Ep92: Helen Cooper on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mystery Plays

Theater began in England as a way for the church to share messages about the Bible with the public. Written in Latin, the Bible was not accessible to parishioners outside of mass and Catholic England relayed the tales of heroism and miracles found in the Bible through dramatic productions. This tradition came with some particular approaches to storytelling, theater, and stagecraft. As with much of what the Church did in the Middle Ages, they had rules about what was acceptable to perform which was the gold standard for public performances for centuries. After the dissolution of the monasteries and the establishment of the Church of England, the nation as a whole redefined much of its’ culture, including its’ approach to theater. For William Shakespeare, he was born as the nation was still trying to figure out where it was going to stand in terms of defining good theater and rules about performance, and in many ways, the stage was set during his infancy for the bard to take the world by storm through theater. We can see influences of the biblical mystery plays in Shakespeare’s works, and the bard was known to heavily consult poets from the medieval period like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower in writing plays like The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles. But do these influences mean Shakespeare’s plays are products of the humanist movement in which he was living, or does his work build on the medieval foundations that preceded him? Our guest this week, Dr. Helen Cooper, argues that Shakespeare’s London really ought to be called “Medieval London in the age of Shakespeare” and we are delighted to have her here to share with us how she came to this conclusion.