The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8. 2 vols. | National Humanities Center

Work of the Fellows: Edited Volumes

The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8. 2 vols.

Edited by Stephen Spector (NHC Fellow, 1985–86)

Plays; Middle Ages; Mystery Plays; Christianity; Drama; Textual Criticism; N-Town Plays

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991

From the publisher’s description:

The N-Town Cycle is one of the four extant Middle English cycles of mystery plays. A collection of unknown origin, N-Town is composite and in many ways unique. Its forty-one plays, dramatizing divine history from Creation to Doomsday, illustrate ways of reading, supplementing, and altering biblical accounts. The collection is extraordinarily rich in textual information testifying to the alteration and expansion of the text. And the language of the plays in many small ways advances our knowledge of the history of English.

The plays exemplify the efficacy and beauty of simple faith. They provide instructions in the fundamental elements of medieval Christianity, and tell us much about the forms of consolation and self-fortification that were available in the late Middle Ages.

Subjects
Theater / Literary Criticism / Plays / Middle Ages / Mystery Plays / Christianity / Drama / Textual Criticism / N-Town Plays /

Spector, Stephen (NHC Fellow, 1985–86), ed. The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8. 2 vols. Early English Text Society. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991.