Mediaeval Drama: A reading list

Abstract

This survey has been designed for several purposes - as a coursework post-graduate guide, as the schema for the similarly named paper in English Honours, and as an introduction for students doing research into Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. It is not exhaustive but rather is it concerned to give some idea of the scope of the subject, the state of scholarship at present, and the various ways in which the field has been interpreted by scholars in the last hundred years. The representation of the plays in Northern England in the post-war years has been an exciting development, as has the depth study of certain plays and portions of cycles in English universities. It should also be stressed that the study of Mediaeval Drama assists the student of Middle English literature in his understanding of both the secular and religious lyric, as well as his identification of the folk elements in various romances, particularly those from the North East Midlands. It is usually the experience of the student in this area that he is entering upon a whole new field, the literary relevance of which is immediately obvious. While the Elizabethan debt to Mediaeval Drama is not stressed unduly, it is clear that this is one of the most exciting approaches to many playwrights, even into the seventeenth century.