Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T22:29:13.814Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Stuart Civic Pageants and Textual Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David M. Bergeron*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas

Abstract

Playwrights increasingly intend the pageant texts for readers; these texts become commemorative books that both capture the event and add to it. They assume an expository and narrative function that sets them apart from the typical dramatic text. By examining the extant printed texts of Jacobean and Caroline Lord Mayor's Shows, I argue that these publications do not obliterate theatrical performance or displace it so much as they complete it. Dramatists and printers come to recognize the lasting value of textual performance in civic pageants.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Robert M., ed. Ben Jonson's Plays and Masques. New York, 1979.Google Scholar
Bergeron, David M. “Gilbert Dugdale and the Royal Entry of James I (1604).” fournal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13 (1983): 111-25.Google Scholar
Bruns, Gerald L. Inventions: Writing, Textuality, and Understanding in Literary History. New Haven, 1982.Google Scholar
Collections III: A Calendar of Dramatic Records in the Books of the Livery Companies of London 1485-1640. Ed. Jean Robertson and D.J. Gordon. Oxford, 1954.Google Scholar
De Grazia, Margreta, and Stallybrass, Peter. “The Materiality of the Shakespearean Text.” Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 255-83.Google Scholar
Dekker, Thomas. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. Ed. Fredson Bowers. Cambridge, 1955-61.Google Scholar
Hapgood, Robert. Shakespeare the Theater Poet. Oxford, 1988.Google Scholar
Heywood, Thomas. Thomas Heywood's Pageants: A Critical Edition. Ed. David M. Bergeron. New York, 1986.Google Scholar
Johnson, Paula. “Jacobean Ephemera and the Immortal Word.” Renaissance Drama, n.s. 8 (1977): 151-71.Google Scholar
Jonson, Ben. Ben Jonson: Three Comedies. Ed. Michael Jamieson. Baltimore, 1969.Google Scholar
Lowenstein, Joseph. “The Script in the Marketplace.” Representations 12 (1985): 101-14.Google Scholar
Lowenstein, Joseph. “Printing and ‘the Multitudinous Presse': The Contentious Texts of Jonson's Masques.” In Ben Jonson's 1616 Folio, ed. Jennifer Brady and W.H. Herendeen, 168-91. Newark, DE, 1991.Google Scholar
Middleton, Thomas. The Complete Works of Thomas Middleton. Ed. Gary Taylor. Oxford, 1998.Google Scholar
Munday, Anthony. Pageants and Entertainments of Anthony Munday. Ed. David M. Bergeron. New York, 1985.Google Scholar
Murray, Timothy. Theatrical Legitimation: Allegories of Genius in Seventeenth-Century England and France. New York, 1987.Google Scholar
Orgel, Stephen. “What Is a Text?” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 24 (1981): 36.Google Scholar
Squire, John. The Triumphs of Peace. London, 1620.Google Scholar
Taylor, John. The Triumphs of Fame and Honour. London, 1634.Google Scholar
Webster, John. The Complete Works of John Webster. Ed. F.L. Lucas. London, 1927.Google Scholar