Content area
Full Text
RR 2004/383 English Dramatic Interludes 1300-1580: A Reference Guide Darryll Grantley Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2004 xvi + 427 pp. ISBN: 0 521-82078 2 £65 $95
Keywords Theatre, English literature
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120410559681
Pre-Shakespearian drama is a neglected area of investigation. Darryll Grantley's learned Reference Guide intends to straighten the record by recording "the whole range of non-cycle drama in English" from 1300 up to 1580. The latter date "being around five or so years after the building of the first major permanent theatres in London, which signalled the emergence of a new commercial culture" (p. 1). Why Grantley begins at 1300 is not entirely made clear. Indeed, the summary of his book appearing on the opening page refers to it as "a comprehensive guide to the interlude: the extant non-cycle drama in English from the late fourteenth century up to the period in which the London commercial theatre began". The "late fourteenth century" is not 1300. Also "misleading", as Grantley points out in his Introduction, is the word "English". His study encompasses "a few Scottish and Irish plays in English . . . while those emanating from England but written in Cornish, Latin or French have been omitted". On the other hand, room is found for " The Cambridge Prologue, an Anglo-Norman fragment with a contemporary roughly parallel text in English" (p. 1).
A List of Plays and Fragments - 104...