Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama

Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama combines epistemological enquiry, gender theory and Foucauldian concepts to investigate the body as a useful site for studying power, knowledge and truth. Intertwining the conceptualizations of violence and the performativity of gender identity and roles, Estella Ciobanu argues that studying violence in drama affords insights into the cultural and social aspects of the later Middle Ages. The text investigates these biblical plays through the perspective of the devil and offers a unique lens that exposes medieval disquiets about Christian teachings and the discourse of power. Through detailed primary source analysis and multidisciplinary scholarship, Ciobanu constructs a text that interrogates the significance of performance far beyond the stage.

Auteur

Estella Ciobanu is Associate Professor of English at Ovidius University of Constana, Romania. Her academic interests include iconization studies and gendered representations of the body in anatomo-medical practices and the arts. She has authored The Spectacle of the Body in Late Medieval England (2012) and The Body Spectacular in Middle English Theatre (2013).

Texte du rabat
Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama combines epistemological enquiry, gender theory and Foucauldian concepts to investigate the body as a useful site for studying power, knowledge and truth. Intertwining the conceptualizations of violence and the performativity of gender identity and roles, Estella Ciobanu argues that studying violence in drama affords insights into the cultural and social aspects of the later Middle Ages. The text investigates these biblical plays through the perspective of the devil and offers a unique lens that exposes medieval disquiets about Christian teachings and the discourse of power. Through detailed primary source analysis and multidisciplinary scholarship, Ciobanu constructs a text that interrogates the significance of performance far beyond the stage.

Contenu
CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: The Demonic/-ised Subaltern's In-sight

1.1 Why Argue about Arguments Anyway?

1.2 What Is Truth? From Truth/Power/Knowledge to the Theatricalisation of Truth

1.3 The Body of Argument, Violence of Representation, and Epistemic Positioning

1.4 Looking with the Devil

1.4.1 The Biblical Satan

1.4.2 Harrowing Only Hell? The Devil of Middle English Theatre

1.5 Chapter Outline

Notes

References

Part I Skeletons in the Closet of Religious Dramas

2. The Slaughter of the Innocent(s): The Meek, the Muted and the Discursive Spear of Power

2.1 The Slaughter of the Innocents: The Gospel Account

2.2 The Middle English Slaughter Drama: Staging the Threat to 'Soveraintye'

2.3 Ordering the Massacre: Terror and Displaced Abjection

2.4 The Massacre of the Innocents: The Discursive Spear of Power and the Body of Argument

Notes

References

3. The Tyrant Is Dead. Long Live the Tyrant!

3.1 Herod the Great's Demise: The Argument from Power

3.2 Herod the Great's Family Resemblances and Illustrious Pedigree

3.2.1 Embodied Performances of Sovereignty: The Tyrant's Self-Aggrandising Speech

3.2.2 The Bodily Inscription of Sovereignty: Lucifer's Blasphemy (?)

3.2.3 Deus: The Egg-or-Hen Riddle of Sovereignty

3.3 Tyrannous Performances of Power from Potestas to Social Minores

3.3.1 The Pleasure of Spectacular Dismemberment

3.3.2 Interchangeable Fate in the Body of Argument: The Executioner's Body in Pieces

3.3.3 Exercises in Kyriarchal Power: God, Abraham and Isaac, and the Dissemination of Dread

Notes References

4. The Body in Pieces: Judicial Torture and/as Musical Dismemberment in the Passion Plays

4.1 The Body in Pieces in the York Passion: Christ and His Tormentors

4.1.1 Losing One's Tongue

4.1.2 The Victim's Body in Pieces

4.1.3 The Victimiser's Body in Pieces

4.2 Christ's Body and/as the Engine of Torture in the Towneley Passion

4.3 Beating the Truth out of the Other's Body: The Self-Legitimating Spectacle of Power in the N-Town Passion

4.4 Pleasure and the Truth of Body Music in the Chester Passion

Notes

References

5. Commemorations of Christ's Passion Body: Ostentatio Vulnerum, Redemptive Theology and Violence of Representation in the Post-Crucifixion Plays

5.1 Christ's Abject Body in Death in York

5.2 Teaching Piety, Teaching Guilt: The Musical Commemoration of the Abject Passion Body in the Towneley/York Resurrection Plays

5.3 Violence of Representation in the N-Town Resurrection Plays: Passion Body, Guilty Jew and the Ma(r)king of the Truth of Christianitas

5.4 Truth and/of Christ's Lost Body in the Chester Resurrection

5.5 Handle and Believe: The Truths of Christ's Risen Body in the Chester Emmaus and Ascension

5.6 Commemorating the Abject Passion Body: The Chester and York Last Judgement

5.7 The Body (Witness) Which Is Not One: Jesus's Passion Body, Mary's Assumption Body, and Truth Games in the York Assumption of the Virgin

Notes

References

Part II Travestied Social Dramas

6. Noah's Wife in the Flood Plays: The Body of Argument between Argumentum ad Verecundiam, Argumentum ad Hominem and Argumentum ad<b...