Performing Medieval Narrative

Abstract

The subject of medieval performance has recently come under the scrutiny of scholars from several disciplines—history, art history, religious studies, anthropology, and literature, to name but a few. In the process, “performance” has come to be used rather loosely to signify a number of different concepts. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado, and Marilyn Lawrence—the editors of Performing Medieval Narrative—attend to a particular aspect of performance that they define as the confluence of four essential characteristics: the presence of a performer; the action of telling or enacting; a story being told or enacted; and, finally, and most important for the book, the presence of an audience. The volume is broken into four parts, each addressing different aspects of the performance traditions that form an integral part of medieval narratives.