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).‍ ‍

IMPORTANT: Because our course meets on Mondays, the placement of holidays in fall term will reduce our usually scheduled meetings from 12 to 11, which is too few for a graduate course. To compensate for this, I will ask the members of the class to meet once more, to present final papers in conference style, for an additional three-hour session at some point in the week following our 7 Dec meeting — bring friends if you wish, and be sure to bring two hard copies of your paper. Please indicate your availability at this StrawPoll (click here) for that meeting [if we have more papers than the session can handle, I’ll hold two, but each student will only be required to attend the one at which they’re presenting].

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.

BRING READABLE, MARKABLE, MARKED-UP (OR OTHERWISE ANNOTATED) COPIES YOUR TEXTS TO CLASS EACH WEEK. Every student is responsible not only for completing our weekly readings on time, but also for bringing a copy of the text to class (however electronic) to which you can refer. Electronic copies used in class must be downloaded onto your computer or other device (no phones) — it is a requirement of this class that internet connectivity be disabled for the duration of our meetings. (REED texts are an exception here.)

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 embedded in a particular passage of your choice, revealing what we may otherwise have missed. I’ll call on students to walk us through their passage each week. (For REED texts, please bring a copy of the pages you’d like to discuss.)

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, 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 Blackwell 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 as far in Henry Medwall’s Nature (pdf forthcoming) as you can get in 3.5 hours;
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:

read whatever remains of Medwall’s Nature;
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 (Reading Week), but you should get started on next week’s readings now.

Week 6 — Mon 2 November: Skelton

Before this class meets:

read the Blackwell edition of John Skelton’s Magnyfycence (pdf forthcoming);
in Vernacular Literature and Current Affairs in the Early Sixteenth Century (click here), read Greg Walker’s “John Skelton and the Royal Court”;
watch Magnyfycence: Staging Medieval Drama (23 minutes).

Week 7 — Mon 9 November: Anonymous Moralities

Before this class meets:

read Mundus et Infans, Youth, and Hick Scorner (pdf forthcoming);
read Fragments Pack: The Prodigal Son (or Pater, Filius et Uxor); Courage, Kindness, Cleanness; D, G, T (pdf forthcoming).

Week 8 — Mon 16 November: Biblical Plays

Before this class meets:

in Reading Texts for Performances and Performances as Texts (click here), read Alexandra F. Johnston’s “He Pleyeth Herodes Upon A Scaffold Hye?”;
in the METS edition of John Lydgate’s Mummings and Entertainments (click here), read A Procession of Corpus Christi;
in the Medieval Feminist Forum Subsidia Series 3 (click here), read “The Liturgical Dramas for Holy Week at Barking Abbey”;
read the fragmentary John the Evangelist (pdf forthcoming);
read the Blackwell edition of Godly Queen Hester (pdf forthcoming).

Week 9 — Mon 23 November: Rastell

Before this class meets:

in Richard Axton’s Three Rastell Plays (pdf forthcoming), read Introduction, Four Elements, and Gentleness and Nobility;
in Early Theatre 16 (click here), read Maura Giles-Watson’s “John Rastell’s London Stage: Reconstructing Repertory and Collaborative Practice”.

Week 10 — Mon 30 November: Heywood

Before this class meets:

read selections from The Plays of John Heywood (probably Introduction, Witty and Witless, Four PP, and Play of Love —pdf forthcoming);

Week 11 — Mon 7 December:

Plays Adapted and Translated
Before this class meets:
- read the METS edition of Everyman (click here);
- read the c. 1520 English Translation of Terence’s Andria;
- in Richard Axton’s Three Rastell Plays (pdf forthcoming), read Introduction, Calisto and Melibea;
- in The Plays of John Heywood (pdf forthcoming), read John John.

***Week 12 — FINAL PRESENTATIONS

There are no readings due for our twelfth and final meeting.