________________________________ Graduate School Representative (Dr. Carla Pestana) ABSTRACT “HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832 by Sonya Christine Lawson Parrish This dissertation investigates the way in which the trope of female captivity provided a community-based forum where female political agency could be observed. The project asserts that the study of captivity in literature must transcend national boundaries in order to draw attention to the fluid exchange of people, goods and ideologies that was a historical reality during the long eighteenth century and the agency afforded women in their own community networks. I argue that female captivity became a common trope in the long eighteenth century in an effort to mimic the way women vocalized agency in their circum-Atlantic community structures by assenting and dissenting to dominant political ideologies. My examination of the speech acts performed by representations of female captivity reveals the importance and proliferation of the trope in literary production, the ways political discourse disseminated throughout communities operating within a circum-Atlantic context, and how female captives, both real and fictional, voiced a political agency that was authorized by their community audiences. The trope of female captivity proliferated in the long eighteenth-century British Atlantic in an effort to have community audiences observe and condone discursive methods of female political agency within patriarchal political structures. “HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832 A DISSERTATION Submitted to the faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English by Sonya Christine Lawson Parrish Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2012 Dissertation Director: Dr. Katharine Gillespie © Sonya Christine Lawson Parrish 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Communities of Captivity………………………………………………..………………….1-20 CHAPTER ONE Life, Liberty, and Love: Consent and Denial in Republican Communities……………..…21-51 CHAPTER TWO Saintly Sinners: Confession in Protestant Communities……………….………………….52-90 CHAPTER THREE Lying Ladies: Deception in Kinship Communities………………..….……………….…91-126 CHAPTER FOUR Civil Tongues: History-Making in Communities of Civility.…………………………..127-157 CONCLUSION Captive Heroines………………………………………………………….…………….158-163 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………………………….164-173 iii DEDICATION To Mom and Roger – I wish you could read this. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Miami University has been a place where I have become a better scholar, teacher, and individual. I’ve made connections here that will last a lifetime, learned more than I ever imagined, and grew in ways that often leave me amazed. There are many people that could be acknowledged in this section, so many that space will not allow me to do so properly. However, there are a number of people without whom I would not have completed this project. I would first like to thank Dr. Katharine Gillespie, my dissertation chair and mentor. From my first year in the program to the present, she has challenged me to continually think critically and push my understanding of literature in new and interesting directions. Her guidance and support through every phase of my doctoral process was invaluable. I can only hope to one day be as good of a scholar, teacher, and mentor as she is. My project would also not be what it is without the help of my committee members. Dr. Susan Morgan, Dr. Whitney Womack-Smith, and Dr. Carla Pestana offered much support and encouragement. They are lovely ladies who have made me a better scholar. I would not even have a dissertation, or completed a Ph.D., without the love and support of my family. All of them have been instrumental. I would like to especially thank my father and brother, Robin and Shannon Lawson, for their care, support, and encouragement throughout my life. I am who I am because of these two amazing men. I would like to also thank my husband, Rob, for always reassuring me that I could actually do this. My life in general, and Oxford in specific, would be a cold place without my friends. Sarah Hope and Brent Guffey, although not physically here always, have forever been with me in spirit. I met Aurora Matzke, Jonnetta Woodard and Paul Sorensen on my first day on campus and would not have remained sane without their ability to make me laugh, allow me to vent, or their unwavering endorsement of who I am as a person, teacher, and thinker. I cannot thank you enough for this. Life would also have been a lot more boring without José de la Garza- Valenzuela, who shared many a drink, cry, and shenanigan throughout the years. Likewise, the Tavern and Butch Night crews have helped me stay fairly mellow in the last few years of this process. I’m thankful everyday for these people, who continually prove that kindness, encouragement, and laughter are alive and well in the world. v Introduction Communities of Captivity “Shall I go on? Or have I said anough?” John Milton, Comus John Milton’s 1634 masque, Comus , details the captivity and eventual release of The Lady, an aristocratic young woman held in bondage by the hedonistic and sexually aggressive title character. Fixed to a magical chair and threatened with sexual corruption and ruin by Comus, The Lady must rebuff her captor with the only power she is free to employ: her voice. By using her speech to counter the arguments of the evil prince the Lady creates both time for her rescuers to find her in the dark woods of Wales and a space in which to vocalize arguments on moral issues ranging from the proper use and distribution of wealth to the importance of religious virtue and chastity. Left only with her voice, it is precisely this voice that saves the Lady and establishes her agency within a captive context, as it is the Lady’s “mere moral babble” (ln. 807) that Comus condemns and that carries the crux of the political, moral, and social arguments Milton attempts to assert throughout his masque. At the same time, the Lady does not exist in a political or social vacuum . Performed at Ludlow Castle in 1634, this particular masque was commissioned to celebrate the Earl of Bridgewater’s placement as Lord President of Wales. The drama itself takes place in Wales, where the Earl’s actual children, playing the parts of the Two Brothers and the Lady, must confront and escape the sinful magical prince in order to return to their father. The aristocratic community at the center of Milton’s drama forms a solid connection between the character of the Lady and the real world in which the performer lived; however, Milton’s social and political commentary connects the Lady as a character to the rising conflict between the ruling aristocracy and middle/lower class virtues founded in Protestant reform and republican values. The Lady is not only a member of one community in a real sense, but also represents the creation of a type of community in England, one which formed around religious and political ties rather than bloodlines and locality. This shift in the idea of what creates community is facilitated by The Lady as captive, laying a foundation for the trope of female captivity as a literary space where bonds of community and political commentary could be joined. 1 The Lady of Comus exemplifies the community-based female political agency that is articulated by representations of female captivity from the mid-seventeenth century to the early nineteenth, and such representations dominated the print culture of the British Atlantic World during the long eighteenth century. From true narrative accounts to the rise of the novel, scenes of women bound and confined dominated the literary landscape. Representations of women in such a state, controlled by their kidnappers and lacking basic freedom, would appear to uphold patriarchal political structures. The prevalence of religious or moral discourse, as well as the representation of racialized captors would also seem to bolster such claims. My interest lies in the way these tales, fictional and factual, also represent women speaking of and for themselves, telling or writing their stories in such a way that their voices emerge to interrupt attempts at homogenous discourse. It is in this space, between what was vocally acceptable and what captive women said, that particular formations of female political agency can be delineated. This project will investigate the way in which the trope of female captivity provided a community-based forum through which female political agency can be observed. There are two central questions that drive such an investigation. First, how did female captivity operate as a trope in the British Atlantic World during the long eighteenth century? Second, how did this particular trope reveal a community-centered realm in which women exercised a form of agency in a time when most considered women to be unable to insert themselves into public discourse? Speech act theory, and specific forms of speech acts often used in tales of female captivity, will serve as a theoretical catalyst for answering these central questions. An investigation of the speech acts used by captives will reveal the importance and proliferation of the trope of female captivity, the ways in which public, specifically political, discourse disseminated throughout British Atlantic World communities operating within a circum-Atlantic context, and how representations of female captivity voiced a form of female political agency that was received, legitimated and understood by the captive’s community.
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