Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern PeriodUniversity of Chicago Press, 2001 - 343 pages How was it possible for drama, especially biblical representations, to appear in the Christian West given the church's condemnation of the theatrum of the ancient world?In a book with radical implications for the study of medieval literature, Lawrence Clopper resolves this perplexing question. Drama, Play, and Game demonstrates that the theatrum repudiated by medieval clerics was not "theater" as we understand the term today. Clopper contends that critics have misrepresented Western stage history because they have assumed that theatrum designates a place where drama is performed. While theatrum was thought of as a site of spectacle during the Middle Ages, the term was more closely connected with immodest behavior and lurid forms of festive culture. Clerics were not opposed to liturgical representations in churches, but they strove ardently to suppress May games, ludi, festivals, and liturgical parodies. Medieval drama, then, stemmed from a more vernacular tradition than previously acknowledged-one developed by England's laity outside the boundaries of clerical rule. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 The Theatrum and the Rhetoric of Abuse in the Middle Ages | 25 |
2 Miracula Ludi inhonesti Somergames and the Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge | 63 |
The Ludi of Monasteries and Cathedrals Towns and Parishes | 108 |
Drama and the City | 138 |
5 Texts and Performances | 169 |
6 The Matter of These Plays | 204 |
7 Variety in the Dramas of East Anglia | 235 |
8 The Persistence of Medieval Drama in the Tudor and Elizabethan Periods | 268 |
appendix I References to Miracula Miracles and Steracles in Medieval and Early Modern England | 295 |
The Play of Saints in Late Medieval and Tudor England | 299 |
Works Cited | 307 |
331 | |
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Common terms and phrases
activities actors allegory Antichrist antitheatrical argued audience Banns baptism Beverley biblical drama biblical plays boy bishop Castle cathedral Chester Christ Christian church circa cited civic clergy clerical Clopper Corpus Christi play Coventry cycle Early English Drama East Anglia Edited English Drama entertainments feast Gerhoh guilds Holy Ibid interludes Isidore John John Lydgate king laity Lancashire Latin lines liturgical liturgical drama London Lord ludi inhonesti ludi theatrales ludus manuscript Mary Magdalene Medieval Drama Middle Ages Middle English miraclis pleyinge miracula monastic moral moral plays N-Town Nicholas Oxford pageants parish parish ales Passion performed Plays and Players playwright pley procession Records of Early references Reformation religious drama representation representationes ritual Romney sacrament Saint George saint plays says scene scripts secular sixteenth century spectacula stage play steraclis suggests Terence theater theatrical theatrum tion Towneley towns tradition Tretise of Miraclis Tudor vernacular vols Wakefield Wisdom York þat