1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910772083003321

Autore

Dutton Elisabeth

Titolo

Enacting the Bible in medieval and early modern drama / / edited by Eva von Contzen and Chanita Goodblatt

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester, UK : , : Manchester University Press, , 2020

©2020

ISBN

1-5261-3161-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (296 pages) : digital file(s)

Collana

Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture

Disciplina

822.05160903

Soggetti

Bible plays - History and criticism

Christian drama, English (Middle) - History and criticism

Christianity and literature - History - To 1500

Christianity and literature - History - 16th century

English drama - To 1500 - History and criticism

English drama - Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 - History and criticism

Medieval Literature

Literary Studies: Classical, Early & Medieval

DRAMA / Medieval

Literary studies: ancient, classical & medieval

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Introduction / Chanita Goodblatt and Eva von Contzen --  Part I: Medieval drama  -- 1. Lay piety and impiety: the role of Noah's wife in the Chester play of  Noah's Flood   / Lawrence Besserman -- 2. Typology, community, and stagecraft in the N-town 'Trial of Mary and Joseph' / Jonathan Stavsky -- 3. Embodiment and joint attention: an enactive reading of the Middle English cycle plays / Eva von Contzen --  Part II: From medieval to early modern drama  -- 4. From medieval to early modern choric threnody in biblical plays / Silvia Bigliazzi -- 5. The itinerant healer as a stage role: its origins in religious drama / M. A. Katritzky -- 6. Citing scripture in later medieval and early modern English morality drama / Cathy Shrank -- 7. Religious violence and dramatic innovation in the Tudor interlude: John Heywood's  The



Pardoner and the Friar  / Greg Walker -- 8. Elizabethan biblical drama / Paul Whitfield White --  Part III: Early modern drama  -- 9. Protestant place, Protestant props in the plays of Nicholas Grimald / Elisabeth Dutton -- 10 Staging prophecy:  A Looking Glass for London  and the Book of Jonah / Hannibal Hamlin -- 11. Early modern dramatic martyrdom / Monika Fludernik -- 12. 'Samson Figuru nese': biblical plays between Czech drama and English comedy in early modern Central Europe / Pavel Drábek -- 13. To play the Fool: the Book of Esther in early modern biblical drama / Chanita Goodblatt -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

The thirteen chapters in this collection open up new horizons for the study of biblical drama by putting special emphasis on multitemporality, the intersections of biblical narrative and performance, and the strategies employed by playwrights to rework and adapt the biblical source material in Catholic, Protestant and Jewish culture. Aspects under scrutiny include dramatic traditions, confessional and religious rites, dogmas and debates, conceptualisations of performance, and audience response. The contributors stress the co-presence of biblical and contemporary concerns in the periods under discussion, conceiving of biblical drama as a central participant in the dynamic struggle to both interpret and translate the Bible.

"This volume offers new perspectives on the crucial role played by the Bible in medieval culture and in the wake of the Reformation across Europe. The thirteen chapters open up new horizons for the study of biblical drama by putting special emphasis on periodisation, the intersections of biblical narrative and performance, and the strategies employed by playwrights to rework and adapt the biblical source material.The book is based on a framework of multitemporality, transnationality, and the modalities of performance and form in relation to the uses of the Bible in late-medieval and early modern drama. These aspects are not to be treated as separate or distinct phenomena, but are intertwined: particular modalities of performance evolve, adapt, and are recreated as they intersect with different historical times and circumstances. These intersections pertain to aspects such as dramatic traditions, confessional and religious rites, dogmas and debates, conceptualisations of performance and form, and audience response - whenever the Bible is evoked for performative purposes.Stressing the presence of both biblical and contemporary concerns in the periods under discussion,  Enacting the Bible  conceives of biblical drama as a central participant in the dynamic struggle to both interpret and translate the Bible. The double focus on formal elements and the multilayeredness of time allows us to cast the idea of the Bible as a generator of meaning into sharper relief." -- Back cover.