Required Text:

English Mystery Plays: A Selection. Peter Happe (editor). Penguin. ISBN: 0140430938

From the RSC Media Center Video Database:

Early English Drama - The Second Shepherds' Play (History of Drama Series) Call Number: VH PN HID 003 Run Time: 52 min.

Suggested Optional Texts:

Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays. A. C. Cawley (editor). Everymans Library. ISBN: 046087280X
E. K. Chambers. The Mediaeval Stage. Dover. ISBN: 0486292290
Wakefield Mystery Plays. Martial Rose (editor). Norton. ISBN: 039300483X
John Gassner. Medieval and Tudor Drama. ISBN: 0936839848

These or similar works may be available at Stockton's library.

Medieval Drama

Introduction

You will need to familiarize yourself with the English Mystery Plays text. Read the introductory material and leaf through the plays. If you have chosen to read for 1 credit, you will be asked to comment on at least five plays in your examination; if you have chosen to read for 2 credits, you will be asked to comment on at least nine plays. You must read The Second Shepherds' Play (and you should see the video available at Stockton's media center). We strongly suggest that you also read The Creation, Abraham and Isaac (either version or both), The Harrowing of Hell, and Judgement Day. Beyond these requirements and suggestions, however, the choice is yours. Spend some time perusing the volume; select plays that you find attractive. You may find that your knowledge of the Bible draws you to particular plays.

When reading the introduction, any secondary materials, and the plays themselves, there are several aspects to which you should pay special note:

• the theological underpinnings to these works
• the dramatic, literary, and religious goals of these works
• the stagecraft of these works, especially the relationship between guilds and the individual performances
• the number and scope of extant mystery play cycles
• the evolution from church ceremony to dramatic enactment to entertainment
• the way these plays, or the ideas in the plays, fit into everyday medieval English life
• the language of the plays. In what way does middle English differ from early modern or modern English?

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