England's Public Culture: John Lydgate and the Making of Medieval Theater

FAIN: FA-51652-05

Claire Sponsler
University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA 52242-1320)

"England’s Public Culture: John Lydgate and the Making of Medieval Theater" pursues a cultural history of early English theater that situates Lydgate’s dramas at the hub of medieval public culture. Despite having produced the largest body of dramatic texts of any identifiable medieval writer, the importance of Lydgate's dramas has been overlooked. This study argues that his dramas are central to late medieval English culture and that they ask us to rethink such fundamental questions as what constitutes "drama" in medieval England, what role it played in public life, and how it intersected with other cultural activity, including politics, commerce, religion, and literature.