This comprehensive anthology brings together a diverse collectionof dramatic writing from the late fourteenth century to the onsetof the Renaissance. The volume presents for the first time the keyplays of the period in their entirety, alongside more unusualselections, covering religious narrative, religion and conscience,and politics and morality.The first section focuses on Biblical plays, including coherentsequences of the narrative Cycle plays from York and N-Town andsupporting pageants from Chester and Wakefield. This approachallows a clear narrative line to develop, and permits thecomparison of the treatment of key stories between the Cycles. Theselected material demonstrates how the drama of the towns andcities of East Anglia and the North of England mediated religiousculture to a heterodox urban audience, and explored biblical eventsin an intensely contemporary setting.In the second and third sections, the attention turns to seculardrama, and the Moral Plays and Interludes. The featured textsillustrate the range of themes and issues covered, from thesalvation of the individual human soul to the renovation of thepolitical nation, and the variety of settings and audiences forwhich the plays were designed. The flexibility of the Interludeform is explored, as are the ways in which it was utilised byplaywrights and their patrons to address issues of direct politicaland social concern to them and their audiences.Medieval Drama: An Anthology is an indispensable guide to thebreadth and depth of dramatic activity in medieval Britain.
