ABSTRACT
English medieval drama had been largely Catholic in nature, but Protestant reformers were deeply suspicious of theatricality, and within two generations of the Reformation, the stage was secular by force of law. For 300 years, this censorship of biblical theatre (and consequent self-censorship by authors of their own expressive endeavours) was highly effective. But the nineteenth century saw a resurgence of devotional enthusiasm in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, partly because of the Evangelical revival and partly because of Catholicism’s return to social prominence after the enactment of the Catholic Relief Act in 1829. Authors and painters were intrigued by the Incarnation, yet drama—the art form pre-eminently positioned to interrogate the relationship between word and flesh, embodiment and impersonation—was precluded by law from contributing to the wider cultural conversation. One interest of this chapter, then, is the legal control of art, and another is the creative work encouraged by the very conditions which sought to restrain the public expression of such religious impulses in any embodied form. This chapter looks at several plays which responded to the threat of suppression by deploying ambiguity for devotional effect [notably Laurence Housman’s Bethlehem (1902), Jerome K. Jerome’s The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1908), and Alice Buckton’s Eager Heart (?1909–1910)], until such time as the regulatory framework was finally relaxed.
