{"id":{"repo_id":"wfu","oai_identifier":"oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/33453"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/wfu/oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/33453","repository":{"repo_id":"wfu","name":"Wake Forest University","base_url":"https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"\"Who Stand i' th' Gaps\": Narrative Authority in the Early Modern English Travel Play","abstract":"In travel writing, the conditions of travel (temporal, spatial, and cultural distance) prevent audiences from verifying foreign content for themselves, so travel accounts demand a narrator, in the words of Gower in Shakespeare's <italic>Pericles</italic>, \"who stand[s] i' the gaps.\" However, because the traveler's task is to represent what is, for his readers, unknowable, his authority cannot be challenged and is subject to abuse. In this thesis, I analyze three English travel or travel-based plays--Shakespeare's and Wilkins's <italic>Pericles</italic>, Heywood's <italic>The English Traveller</italic>, and Brome's <italic>The Antipodes</italic>--as a setting in which to examine the use of travel to construct authority on the early modern stage. Travel plays, unlike a written travel narrative, place distant events and people in close physical proximity to the viewer and revitalize textual competitions for authority in living flesh. I argue that by making their narrators visible even as they gradually relegate travel to metaphor, these plays call attention to and question the use of travel to construct narrative authority.","abstract_html":"In travel writing, the conditions of travel (temporal, spatial, and cultural distance) prevent audiences from verifying foreign content for themselves, so travel accounts demand a narrator, in the words of Gower in Shakespeare&#x27;s &lt;italic&gt;Pericles&lt;/italic&gt;, &quot;who stand[s] i&#x27; the gaps.&quot; However, because the traveler&#x27;s task is to represent what is, for his readers, unknowable, his authority cannot be challenged and is subject to abuse. In this thesis, I analyze three English travel or travel-based plays--Shakespeare&#x27;s and Wilkins&#x27;s &lt;italic&gt;Pericles&lt;/italic&gt;, Heywood&#x27;s &lt;italic&gt;The English Traveller&lt;/italic&gt;, and Brome&#x27;s &lt;italic&gt;The Antipodes&lt;/italic&gt;--as a setting in which to examine the use of travel to construct authority on the early modern stage. Travel plays, unlike a written travel narrative, place distant events and people in close physical proximity to the viewer and revitalize textual competitions for authority in living flesh. I argue that by making their narrators visible even as they gradually relegate travel to metaphor, these plays call attention to and question the use of travel to construct narrative authority.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Greenholt, Jennifer Leigh"],"institution":"Wake Forest University","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011","date_published":"2011","updated_at":"2026-07-27T22:01:14Z","subjects":["Early Modern Drama"],"languages":["en"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10339/33453","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Greenholt, Jennifer Leigh"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2011-07-14T20:35:34Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2011-07-14T20:35:34Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2011"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Wake Forest University"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Early Modern Drama"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10339/33453"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["In travel writing, the conditions of travel (temporal, spatial, and cultural distance) prevent audiences from verifying foreign content for themselves, so travel accounts demand a narrator, in the words of Gower in Shakespeare's <italic>Pericles</italic>, \"who stand[s] i' the gaps.\" However, because the traveler's task is to represent what is, for his readers, unknowable, his authority cannot be challenged and is subject to abuse. In this thesis, I analyze three English travel or travel-based plays--Shakespeare's and Wilkins's <italic>Pericles</italic>, Heywood's <italic>The English Traveller</italic>, and Brome's <italic>The Antipodes</italic>--as a setting in which to examine the use of travel to construct authority on the early modern stage. Travel plays, unlike a written travel narrative, place distant events and people in close physical proximity to the viewer and revitalize textual competitions for authority in living flesh. I argue that by making their narrators visible even as they gradually relegate travel to metaphor, these plays call attention to and question the use of travel to construct narrative authority."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["\"Who Stand i' th' Gaps\": Narrative Authority in the Early Modern English Travel Play"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Greenholt, Jennifer Leigh"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2011-07-14T20:35:34Z"],"dc:date.available":["2011-07-14T20:35:34Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2011"],"dc:description.abstract":["In travel writing, the conditions of travel (temporal, spatial, and cultural distance) prevent audiences from verifying foreign content for themselves, so travel accounts demand a narrator, in the words of Gower in Shakespeare's <italic>Pericles</italic>, \"who stand[s] i' the gaps.\" However, because the traveler's task is to represent what is, for his readers, unknowable, his authority cannot be challenged and is subject to abuse. In this thesis, I analyze three English travel or travel-based plays--Shakespeare's and Wilkins's <italic>Pericles</italic>, Heywood's <italic>The English Traveller</italic>, and Brome's <italic>The Antipodes</italic>--as a setting in which to examine the use of travel to construct authority on the early modern stage. Travel plays, unlike a written travel narrative, place distant events and people in close physical proximity to the viewer and revitalize textual competitions for authority in living flesh. I argue that by making their narrators visible even as they gradually relegate travel to metaphor, these plays call attention to and question the use of travel to construct narrative authority."],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10339/33453"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Wake Forest University"],"dc:subject":["Early Modern Drama"],"dc:title":["\"Who Stand i' th' Gaps\": Narrative Authority in the Early Modern English Travel Play"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T22:01:14Z"}