Shakespeare's medieval craft
Subtitle: remnants of the mysteries on the London stage
By: Kurt A. Schreyer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Ithaca; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 258
ISBN-13: 9780801452901
Copyright date: 2014
Subjects: Sources; History and criticism; Criticism and interpretation; Mysteries and miracle-plays, English
Description: "In Shakespeare's Medieval Craft, Kurt A. Schreyer explores the relationship between Shakespeare's plays and a tradition of late medieval English biblical drama known as mystery plays. Scholars of English theater have long debated Shakespeare's connection to the mystery play tradition, but Schreyer provides new perspective on the subject by focusing on the Chester Banns, a sixteenth-century proclamation announcing the annual performance of that city's cycle of mystery plays. Through close study of the Banns, Schreyer demonstrates the central importance of medieval stage objects--as vital and direct agents and not merely as precursors--to the Shakespearean stage." -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-249) and index.
Table of contents: title: Toward a Renaissance culture of medieval artifacts; title: The Chester Banns: a sixteenth-century perspective on the mysteries; title: Balaam to Bottom: a sixteenth-century translation; title: Then is doomsday near: Hamlet, the Last Judgment, and the place of purgatory; title: Here's a knocking indeed!: Macbeth and the harrowing of hell; title: Epilogue: riding the Banns beyond Shakespeare.