Kurt A. Schreyer. Shakespeare's Medieval Craft: Remnants of the Mysteries on the London Stage. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. Pp. xviii + 258. $49.95. This is a first book, with all that that implies: the courage of discovery, wide reading, an assurance about putting past (and not so past) scholars right while approving the methodologically congenial, as well as confidence in its argument. The risk is always that in the search for support in like-minded books, scholars fail to consider the assessments of and reactions to those books; it is difficult not to believe what we want to be true, and perhaps we don't talk enough with people from other disciplines. The title is clear: it belongs to the growing chorus that insists upon continuity between an undemarcated "Middle Ages" and a "Renaissance" that focuses on Shakespeare in order to claim for him immediate experience of the Mystery Plays, those cycles that made summer holidays attractive for pageantry. Although Schreyer certainly knows that he should be careful, he cannot help slipping into making Shakespeare the center. Writing about how theatre audiences might have learned to recognize the below-stage trap as a door to Purgatory, he claims that "before and during Shakespeare's boyhood, the teachings, objects, and practices associated with Purgatory underwent a profound repudiation" (114), using Shakespeare as a proxy for a period of confusion as well as change. He forgets the huge variety of the population. His major success is to have used the succeeding announcements known as the Chester Banns, official documents now available in the REED (Records of Early English Drama) volume for Cheshire, which supported the continuation of cycle plays for the civic pride of Chester, their guilds, and people who came to watch them. That is, they resisted attempts to suppress old-fashioned religious plays in order to support a complex and popular civil activity based on tradition and historical precedent. It is amusing to find Ranulph Higden, the fourteenth-century translator of Bartholomeus Anglicus as well as a certain amount of historiography, being referred to as one of the Ancients of the city. But it must be understood that Schreyer's title begs the question and reproduces the narrowing of view which is the name "Shakespeare." The book is not mainly about Shakespeare, but Shakespeare serves as a proxy for proof. The core of his work lies in the three central chapters of examination of the material continuities from the cycle plays to early modern London drama: the ass's head prop, Purgatory, and the Harrowing of Hell. His three rather different examples say much about the research that has gone into the making of the book but are, perhaps necessarily, diffuse. In chapter 3 (the "Ass's Head" chapter) he tells us a lot about anti-Catholic mockery of the Pope, but does not seem to know what to do with what he's found. The ass is a protean trope for many things, not least a huge phallus, but--like the dunce, mumming, and mummery--the sexual importance of the Ass and its Bottom make no clear contribution. He jumps past other manifestations of popular drama in the Middle Ages to construct a line of descent from the Mysteries to the death of Shakespeare. The REED series has, as time has gone on, performed a phoenix-like self-destruction and reconstruction, demonstrating how many false starts there were in the project that have been self-corrected by the evidence as it has accrued. But problems continue to arise. Not least is the usual problem of assuming that the documents in the REED volumes were read by numerous people, believed by many, or likely to represent widespread current views. It is the same mistake often made about the polemics against the London theatre and its actors. Right at the beginning he chides E. K. Chambers for glorifying Shakespeare at the expense of a little-studied Middle Ages, but many of the documents we now take for granted were unavailable, though Chambers and Bentley were pioneers in digging them out of obscurity. …

中文翻译：

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莎士比亚的中世纪工艺：伦敦舞台上神秘的遗迹库尔特·A·施莱尔 (Kurt A. Schreyer)

库尔特 A.施莱尔。莎士比亚的中世纪工艺：伦敦舞台上的神秘遗迹。纽约州伊萨卡：康奈尔大学出版社，2014 年。Pp。xviii + 258。49.95 美元。这是第一本书，所有这一切都意味着：发现的勇气，广泛的阅读，保证在批准方法论上合意的同时正确对待过去（而不是过去）的学者，以及对其论点的信心。风险总是在于，在寻找志同道合的书籍的支持时，学者们没有考虑对这些书籍的评估和反应；很难不相信我们想要成为的真实，也许我们与其他学科的人交谈得不够多。标题很明确：它属于不断增长的合唱团，坚持在未划界的“中世纪”和“文艺复兴”之间保持连续性 以莎士比亚为中心，以让他立即体验神秘剧，那些使暑假对盛会有吸引力的循环。虽然施莱尔当然知道他应该小心，但他还是忍不住把莎士比亚当作中心。他写到戏剧观众可能如何学会将舞台下的陷阱视为通往炼狱的大门，他声称“在莎士比亚的童年之前和期间，与炼狱相关的教义、物品和实践经历了深刻的否定”（114），使用莎士比亚作为一段混乱和变化的代理。他忘记了人口的巨大多样性。他的主要成功是使用了被称为 Chester Banns 的后续公告，现在可以在柴郡的 REED（早期英国戏剧记录）卷中获得官方文件，该文件支持为切斯特的公民自豪感、他们的公会和前来观看他们的人们继续循环播放。也就是说，他们抵制为了支持基于传统和历史先例的复杂和流行的民间活动而压制老式宗教戏剧的企图。发现 Ranulph Higden 很有趣，他是 14 世纪 Bartholomeus Anglicus 的翻译家以及一定数量的历史编纂，被称为城市的古代人之一。但必须理解的是，施莱尔的标题回避了这个问题，并再现了狭隘的观点，即“莎士比亚”这个名字。这本书主要不是关于莎士比亚，而是莎士比亚作为证明的代理。他作品的核心在于考察从循环剧到早期现代伦敦戏剧的材料连续性的三个核心章节：驴头道具、炼狱和地狱的悲惨。他的三个相当不同的例子充分说明了这本书的制作过程，但也许必然是分散的。在第 3 章（“驴头”一章）中，他告诉我们很多关于教皇的反天主教嘲弄，但似乎不知道如何处理他的发现。屁股对于很多事情来说都是一个多变的比喻，尤其是对巨大的阴茎，但是——就像笨蛋、妈咪和妈咪一样——屁股和屁股的性重要性没有明显的贡献。他跳过了中世纪流行戏剧的其他表现形式，构建了一条从神秘事件到莎士比亚之死的血统。REED系列随着时间的推移，进行了凤凰一般的自毁和重建，展示了项目中有多少错误的开始，随着证据的积累而自我纠正。但问题不断出现。尤其是假设 REED 卷中的文件被许多人阅读、被许多人相信或可能代表广泛的当前观点的常见问题。在针对伦敦剧院及其演员的争论中经常犯同样的错误。一开始他就指责 EK Chambers 以牺牲很少研究的中世纪为代价来美化莎士比亚，但是我们现在认为理所当然的许多文件都无法获得，尽管钱伯斯和宾利是将它们从默默无闻中挖掘出来的先驱。…