ENGLISH 90cd: English 90cd

Introduction to Medieval Drama

Amy R. Appleford

This course examines dramatic texts and performance from the early Middle Ages up to and including the sixteenth century. Investigating ritual performance and the liturgy; carnival games and mummers' plays; civic drama and staging the Passion; court pageantry and spectacle; commercial theater, its reforming opponents, and the medieval stage of Marlowe and Shakespeare - considers the limits of performance (in drama, ritual, magic), the implications of playing God, and suffering as spectacle.