When the hurlyburly's done, when the Doctor meets the Bard (Invited Talk)

This paper will look at the character of “the Doctor” in three medieval performance pieces: The Play of St. George, a Christmas mumming, The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. These three works provide an excellent counterpoint to the Doctor character that appears in morality plays from the same era (as in, for instance, Everyman): in these three plays, the Doctor appears as a figure of fun, a source for comedy, very different figure from his purely allegorical, doctrinally-correct presence in the moralities. Interestingly, determining the date of composition or first performance for all three of these Doctor plays is problematic, if not impossible. While this makes any analytical approach rooted in a strictly evolutionary timeline impossible, it does open the works up for discussion of their relationship through genealogical terms (as originated by Michel Foucault and adapted by Joseph Roach into the idea of performance genealogies). Using a close reading of the first two texts particularly, I examine them for signs of genealogical relationship and examine the particular representational strategies they employ. I suggest that they form a distinct genealogy that informs Marlowe’s play in a much more immediate and significant manner than morality plays that are traditionally seen as a commanding influence on Faustus.

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Linguaculture

This paper focuses on the genre of drolls as they were compiled in Francis Kirkman‘s collection The Wits or Sport upon Sport, published in 1672 and 1673. The anthology includes scenes from Hamlet or A Midsummer Night's Dream and draws upon characters like Falstaff and others. By description and analysis of these dramatic pieces, I would like to draw one's attention to the genre that is almost unknown to the history of English speaking drama. This article focuses on the process of rethinking Shakespeare so as not only to entertain people in the critical period of English history, but also to preserve the dramatic conventions that William Shakespeare and his contemporaries created. It also considers the changes the authors of the drolls made when adapting the parent plays of William Shakespeare.

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College Literature, 2004

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Early Theatre, 2002

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Renaissance Studies, 2007

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There can be little point in denying that William Shakespeare is among the most influential authors in literary history. For centuries, his works have been a staple of any literary education, and have spawned countless adaptations and imitations from his craft, both popular and otherwise. The popularity of The Bard's works has also created an enormous amount of scholarly discussion that ranges in subjects from the overarching themes within the plays to the significance of lines spoken by the characters, and these discussions have overflowed into the realm of Shakespeare adaptations. Through careful and thorough research, I have compiled criticism of what I believe to be the most influential and important adaptations of Shakespeare's plays throughout history based on the scholarly discussion surrounding them. From original productions of Shakespeare to film and graphic novel adaptations, this collection will attempt to discover the inner complexities of adapting Shakespeare, as well as what merits they might hold through an examination of the scholarly discussion surrounding these pieces.

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Shakespeare Survey

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2014

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