ABSTRACT
Collected Studies CS1062
This volume brings together a selection of the major articles of Alexandra F. Johnston, which along with similar volumes by the late David Mills, Peter Meredith and Meg Twycross makes up a set of "Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies". Alexandra Johnston, the founding director of the research project, Records of Early English Drama, is one of these four key scholars whose work has had a profound influence on the study of medieval and early modern English drama.
This collection of essays focuses especially on the York plays: on the Mercers’ documents that initiated the project itself; on the theology and christology of the plays; on the relationship between the plays and contemporary administrative bodies, both civic and national; and on the performance of the York plays in modern times. A further group of articles considers documentary evidence for the wide range of drama and mimetic ceremony in the Midlands and the West Country, reinforcing our understanding that these events took place predominately on a local parish level. The collection is rounded out with a survey of the immense changes that our reading of early English drama have undergone over the past half century.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|106 pages
York records
chapter 1.1|9 pages
The Doomsday pageant of the York Mercers, 1433
chapter 1.2|25 pages
The York Mercers and their pageant of Doomsday, 1433–1526
chapter 1.3|6 pages
The procession and play of Corpus Christi in York after 1426
chapter 1.4|39 pages
The plays of the religious guilds of York – the Creed play and the Pater Noster play
chapter 1.5|11 pages
The guild of Corpus Christi and the procession of Corpus Christi in York
chapter 1.6|14 pages
The York Cycle and the libraries of York
part 2|67 pages
Other records
chapter 2.1|17 pages
The emerging pattern of the Easter play in England
chapter 2.2|17 pages
The feast of Corpus Christi in the West Country
chapter 2.3|16 pages
Summer festivals in the Thames Valley counties
chapter 2.4|15 pages
The Robin Hood of the records
part 3|65 pages
Suppression and change
chapter 3.1|23 pages
The city as patron: York
chapter 3.2|18 pages
‘And how the state will beare with it, I knowe not’
chapter 3.3|22 pages
William Cecil and the drama of persuasion
part 4|52 pages
Theory/theology
chapter 4.1|14 pages
‘The word made flesh’: Augustinian elements in the York Cycle
chapter 4.2|16 pages
‘At the still point of the turning world’: The Augustinian roots of medieval dramaturgy
chapter 4.3|10 pages
‘His langage is lorne’: The silent centre of the York Cycle
chapter 4.4|10 pages
Making yourself ‘þer present’: Nicholas Love and the plays of the Passion
part 5|27 pages
Performance
chapter 5.1|9 pages
The York Corpus Christi play: A dramatic structure based on performance practice
chapter 5.3|12 pages
Acting Mary: The emotional realism of the mature virgin in the N-Town plays
part 6|21 pages
Summing up