York Mystery Plays

York Mystery Plays PDF Author: Richard Beadle
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191611239
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
This volume offers 22 of the central pageants which make up York's famous Corpus Christi cycle. The York cycle is the oldest and best-known of the English mystery cycles, and its depth and scope are reflected in the selection printed here. The shape of the cycle was governed by subject matter of enduring spiritual significance, both to its contemporary audience and in later literary and artistic tradition, and the selection reflects these concerns. Included are plays on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, and the Last Judgement. The Passion sequence has been expanded by six of the eight plays generally attributed to the great poetic dramatist known as the York Realist: the authentic text of these plays is not otherwise available in paperback. As well as providing detailed annotation, this edition offers an introduction which examines the history of the cycle and discusses the immensely popular modern productions in York and elsewhere. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

York Mystery Plays

York Mystery Plays PDF Author: Richard Beadle
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191611239
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
This volume offers 22 of the central pageants which make up York's famous Corpus Christi cycle. The York cycle is the oldest and best-known of the English mystery cycles, and its depth and scope are reflected in the selection printed here. The shape of the cycle was governed by subject matter of enduring spiritual significance, both to its contemporary audience and in later literary and artistic tradition, and the selection reflects these concerns. Included are plays on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, and the Last Judgement. The Passion sequence has been expanded by six of the eight plays generally attributed to the great poetic dramatist known as the York Realist: the authentic text of these plays is not otherwise available in paperback. As well as providing detailed annotation, this edition offers an introduction which examines the history of the cycle and discusses the immensely popular modern productions in York and elsewhere. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The English Mystery Plays

The English Mystery Plays PDF Author: Rosemary Woolf
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520040816
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
This important new study of the English mystery plays has a twofold purpose. It is concerned to investigate the antecedents of the four extant cycles and to demonstrate the dramatic value of the plays themselves The opening and concluding chapters place the plays in their historical context by discussing on the one hand the emergence and achievements of genuine religious drama (as opposed to liturgical drama) in the twelfth century and on the other the changes in taste that threw the plays into disrepute in the sixteenth century. The man part of the book analyzes the plays in detail, considering the iconographic and theological traditions that guided the dramatists in their treatment of biblical subject-matter, and also looking at the Continental drama of the time to find out what other dramatic possibilities were open to writers in the Middle Ages. -- From publisher's description.

The Chester Mystery Plays

The Chester Mystery Plays PDF Author: Maurice Hussey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Wakefield Mystery Plays

The Wakefield Mystery Plays PDF Author: Martial Rose
Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9780393004830
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
The complete cycle of thirty-two plays.

Studies in the English Mystery Plays

Studies in the English Mystery Plays PDF Author:
Publisher: Ardent Media
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description


Shakespeare's Medieval Craft

Shakespeare's Medieval Craft PDF Author: Kurt A. Schreyer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 080145509X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
In Shakespeare's Medieval Craft, Kurt A. Schreyer explores the relationship between Shakespeare’s plays and a tradition of late medieval English biblical drama known as mystery plays. Scholars of English theater have long debated Shakespeare’s connection to the mystery play tradition, but Schreyer provides new perspective on the subject by focusing on the Chester Banns, a sixteenth-century proclamation announcing the annual performance of that city’s cycle of mystery plays. Through close study of the Banns, Schreyer demonstrates the central importance of medieval stage objects—as vital and direct agents and not merely as precursors—to the Shakespearean stage.As Schreyer shows, the Chester Banns serve as a paradigm for how Shakespeare’s theater might have reflected on and incorporated the mystery play tradition, yet distinguished itself from it. For instance, he demonstrates that certain material features of Shakespeare’s stage—including the ass’s head of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the theatrical space of Purgatory in Hamlet, and the knocking at the gate in the Porter scene of Macbeth—were in fact remnants of the earlier mysteries transformed to meet the exigencies of the commercial London playhouses. Schreyer argues that the ongoing agency of supposedly superseded theatrical objects and practices reveal how the mystery plays shaped dramatic production long after their demise. At the same time, these medieval traditions help to reposition Shakespeare as more than a writer of plays; he was a play-wright, a dramatic artisan who forged new theatrical works by fitting poetry to the material remnants of an older dramatic tradition.

Everyman

Everyman PDF Author: Anonymous
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781420978001
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Written in Middle English during the Tudor period, "Everyman" is the most famous example of the medieval morality play. Popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th century, morality plays were allegorical dramas in which the protagonists are met with the personifications of personal attributes and tasked with choosing either a good and godly life or evil. "Everyman" is the archetypal morality play, as the main character, Everyman, represents all of mankind. God, frustrated with the wicked and greedy, sends Death to Everyman and summons him to account for his misdeeds and sins. It was believed that God tallied all of one's good and evil deeds in life and then one must provide an accounting before God upon one's death. During Everyman's pilgrimage to God, he meets many characters, such as Fellowship, Good Deeds, and Knowledge. Everyman asks them all to join him in his journey so that he may improve his reckoning before God. In the end, it is only Good Deeds that stays with him before God and helps Everyman find salvation and eternal life. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Morality Play

Morality Play PDF Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0525434097
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book In medieval England, a runaway scholar-priest named Nicholas Barber has joined a traveling theater troupe as they make their way toward their liege lord’s castle. In need of money, they decide to perform at a village en route. When their traditional morality plays fail to garner them an audience, they begin to stage the “the play of Thomas Wells”—their own depiction of the real-life drama unfolding within the village around the murder of a young boy. The villagers believe they have already identified the killer, and the troupe believes their play will be a straightforward depiction of justice served. But soon the players soon learn that the details of the crime are elusive, and the lines between performance and reality become blurred as they discover, scene by scene, line by line, what really happened. Thought-provoking and unforgettable, Morality Play is at once a masterful work of historical fiction, a gripping murder mystery, and a literary work of the first order.

Cyclic Form and the English Mystery Plays

Cyclic Form and the English Mystery Plays PDF Author: Peter Happé
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900433369X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Cyclic Form and the English Mystery Plays is centred upon the five extant English mystery cycles with a view to examining the cyclic form they share. It is based upon consideration of the differences between the texts and upon the underlying assumptions governing this dramatic form. The cycles are extensively compared with practices in the cyclic dramas of France, the German-speaking areas, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain in the late middle ages and the early modern period. There is also a unique and innovative bridging with iconographical material from a range of artistic modes giving further insight into the structure and organisation of cyclic form. Cyclic Form and the English Mystery Plays should be of interest to undergraduate students and to more experienced researchers in the early drama and the study of visual images and artefacts.

Shakespeare's Mystery Play

Shakespeare's Mystery Play PDF Author: Stephen T. Sohmer
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719055669
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Through considerable detective work, this work sets out to show that Julius Caeser was the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre on 12 June 1599. Drawing on many areas of expertise, which are rarely allied in Shakespeare scholarship to such an extent, including biblical, liturgical, social and theatrical history, the author sheds new light not only on Julius Caeser but on a variety of accepted beliefs. These include: why Hamlet was not crowned king when his father died; why Brutus would not swear to murder Caeser; why the Elizabethan authorities retained the Julian calender; and why the orthodox dates of the first composition of both Twelfth Night and Hamlet can be called into question.