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“HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832

Parrish, Sonya Christine Lawson
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1334298486

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, English.
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.
Katharine Gillespie (Committee Chair)
180 p.
American Literature; British and Irish Literature
captivity; circum-Atlantic, political agency, eighteenth century

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Parrish, S. C. L. (2012). “HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832 [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1334298486

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Parrish, Sonya. “HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832. 2012. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1334298486.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Parrish, Sonya. "“HAVING THE LIBERTY OF MY MOUTH”: SPEECH ACTS, POLITICAL AGENCY AND THE TROPE OF FEMALE CAPTIVITY IN THE BRITISH ATLANTIC, 1634-1832." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1334298486

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.