Records of Early French Drama in Parisian Notary Registers

Authors

Stephen K. Wright, Catholic University of America

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, the first paragraph of the essay follows:

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in the collection, publication, and evaluation of early European performance records. The recovery of documentary material describing civic and religious spectacles of many kinds has led theater historians to define their field in much broader terms than ever before. Consequently, medieval and renaissance drama is no longer conceived of as a more or less haphazard assortment of autonomous literary texts. In light of new archival discoveries, theater historians are increasingly inclined to discuss public processions, plays, interludes, and various other ceremonies and entertainments in terms of the non-literary features that conditioned. them-that is to say, in terms of pragmatic stagecraft (including music, costume, backdrops, props, and special effects), cast selection and supervision, :financial sponsorship, crowd management, and various forms of local competition for textual ownership and organizational control. In short, the early theater has come to be regarded as a complex institution that directly affected ( and was in tum affected by) a wide range of mutually interconnected economic, social, political, intellectual, and religious forces.

Recommended Citation

Wright, Stephen K. (1990) "Records of Early French Drama in Parisian Notary Registers," Comparative Drama: Vol. 24: Iss. 3, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol24/iss3/3