ENG 5100 —  Medieval Drama: Global Plays in Translation

(What’s posted below is either my next upcoming, current, or most recent graduate course syllabus. Click through here for prior course syllabi: ENG 1006, York’s Plays and Records; ENG 1007, Morality Plays; ENG 5100, Digital Humanities Practicum: Records of Early English Drama, 1325-1642.

Growing out of an ongoing JHI Working Group on Medieval World Drama (and drawing from that working group's sizable syllabus), this course will offer students the opportunity to read a broad range of examples, all translated into modern English, of global play texts from before 1510 (with some slightly later exceptions).  Most of the dramatic traditions from which our readings are drawn had no significant contact with each other before 1510: hardly enough to exert influence on each other's form and content.  The considerable similarities that will emerge among these readings, then, will challenge us to consider what (if anything) might be inherent to the very act of creating a text for live performance -- or to critique the homogenizing effects of the translation process, and of translating early global texts into modern English in particular.  By design, the globetrotting sweep of this course necessitates some dilettantism: we will certainly read essays that contextualize the plays, but since no one (not even the instructor) could possibly be a true specialist in more than a couple of the traditions we’ll visit, we will centre our discussions on discovery, newness, open inquiry, and cold reading, while considering the ramifications of our literary tourism.  Practical rationales and techniques of translation will be a concern of this course – a few of the translators themselves will likely make guest appearances by Zoom (as they have often done in the JHI group).

Meanwhile, enjoyment and engagement, however bracketed by discussions of theoretical implications, will be at the heart of our discussions, where we’ll often read and act out scenes aloud. Come prepared to have fun, if only because the study of early performance texts requires genuine enjoyment and engagement, in order for its texts to be at all understood in relation to performance.

No knowledge of languages other than English is required for this course, but students will be invited to use any linguistic proficiencies they happen to have, to generate critiques of course translations or, if they wish, to make their own attempts at translation. All of our required course texts are available in electronic copies: where these are not available directly through the University of Toronto Libraries website, I have made copies temporarily available through our class Google Drive file. These readings are generally only in English; I strongly encourage students with a background in the source language of any of our translations to seek out, compare, and bring in samples to compare with readings and discuss in class.

Class Meetings

Starting on Wednesday, 10 September 2025, this course will meet once per week on Wednesdays for two hours (11am to 1pm).

Meetings will be in person in the Jackman Humanities Building (JHB), room TBA, on the University of Toronto campus, on the shared territory of many First Nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, under the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, and under Treaty 13 between the Mississaugas and subsequent settlers.

I keep Zoom (or an equivalent application) open on my laptop during all meetings; I audiorecord all meetings through that application. While I prefer that students attend my graduate seminars in person, any student in these seminars can thus opt to attend remotely at any time.

I do require attendance, whether in-person or remote, at every meeting. If a student misses a session for any reason, that student must listen to the audiorecording of each missed session, then email our course list to share thoughts and comments on that session, including in that single email individualized responses to every student who spoke up during the meeting.

I have no attendance policy other than that. Make-up emails must be sent as soon as possible, and no later than four weeks, after the missed class session; however, the last day I’ll accept make-up emails will be two weeks after our final class meeting, so class sessions later in term may have to be made up more quickly. Two weeks after our final class meeting, I will deduct one grade level (i.e., from A to A-) for any missed session for which a student has not sent the required email responses during the required span of time.

Contacting and Meeting with Prof. Sergi

Email me after our first meeting at matthew.sergi (@utoronto.ca) (be aware: this is a different account from the one I use to communicate with undergraduates!) to establish first contact; I’ll compile an informal email list for our class from there.

I’m happy to set up one-on-one meetings with each student in this class as needed, and by appointment, on Wednesdays at any point between 3:30pm and 6:30pm; if that timing doesn’t work for you, I may also be able to swing a Monday between 10am and noon (but Wednesdays are preferable!).

Course Requirements/Grading Weight

Engagement and Participation in class discussions
(or, if necessary, in substantial email commentary after the fact), 20%

Two 10- or 15-Minute Presentations during class discussions, 15% each (totalling 30%)

Annotated Bibliography assignment, delivered alongside your final presentation, 10%

Final Project: Conference-Length Research/Analysis Paper or Original Play Translation
(20 minutes of material, with an option to extend into an article-length study), 40%

Every student must attend all class sessions (or make them up, as above), must be reachable by and responsive to an email list shared with the full class, and must read all assigned readings and have them ready to hand on the day we are scheduled to discuss them.

10-Minute Presentations

Every student is required to give two 10-minute presentations during term (if there are 7 or fewer students enrolled in the seminar, the presentations should be 15 minutes; if there are 8-12 students enrolled, the presentations should be 10 minutes; if there are more than 12 students enrolled, then I will reduce the number of presentations per student to one). Be prepared to field questions that your classmates and I may ask.

As long as you present one at some point during weeks 3 through 6, and the other at some point during weeks 8 through 11, it’s fine by me—just give me a week’s advance warning when you’re ready. We’ll be able to accommodate up to two presentations in any given class session (or three if truly necessary). Every presentation should involve a visual aid of some kind (slides, a handout, or something similar); include therein any long passages you will read, as well as clean citations for all sources you’ve consulted. You can choose any one of the following three prompts for your first presentation:

Option 1: choose any non-dramatic article, chapter, or editorial apparatus we’ve already been assigned (it doesn’t have to be one we were assigned on the day you present!) and present an informal (but well-prepared and well-organized) critique and analysis of that piece. Your aim is to provoke conversation; it will be your job, after your presentation, to moderate your fellow students’ discussion for about 20 further minutes.

Option 2: choose any three-minute passage from a dramatic text or record we’ve already been assigned (it doesn’t have to be one we were assigned on the day you present), memorize it, and perform it as a dramatic piece (you can do so in the original early English, or in a light adaptation/translation). After that, offer us an informal (but well-prepared and well-organized) close reading and analysis of that passage. (You can also do analysis first, then performance).

Option 3: seek out, and read, any dramatic text that is not already on our list of readings, but that would fit well into our class. Present an informal (but well-prepared and well-organized) lecture on that chapter, which includes a rough summary, basic historical contexts, an original bit of analysis, and at least short passage of the text to be read aloud (it doesn’t have to be a dramatic reading; you can also prompt us to read dialogue with you).

If you would like individual feedback on your presentation, please schedule a one-on-one meeting with me (see above). Otherwise, I will assume that the in-class conversation that follows from your presentation is feedback enough (and it usually is!).

Annotated Bibliography

This short assignment is really a companion to your final presentation — preparing the bibliography will be part of preparing the presentation (and the two can overlap as much as you feel is appropriate). The bibliography should include full references to 4-6 sources relevant to the early play you’ve chosen to work with for your final project, with short summaries (about 75-150 words each) of how and why these sources are relevant to your record(s); needless to say, you’ll have to read all of your chosen sources with enough care and attention that we’ll be able to ask you questions about them. You’ll need to turn in your annotated bibliography at the same time that you give your final presentation. The grade for this small assignment is pass/fail: as long as there are at least four sources, summarized and submitted on time, you’ll pass.

Final Project

For your final ENG 5100 project, you can produce either a Conference-Length Research/Analysis Paper or an Original Play Translation. I strongly recommend, but do not require, that you set up a one-on-one meeting with me before Week 11 to discuss your project in development. Each student will present their project for 20 minutes during our final class session; if enough students enroll in our course to exceed the time available in that session, we’ll schedule an extra optional session at which further students can present their work.

HOW TO DO THE CONFERENCE-LENGTH RESEARCH/ANALYSIS PAPER (WITH OPTION TO EXTEND):

Produce a conference-length paper (20 minutes) that takes any one of the plays assigned in this class as its primary subject. 20-minute conference papers are usually about 2000-2500 words long, but it is up to each student to determine the best length (by practicing the paper aloud). This paper should combine deep, complex, specific analysis of the play text itself (with reference to the original language wherever possible) with thorough, innovative research, crafted as an critical and new intervention into a scholarly discussion of/around the play that is already underway.

Immediately before presenting, you must hand me a hard copy of your full, final, polished paper. That will be your final paper of the semester, due on the day of the mock-conference. I will start marking up your paper during and immediately following your delivery of the paper, taking into account your handling of the Q&A (and the quality of the Q&A that your paper provokes), then send you a summary of my comments by email soon after.

You can leave it at that — or, if you wish, you can extend this assignment into a longer, article-length paper, about 5500-7500 words, due by email exactly two weeks after your presentation. I will only mark up and comment on your paper once, so if you wish to take the extended paper option, you must let me know clearly at the time of your presentation.

HOW TO DO THE ORIGINAL PLAY TRANSLATION:

Using whatever language skills you happen to bring to our class, produce an original translation of any work of non-English drama (defined broadly) datable from before 1500, including an introduction, footnotes, stage directions, and any other apparatus that you determine that the text requires. You can choose to translate a work that we have not read in class or, if you have good reason, to re-translate a work that you think can be significantly improved (but in that case, your translation must be substantively and consistently very different from what we have already read). Your introduction should dwell substantively on two or three specific words or phrases that you have translated, describing how your handling of those words or phrases relates to the original language and manifests the rationale of your work. Reading the introduction and translated play-text aloud must take a total of 20 minutes, no more, no less: the best proportion will probably be 4 minutes for introduction and 16 for translation, but if your translation comes up shorter, make the introduction more in-depth (and vice versa). The presentation of the translated play-text should be done as a lightly rehearsed staged reading: you’ll need to recruit classmates or other volunteers as needed.

Immediately before presenting, you must hand me a hard copy of your full, final, polished translation/edition. That will be your final paper of the semester, due on the day of the mock-conference. I will start marking up your paper during and immediately following your delivery of the paper, taking into account your handling of the Q&A (and the quality of the Q&A that your paper provokes), then send you a summary of my comments by email soon after.

GRADING RATIONALE:

For any critical, interpretive, and otherwise scholarly writing done toward this assignment (including the research/analysis paper and the introduction to the translation), I will apply the same twelve criteria I use to evaluate undergraduate writing (and which I also use for most writing I encounter in the field). I will also apply those criteria to any footnotes (or lack thereof) that you add to your work, though these should not be read aloud at the presentation.

For any creative work on the translation assignment, I will look for how well the translation embodies the rationale described by your introduction, for how effective, tight, and well-paced the text is in performance, for how cohesive the feel, emotionality, flow, and rhythm of the text is (again in relation to the rationale you articulate in your introduction), and for how thorough, clean, clear, and practically-oriented your translation/edition is — its utility for readers, scholars, and performers.

What I cannot grade, naturally, is the way that your work on either assignment engages with the original language of the play, beyond the engagements that you describe directly, since the range and variety of languages here engaged with will be vast enough to stump most polyglots. There are certain languages I can weigh in on somewhat, and to the degree that I can do so I will take them into account in grading, but for the most part my own command of non-English languages is relatively weak (not for lack of trying — a personal circumstance that, indeed, inspired this class and the collaborative working group out of which it grew). It is your own responsibility, then, to approach the original language of your texts with rigor and care, but that rigor and care will generally not be reflected in your grade.

Schedule of Meetings and Readings

This is currently only a tentative sketch! Expect these readings to change considerably up until two weeks before the first class meeting.

Week 1 — Wed 10 September: English

At this class meeting, we’ll cold-read different versions of the York Doubting Thomas together in class, which I’ll provide in hard-copy handouts. If time permits, we’ll try to create a new present-day English translation together.

Week 2 — Wed 17 September: Spanish

Before this class meets:

Week 3 — Wed 24 September: Welsh

Before this class meets:

Week 5 — Wed 1 October: Chinese (I)

Before this class meets:

Week 4 — Wed 8 October: Chinese (II)

Before this class meets:

 

Week 6 — Wed 15 October: Dutch (in conjunction with a meeting of the MWDWG)

Before this class meets:

  • read Charlotte Steenbrugge, Fluctuating Currency, a work-in-progress translation

  • Secondary sources recommended by C Steenbrugge

  • (hoping C Steenbrugge will be guest at MWDWG?)

Week 7 — Wed 22 October (NOTE: This session will be fully online. We may have to reschedule it due to the Folger Institute event this week): Japanese

Before this class meets:

  • read Royall Tyler’s translation of Zeami’s Atsumori (from the Norton Anthology of World Literature), with introduction

  • read Karen Brazell’s translation of Zeami’s Atsumori (from Traditional Japanese Theater: An Anthology of Plays), with introduction

  • read Karen Brazell, “On the Art of Translating Zeami”

  • read Chifumi Shimazaki’s translation of Kanehira (from Warrior Ghost Plays from the Japanese Noh Theater)

  • read Kenneth Richard’s translation of Kanehira

  • skim, briefly, Michael Watson’s Noh translations: noh plays in alphabetical order of the Japanese titles

Wed 29 October: NO CLASS (Reading Week)

Week 8 — Wed 5 November: Arabic

Before this class meets:

Week 9 — Wed 12 November: Multilingual Britain

Before this class meets:

  • read David Bevington’s Holy Resurrection (from Medieval Drama) and Carol Symes’s Play of Adam and Babio (from Fitzgerald and Sebastian’s Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama), all linked here

  • read excerpts from Doris Enright-Clark Shoukri’s translation of Chaundler’s A Defense of Human Nature in Every State

  • read Thomas Meacham’s “Introduction: University Drama Before the Tudor Period” from The Performance Tradition of the Medieval English University

  • read excerpts from Graham Thomas and Nicholas Williams’s translation or, and introduction to, Bewnans Ke (The Life of Saint Kea)

Week 10 — Wed 19 November: French (in conjunction with a meeting of the MWDWG)

Before this class meets:

  • read Jody Enders’s translations of The Farce of the Fart, Bro Job, and Not Gettin’ Any from her various anthologies of French farce (also consider Immaculate Deception, Extreme Husband Makeover, Basket Case, Johnny-Slack-Jaw, The Washtub). 

  • read Jody Enders, “Reading for Comic Performance Between the Lines,” Part I and Part II

  • having read all that, read at least one more Enders farce translation (of your choice!)

At this class meeting, we’ll discuss readings and host student presentations up until 12:30pm, at which point we will welcome Jody Enders as our guest; Jody will discuss her work for the remaining half hour of class, after which the MWDWG will begin its online-only November meeting (optional for ENG 5100 to attend) from 1pm to 2pm, at which we’ll cold read one of her new translations-in-progress.

Week 11 — Wed 26 November: K’iche’

Before this class meets:

Week 12 — Wed 3 December (we may also schedule a second supplementary meeting for this week, or extend our usual one):

No readings due. Students will present their final projects during this session (please read the instructions above, thoroughly and carefully).