The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging: Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies (Variorum Collected Studies)

Description

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. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Matters of manuscript and text 1. “Nolo mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae play of the Woman Taken in Adultery 2. A reconsideration of some textual problems in the N.Town manuscript (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D viii) 3. John Clerke’s hand in the York Register 4. The York Millers’ pageant and the Towneley Processus Talentorum 5. Scribes, texts and performances 6. The Towneley pageants 7. Establishing an expositor’s role: Contemplacio and the N.Town manuscript Part II: Resuscitating records 8. The development of the Mercers’ pageant waggon 9. “Item for a grone – iijd” – records and performances 10. The Ordo Paginarum and the development of the York Tilemakers’ pageant 11. “Make the asse to speake” or staging the Chester Plays 12. The ffteenth-century audience of the York Corpus Christi play: Records and speculation 13. Professional travelling players of the ffteenth century: Myth or reality? Part III: Performance: Original and modern 14. Original-staging production of English medieval plays – ideals, evidence and practice 15. Mankind in Camerino: Playing the very devil and other matters 16. Performance, verse, and occasion in the N-Town Mary Play 17. Carved and spoken words: The angelic salutation, the Mary Play and South Walsham Church, Norfolk 18. The sealing of the tomb: N-Town and its context Bibliography Index