00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page i SHAKESPEARE AND THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page ii THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE THE ARDEN CRITICAL COMPANIONS GENERAL EDITORS Andrew Hadfield and Paul Hammond ADVISORY BOARD MacDonald P. Jackson Katherine Duncan-Jones David Scott Kastan Patricia Parker Lois Potter Phyllis Packin Bruce R. Smith Brian Vickers Blair Worden Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe ed. Andrew Hadfield and Paul Hammond Shakespeare and Renaissance Politics Andrew Hadfield Shakespeare and the Victorians Adrian Poole Shakespeare and Comedy Robert Maslen Shakespeare and Music David Lindley Shakespeare and Elizabethan Popular Culture ed. Stuart Gillespie and Neill Rhodes Shakespeare and Law Andrew Zurcher Shakespeare and Religion Alison Shell Shakespeare and the Medieval World Helen Cooper Forthcoming Shakespeare and his Texts Tom Lockwood 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page iii THE ARDEN CRITICAL COMPANIONS SHAKESPEARE AND THE MEDIEVAL WORLD HELEN COOPER Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page iv Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as Arden Shakespeare 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2010 by Methuen Drama © Helen Cooper 2010 Helen Cooper has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-9042-7178-9 PB: 978-1-4081-7232-2 ePDF: 978-1-4081-3898-4 ePub: 978-1-4081-3899-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Arden Critical Companions 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page v In memory of Michael This page intentionally left blank 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page vii CONTENTS TEXTUAL NOTE ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x ABBREVIATIONS xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii Introduction 1 Chapter One Shakespeare’s Medieval World 9 Remembered worlds 12 Continuities 16 The shape of life 22 The shape of death 28 The world of language 34 Chapter Two Total Theatre 42 Remembering the religious drama 54 Shakespeare and the cycle plays 64 Chapter Three Staging the Unstageable 72 Presenting the play 74 Immaterial beings 80 Imagining place 89 Time 97 Chapter Four The Little World of Man 103 Language and personification 108 Man and the universe 111 Moral interludes and dramatic structure 115 Dumbshows, emblems and allegorical action 125 Three types: king, shepherd and fool 131 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page viii Chapter Five The World of Fortune 139 The falls of great men 141 Tragedies from the medieval world 156 Chapter Six Romance, Women and the Providential World 170 Heroines, inheritance and happy endings 179 Beyond the natural 187 The last plays 192 Pericles 196 Chapter Seven Shakespeare’s Chaucer 204 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 211 A note on Bottom and the ass 219 Troilus and Cressida 221 The Two Noble Kinsmen 227 NOTES 235 BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 INDEX 265 00 Prelims_Shakespeare and the Medieval World 19/08/2010 12:20 Page ix TEXTUAL NOTE Unless otherwise stated, all quotations from Shakespeare are taken from The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, ed. Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan (Walton- on- Thames, 1998). Definitions and datings of individual words have been taken from the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. In all original- spelling titles and quotations, u/v and i/j have been modernized.