Abstract:
Carole Persin Ferguson's An Annotated Bibliography of English Medieval Drama: 1976-1980 (Master's thesis, Emporia state U, 1984) brought to date Maria s. Murphy's An Annotated Bibliography of English Medieval Drama: 1969-1975 (Master's thesis, Emporia state U, 1975), which in turn brought to date Carl J. stratman's Bibliography of Medieval Drama (2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: 1972). The purpose of this present thesis is further to bring to date stratman's original. To that end all pertinent books, periodical articles, and dissertations for the years 1981 through 1985 concerning themselves at least in part with medieval drama have been entered and annotated. Chapter I summarizes and analyzes the directions that medieval drama scholarship has taken during this five-year period and relates it, where applicable, to the trends noted by Murphy and Ferguson in the twelve years prior to 1981. special attention is given to the interdisciplinary nature of the scholarship between 1981 and 1985; the burgeoning area of records collection; the rekindled controversy over the liturgical and typological development of medieval drama; and the comparatively greater interest given the moralities and minor forms of drama written during that historical period between the mystery cycles and the Elizabethan age. Chapter I takes further note of the role that one trend noted by both Murphy (9) and Ferguson (1) in their studies of the years 1969-1980, the modern-day revivals of the plays and cycles, has had in the changing focus of much of the scholarship of medieval drama. Chapter I contends that a
19nificant portion of medieval drama scholarship has taken an experimental focus--testing theories on staging and characterization through analysis of play productions, pretesting modern editions of plays in production, and developing texts for the purpose of production.
