Ambient Literature as an Act of Faith in the York Medieval Mystery Cycle

Helmers Miriam

doi:10.14324/111.1755-4527.113

Abstract

This paper seeks to correct a conceptual amnesia by using the vocabulary of ambient literature to discuss the medieval production of the Corpus Christi mystery cycle at York – with particular emphasis on the Crucifixion pageant. In its technological and narrative elements, the 14th-16th century dramaturgy will serve as a critical framework to judge the survivability of literary ambience beyond the temporal social and material realities of an ‘everyday shared world.’ Case-studies of modern reproductions of the medieval mystery play will show how a situated literary ambience resists anachronistic manipulation.

Highlights

While the authors of Ambient Literature admit that reading and writing have always been situated practices, their analysis of this situatedness is largely limited to urban life in the past 300 years
The book’s methodology is explained, it is possible that the significance of ambient literature may unintentionally be limited by the assumption that modern, contemporary and digital technologies have the monopoly on ambient literature, that is, ‘situated writing practices in which text is able to respond to the site of reading’
This article anticipates this and seeks to prevent conceptual amnesia by using the ambient literature as a critical framework to discuss the medieval production of the York Corpus Christi mystery cycle and, in particular, the Crucifixion pageant which was performed on wagons in bustling and public city spaces