Reviewed by:

• The Civic Cycles: Artisan Drama and Identity in Premodern England by Nicole R. Rice, Margaret Pappano
• Emma Lipton (bio)

Rice and Pappano’s careful diachronic study of the civic cycles of York and Chester argues that “the plays became the major means for artisans to participate in civic polity, and the drama served as a vehicle through which local artisans made public claims to status” (4). Although drama critics have long seen the guilds and civic government as key to understanding the civic cycles, previous work has emphasized the role of the merchant. By contrast, this book argues that “artisans, rather than being the tools of the merchant body or indistinguishable from it, were capable of recognizing and articulating their own sets of interests” (4). The authors develop a nuanced picture of urban society, arguing that artisans distinguished themselves from both merchants and unenfranchised workers. For Pappano and Rice, “‘artisanal ideology’ is [made] manifest not only in manufacture, or in the production of Christ’s body on stage, but in claims to enfranchisement, skill, and localism that run throughout the cycle” (33).

Especially compelling is the book’s use of evidence of changes in performance—such as payments in the guild records for costumes for unscripted characters—over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as an interpretive strategy. These changes are used to support the book’s larger argument that artisans shaped the meaning of the plays. The authors argue that the “prominence of artisanal themes [in the York and Chester cycles] leads us to believe that craft workers supervised their composition from the earliest days, engaging in a complex form of constantly evolving, collaborative authorship” (23). Using an innovative model of authorship that blends making, acting, and [End Page 153] invention, the authors claim that the plays “represented collaborative enterprises in which artisans, though neither fully authors nor scribes, created and revised their own self-representations in regular theatrical events that endured for two centuries” (3).

Rice and Pappano’s study is based on extensive original archival research that goes well beyond the reach of the Records of Early English Drama (REED) volumes, which have long shaped studies of the drama’s relationship to the city, and includes detailed rhetorical analysis of both published and unpublished guild ordinances, court records, and other documents. The focus on both York and Chester cycles in the context of the distinctive local artisan culture in each city is a welcome deviation from other studies of the drama which have tended to focus either on one cycle’s local culture or range more broadly across the plays. This double-authored book is the product of a 2011–13 ACLS collaborative research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Although it is tempting to connect the collaborative authorship with the book’s diachronic aspect, the preface indicates that both authors worked on the York and the Chester materials, with some of the chapters being single-authored and others collaboratively written.

Chapter 1 analyzes the light imagery in the York Fall of Angels and Chester Tanner’s Fall of Lucifer pageants, arguing that their depiction of competition over brightness should be understood in the historical context of the guild controversy of 1474–75, when actual “bearers of light” fiercely defended their positions in the urban hierarchy by disputing their placement in the Corpus Christi procession (66) and which featured a rivalry between Tanners and Cordwainers in York. When the Chester play was transferred in 1521 from Corpus Christi to Whitsunday, it became the first pageant of expanded cycle, and a “self-conscious production of artisan history” (64). The authors argue that, in contrast to the path of the procession of Corpus Christi, the “mobile pageant wagons traced out urban spaces dominated by commerce, areas in which craftsmen themselves lived, worked, and retailed” (46).

Also linking specific artisan practices to play texts, chapter 2 argues that York’s Herod and the Magi should be understood to...

审核人：

• 公民周期：妮可·赖斯（Nicole R. Rice），玛格丽特·帕帕诺（Margaret Pappano）在前现代英格兰的工匠戏剧与身份
• 艾玛·利普顿（生物）

赖斯和帕帕诺（Rice and Pappano）对约克和切斯特（New York and Chester）的公民周期进行的历时研究认为，“戏剧成为工匠参与公民政体的主要手段，而戏剧成为当地工匠通过公共途径宣称自己的地位的工具”（4 ）。尽管戏剧评论家长期以来一直将行会和公民政府视为了解公民周期的关键，但先前的工作强调商人的作用。相比之下，这本书认为“工匠不是商人团体的工具，也不是商人团体的工具，而是能够识别和阐明自己的利益集合的”（4）。作者论证了工匠将自己区别于商人和无权工人的情况，从而细化了城市社会的景象。对于帕帕诺和米饭，

尤其引人注目的是，该书将行为变化的证据（例如，在公会记录中为无脚本字符的服装支付的款项）用作解释策略的过程，例如在15世纪和16世纪的过程中。这些变化被用来支持书中更大的论点，即工匠塑造了戏剧的含义。作者认为，“ [约克和切斯特周期中手工工艺主题的突出表现使我们认为，手工艺工人从最早开始就对其作品进行监督，并以一种复杂的形式不断发展，相互协作，共同创作”（23）。使用创新的作者身份模型，将制作，表演和表演融为一体[End Page 153]发明人认为，这些戏剧“代表了合作企业，尽管工匠们既不是完全的作家也不是文士，但他们在经历了两个世纪的常规戏剧活动中创造并修改了自己的自我表现”（3）。

赖斯和帕帕诺（Rice and Pappano）的研究基于广泛的原始档案研究，该研究远远超出了早期英语戏剧记录（REED）的范围，而《早期英语戏剧记录》（REED）对该戏剧与城市的关系进行了长期的研究，并包括了对这两种戏剧的详尽的修辞分析。以及未发布的行会条例，法院记录和其他文件。在每个城市独特的当地工匠文化背景下，对约克和切斯特自行车的关注与对戏剧的其他研究有所不同，后者对戏剧的关注往往集中在一个自行车的本地文化上，或者更广泛地涉及戏剧。这本书是由美国学术协会理事会在2011-13年度ACLS合作研究奖学金的成果。

第1章分析了《约克天使的堕落》和切斯特·坦纳《路西法的堕落》中的光影选美比赛，认为他们对亮度竞争的描述应在1474-75年公会争议的历史背景下加以理解，当时实际的“光之承载者”通过争辩他们在科珀斯克里斯蒂游行中的位置来激烈捍卫他们在城市等级制度中的地位（66），其特点是在纽约的Tanners和Cordwainers之间进行竞争。当切斯特的戏剧在1521年从科珀斯克里斯蒂（Corpus Christi）转移到圣灵降临节（Whitsunday）时，它成为了扩展周期的第一场盛会，并成为“手工业史的自觉产物”（64）。作者认为，与科珀斯·克里斯蒂（Corpus Christi）游行的道路相反，“流动选美车追查了以商业为主导的城市空间，即工匠自己生活，工作和零售的区域”（46）。

第二章还把特定的工匠实践与演奏文本联系起来，认为约克的希律王和贤士队应被理解为...