The Preaching Fox: Elements Of Festive Subversion In The Plays Of The Wakefield Master (studies In Medieval History And Culture)

First published 2005 by Routledge. New readers of the Wakefield Master's work are invariably struck by the festive nature of the plays. Characters threaten the audience with comic bravado, engage in mocking tomfoolery, and parody any number of sacred forms; it is behavior unexpected by modern students of the drama, especially from what we assume was a serious and religious medieval past, and it is unlike what we find in the other mystery cycles. The comic elements have drawn a variety of reactions, from denunciation to acclaim, but critics have been unable to reach a consensus as to how they actually function in the plays. Beyond the odd stage direction and what we can occasionally glean from the dialogue, we have no idea how the plays were staged or how the medieval audience might have interacted with them, and lacking such contextual dues, we are left to speculate on the significance of the festive forms. In this text, I present a study of how festive elements allow a variety of subversive readings, while not, of course, asserting that these are the only possible readings of the plays. Whether or not readers accept these interpretations, they must, if they are truly to appreciate the plays, come to some understanding of the role festive forms play in the drama. Annotation The main purpose of the book is to expand the scope of revisionary studies of the thirties by analyzing novels using recent innovations in critical theory. The book adds to the research of Barbara Foley, Michael Denning, Alan Wald, and others who have challenged Cold-War-era accounts of the decade's socialist and communist culture. The book explores leftist literature from the thirties as balanced between two antithetical philosophical modalities: identity and ideology. Writers create identitarian fiction, he argues, as they attempt to appeal to a mainstream audience using familiar types and patterns culled from mass culture. They engage ideology, on the other hand, when they use narrative as a means of critiquing those same types and patterns using strategies of ideological critique similar to those of their European contemporary Georg Lukacs." Series Editor's Foreword ix Preface xi Chapter One. Subversion and the Festive Instinct 1 Chapter Two. Typical Festive Elements in the Plays 27 Chapter Three. The Overthrow of Religious Obligation 49 Chapter Four. The Shrewish Bride of Christ 73 Chapter Five. Foolish Shepherds and Priestly Folly 99 Chapter Six. Stripping Away the Wolf-Skin of False Shepherds 119 Chapter Seven. Raging Kings and Clergy 149 Chapter Eight. Christ as a Comic Figure 173 Conclusion. A Festive Flavor 197 Notes 201 Bibliography 213 Index 221