IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

The d i s s e r t a t i o n r e a p p r a i s e s Thomas Dekker's dramatic achievement through an examination of h i s c o n t r i b u t i o n to the development of Elizabethan-Jacobean domestic drama. Dekker's a l t e r a t i o n s and m o d i f i c a t i o n s of two e s s e n t i a l f e a t u r e s o f e a r l y E n g l i s h domestic drama—the h o m i l e t i c p a t t e r n of s i n , punishment, and repentance, which the genre i n h e r i t e d from the m o r a l i t y t r a d i t i o n , and the g l o r i f i c a t i o n of the c u l t o f d o m e s t i c i t y — a t t e s t to a complex moral and dramatic v i s i o n which c r i t i c s have g e n e r a l l y ignored. In P a t i e n t G r i s s i l , h i s e a r l i e s t extant domestic p l a y , which p o r t r a y s a m b i v a l e n t l y the v i c i s s i t u d e s of m a r i t a l and f a m i l y l i f e , Dekker combines an a l l e g o r i c a l s u p e r s t r u c t u r e with a r e a l i s t i c s e t t i n g . The t e n s i o n between h o m i l e t i c and r e a l i s t i c impulses i s a l s o at the he a r t o f The Honest Whore. In Part I, although Dekker prov i d e s a trenchant p o r t r a i t of the a f f l i c t e d domus, the p l a y ' s s a t i r i c a l tone c l a s h e s oddly with the h o m i l e t i c schemes. In Part I I , however, the marriage code i s presented amid i n t r i c a t e p l o t t i n g and a complex e t h i c a l d esign i n which orthodox h o m i l e t i c paradigms such as the p a t i e n t wife, the t e s t i n g o f the wife ' s v i r t u e , and the p r o d i g a l husband's r e f o r m a t i o n are c o n s i s t e n t l y undermined through i r o n y and paradox. Taken as a whole, these three p l a y s r e v e a l Dekker's growing c y n i c i s m toward the t i d y moral and dramatic schemes of t h e i r analogues, and of the