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Drama, Censorship, and “Vernacular Theology”

Studies in philology, 2019-01, Vol.116 (1), p.35-53 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

2019 Studies in Philology, Incorporated ;Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press. ;COPYRIGHT 2019 University of North Carolina Press ;Copyright The University of North Carolina Press Winter 2019 ;ISSN: 0039-3738 ;ISSN: 1543-0383 ;EISSN: 1543-0383 ;DOI: 10.1353/sip.2019.0001

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Title:
Drama, Censorship, and “Vernacular Theology”
Author: Davidson, Clifford
Subjects: 1100-1499 Middle English period ; 15th century ; Arundel, Thomas ; Bible ; Biblical literature ; Censorship ; Christian drama, English ; Christian theology ; Colloquial language ; Criticism and interpretation ; Cycles (Literature) ; Drama ; Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 ; English drama ; English literature ; Historical text analysis ; History ; History and criticism ; imagination ; Literary translation ; Medieval drama ; Medieval literature ; Music ; Native language ; Participation ; Religion ; Religious aspects ; Religious drama ; Religious language ; Religious literature ; Rites & ceremonies ; Theology ; Translation (Languages) ; vernacular language
Is Part Of: Studies in philology, 2019-01, Vol.116 (1), p.35-53
Description: This essay argues that late medieval religious drama belies the claim—articulated most influentially by Nicholas Watson—that fifteenth-century imaginative literature in England was dull and sterile, suffocated by the restrictions imposed by Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s Constitutions of 1407–9. Although the Constitutions were significant, they hardly affected all the writers of religious texts at this time, and an influential gloss proscribing the translation of religious language into the vernacular has been found to have been universally ignored in the fifteenth century. The writers of playtexts, with their generous use of biblical translation, often seem to be quite free of the intimidations implied by the Constitutions. Plays such as the York cycle vividly dramatized the desecration of the sacred, visualizing for audiences scenes of brutal torture, seemingly without restraint, and the plays of the Towneley manuscript also offer representations of outrageous speech and behavior. These texts contradict the opinion that late medieval writing in post-Chaucerian England was dull, mediocre, and theologically weak by design to escape the draconian prohibitions of the Constitutions. The plays are capable instead of being imaginative re-creations of the biblical stories that were rightly valued in their own time and that cannot be easily dismissed in ours.
Publisher: Chapel Hill: THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
Language: English
Identifier: ISSN: 0039-3738
ISSN: 1543-0383
EISSN: 1543-0383
DOI: 10.1353/sip.2019.0001
Source: ProQuest Central

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Drama, Censorship, and “Vernacular Theology”

2019 Studies in Philology, Incorporated ;Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press. ;COPYRIGHT 2019 University of North Carolina Press ;Copyright The University of North Carolina Press Winter 2019 ;ISSN: 0039-3738 ;ISSN: 1543-0383 ;EISSN: 1543-0383 ;DOI: 10.1353/sip.2019.0001

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