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The N-Town Plays and the Politics of Metatheater

The N-Town Plays and the Politics of Metatheater The N-Town Plays and the Politics of Metatheater by William Fitzhenry HE N-Town plays are a scribal compilatio, written down and com- piled in East Anglia during the second half of the fifteenth cen- Ttury, that self-reflexively meditates on the range and effects of vernacular drama. The preoccupation of these plays with the limits and potential of vernacular dramatic activity implicates them in the con- temporary political debates about the appropriate role of the vernacular in late medieval English culture. In his efforts to define the parame- ters of vernacular drama, the N-Town scribe-compiler enacts a sort of theatrical self-analysis through his depiction of the complex interaction between two contrasting theatrical models: the monologic and the dia- logic. The first or monologic model conceives of theater as a resolutely Alan Fletcher provides a fine assessment of the N-Town plays as a scribal compila- tion in his ‘‘The N-Town Plays,’’ in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –. For an incisive account of these debates, see Nicholas Watson, ‘‘Censorship and Cul- tural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitution of ,’’ Speculum  (): . http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

The N-Town Plays and the Politics of Metatheater

Studies in Philology , Volume 100 (1) – Feb 24, 2003

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

The N-Town Plays and the Politics of Metatheater by William Fitzhenry HE N-Town plays are a scribal compilatio, written down and com- piled in East Anglia during the second half of the fifteenth cen- Ttury, that self-reflexively meditates on the range and effects of vernacular drama. The preoccupation of these plays with the limits and potential of vernacular dramatic activity implicates them in the con- temporary political debates about the appropriate role of the vernacular in late medieval English culture. In his efforts to define the parame- ters of vernacular drama, the N-Town scribe-compiler enacts a sort of theatrical self-analysis through his depiction of the complex interaction between two contrasting theatrical models: the monologic and the dia- logic. The first or monologic model conceives of theater as a resolutely Alan Fletcher provides a fine assessment of the N-Town plays as a scribal compila- tion in his ‘‘The N-Town Plays,’’ in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –. For an incisive account of these debates, see Nicholas Watson, ‘‘Censorship and Cul- tural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitution of ,’’ Speculum  (): .

Journal

Studies in PhilologyUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Feb 24, 2003

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