Sign-In
Cart
Defining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretation in Late Medieval England
Paperback
ISBN13: 9780268036027
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: Jan 5 2005
Pages: 226
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.24 Depth: 9.14
Language: English
Defining Acts considers how the surviving English theatrical works of the fifteenth century represent competing practices of interpretation. The plays take up a series of contests over who could legitimately determine the meaning of texts--men or women, clerics or laity, rulers or subjects, Christians or Jews--and transform these questions for audiences far beyond their original medieval academic contexts. Ruth Nisse focuses in particular on how theater translates the temporal ideas of textual exegesis into spatial models and politics. She situates medieval drama, therefore, both in its vernacular literary setting, as a genre composed against the same cultural background as The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman, and The Book of Margery Kempe, and in its performances, which negotiate a range of contemporary social and political issues.
Defining Acts begins with an introductory chapter that reveals the dangers and pleasures of theater in a reading of Chaucer's antic Miller's Tale and the violently anti-theatrical Wycliffite Treatise of Miracle Playing. These two radically different works provide a dialectic entry into late-medieval controversies over biblical interpretation and vernacular theology, versions of which then reappear in dramatic texts themselves. Subsequent chapters engage problems such as the clash between civic rule and the authority of women's visionary experiences in the York Plays; competing ideas of labor and poverty in the Towneley Plays; and theories of Jewish exegesis that continue to haunt Christian and national understandings of history in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament.
By reading medieval drama in relation to its intertexts, Nisse explores the ways in which ideas previously limited to academic discourse become elements of public theatrical performances, available to new audiences. Her pathbreaking approach to the study of medieval drama makes this book required reading for scholars and students alike.
3 different editions
Also available
Defining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretaion in Late Medieval England
Nisse, Ruth
Hardcover
Also in
Literary Criticism
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Swerling, Lisa
Lazar, Ralph
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Cirino, Mark
Hardcover
Script Analysis for Theatre: Tools for Interpretation, Collaboration and Production
Knopf, Robert
Paperback
Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land & Agricultural Development in Arusha & Meru
Spear, Thomas
Paperback
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Alighieri, Dante
Pitavy, Francois
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic
Edwards, Catharine
Hardcover
As You Like It: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Mandarin Chinese Characters Made Easy: An Easy Step-by-Step Approach to Learn Chinese Characters (HSK Level 1)
Lingo Mastery
Paperback
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
The Art and Craft of Stephen King: The Story Behind Every Novel, Novella, and Short Story
LaFond, Frank
Astic, Guy
Hardcover
Read Your Color: Discover Your Reading Type and Build a Life-Changing Love of Books
Reese, Steven J.
Paperback
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
The Lightning-Bug and the Lightning: Debunking the Myths of Mark Twain, in His Own Words
Dawidziak, Mark
Hardcover
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Fadiman, Clifton
Major, John S.
Paperback
Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, an American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Dillard, Annie
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Paperback