ENG 5100 —  London Drama to 1530

(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; ENG 5100, Medieval Drama: Global Plays in Translation.)

It is obvious that London emerged in the sixteenth century as the single dominant centre of British drama — eclipsing, and in some cases actively quashing, what had been a pluricentric culture of plays in prior centuries. Scholarship on the drama of those prior centuries, when it is not presented as a generalized pan-British mass, tends to focus on those locations in England from which more texts survive than do in London. This course will resist that tendency by focusing on London drama up to the year 1530 only — both the extant dramatic texts whose first performances can reasonably be located in London and archival evidence for London performances whose texts are now lost (or did not involve texts in the first place). Providing a quite handy pivot for students of both the medieval and early modern periods, this course will thus tackle a series of questions: To what degree are the sharp differences between "medieval" and "early modern" drama a matter of local-geographical distinction, rather than only a result of cultural changes over time? In what ways was medieval London performance culture continuous, or discontinuous, with other practices elsewhere in Britain? Why was London so decisively the place that rose to dominance (this is not as straightforward a question as it seems) — and what shaped the quite particular dramatic culture that rose there?

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 (always voluntarily). 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. We’ll be paying especially close attention to what these texts cue performing bodies to do.

Most 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.

Class Meetings

Starting on Monday, 14 September 2026, this course will meet once per week on Mondays for just under two hours (10:10am to 12:00 noon).‍ ‍

Meetings will be in person in the Jackman Humanities Building (JHB), room 614, 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. Attending in person is obviously preferable; if you need to attend remotely for any given session (even on short notice), email the full class list so we know to set things up for you; use the “current remote meeting link” listed under Resources at this site (see menu above). 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 two 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 Mondays immediately after class; if that timing doesn’t work for you, I may also be able to swing a Wednesday between 2pm and 2:45pm (but Mondays are preferable!).

Course Requirements/Grading Weight

Engagement and Participation in class discussions, including a weekly ready-to-go close reading (see below)
(or, if necessary, in substantial email commentary after the fact), 20%

Two 10-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
(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 more than 8 students enrolled, then I may reduce the number or length of presentations per student). 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 text, 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

Your final ENG 5100 project should take form as a Conference-Length Research/Analysis Paper. 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, including substantial attention to at least one extra-verbal cue in that text (we’ll discuss in class what that means), 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.

GRADING RATIONALE:

For this assignment, 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.

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.

READY-TO-GO CLOSE READINGS: We’ll read an early English text every week, sometimes tackling rather larger plays that will demand somewhat speedy reading. That said, in addition to completing the weekly reading in full, every student in this class is responsible for preparing a close reading of about 24-48 lines of the assigned early English text each week, in which you draw your fellow students’ attention to some of the verbal ambiguities, moments of beauty or power or humour, and/or extra-verbal cues

Week 1 — Mon 14 September: Lydgate I

At this class meeting, we’ll cold-read (and try to stage!) Middle English editions of some of John Lydgate’s Mummings and Entertainments, which I’ll provide in hard-copy handouts.

Week 2 — Mon 21 September: Lydgate II

Before this class meets:

• in the METS edition of John Lydgate’s Mummings and Entertainments (click here), read Introduction, Disguising at Hertford, Disguising at London, Henry VI’s Triumphal Entry into London, Mumming at Eltham, Mumming at Windsor, Mumming for the Goldsmiths of London, Mumming for the Mercers of London, Pageant of Knowledge, A Procession of Corpus Christi, Mumming of the Seven Philosophers, and Margaret of Anjou’s Entry into London, 1455 — but you can skip any of these that we already worked through in class last week;

• in Claire Sponsler’s The Queen’s Dumbshows (click here), read Chapter 7, “The Queen’s Dumbshows”;

• in Maura Nolan’s John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture (click here), read Chapter 2, “Social Forms, Literary Contents: Lydgate’s Mummings”.

Week 3 — Mon 28 September: Medwall I

Before this class meets:

• read the Broadview edition of Henry Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (pdf forthcoming);

• read Meg Twycross’s “‘Fart Pryke in Cule’: The Pictures,” from Medieval English Theatre 23 (pdf forthcoming);

• in The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama (click here), read Clare Wright’s “Henry Medwall: Fulgens and Lucres”.

Week 4 — Mon 6 October: Medwall II

Before this class meets:

• read Henry Medwall’s Nature (pdf forthcoming);

• in Studies in English Literature 55 (click here), read Liza Blake’s “Allegorical Causation and Aristotelian Physics in Henry Medwall's ‘Nature’”.

There is no class on Mon Oct 12 (Thanksgiving), but you should get started on next week’s reading (only available in hard copies!) now.

Week 5 — Mon 19 October: REED Roundup

Before this class meets:

• In Records of Early English Drama: Civic London to 1558, using but not removing the hard copies available at the Robarts and/or CRRS libraries (or the REED library on JHB Floor 8), read the Introduction, Appendix 1 through 1530, and the Records through 1530.

There is no class on Mon Oct 26 (Thanksgiving), but you should get started on next week’s reading (only available in hard copies!) now.

Week 6 — Mon 20 October: Dutch (in conjunction with a meeting of the MWDWG)

Tentative presenters this week: Rachel, Amy, Alexandra

Before this class meets:

• for context, read Wim Husken’s “Cornelis Everaert on Power and Authority”, in our class Google Drive file (click here)

• read Charlotte Steenbrugge, Fluctuating Currency, a work-in-progress translation, in our class Google Drive file (click here)

• feel free to compare the translation to the original Dutch by clicking here

During class, we will welcome Charlotte Steenbrugge as our guest speaker and respondent (via Zoom).

Mon 27 October: NO CLASS (Reading Week)

Week 7 — Mon 3 November: Chinese (I)

Before this class meets:

• read Regina S. Llamas’s Introduction to, and her translation of, Top Graduate Zhang Xie, through page 169

  During this class, based on the work we’ve been doing so far, let’s also decide where we want to go with the readings in weeks remaining (except for the Enders, which is locked in because it aligns with her MWDWG visit) — I have suggestions below but they’re open to modification.

Week 8 — Mon 10 November: Chinese (II)

Presenter this week: Alexandra

Before this class meets:

• read the remainder of Top Graduate Zhang Xie

Week 10 — Mon 17 November
PLUS special MWDWG *online* session on 19 November (5pm-6:30pm)

Presenter this week: Nadia

Before this class and special session meet:

• read Oscar Mandel’s translation of The Washtub;

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

• read Jody Enders’s translations of The Farce of the Fart,Bro Job, The Washtub (including the brief introduction to this play), and Extreme Husband Makeover (including the introduction);

• since each of the above farces comes from a different Enders anthology of early farces (there are four volumes out!), scan the various titles of farces in the Tables of Contents linked above, and choose one more Enders farce translation to read — please come to class with a line, speech, or passage from that play you’d like to share and discuss.

Two days after class, 19 November (5pm-6:30pm), the MWDWG will welcome Jody Enders as a guest speaker and respondent (via Zoom) — please attend if you can, because we’ll be reading selections from the fifth volume of Enders farces (forthcoming from Palgrave).

Here’s a brief, apt quotation from that forthcoming volume: “Notwithstanding the Basochiens’ poetic talents (or my own), I also reissue my habitual caveat that I’ve rendered doggerel as doggerel, and groanworthy puns and Dad jokes as—what else?—groanworthy puns and Dad jokes. Elsewhere, we come face to face anew with the perils of translating song. It’s a delicate dance between identifiable (or unidentifiable) Middle French chansons and their possible English-language equivalents: equivalents that will already be dated by the time you read this book and that I invite you to replace and update… it is challenging enough to spot an allusion to a medieval song, which might be referenced by its title, its first line, a refrain, or a snippet. Howard Mayer Brown’s signature Music in the French Secular Theater (MFST) helps immeasurably, but he didn’t find everything. For another thing, we won’t catch each idiom whose origins are traceable to a song lyric…”

Week 10 — Mon 24 November: German, Latin, Greek

Presenter this week: Amy

Before this class meets:

• Read Carol Symes, “Ancient Drama in the Medieval World” and “The Medieval Archive and the History of Theatre”

• Read Susan Kattwinkel’s composite edition of the Lambert and St. John translations of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s Abraham

• Read Larry West’s translation of the St. Gall Passion Play
  (NB: in thinking through the antisemitic content here, consider, as Symes and Enders might, that more than one hand was surely involved in layering together this text: how does the controlling voice of the stage directions and the Augustinian introductions differ from, and preemptively frame, the rest of the spoken dialogue?)

• Read lines 302-1257 of Alan Fishbone’s translation of Christos Paschon

Week 11 — Mon 1 December: K’iche and Cornish
PLUS special MWDWG *hybrid* session on 3 December (1:15pm-2:45pm)

Presenter this week: Rachel

Before this class meets:

• Read pages 1-9, 23-33, 64-124, and 207-223 of Dennis Tedlock’s translation of Rabinal Achi: A Mayan Drama of War and Sacrifice(NB: you can access all these pages by clicking on the links for “Introduction” and “Four: Scripts and Voices”; pay close attention to Tedford’s quotation marks, because the characters often repeat back each other’s words at length, then comment on those words)

• Read selections(just what I’ve included in the pdf, not including the untranslated Cornish) from Graham Thomas and Nicholas Williams’s translation of Bewnans Ké(NB: I recommend reading the play excerpt first — pages 3-133, right side only — and then the introductory apparatus after)

Two days after class, Wed 3 December,1:15PM-2:45PM, the MWDWG will test-run a work-in-progress translation of La Seinte Resurreccion from the Anglo-Norman by Meagan Mellor and Lauren Saxberg — please come and support our auditors! You can attend either in person (JHB 100) or on Zoom.

Week 12 — Mon 8 December: Final Presentations (on Zoom only!)

No readings due. Students will present their final projects during this online only session (please read the instructions above, thoroughly and carefully).
As always, you can join us remotely using this virtual Zoom room (click here).