To Chester and Beyond: Meaning, Text and Context in Early English Drama
To Chester and Beyond: Meaning, Text and Context in Early English Drama

Author: David Mills

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-31

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1000950360

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This volume brings together a selection of the major articles of David Mills (1938-2013), which along with similar volumes by Alexandra F. Johnston, Peter Meredith and Meg Twycross makes up a set of "Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies". Mills was one of these four key scholars whose work has changed what is known about English medieval drama and theatre. He made major contributions to understanding English medieval theatre in the widest sense but more specifically to the nature and development of medieval plays and their performance at Chester. The scope of his work from manuscript to performance has created new knowledge and insights brought about by his remarkable technical skill as an editor and researcher. His texts of the Chester Cycle of Mystery Plays have become the standard works. In the light of this outstanding research the volume is comprised of four sections: 1. Editors and Editing; 2. Cultural Contexts; 3. Staging and Performance; 4. Criticism and Evaluation. An editorial introduction opens the work.

The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe
The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe

Author: Brian Murdoch

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2009-04-02

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0199564140

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The apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve explores what happened to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Paradise. Professor Murdoch considers the varied development of the apocryphal material, and presents a fascinating analysis of the flourishing medieval tradition of Adam and Eve, celebrated in European prose, verse, and drama.

The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging
The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging

Author: Peter Meredith

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-02

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1351266020

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Collected Studies CS1069 The essays selected for this volume reflect Peter Meredith’s major contribution to the revival and revision of academic and public interest in medieval English drama and theatre. A number of coinciding factors in the last quarter of the twentieth century brought together a group of scholars, represented here in the Shifting Paradigms series, determined to place the study of medieval drama in a broader context than that of solely reading texts. The publication of Records of Early English Drama, the University of Leeds facsimiles of medieval drama manuscripts, the establishment of the journal and annual meetings of Medieval English Theatre, brought a wider perspective to the discipline. And, by no means least, the bringing to bear of all these ground-breaking developments to the mammoth tasks of recreating in the public domain the original-staging of medieval plays. Peter Meredith had a hand in the formation and lasting influence of all these crucial innovations. The variety and depth of his comprehensive approach to the study of medieval drama and theatre is clearly evinced in each of the essays chosen for this volume.

Farce and Farcical Elements
Farce and Farcical Elements

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-10-11

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9004334246

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Farcical elements were incorporated into non-comic drama ever since the theatre had been rediscovered in the Middle Ages. Already at a very early stage, comic scenes proved to be popular additions to liturgical music drama and, later, to religious plays in the vernacular. Some scholars believe that the genre of farce developed out of these farcical elements. The suggestion was made that farces, similar to the stuffing of meat or poultry, had been added to plays to increase audience involvement. Other researchers see quite different origins for the farce. The present volume does not aspire to solve the question of the relationship between the two types of “comedy” on the medieval stages but its editors hope that it will nevertheless contribute to this discussion. In addition, it will enable its readers to form an impression of the huge variety of the comic in the vast area of medieval and early Renaissance theatre and drama.

Moving Subjects
Moving Subjects

Author: Kathleen M. Ashley

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9789042012653

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Procession, arguably the most ubiquitous and versatile public performance mode until the seventeenth century, has received little scholarly or theoretical attention. Yet, this form of social behaviour has been so thoroughly naturalised in our accounts of western European history that it merited little comment as a cultural performance choice over many centuries until recently, when a generation of cultural historians using explanatory models from anthropology called attention to the processional mode as a privileged vehicle for articulation in its society. Their analyses, however, tended to focus on the issue of whether processions produced social harmony or reinforced social distinctions, potentially leading to conflict. While such questions are not ignored in this collection of essays, its primary purpose is to reflect upon salient theatrical aspects of processions that may help us understand how in the performance of "moving subjects" they accomplished their often transformative cultural work.