Famous last words

English Renaissance drama is full of death and some of the most memorable deaths are prefaced by marvellous speeches. Waikato University PhD student Fiona Martin is researching dying words in early modern English drama and recently won $5000 to put towards her study.

Ms Martin was the winner of the University’s Thesis in Three competition where, as part of Postgraduate Research Month, doctoral students had to outline their theses in three minutes. Sixty students took part in early rounds and the best eight presenters came together in a final competition, judged for their ability to communicate their research and its significance.

“It was a good experience, to condense and compact what I’m doing into such a short time and showing a single slide.”

Ms Martin says she’s looking at death speeches delivered before onstage murders, executions, and suicide and says while the plays of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster are obvious choices she’s also managed to find some more obscure writers who give their characters interesting last words, such as Thomas Middleton, John Marston and William Sampson.

“I’m interested in the historical events and cultural trends as background to the plays, looking at how they influenced final speeches. Certain motifs tend to be repeated and playwrights often adapted their source material to give their players greater impact.”

Chief judge of Thesis in Three, Prof. Doug Sutton, said all the presentations were clever and clear. He praised the presenters for their use of humour and theatre and the passion they showed for their work.

Second place getter was biology student Ron Zavier who won $2,500 for his presentation on “survival tactics of a food-borne killer”, and won the audience’s vote for the people’s choice award for his brief description of his study into the secret life of E. coli.