Medieval English Theatre 44
Title Details

172 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

9 b/w

Series: Medieval English Theatre

Series Vol. Number: 44

Imprint: D.S.Brewer

Medieval English Theatre 44

Edited by Meg Twycross, Sarah Carpenter, Elisabeth Dutton and Gordon L Kipling

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Author
  • Related Content
Newest research into drama and performance of the Middle Ages and Tudor period.

Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic religious plays , and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays.

The papers in this volume explore richly interlocking topics. Themes of royalty and play continue from Volume 43. We have the first in-depth examination of the employment of the now-famous Black Tudor trumpeter, John Blanke, at the royal courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. An entertaining survey of the popular European game of blanket-tossing accompanies the translation of a raucous, sophisticated, but surprisingly humane Dutch rederijkers farce. The Towneley plays remain fertile ground for further research, and this blanket-tossing farce illuminates a key scene of the well-known Second Shepherd's Play. New exploration of a colloquial reference to 'Stafford Blue' in another Towneley pageant, Noah, not only enlivens the play's social context but contributes to important current re-thinking of the manuscript's date. Two papers bring home the theatrical potential of food and eating. We learn how the Tudor interlude Jacob and Esau dramatises the preparation and provision of food from the Genesis story. Serving and eating meals becomes a means of social, theological, and theatrical manipulation. Contrastingly, in the N. Town Last Supper play and a French convent drama, we see how the bread of Passover, the Last Supper, and the Mass could be evoked, layered and shared in performance. In both these plays the audiences' experiences of theatre and of communion overlap and inform each other.
John Blanke's Wages: No Business Like Show Business - Nadia van Pelt
Perpetually Editing Towneley: A Speculative Textual Note on Mrs Noah's 'Stafford Blue' - Pamela M. King
Understanding the Blanket-Toss in Medieval Drama: The Case of Een Cluijt van Lijsgen en Jan Lichthart - Ben Parsons and Bas Jongenelen
Alimentary Address and the Management of Appetite and Hunger in Jacob and Esau - Ernst Gerhardt
Last Supper, First Communion: Some Staging Challenges in N. Town and the Huy Nuns' Play based on Deguileville's Pèlerinage de la vie humaine - Elisabeth Dutton and Olivia Robinson

MEG TWYCROSS is professor Emeritus of English Medieval Studies at University of Lancaster

SARAH CARPENTER is Honorary Fellow in English Literature, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh.

ELISABETH DUTTON is Professor of Medieval English at Fribourg, Switzerland.

GORDON L. KIPLING is Emeritus Professor of English Literature, UCLA, Los Angeles.

The chapter “Last Supper, First Communion: Some Staging Challenges in N. Town and the Huy Nuns’ Play based on Deguileville’s Pèlerinage de la vie humaine” by Elisabeth Dutton and Olivia Robinson is available below as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC BY−NC−ND. The Open Access version of this chapter was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Read or download the chapter

Paperback

9781843846499

June 2023

Buy

£35.00 / $49.95

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Title Details

172 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

9 b/w

Series: Medieval English Theatre

Series Vol. Number: 44

Imprint: D.S.Brewer