M edieval S tages

In 1996, R. Howard Bloch and Stephen G. Nichols edited a remarkable volume of essays called Medievalism and the Modernist Temper , in which seventeen scholars pondered, through detailed philological analysis and imaginative cultural-studies approaches, the legacy of the Middle Ages and its relevance to modern times. “WORD’S OUT,” they began, “There’s something exciting going on in medieval studies, and maybe in the Renaissance too. The study of medieval literature and culture has never been more alive or at a more interesting, innovative stage.” Bloch and Nichols understood, as few others, the pertinent critical stages of the interdiscipline of medieval studies. But, critically speaking, where was the stage ? With the exception of Seth Lerer’s terrific piece on Eric Auerbach’s gender-biased editorial establishment of the text of the twelfth-century Play of Adam , theatre was nowhere to be found.