Rhetorical subversion in the English moral interlude

grantor: University of TorontoMy focus of study is the popular English moral interlude and later related plays, from 'The Castle of Perseverance' (circa 1425) to the end of the Tudor period. I view these plays from, a perspective that centers on the use of rhetoric as a means of persuasion, and the ways in which that means of persuasion is placed in the service of good and evil ends--often simultaneously. The ambivalent and often hilarious words of a Vice figure are supposed to lure the audience into complicity with sin, and they do their job well in many moral plays and their later counterparts. The attraction of these characters goes beyond the entrapment of other characters and the audience. They often deliberately use rhetorical tropes and figures to further their own ends, and thereby undermine any notions of the inherent stability of language as a truth-bearing medium. The good characters, on the other hand, generally do not have enough of a dramatic presence to counteract the effects of the Vice figures upon the audience even though the static nature of the good characters is precisely what this moral drama tries to emphasize. The moral interlude communicates 'good' moral doctrine, but its dramatic structure would seem to make it a theatre of subversion. Although the relationship between the Vice and the audience has been a mainstay of studies of medieval and Tudor drama for a generation, the subversive nature and methodology of the Vice have not been examined in any detail. I make such an examination the basis of my study by tracking this figure from his appearance as Backbiter in 'The Castle of Perseverance' and the N-Town plays, through some of his manifestations in the Vices of 'Mankind', Nichol Newfangle from Fulwell's 'Like Will to Like', and Ambidexter from Preston's 'Cambises', to his role as Mephastophilis in Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus', and culminating with an investigation of Shakespeare's Falstaff in' I Henry IV' and Iago in ' Othello'. I attempt to recover those aspects of performance that support rhetorical subversion in tandem with an examination of the plays as sites of eloquence.Ph.D