1st Edition
The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555–1575 Religion, Drama, and the Impact of Change
The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555-1575 considers the implications of recent archival research which has profoundly changed our view of the continuation of performances of Chester's civic biblical play cycle into the reign of Elizabeth I. Scholars now view the decline and ultimate abandonment of civic religious drama as the result of a complex network of local pressures, heavily dependent upon individual civic and ecclesiastical authorities, rather than a result of a nation-wide policy of suppression, as had previously been assumed.
Biography
Jessica Dell is a doctoral student at McMaster University, Canada. David Klausner is professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. Helen Ostovich is emeritus professor of English at McMaster University, Canada.
’Reading [the essays] from first to last is an enriching experience: its authors all have the most relevant materials at their fingertips (such as the recently discovered letter of Christopher Goodman), and all are equally sensitive to the necessity of understanding the late Chester Whitsun play as a unique artifact enacted within a specific urban, social, and religious context.’ Renaissance Quarterly ’The Chester Cycle in Context breaks new ground in relation to the Chester plays and will reinvigorate research on the cycle. It is also a collection that speaks across early drama studies, encourages cross-period and interdisciplinary enquiry, and highlights drama as central to the religious and political negotiations of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England.’ Early Theatre