Description
Book SynopsisThis comprehensive anthology brings together a diverse collection of dramatic writing from the late fourteenth century to the onset of the Renaissance. The volume presents for the first time the key plays of the period in their entirety, alongside more unusual selections, covering religious narrative, religion and conscience, and politics and morality.
The first section focuses on Biblical plays, including coherent sequences of the narrative Cycle plays from York and N-Town and supporting pageants from Chester and Wakefield. This approach allows a clear narrative line to develop, and permits the comparison of the treatment of key stories between the Cycles. The selected material demonstrates how the drama of the towns and cities of East Anglia and the North of England mediated religious culture to a heterodox urban audience, and explored biblical events in an intensely contemporary setting.
In the second and third sections, the attention turns to secular drama,
Trade Review
"Walker offers a thoroughly researched and well-chosen selection of key primary texts and some unusual plays. He also provides short but comprehensive introductions that will be easily accessible to beginning students." Choice
"A marvellous collection of dramatic texts from the late fourteenth century to the beginnings of the Renaissance in the British Isles.
In this remarkably comprehensive collection we have the entire texts of the key plays of the period, including some less usual works.
A few period illustrations, maps and a street plan help set the scene. The whole exemplary apparatus is worn lightly, all helping to encourage reading and acting. Glossaries of terms and notes sit unobtrusively at the foot of the page, immediately available to help the reader.
He [Walker] specifically arranges his anthology to allow, and encourage, the plays to speak for themselves: wide-ranging selection, concise informative introduction to each work, notes and glossaries.
In a single volume a whole range of rich literature is made accessible to the modern reader in what must be just about the star volume in an anyway excellent series. This book will be essential in any undergraduate or senior school collection of English literature, or of drama, and will enhance may other collections besides". Reference Reviews
Table of ContentsIntroduction vii
Acknowledgements xi
Chronological Table xii
Places Mentioned in the Text xv
The York Performance Sites xvi
Part I Religious Narrative: The Biblical Plays 1
Introduction 3
York, The Ordo Paginarum 10
York (The Barkers/Tanners), The Fall of the Angels 12
Chester (The Tanners), The Fall of Lucifer 16
York (The Coopers), The Fall of Man 21
Chester (The Drapers), Adam and Eve 25
York (The Pewterers and Founders), Joseph’s Trouble About Mary 32
York (The Tilethatchers), The Nativity 38
Towneley, The Second Shepherds’ Play 42
Chester (The Paynters and Glaziers), The Shepherds 58
York (The Skinners), The Entry into Jerusalem 70
York (The Cutlers), The Conspiracy 80
York (The Bowers and Fletchers), Christ Before Annas and Caiaphas 89
York (The Tapiters and Couchers), Christ Before Pilate I: The Dream of Pilate’s Wife 99
York (The Litsters), Christ Before Herod 112
York (The Tilemakers), Christ Before Pilate II: The Judgement 123
York (The Pinners), The Crucifixion 134
York (The Saddlers), The Harrowing of Hell 143
York (The Carpenters), The Resurrection 150
York (The Mercers), The Last Judgement 159
The Mercers’ Indenture (1433) 159
The Last Judgement 160
N-Town, The Mary Play 167
The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge (extracts) 196
Chester, The Post-Reformation Banns 201
Matthew Hutton’s Letter to the Mayor and Council of York (1567) 206
Part II Religion And Conscience: The Moral Plays 207
Introduction 209
Croxton, The Play of the Sacrament 213
Wisdom 235
Mankind 258
Everyman 281
Part III Politics And Morality: The Interludes 299
Introduction 301
Henry Medwall, Fulgens and Lucres 305
John Skelton, Magnyfycence 349
The Enterlude of Godly Queene Hester 409
John Heywood, The Four PP 433
John Heywood, The Play of the Weather 456
John Bale, Johan Baptystes Preachynge 480
John Bale, The Three Laws 493
Sir David Lindsay, Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis 535
The Description of the 1540 Interlude 538
Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (the 1552–4 text) 541
Textual Variants 624
Glossary of Common Hard Words 627
