A Cultural History of Theatre in the Middle Ages

by Jody Enders (Editor)

Historically and broadly defined as the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance, the Middle Ages encompass a millennium of cultural conflicts and developments. A large body of mystery, passion, miracle and morality plays cohabited with song, dance, farces and other public spectacles, frequently sharing ecclesiastical and secular inspiration. A Cultural History of Theatre in the Middle Ages provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the cultural history of theatre between 500 and 1500, and imaginatively pieces together the puzzle of medieval theatre by foregrounding the study of performance.

Each of the ten chapters of this richly illustrated volume takes a different theme as its focus: institutional frameworks; social functions; sexuality and gender; the environment of theatre; circulation; interpretations; communities of production; repertoire and genres; technologies of performance; and knowledge transmission.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published August 8, 2019

About the author

Jody Enders, Distinguished Professor of French, is a prize-winning theater historian and the author of 4 books of literary criticism: Rhetoric and the Origins of Medieval Drama (Cornell, 1992), which garnered the inaugural Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize from the Modern Language Association; The Medieval Theater of Cruelty (Cornell, 1999); Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends (Chicago, 2002), recipient of the Barnard Hewitt Prize from the American Society of Theatre Research; and Murder by Accident (Chicago, 2009). A past Guggenheim fellow and editor of Theatre Survey, she has published numerous essays on the interplay of rhetoric, theater, medieval literature, performance theory, and the law, plus two edited volumes for Bloomsbury: A Cultural History of Theatre in the Middle Ages (2017); and A Cultural History of Tragedy in the Middle Ages (2019). As the founder of the University of California’s Public Speaking Initiative, she is committed to the globalization of rhetoric, as in the reformed medieval rhetorical canon she sets forth in the Norton Anthology of Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Writing (forthcoming in 2025). Currently, she has turned joyously to translating scores of Middle-French farces into stage-friendly English. Four volumes have appeared thus far (with more to come): The Farce of the Fart and Other Ribaldries (Penn, 2011), Holy Deadlock (Penn, 2017), Immaculate Deception (Penn, 2021), and Trial by Farce (Michigan 2023). According to the late great Terry Jones of Monty Python, she is “a great champion of comedy at its most vulgar and hilarious!”

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, I understand that 21st century historians want to make a new statement about the conclusions of historians from the 20th century. That makes sense; after all, I agree that new understandings are needed that further our appreciation of the past. Yep, that's fine.

However, I'm tired of the overwrought historiographical writing that takes a full chapter to say what I just wrote in two sentences. Also, past historians weren't so much wrong as incomplete because of their resources and the biases of their time. Even Jody Enders and her colleagues acknowledge that (though the whole "improving those dead historians who only got part of the picture" seems to be reiterated in every chapter).

I seek 21st historians who have new information available, a reasonable perception of their own biases, write well, and have a slant on interpreting material which opens new thoughts to their readers.

Instead, some of these essays are difficult to read (except Claire Sponsler's writing which is excellent) because of the overwriting and because the lengthy theorizing is divorced from the time frame being discussed. The middle ages -- perhaps c 500 to 1500? -- is treated as a unit just as geography -- Britain to Baghdad? -- appears to be commingled. The authors are trying to say that the linearity of past histories of theater has severely limited its study. Yet they only achieve a mishmash of references. This problem arises not from their theorizing but from their laziness in not sticking to facts. What happened where/when/to or by whom? How does that fact enable us to reimagine the history of theatre?