{"product_id":"defining-acts-9780268036027","title":"Defining Acts","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDefining Acts\u003c\/i\u003e considers how the surviving English theatrical works of the fifteenth century represent competing practices of interpretation. The plays take up a series of contests over who could legitimately determine the meaning of textsmen or women, clerics or laity, rulers or subjects, Christians or Jewsand transform these questions for audiences far beyond their original medieval academic contexts. Ruth Nisse focuses in particular on how theater translates the temporal ideas of textual exegesis into spatial models and politics. She situates medieval drama, therefore, both in its vernacular literary setting, as a genre composed against the same cultural background as\u003ci\u003e The Canterbury Tales\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e Piers Plowman,\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e The Book of Margery Kempe\u003c\/i\u003e, and in its performances, which negotiate a range of contemporary social and political issues.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDefining Acts\u003c\/i\u003e begins with an introductory chapter that reveals the dangers and pleasures of theater in a reading of\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“. . . an absorbing work on exegetical practices in late medieval literature. . . . \u003ci\u003eDefining Acts\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the most interesting investigations into exegetical politics in early English drama to be produced in many years.” —\u003ci\u003eMedium Aevum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Nisse's discussions include much of value. [O]ne cannot but be grateful for her thoughts on the problems caused by men playing women's roles and Christians playing Jews and on the issues between governing and governed classes.\" —\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Nisse's exceptional study of the political implications of interpretation both represented in, and occasioned by various dramatic enactments of religious texts offers a fascinating glimpse into not only the performance history of her dramatic texts, but also the interweaving of the great intellectual and cultural threads which produce the unique texture of the period.” —\u003ci\u003eComitatus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eDefining Acts\u003c\/i\u003e examines the ways that biblical and morality plays from later medieval England performed a 'vernacular theology' that addressed the social concerns of their diverse audiences. . . Her book explores the intersection of a religious-but not ecclesiastically controlled-drama with the multiple political and spiritual currents circulating during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; these include Wycliffite theology, female and male mysticism, Franciscan ideals, and anti-Jewish exegesis.\" —\u003ci\u003eSpeculum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eDefining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretation in Late Medieval England\u003c\/i\u003e we see the challenges and problems of theatrical exegesis played out in a theater of remarkable range and urgency. Ruth Nisse ably persuades in this thoughtful, illuminating book that, as her epigraph from Beckett's \u003ci\u003eEndgame\u003c\/i\u003e extolls, 'Ah the old questions, the old answers, there's nothing like them!' \" —\u003ci\u003eStudies in the Age of Chaucer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"...an in-depth reflection upon surviving English theatrical works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and how they represent competing interpretations.\" —\u003ci\u003eMidwest Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Using surviving theatrical works as the medium, \u003ci\u003eDefining Acts \u003c\/i\u003eprovides an analysis of how texts were interpreted in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England. ...it provides insights into the fifteenth century controversy concerning the access of the laity to scripture. Theatrical works reflected this controversy, as well as opening up the politics of interpretation in new directions.\" —\u003ci\u003eHistory: Reviews of New Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This forcefully argued and immensely detailed study makes a new case for the relationships among drama, dissent, and religion in the English fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It will be valued for its development of key ideas and motifs, its detailed working-through of textual associations and allusions, and its intuitive associations.\" —Seth Lerer, Stanford University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Medieval drama, itself immensely confident, subtle, and profound, meets in Ruth Nisse a scholar able to match its demands. From her pyrotechnic opening discussion of the \u003ci\u003eMiller's Tale\u003c\/i\u003e to her penetrating final chapter on \u003ci\u003eWisdom\u003c\/i\u003e, Nisse's cultural intelligence remains unfailingly alert and illuminating. \u003ci\u003eDefining Acts\u003c\/i\u003e is itself a defining act.\" —James Simpson, Harvard University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"This is an original, well-researched book of enormous interpretive richness and subtlety whose readings unostentatiously but tenaciously and persuasively build on and reinforce each other. It is certain to become a set text for students of medieval English drama.\" —Sarah Beckwith, Duke University\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Notre Dame Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400738677079,"sku":"9780268036027","price":25.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780268036027.jpg?v=1730471437","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/defining-acts-9780268036027","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}