“Be prepared to perform what I ask” - Invasions of Affective Piety in the Comedic Activity of The Second Shepherds’ Play and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2022.185792

Keywords:

Devotion, Romance, Performance, Affective piety, Cycle dramas

Abstract

Beginning with an investigation into forms of aurality used in late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century Middle English devotional literature, this article breaks down journeys of affective piety in both the courtly romance and urban cycle plays. Traditional understandings of genre divisions are super-ceded in the Middle English period by performative spirituality and invocations to the audience/ reader to a contemplative posture. The Wakefield Master and the Gawain poet developed their work in dialogue with Lollard critiques of church excesses. They both show investment in personal expressions of inward devotions which had been popularized in the work of Nicholas Love and other Carthusian texts dealing in popular piety. Both The Second Shepherd’s Play and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight develop landscapes of upheaval and redemption around their characters, drawing the reader into individual reflection on well-known sacraments and intervals of the church year.

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Author Biography

  • Elizabeth Perry, Texas A&M University

    Elizabeth Perry is a third-year doctoral candidate in English at Texas A&M University. Her research interests are in Middle English devotional and mystic texts as well as in early English drama. She presented her paper, “Visceral Spectatorship and the York Mystery Cycle”, at Whither Wander You? —New Directions in Premodern Performance hosted by the University of Derby in June. She completed her Master of Literature at the University of St. Andrews in Shakespeare and Early Modern Literary Culture with special topics in Early Scots literature and vernacular affective piety. E-mail: efperry992@tamu.edu

References

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Published

2022-08-30

Issue

Section

Dossier Religions (Articles)

How to Cite

Perry, Elizabeth. 2022. “‘Be Prepared to Perform What I ask’ - Invasions of Affective Piety in the Comedic Activity of The Second Shepherds’ Play and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. GIS - Gesture, Image and Sound - Anthropology Journal 7 (1): e185792. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2022.185792.