Newest research into drama and performance from the Middle Ages and the Tudor period.

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 mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays.

This edition combines, perhaps unexpectedly, royalty and games. Games of all kinds, from jousting and 'Christmas games' to those usually associated with children, are shown, it is suggested, to be more than they at first appear. Apparently run-of-the-mill entertainments, when presented to the court by the Londoners, by the court to a visiting emperor, or by the retainers of royalty and nobility to the general public for commercial gain, turn out to have unexpected political resonances; while the potential underlying sadism of children's games gains a horrific immediacy when diverted to the torturing of Christ. In the process we learn a great deal more about the detail of these games, from the maskerie costumes of James VI and Anna of Denmark to the elaborate fantasy challenges of the jousters in 1400/1401, which incidentally suggest that fourteenth-century court culture, whose language was Anglo-French, is a major missing link in the history of what is usually treated as purely English literature.

Essays on the performance of drama from the Middle Ages, ranging from the well-known cycles of York to matter from Iran.

Essays on aspects of early drama.

Newest research into drama and performance of the middle ages.

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 mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals orequivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays.
This volume comprises the second half of the Festschrift presented to John J. McGavin (of which volume 27 is the first); its essays reflect and honour many of his interests. The subjects addressed include ceremonial (a coronation and a grand funeral), audience reception and spectatorship of many kinds, Welsh drama, the role of womenin the production of libels, and the structure of didactic dialogue plays. A special addition is the late David Mills' last essay, on the Abraham Sacrifiant of Théodore Bèze.

Contributors: Mishtooni Bose, Elisabeth Dutton, Alice Hunt, Pamela M. King, David N. Klausner, David Mills, Sue Niebrzydowski, Nadia Thérèse van Pelt, Charlotte Steenbrugge, Eila Williamson

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 mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays.
This volume includes essays on spectatorship, audience reception and records of early drama, especially in Scotland, besides engaging with the current interest in the Towneley Plays and the history of its manuscript.Editors: Sarah Carpenter, Pamela M. King, Meg Twycross, Greg Walker.