PERFORM Log
July 1993
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Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 11:44:20 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Jesse Hurlbut
Subject: Gesture studies
Here's a question from an un-networked Perform-er. I'll forward any
responses.
Jesse Hurlbut
=========================Question===============================
Could you help me with something? I am looking for articles/studies
about gesture -- especially bowing -- in medieval drama, particularly in
liturgical drama/ritual. Furthermore I am interested in the feast of
Candlemass and the liturgical celebrations (candle procession) and
liturgical plays for that particular feast. I know there is a new bibliography
of medieval drama which appreared in 1991, but we don't have it in our
library.
Thanks very much for your help!
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 15:10:00 -0700
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was jcjc@CARSON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU
From: John Coldewey
Subject: Re: Gesture studies
In-Reply-To: <9307061651.AA24693@carson.u.washington.edu>
Jesse--
A quick note to your un-networked inquirer that a good and interesting
place to start, though one without the liturgical element, is the Digby
Killing of the Children, which has the full title of "Candemes Day and the
Kyllyng of the Children of Israelle." With the minstrals and the
"virgynes" mentioned in the introduction (and in the text the stage
direction calls for "virgynes" too-- "as many as a man wylle") the play is
unlikely to have had a liturgical venue.
Daker and Murphy and Hall edited the text for EETS, of course, and I've
just put out an anthology that includes it (Early English Drama: An
Anthology. Garland 1993).
Cheers,
John Coldewey
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Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 20:52:00 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: NAOMI LIEBLER
Subject: Re: Gesture studies
To John Coledewey--
John, please tell us more about your Garland anthology! I haven't seen a
Garland brochure in years (shame on them!), and when I last taught a course
encompassing Early English Drama (a graduate course, in that particular
instance, last fall), all there was available was the old Gassner anthology,
which I found most unsatisfactory. Was gonna teach a similar course this coming
fall at the undergraduate level, but will be off on sabbatical instead
(Yippee!). Nevertheless, there will be other semesters and other such courses
in the future. So give us the nitty-gritty on your collection: suitable for
what level? In modern or middle English? Cost? Contents? From when to when?
And congratulations!
Best,
Naomi Liebler
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Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 22:14:00 CDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Bob Clark
Subject: Re: gesture studies
I haven't looked at it myself, but this looks juicy. Note the
bibliography.
AUTHOR: Schmitt, Jean Claude.
TITLE: La raison des gestes dans l'Occident medieval / Jean-Claude
Schmitt.
PUBLISHER: Paris : Gallimard, c1990.
SERIES: Biblioth`eque des histoires
SUBJECT: Gesture--Religious aspects--Christianity--History.
DESCRIPTION: 432 p., <32> p. of plates : ill. ; 23 cm.
NOTES: Includes index.
"Bibliographie: Histoire et anthropologie du geste, corps et
rituels au Moyen Age": p. <411>-420.
Here's the call number at Univ. of Kansas library:
CALL NUMBER: BR 253 .S38 1990
Also, I vaguely recall a big vol. put out by CNRS, maybe ten years ago, on
gesture in medieval iconography, or something like that. Ring a bell, anyone?
Cheers,
Bob Clark
Kansas State Univ.
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Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 17:37:30 +1000
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Nerida Newbigin
Organization: Faculty of Arts, The University of Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Subject: Re: Gesture studies
Reply to: RE>Gesture studies
In 1985, the late great Italian polymath Eugenio Battisti gave a paper at
Viterbo on "Le sacre rappresentazioni di Orvieto: Commento sulla loro
possibile visualizzazione" (now published in _Ceti sociali ed ambienti
urbani nel teatro religioso europeo del '300 e del '400_, ed. M. Chiabo and
F. Doglio, Viterbo, Centro Studi sul Teatro Medioevale e Rinascimentale,
1986, pp. 155-166). At that stage, Battisti had set up a database using
dBase III of visual cues (i.e. gestures, scene changes, expressions of
emotion). I was sceptical about what he was coming up with from the text,
and now that I have worked through account books for spectacles I can
demonstrate that more is absent from the text than given. He was, however,
enormously enthusiastic and persuasive.
Battisti taught at a number of places including Penn State; he died in Rome
in the late '80s, and I do not know anyone carrying on his work.
No. XI of the Orvieto plays is "Questa ripresentatione si fa a di dui di
febraio. Come Cristo fu presentato al tempio per le mano de la virgine Maria
e come Symeone ricepecte nele braccia sue"' see _Sacre rappresentazioni per
le fraternite d'Orvieto nel cod. Vittorio Emanuele 528_ (Perugia: Reale
Deputazione di Storia Patria, 1916; app. 6 al Bollettino della R.
Deputazione di Storia Patria per l'Umbria) - still available from the
Deputazione in Perugia. I edited a Florentine Purificazione play in _Nuovo
Corpus di sacre rappresentazioni fiorentine del Quattrocento_ (Bologna:
Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1983).
Hope this is useful.
Nerida Newbigin, Department of Italian, University of Sydney, N.S.W. 2006
Australia.
Nerida.Newbigin@Italian.su.edu.au
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Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 06:48:10 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Steve Urkowitz
Subject: Re: gesture studies
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 6 Jul 1993 22:14:00 CDT from
For a slightly later period, though likely carrying on continuous traditions o
r vocabularies, there is THE LANGUAGE OF GESTURE IN THE RENAISSANCE: SELECTED P
ROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE HED IN TORONTO, NOVEMBER 1983, eds. Konrad Eisenbi
chler and Philip Sohm, printed as an issue of Renaissance and Reformation/Rena
issance et Reforme, ns 10.1 (1986).
Good luck.
Steve Urkowitz
City College (SURCC@CUNYVM)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 11:08:00 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Steve Wright
Subject: gesture in medieval performance
As a starting point, I would recommend Jody Enders' new book, _Rhetoric
and the Origins of the Medieval Drama_ (1992). She devotes a good deal
of attention to the importance of _actio_ (the rules of delivery, including'
gesture, facial expression, vocal modulation, etc.) in classical and
medieval rhetoric and, by extension, in early drama. Se her index for
Actio, Body, Gesture, Intonation, etc.
--Steve Wright
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Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:19:30 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Larry Clopper
Subject: Re: Gesture studies
For Candlemas, contact Gail Gibson, English, Davidson College.
There is a recent book by J-C. Schmitt, La raison des gestes, that
might help lead to works on liturgical gesture.
Larry Clopperz
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:22:34 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Larry Clopper
Subject: Re: Gesture studies
I'd like to commend John Coldewey's new anthology; I intend to use it the
next time I teach med. drama. But I should note that David Bevington's
Medieval Drama ought to have been available as well as Happe's edition of
cycle plays (Penguin).
Larry Clopper
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 16:15:00 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Steve Wright
Subject: Candlemas performances (German)
The episode of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the
Purification of the Virgin occurs in several German Passion plays and
Corpus Christi plays. There is only one play, however, which focuses
exclusively on this material (although it concludes with the Flight into
Egypt), namely, the Bozner LichtmeBspiel (Candlemas Play from Bozen in
Tirol). The play dates from the 15th c. and was added to an anthology of
Tirolain plays collected by Benedikt Debs in early 16 c. The
manuscript is in Sterzing, Stadtarchiv HS. IV, fol. 50v-55r.
The opening incipit of the play is very curious indeed, especially
in light of the original question about gesture and performance practice:
"Incipit Ludus honestus de purificatione beatae virginis, et primo
exit praecursor non larva nec equina barba indutus, sed honestis
vestimentis, nec vesicas in manu gestans, sed sceptrum vel baculum
depictum. Honeste incedens loquendo dicat..."
The threefold repetition of various forms of "honestus" seems
like an unusal insistence that the play is to be taken seriously.
And what are we to make of the stern warning that the Herald who
recites the prologue must not wear a mask or a horsehair beard or
twirl a hog's bladder in his hands, but instead is to carry the
traditional staff of his office (see the illustration of the theatre
herald in the Swabian Christmas Play now in Harvard) and to walk
"honeste" when he makes his entrance? Does all of this point to
a (lost) tradition of candlemas plays involving a good deal
of slapstick, roughhouse comedy, and parody? Are there any other
popular traditions to support my suspicion that the ceremony once
involved a good deal of topsy-turvy nonsense?
The best edition is Walther Lipphardt, _Die geistlichen Spiele des
Sterzinger Spielarchivs_ (1981), I, 171-88, and notes, 481-83.
--Steve Wright
Catholic University
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 16:43:00 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Steve Wright
Subject: Candlemas plays (Germany and Low Countries)
A quick search through Neumann's _Geistliches Schauspiel im
Zeugnis der Zeit_ turned up eight entries on lost Candlemas plays from
German-speaking areas. I noted two common factors: several of the
plays are from northern Germany or modern Netherlands (Arnhem, Deventer,
Duisburg, Nijmegen, Lu:neburg), and several of them were performed by
by young boys. Records from Arnhem, for example, document a
Candlemas play performed by schoolboys every year between 1418-1427. In
Deventer, the play was put on by apprentices (before 1400). In 1409,
payment for the Candlemas play in Duisburg was made to the schoolmaster.
In Luneburg, two schillings were paid in 1513 to "scholaribus ludentibus
commediam purificationis."
Is it possible that such performances came to include a good
deal of horseplay? Could that account for the curious warnings at the
beginning of the Can dlemas play in the Debs-Codex? Or is all this
speculation on my part due to the fact that I have just spent an
entire week chaperoning three 13-year old boys?
--Steve Wright
Catholic University
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 09:14:34 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Larry Clopper
Subject: Re: Candlemas performances (German)
Steve--
With regard to the opening of the Bozen play, I think your guy is
trying very hard to insist that the ludus falls within the acceptable
parameters of liturgical performance. Look at Innocent III's decretal
proscribing ludi theatrales (Decretals of Gregory IX 3.1.12; Chambers, Med.
Stage., 2.100) and the gloss by Bernardo Bottone (both in my essay on
Miracula, Speculum, 65 (1990), p. 882). Innocent's decree is directed at
innapropriate liturgical embellishment, etc. - boy bishops, feast of fools,
feast of the ass, etc. All of these were performed by choirboys and other
lower clergy.
Larry Clopper
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 09:17:20 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Larry Clopper
Subject: Re: Candlemas plays (Germany and Low Countries)
Steve--
With regard to the second message - probably chaperoning three
13-yr=old boys is bad for your health. But I think you got it right:
young boys at the cathedral needed to have a good time from time to time.
Larry Clopper
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 13:07:37 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: "Amelia J. Carr"
Subject: Candlemas
Greetings from the NEH Seminar on Augustine at Bryn Mawr, where I'm
comfortably ensconced but without library. The massive literature on
Carneval makes a lot of the coincidence of Candlemas with the potential
first day of Carneval/Groundhog's day or the equivalent bear
ceremonies in Europe. My favorite source on this material is Claude
Gaignebet's Le Carneval, from the early 70's, I think. uh, 1970's, which
deals with some of the folk/guild customs in that 3-day period of Feb 2nd,
3rd, 4th. This avenue of investigation _does_ get sidetracked somewhat
fromthe original question, though.
Amelia Carr
acarr@alleg.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 13:59:06 MET
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: jesse
Subject: Re: Candlemas
In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 12 Jul 93 15:21:29 EDT from
Dear Jesse,
I just finished reading the last of all the messages you sent to me.
Thanks a lot! This is wonderful. Some references I already had, I'll check
others. You have been of much help, and I think I should sign on to this
network, you already told me about in Gerona. Maybe you could send me some
information on it. And do get over here if you get the chance!
Best wishes,
Bart
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 00:47:06 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Robert Barrett
Subject: Moralities and modern approaches
Greetings!
I am a third-year grad student at Penn working with English morality plays
from _The Pride of Life_ to Udall's _Respublica_ (for a summer independent
reading course). In a review of scholarship on the genre published in
1991, David Bevington has wondered aloud (and I apologize for not having
the exact reference at hand) why contemporary theoretical and critical
approaches such as Marxism, cultural materialism, gender studies/feminism,
etc., have yet to be applied (in significant number) to the moralities.
One of my goals in this course is to work toward such applications (with
conferences and publication off in the misty--and starry-eyed--future); a
brief search of the MLA CD-ROM for 1981-1993 has confirmed Bevington's
observation. Is anyone on either of these lists (this message is
cross-posted to REED-L and PERFORM) currently engaged in such work? Can
anyone direct me to published instances of such work? Right now I feel
like I am having to start from scratch! Considering all the exciting work
currently treating the cycle plays, surely the moralities have not been
left out. Thank you all in advance for any assistance you can offer.
Rob Barrett
--
Robert W. Barrett, Jr.
rbarrett@mail.sas.upenn.edu
Department of English
University of Pennsylvania
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Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 08:32:00 EST
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: NAOMI LIEBLER
Subject: Re: Moralities and modern approaches
To Rob Barrett, who inquired about the study of medieval drama in relation to
modern critical theory: more and more of this will be forthcoming in the near
future, Rob (that's a promise), but you might start by re-reading Robert
Weimann's SHAKESPEARE AND THE POPULAR TRADITION IN THE THEATER, ed. Robert
Schwartz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978) and John D. Cox, SHAKESPEARE AND THE
DRAMATURGY OF POWER (Princeton UP, 1989). Both are well grounded in medieval
dramatic material, though their titles do not explicitly announce that fact.
And be on the lookout for a special issue of MEDIAEVALIA, edited by Martin
Stevens and Milla Riggio, forthcoming in 1994, which I believe will include
some essays pursuing your line of inquiry.
Good luck--and let us know what you turn up.
Naomi C. Liebler
Dept. of English
Montclair State College
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1993 11:59:11 +0100
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Mrs M Twycross
Subject: Re: subscribing
In-Reply-To: from "Larry Clopper" at Jul 10, 93 09:17:20 am
Can you help? I have forgotten exactly how I subscribed to this network,
and I am about to put a note about it in the latest edition of Medieval
English theatre. Could some kind person please remind me?
Meg Twycross (e-mail address: ena006@uk.ac.lancs.cent1)
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 10:59:54 -0400
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: "Douglas Lanier, English Dept., x2-3796"
Subject: Re: Moralities and modern approaches
You might try looking through Catherine Belsey's *The Subject of Tragedy*
where, ipassing, she ventures exciting, post-modernized readings of a varietyty
of English morality plays. Her work might serve as a model.
Best of luck,
Douglas Lanier
University of New Hampshire
D_LANIER@unhh.unh.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 12:30:54 EDT
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Jesse Hurlbut
Subject: Subscribing to Perform
Please feel free to distribute this to anyone who may be interested
in joining PERFORM.
Send a mail message to LISTSERV@IUBVM. The first and ONLY line of text
should read:
SUB PERFORM Your Name
The message is read by a machine, so, you don't need to worry about filling
in the Subject blanks or any forms of politeness. You don't even need to
use capital letters--although your name will go in exactly as you type it.
Just about as quick as your mail is delivered, you'll get a canned response
informing you that you have been added to the list of subscribers.
Once you've signed on, if you want to send a message to the list (to be
distributed to all subscribers), address your mail to PERFORM@IUBVM.
[If you need to access PERFORM via the Internet (as opposed to Bitnet),
use the equivalent Internet node addresses: LISTSERV@IUBVM.UCS.INDIANA.EDU
and PERFORM@IUBVM.UCS.INDIANA.EDU respectively.]
Please contact me if you need any assistance,
Jesse Hurlbut
frejdh@ukcc.uky.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 19:19:21 +0100
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: Mrs M Twycross
Subject: Re: Subscribing to Perform
In-Reply-To: from "Jesse Hurlbut" at Jul 20, 93 12:30:54 pm
Dear Jesse, Many thanks! Expect a few more subscribers ... as soon as
METh gets out. Yours, Meg.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 11:45:56 -0500
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
Sender: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts
From: REED Project
Subject: MRDS/KALAMAZOO
MRDS SESSIONS: KALAMAZOO 1994
You will have noticed from the Kalamazoo call for papers that we
have been allowed the three sessions that we requested. We are
grateful to Otto Grundler and Cliff Davidson for their efforts on
our behalf.
In 1994, we are honouring two senior scholars in the field who have
died recently. Two of the sessions at Kalamazoo will be in memory
of Arnold Williams and one will be in honour of Arthur Cawley. A
second session honouring Professor Cawley will be held at the MLA
session in San Diego. We learned after our meeting in May that
Marty Stevens, who is anxious to be part of a session focussing on
Cawley's interest in the Towneley MS, cannot be at Kalamazoo, 1994.
As a result, I have agreed to organize the memorial session in
Kalamazoo. As you can see from the title given below it is more
open-ended than the San Diego session. I would particularly welcome
submissions from former students and colleagues of Professor
Cawley. We hope that colleagues working in European drama will
submit abstracts for the Williams' sessions.
The Call for Papers gave only Larry Clopper's name. We agreed at
our meetings that John Coldewey and Barbara Palmer would organize
the sessions in honour of Professor Williams. Submissions should be
sent to the three organizers by September 15, 1994.
A Session in Honour of Arthur Cawley
"Arthur Cawley and the study of early English drama". Abstracts
should be sent to Alexandra F. Johnston, Records of Early English
Drama, 150 Charles St. W., Toronto M5S 1K9
(E-mail ajohnsto@epas.utoronto.ca
Two Sessions in Honour of Arnold Williams
"Between the Acts (lies the Shadow): Culturally Mediating
Characters in Early Drama." Abstracts should be sent to John
Coldewey, Dept of English, University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington 98195 (E-Mail jcjc@u.washington.edu)
"Hear, see, speak no Evil: Dark Characters and Characterization in
Early Drama" Abstracts should be sent to Barbara Palmer, English
Department, Chatham College, Pittsburgh, PA 15232-2814 (E-Mail
palmer@grumpy.chatham.edu)
Alexandra F. Johnston,
President,
MRDS