6 Transforming Saint Dunstan on the Elizabethan stage
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Gina M. Di Salvo
Abstract
This examines the production of alternative hagiographies, cultural pastimes, and miraculous theatricality in two Elizabethan plays featuring Saint Dunstan and the devil, the anonymous Knack to Know a Knave (1594) and Grim the Collier of Croyden (c. 1600) by William Houghton. While the former is a morality play and the latter comedy, both imagine Dunstan within an English landscape of miracles, magic, and traditions. Di Salvo shows how these plays read against John Foxe’s defamed account of Saint Dunstan in the Book of Martyrs without outright reverting to the pre-Reformation version archived in such collections as Caxton’s Golden Legend and Mirk’s Festial. Knack depicts Dunstan as a virtuous counsellor to the King whose ability to control the devil helps to rid England of vice and knavery. Grim begins by referencing Dunstan’s place in medieval legendaries and his canonization as a saint, but he is quickly upstaged by the devil he once conquered. In negotiating Dunstan’s vita into the plots of Knack and Grim, there is no acknowledgment of a Reformation between the time of King Edgar and Queen Elizabeth. However, the remixing of Dunstan’s legend suggests a folk revision enabled by the Reformation’s assault on the cult of the saints. In depicting Dunstan outside the context of reformist ecclesiastical history and through the repertoire of early theatricality, Knack and Grim archive a sustained association between dramatic sanctity and spectacular staging. These plays might not stand against reformation, but they do enact a mix of hagiography and theatricality that performs beyond it.
Abstract
This examines the production of alternative hagiographies, cultural pastimes, and miraculous theatricality in two Elizabethan plays featuring Saint Dunstan and the devil, the anonymous Knack to Know a Knave (1594) and Grim the Collier of Croyden (c. 1600) by William Houghton. While the former is a morality play and the latter comedy, both imagine Dunstan within an English landscape of miracles, magic, and traditions. Di Salvo shows how these plays read against John Foxe’s defamed account of Saint Dunstan in the Book of Martyrs without outright reverting to the pre-Reformation version archived in such collections as Caxton’s Golden Legend and Mirk’s Festial. Knack depicts Dunstan as a virtuous counsellor to the King whose ability to control the devil helps to rid England of vice and knavery. Grim begins by referencing Dunstan’s place in medieval legendaries and his canonization as a saint, but he is quickly upstaged by the devil he once conquered. In negotiating Dunstan’s vita into the plots of Knack and Grim, there is no acknowledgment of a Reformation between the time of King Edgar and Queen Elizabeth. However, the remixing of Dunstan’s legend suggests a folk revision enabled by the Reformation’s assault on the cult of the saints. In depicting Dunstan outside the context of reformist ecclesiastical history and through the repertoire of early theatricality, Knack and Grim archive a sustained association between dramatic sanctity and spectacular staging. These plays might not stand against reformation, but they do enact a mix of hagiography and theatricality that performs beyond it.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors viii
- Introduction 1
- Prolegomena 15
- 1 ‘Where the peaze is, shee shalbe Queene’ 17
- I Transforming space 41
- 2 The Lathom screen and the Magian plays of the Derby companies 43
- 3 Promising a storm 72
- 4 ‘Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul’ 101
- II Transforming character 133
- 5 Shakespeare’s priests 135
- 6 Transforming Saint Dunstan on the Elizabethan stage 164
- 7 ‘Fals conjecture’ 195
- III Transforming tropes 223
- 8 Transforming recognition 225
- 9 Under the castle, inside the counting house 251
- 10 The forest palimpsest in As You Like It and the medieval imaginary 283
- Afterword 311
- Index 327
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors viii
- Introduction 1
- Prolegomena 15
- 1 ‘Where the peaze is, shee shalbe Queene’ 17
- I Transforming space 41
- 2 The Lathom screen and the Magian plays of the Derby companies 43
- 3 Promising a storm 72
- 4 ‘Ay, these were spectacles to please my soul’ 101
- II Transforming character 133
- 5 Shakespeare’s priests 135
- 6 Transforming Saint Dunstan on the Elizabethan stage 164
- 7 ‘Fals conjecture’ 195
- III Transforming tropes 223
- 8 Transforming recognition 225
- 9 Under the castle, inside the counting house 251
- 10 The forest palimpsest in As You Like It and the medieval imaginary 283
- Afterword 311
- Index 327
