medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Rochelle Altman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Now, something I noticed in a close examination of Junius MS XI -- the
"Caedmon" MS, mid-9th CE. Speaker's cues...roughly 4-5 lines before each
actor/actress is supposed to "come on" -- interesting, no? Sure looks like
they are not merely "poems" -- but the blank verse of the earliest English
"mystery" plays
this might be of interest, if you haven't seen it:
_Anglo-Saxon gestures and the Roman stage_ / by C.R. Dodwell ; prepared for
publication by Timothy Graham. Cambridge U.P., c2000. xvii, 171pp.
>... I haven't been able to get a look at the originial of Old Saxon version
of Genesis,
most easily available (if you're not in London) in a very good facsimile
edition
Title: Bible. O.T. Hexateuch. Anglo-Saxon. Brit. Mus. MSS. (Cottonian
Claudius B. IV)
_The Old English illustrated Hexateuch : British Museum Cotton Claudius B. IV_
/ Ed. by C. R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes. Copenhagen : Rosenkilde og Bagger,
1974. 72 p., 156 leaves, [10] leaves of plates.
>but it'd be interesting to see if it has speaker's cues, as well.
i don't know about the text, but i happen to be working on the style(s) of the
350+ illuminations in this breathtakingly luxurious creation, and there are
certainly a massive number of "gestures" which correspond with those Dodwell
examines in detail as belonging to the "roman stage".
i have the beginnings of an optimistic project of scanning the whole danged ms
and, ultimately, putting it on a CD.
some of the pages may be seen here (WARNING: LARGE FILES --600-900k) :
http://www.christophersbookroom.com/cc/mss/hexateuch/finished/f40v.jpg
http://www.christophersbookroom.com/cc/mss/hexateuch/finished/f44r.jpg
http://www.christophersbookroom.com/cc/mss/hexateuch/finished/f44v.jpg
etc.
note that these .jpgs will expand to many times the size of a browser window,
and the texts (and images) can be read in great detail. let me know if you
find any "stage directions" there.
> Professional companies can bring the plays to life for audiences -- and if
they are good, they will illustrate some of the multiple references for them.
Audiences do not need to understand all references swept along by the movement
as they are...
> I happen to be a Shakepearophile -- (if there's such a word)...
there is, if you use it.
>Shakespeare has to be read (and mentally heard) with one eye on
the Bible; one eye on the political situation at the time, one eye on the
mystery plays, one eye on foreign concepts, and another on the intended
Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences and their expectations. It
does tend to make one cross-eyed. <G>
more like "fly-eyed".
you forgot the eye which one can keep on a thoroughly modern context of the
play's message.
a case in point is :
Joseph Mankiewicz's 1953 "Julius Caesar" (with Brando, and Mason, and Gielgud,
etc.)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0045943/
though it has the production aspects of a pseudo-DeMille Costume Epic (for box
office purposes, obviously), in its choice of dialogue resonates strongly with
certain contemporary political circumstances during the Regime of George II
just as strongly as it did in 1953, at the very height of the McCarthy
Hysteria.
let's see:
--an early 17th century play set
--in a late 1st c. B.C. historical context,
--intened to resonate with the political situation of the playwright's own
time (which it no doubt did),
--but which also resonates just as strongly with audiences in the middle of
the last century of the second millennium A.D.,
--as well as with audiences in the early years of the third millennium A.D.
fly-eyes, indeed.
best from here,
christopher
p.s. There is a recent collection of essays on the OEH, which i have not seen
but which might contain something of interest to you:
_The Old English Hexateuch : aspects and approaches_ / edited by Rebecca
Barnhouse and Benjamin C. Withers. Medieval Institute Publications, Western
Michigan University, 2000. xv, 358 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: The preface as admonition: Ælfric's preface to Genesis / Melinda
J. Menzer -- Translation by committee?: the "anonymous" text of the Old
English Hexateuch / Richard Marsden -- Shaping the Hexateuch text for an
Anglo-Saxon audience / Rebecca Barnhouse -- Assessing the liturgical canticles
from the Old English Hexateuch / Sarah Larratt Keefer -- Fragmentary versions
of Genesis in Old English prose: context and function / Mary P. Richards -- A
program of illumination in the Old English illustrated Hexateuch: "visual
typology"? / David F. Johnson -- The Anglo-Saxon Genesis: text, illustration,
and audience / Catherine E. Karkov -- The first laugh: laughter in Genesis and
the Old English tradition / Jonathan Wilcox -- Early modern users of Claudius
B. iv: Robert Talbot and William L'Isle / Timothy Graham -- A sense of
Englishness: Claudius B. iv, colonialism, and the history of Anglo-Saxon art
in the mid-twentieth century / Benjamin C. Withers.
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