Performance and Theatricality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Edited by Mark Cruse
This volume is a contribution to the cross-cultural study of theater and performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The studies gathered here examine material from Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. Underlying all of these essays is the understanding that performance shapes reality — that in all of the cultural contexts included here, performance opened a space in which patrons, rulers, writers, painters, spectators and readers could see themselves or their societies differently, and thereby could assume different identities or construct alternative communities. Addressing confession and private devotion, urban theater and pageantry, royal legitimacy and religious debate, and a wide range of genres and media, this volume offers a panoramic mosaic of the world-making role of theater and performance in medieval and early modern European societies.
Bio
Mark Cruse is director of graduate studies and associate professor of French at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the relationship between writing, performance, travel and material culture in the European Middle Ages.
