I want to thank all of you for this discussion. I would encourage someone to
organize a session for one of the conferences, as Jim Stokes mentioned.
I have already sent many of your messages to one of our students who is working
on an honors thesis in theatre, to put up a virus shield against the textbooks
he may be using. In my course, History of the English Language, the
evolutionary error came up in his presentation on the historical context
for etymology of terms related to theatre. I corrected him; the timely
discussion has been further reinforcement!
Elza C. Tiner
Geraldine Lyon Owen Professor of English
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Lynchburg College
Lynchburg, VA 24501 USA
-----Original Message-----
From: Stokes, James [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 11:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [Fwd: 12c drama]
Maybe someone with lots of time to kill should work up a comprehensive
list of such discredited but persistent myths and post it, post it, post
it (and send to all publishers) until they (the myths not the
publishers) go away.
No, actually might make a nice topic for a session at Leeds or Zoo:
Persistent Myths Concerning Early (pre-Restoration) Drama. Actually even
"early" has a vaguely bothersome feel to it.
Jim Stokes
-----Original Message-----
From: Anne Lancashire
Sent: Fri 19/10/2001 09:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [Fwd: 12c drama]
What really gets ME are all the anthologies of Renaissance drama
which insist that
early 16thC plays are the "primitive beginnings" of English
theatre. (I've just
been teaching <The 4PP> this week to a class doing the drama to
1642--and you will
be delighted to hear that, I paraphrase the Rabkin and Fraser
anthology, Heywood is
writing "primitive comedy" and that "this is where it all
began.")
Anne Lancashire
Clifford Davidson wrote:
> But still identifying the Towneley plays as "Wakefield plays,"
which seem
> misleading in the light of recent research such as Barbara
Palmer's which
> identify the collection as a set of plays from the West
Riding.
>
> Some of these things are as hard to eradicate as the popular
idea that Columbus
> was the one who discovered the world was not flat.
>
> Clifford Davidson
>
> Abigail Ann Young wrote:
>
> > > Suzanne S Webb wrote:
> > >
> > > As a long-time textbook author (though in a different
field), I know that
> > > the best way to get things changed is to get in touch with
the
> > > developmental editor for the publishers of the big Brit
Lit anthologies
> > > like Norton and complain, complain, complain and threaten
to drop an
> > > adoption.
> > >
> > > The intro to the 2nd Play of the Shepherds in the Longman
anthology
> > > (which is the one I use for this very reason) is not as
offensive as the
> > > one in Norton. It says in the general intro to medieval
lit, "The
> > > fifteenth century sees the flowering of the great dramatic
"mystery
> > > cycles," sets of plays on religious themes produced and in
part performed
> > > by craft guilds of larger towns in the Midlands and North.
Included here
> > > is a brilliant sample, the Second Play of the Shepherds
from the
> > > Wakefield Plays. Probably written by clerics, these plays
are nonetheless
> > > dense with the preoccupations of contemporary working
people and enriched
> > > by implicit analgies between the lives of their actors and
the biblical
> > > events they portray."
> > >
> > > In the intro to the 2 Shep, it says, "It [medieval drama]
developed not
> > > from classical drama, which virtually died out in the
Middle Ages, but
> > > from the church liturgy." The rest of the intro to the
play seems to be
> > > based in large part on Kolve.
> > >
> > > Sue Webb
> > > Texas Woman's University
> >
> > --
> > Abigail Ann Young (Dr), Associate Editor/Records of Early
English Drama/
> > Victoria College/ 150 Charles Street W/ Toronto Ontario
Canada M5S 1K9
> > Phone (416) 585-4504/ FAX (416) 813-4093/
[log in to unmask]
> > List-owner of REED-L
<http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed-l.html>
> > <http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html> REED's home
page
> > <http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/stage.html> our theatre
resource page
> > <http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~young> my home page
