This work was sponsored by the University of Richmond, School of Arts & Sciences, Department of English.

This thesis examines Sonnet 23, especially in concern to: 1) Milton's adherence to monism, a philosophical and theological position that he derived from his reading of Rabbinical approaches to the Old Testament; 2) His adherence to the related doctrine of mortalism, which held that death entailed the death, until resurrection of both body and soul; and 3) Milton's interest in the way certain Puritan thinkers idealized desire for aspects of the world's beauty, especially desire for one's spouse, and how, particularly in the process of mourning, such desires could foster a stronger bond with God

In Blasted, Kane represents how incidents of rape highlight, exacerbate and solidify the unevenness of power distribution between men and women in the modern world and provides a new perspective at what we might call à à à à à à ¢ rape in generalà à à à à à ¢ - a transhistorical phenomenon of rape as a practice of violence towards the female victim.

This thesis analyzes the Revolutionary-era plays of Robert Munford and Mercy Otis Warren. Munford's two comedies, The Candidates and The Patriots, are compared to Warren's three earliest satires, The Adulateur, The Defeat, and The Group, in an effort to explain some of the differences between these two authors. The original printings of these plays from the Early American Imprints series, as well as more recent scholarship on Munford and Warren, are used to investigate the plays and lives of these playwrights.