English literature

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Notes and Queries following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, Dutton, Elisabeth,  ‘Augustine Baker and Two Manuscripts of Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love,’ Notes and Queries, New Series 52, no.3 (Sep. 2005) 329-37, is available online at:
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/3/329.full.pdf+html?sid=eecc24cd-9517-4c8f-a0b5-96e1a1c2b026

In this paper we present an esoteric University play, Grobiana’s Nuptials, which was written by undergraduate Charles May and performed at St John’s College, Oxford in 1637.  The play was edited by Ernest Rühl, whose interest in the play was as evidence of the Grobian tradition - a  literary tradition indebted to Sebastian Brant’s Das Narrenschiff - in England.  Otherwise, scholars have largely ignored it, possibly put off by its extremely vulgar humour.  But it was very well received by University authorities when performed, and we explore its literary merits, its place in the history of theatre, and what it might tell us about early modern educational practice at the universities.

This article discusses two Turk plays of Thomas Goffe that were performed at Christ Church in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and subsequently printed: the plays present events from late medieval history, but with extensive classical allusion. The article considers the plays' use of theatrical reference and books as props: these devices may have encouraged a particular response in the academic audiences who first saw these plays, especially influencing their attitude to the Turkish emperors who are fictionalised presentations of historical medieval figures, exotic, religiously and culturally 'other', but also made familiar by their contextualisation among the figures of a classical past, the study of which was the foundation of Tudor education.

All references to John Skelton's English works are to John Scattergood, ed., The Complete English Poems of John Skelton (Liverpool, 2015), abbreviated as CEP, cited by section (in lowercase Roman numerals) and line. Capitalised Roman numerals refer to the numbering of Skelton's English works in CEP. References to Skelton's Latin writings are to David R. Carlson, ed., 'The Latin Writings of John Skelton', in Studies in Philology 87:4 (1991): 1-125, abbreviated as LW. If notes or commentary from these two editions is cited, the abbreviations CEP and LW are used. Short forms of citation for secondary works are given parenthetically in the text to author, citing author's surname and page of work. Where more than one work by an author appears in the list of works cited, the appropriate year of publication precedes page references; works by one author within the same year are distinguished by lowercase letters following the year. These citations are keyed to the list of Works Cited at the end of the chapter in question. Individual primary works follow the same pattern, except that line numbers instead of page numbers are given. Where appropriate, book or chapter divisions precede the line or page numbers.

This wide-ranging volume explores relationships between drama and pedagogy in the medieval and early modern periods, with contributions from an international ?eld of scholars including a number of leading authorities. Across the medieval and early modern periods, drama is seen to be a way of dissemi-nating theological and philosophical ideas. In medieval England, when literacy was low and the liturgy in Latin, drama translated and transformed spiritual truths, embodying them for a wider audience than could be reached by books alone. In Tudor England, humanist belief in the validity and potential of drama as a pedagogical tool informs the interlude, and examples of dramatized instruction abound on early modern stages. Academic drama is a particularly preg -nant locus for the exploration of drama and peda-gogy: universities and the Inns of Court trained some of the leading playwrights of the early theatre, but also supplied methods and materials that shaped professional playhouse comp...

We begin by evoking an image that is almost certainly familiar: a depiction of Mary Magdalene encountering the risen Christ, at the moment at which he tells her noli me tangere-conventionally translated today as 'touch me not'. 1 Throughout the Middle Ages this moment was repeatedly portrayed, 1 Reimund Bieringer explores the resonances of the Greek and Latin versions of this utterance, and the interpretative difficulties manifested within its long tradition of translation, 'Noli me tangere and the New Testament:

Early in the English Reformation the churchman, historian, controversialist, and Protestant convert John Bale (1495-1563), recognising the evangelical potential of theatre, set about harnessing it to the Protestant cause. His work is concerned not just with the ideas that might be presented in a Reforming play, but also with the manner in which a Protestant play sets up those ideas for performance, through material objects in time and space. In this chapter I will explore some of the ways that Reforming playwrights deploy these realities theatrically; in other words, considering 'objects' as props, and 'time and space' as the duration of the play and the space of its performance, I will explore how these dramaturgical phenomena are deployed by Reforming playwrights to present an argument about the same phenomena in the world beyond the play as understood in Protestant theology. I will focus on Bale and his friend the poet and dramatist Nicholas Grimald (1519-62), whose Protestant playwriting took place while he was a student at Oxford. Two of Grimald's plays survive: the Latin scriptural dramas Christus Redivivus, a Resurrection narrative that was performed at Brasenose College in 1541, and Archipropheta, the John the Baptist story, that was staged at Christ Church in 1548. 1 I will also allude to Andreas Höfele's study of the comedy Christus Triumphans, by another of Bale's friends, the historian and martyrologist John Foxe (1516/17-87): Foxe's play was performed at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1561-62, and Bale's Three Laws may also have been performed at Magdalen around the same time. 2 Protestant writers sought to demonstrate that they were the true heirs of the early Church, revealing it in its first, pure, state, while also demonstrating that contemporary corrupt Catholic practices were both survivals of superseded Jewish practice from before the time of Christ and signs of the approaching end times. What came before, what happens now, and what comes next are all contested: Protestant drama may be deeply engaged with the pressing questions

This article describes the processes of translation, cutting and rearrangement by which Shakespeare's Henry V, a play often identified with 'Britishness', is adapted for a modern Swiss audience. As a play celebrating a national 'hero' and a military history largely unknown to the Swiss, Henry V is adapted to an exploration of political power in the abstract, in particular the political power of rhetoric which Shakespeare's Henry exemplifies and which can be richly presented using the multiple languages and dialects of Switzerland. Like the adaptation by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, the translation not just of words but also of context occasions a certain black humour by which the subversive aspects of Shakespeare's text are foregrounded and accentuated, and any sense of heroism stripped away. In particular, Shakespeare's parodic presentation of the French army is pushed to absurdity in order to highlight the rhetorical construction of 'the enemy'. The essay explores the influence of geography on the use of history in drama, and brings the arguments of other essays in this volume up to the present day, suggesting why the topic of dramatized history continues to be important.