The Materials of Early Theatre: Sources, Images, and Performance

The essays selected for this volume are chosen to reflect the important and intersecting ways in which over the last forty years Meg Twycross has shifted paradigms for people reading early English religious drama. The focus of Meg Twycross’s research has been on performance in its many aspects, and this volume chooses four of the most important strands of her work - the York plays; new ways of understanding acting and performance in late medieval theatre, particularly in Britain and across Europe; why scenes are staged in the ways they are, verbally and by extrapolation visually, by close reading of texts against the background of medieval theology; and the attention paid to wider contexts of medieval theatre - concentrating especially on essays that are not easily available today.

These thematic strands are reflective of Meg Twycross’s major contribution to the field. They also represent those areas from her wider work which will have most utility and value for those, whether students or senior specialists in areas beyond early drama, who are looking for ways into understanding English medieval plays. The crucial work that has been done here has opened new perspectives on late medieval theatre, and will allow new generations to begin their study and research from further along the road.

Meg Twycross is Emeritus Professor of English at Lancaster University, UK.

Sarah Carpenter has taught in the English Literature Department of the University of Edinburgh for the last forty years. She is the author, with Meg Twycross, of Masks and Masking in Medieval and Tudor England and has published widely on early drama, most often on issues of performance. She is an editor of the journal "Medieval English Theatre", and is currently working on the volume on the Royal Court for the Records of Early Drama: Scotland.

Pamela King holds a fractional chair in the department of English Language and Linguistics in the University of Glasgow. She previously held the chair in Medieval Studies in the University of Bristol. She is author of The York Cycle and the Worship of the City (2006) and Medieval Literature 1350-1500 (2011), and most recently edited The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance. She has written and edited a number of other things on late medieval and early modern subjects, chiefly on drama, and has collaborated on projects and articles with Meg Twycross.