Studies in Early English Drama – serie

Written to honour the distinguished work and career of Alexandra F. Johnston, 'Bring furth the pagants' brings together original essays in early English drama by colleagues and students of the founder and director of the Records of Early English Drama Project.Editors David N. Klausner and Karen Sawyer Marsalek have grouped the contributions into three primary areas of Johnston's research: the study of documentary records in relation to drama, including new research on the York documents; the interpretation of early English drama, focusing both on the biblical plays and also on the moral interludes, including a broad survey of the role of the Expositor figure in English and French plays; and the drama of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Marlowe and Shakespeare) from the standpoint of its medieval background.Diverse, thought-provoking, and original, this collection acts as an important complement to the REED volumes and provides a fitting tribute to the scholar it honours.

In 2002, the Records of Early English Drama (REED) project marked its twenty-fifth anniversary with a special series of sessions at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds University. The REED sessions were designed to allow critical reflection on the past, present, and future of the project as it entered the twenty-first century. Thirteen essays amplifying the content of selected conference papers, and a fourteenth submitted at the editors' invitation, make up REED in Review.Contributors to the collection describe the conception and early years of REED, assess the project's impact on recent and current scholarship, and anticipate or propose stimulating new directions for future research. Individual essays address a wide variety of subjects, from the impact of REED research on Shakespeare textual editing, Robin Hood, patronage, and Elizabethan theatre studies, to a thought provoking redefinition of 'drama,' details of recent ground-breaking research in Scottish records, and the broadening possibilities for editorial and research relationships with information technology. The editors' introduction and a select bibliography, with commentary and a list of REED-related publications by editors and scholars from a variety of disciplines, make up the remainder of this landmark volume.

In 2002, the Records of Early English Drama (REED) project marked its twenty-fifth anniversary with a special series of sessions at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds University. The REED sessions were designed to allow critical reflection on the past, present, and future of the project as it entered the twenty-first century. Thirteen essays amplifying the content of selected conference papers, and a fourteenth submitted at the editors' invitation, make up REED in Review.Contributors to the collection describe the conception and early years of REED, assess the project's impact on recent and current scholarship, and anticipate or propose stimulating new directions for future research. Individual essays address a wide variety of subjects, from the impact of REED research on Shakespeare textual editing, Robin Hood, patronage, and Elizabethan theatre studies, to a thought provoking redefinition of 'drama,' details of recent ground-breaking research in Scottish records, and the broadening possibilities for editorial and research relationships with information technology. The editors' introduction and a select bibliography, with commentary and a list of REED-related publications by editors and scholars from a variety of disciplines, make up the remainder of this landmark volume.

The Irish contribution to world theatre is famous, but today awareness of Irish theatrical activity is chiefly confined to the modern period. This book corrects that imbalance with an unparalleled study of the early history of drama and performance in Ireland, from the seventh century through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and ending on the eve of the arrival of Oliver Cromwell. The work of professional entertainers is discussed, as is that of amateurs, in theatricals sponsored by churches, guilds, civic authorities, and aristocratic patrons. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, many unpublished, Alan Fletcher opens up a vibrant but forgotten Irish landscape in which drama and performance collaborated actively in the mapping and manufacture of social history. Modern Irish drama is acknowledged as having a rich and vibrant tradition. Drama, Performance and Polity in Pre-Cromwellian Ireland helps to show how that vibrant tradition of drama and theatre has a very long history. Dr. Fletcher deals not only with performance traditions outside the Pale in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but for the first time delves into such traditions as can be gleaned about Gaelic Ireland during the preceding millennium. Fletcher surveys the 'native' traditions beyond the Pale; early and sixteenth-century activities within Dublin; Kilkenny drama; provincial centres outside Dublin; and Dublin in the seventeenth century up to the arrival of Oliver Cromwell, when the Irish theatres were closed.

Since the appearance of the first volume in 1979, the Records of Early English Drama (REED) series has made available an accurate and useable transcription of all surviving documentary evidence of dramatic, ceremonial, and minstrel activity in Great Britain up to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Although they are immensely valuable to scholars, the REED volumes sometimes prove difficult for students to use without considerable assistance. With this book, Elza Tiner aims to make the records accessible for classroom use. The contributors to the volume describe the various ways in which students can learn from working with these documents. Divided into five sections, the volume illustrates how specific disciplines can use the Records to provide resources for students including ways to teach the historical documents of early English drama, training students in acting and producing, historical contexts for the interpretation of literature, as well as the study of local history, women’s studies, and historical linguistics. As a practical and much needed companion to the REED volumes, Teaching with the Records of Early English Drama will prove invaluable to both students and teachers of Medieval English Drama.

Morris dancing, one of the more peculiar of the English folk customs, has been greatly misunderstood. Traditional scholarship on this custom has been based on the assumption that morris dancing is one of the pagan calendar rituals, a preconception held by many folklorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Now, building upon his previous work with Michael Heaney of the Bodleian Library in Annals of Early Morris, John Forrest carefully analyses a wealth of evidence to show that morris dancing does not, in fact have pagan or ancient origins. His examination of early documentation draws morris traditions into the wider area of communal customs and public celebrations, showing the passage of dance ideas between groups of people who until now have been considered folklorically distinct. Careful, detailed, and encyclopedic, The History of Morris Dancing, 1458-1750 is an essential reference work for specialists in English drama and social historians of the period.

Written to honour the distinguished work and career of Alexandra F. Johnston, 'Bring furth the pagants' brings together original essays in early English drama by colleagues and students of the founder and director of the Records of Early English Drama Project.Editors David N. Klausner and Karen Sawyer Marsalek have grouped the contributions into three primary areas of Johnston's research: the study of documentary records in relation to drama, including new research on the York documents; the interpretation of early English drama, focusing both on the biblical plays and also on the moral interludes, including a broad survey of the role of the Expositor figure in English and French plays; and the drama of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Marlowe and Shakespeare) from the standpoint of its medieval background.Diverse, thought-provoking, and original, this collection acts as an important complement to the REED volumes and provides a fitting tribute to the scholar it honours.

The York Mystery Plays are a cycle of originally performed on wagons in the city. They date from the fourteenth century and Biblical narrative from Creation to Last Judgment. After nearly four hundred years without a performance, a revival of the York Mysteries began in 1951 when local amateurs led by professional theatre practitioners staged them during the festival of Britain. Playing a Part in History examines the ways in which the revival of these plays transformed them for twentieth- and twenty-first-century audiences.Considering such topics as the contemporary popularity of the plays, the agendas of the revivalists, and major production differences, Margaret Rogerson provides a fascinating comparison of medieval and modern English drama. Drawing extensively on archival material, and newspaper and academic reviews of the plays in recent years, Playing a Part in History is not only an illuminating account of early English drama, but also of the ways in which theatre allows people to interact with the past.