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Drama and Resistance Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England Claire Sponsler |
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Provides a cultural and historical context for medieval popular drama. In Drama and Resistance, Claire Sponsler explores the intertwined histories of bodily subjectivity, commodity culture, and theatricality in late medieval England. In a fascinating consideration of popular drama in the period from 1350 to 1520, she argues that many types of performances during this time represented cultural evasions of the imposition of disciplinary power. The medieval theater was a social site where resistance, masked from the full scrutiny of authority by theatricality, was practiced, articulated, and enacted. Sponsler examines three key discourses of authoritarian bodily and commodity control—clothing laws, conduct literature, and Books of Hours—and pairs them with three kinds of theatrical performances that enact resistance to disciplining codes—Robin Hood performances, morality plays, and Corpus Christi pageants. She considers the contradictions and inconsistencies in the repressive official discourses and analyzes the ways in which the staging of forbidden acts like cross-dressing, social and sexual misbehavior, and violence against the body challenged these discourses. Drawing on a range of recent social theory, Drama and Resistance is an important contribution to medieval studies and the history of theater. It is a valuable resource for both students and enthusiasts alike. "An insightful book. Any reader should find much in this book to admire, and to use." Essays in Theatre "The publication of Claire Sponsler's Drama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England confirms what many scholars had already begun to suspect: the 'Medieval Cultures' series of the University of Minnesota Press is setting the agenda for contemporary medieval studies. Drama and Resistance is an important book. Bringing together a wide range of texts and genres, unafraid to employ contemporary critical theory, and always insightful in her excavation of what the body meant in the late Middle Ages, Claire Sponsler has demonstrated just how necessary medievalists are to the current scholarly debate about embodiment and subjectivity in their relationship to history." —Arthuriana "Claire Sponsler's Drama and Resistance is a thoughtful and provocative contribution to the dialogue between medieval studies and the French critical theory of the last four decades. A well-written, effectively illustrated, and well-produced volume." Speculum "This book offers a carefully structured and compelling reading of the late medieval drama and cultural practices in relation to techniques of domination and strategies of resistance." Parergon “Sponsler’s approach to drama was new and unique: an analysis in how far the theater was part of the ‘disciplining’ of individuals in the late Middle Ages.” —Fifteenth-Century Studies Claire Sponsler is assistant professor of English at the University of Iowa. 288 pages | 6 illustrations | 5 7/8 x 9 | 1997 |
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$35.00 Paper