Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T12:38:25.530Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Theatre and theatricality

from Part III - What is the Value of Genre for Medieval French Literature?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2009

Simon Gaunt
Affiliation:
King's College London
Sarah Kay
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

'Speak firmly and in an orderly rhythm.' 'Make appropriate gestures … manifesting sorrow by falling down on the ground … or showing joy through the face.' These were the instructions given to people playing the first man and woman in the biblical Jeu d'Adam (late twelfth century). Talking in another voice and mimicking another person were the key body languages to master, the skills necessary to acting before others. They defined a practice that did not correspond to any formal conception of genre and extended far beyond what we recognize as theatre today. In a world where culture was transacted orally as much as through hand-written texts or manuscripts and the earliest printed books, such theatrical action informed the way texts were read aloud, the styles of celebrating religious and political occasions, as well as physical play, noise-making. As Paul Zumthor began to argue in the late 1960s, such action animated so many different forms of communication and expression that it is more telling to ask what was not characterized theatrically than to identify what was theatre.

The Parisian schoolman, Hugh of St Victor (died 1141) captured this array of activity when he described in a Latin treatise the 'science called theatrics'. 'Epics were presented either by recitals or by acting out dramatic roles or using masks or puppets; choral processions and dances were held in the porches. In gymnasia, they wrestled, at banquets they made music with songs and instruments. In the temples they sang the praises of God.' Hugh adapted a model that had come from imperial Rome to describe the rituals, sports, and verbal fictions of public life in twelfth-century Europe. He gives us a sense of the many different sites for theatrical action, and the people implicated.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×