Drama without Performance and Two Old English Anomalies

The history of drama in England has customarily been traced back to the apparent enactment of a Latin text, the Visitatio sepulchri, in the second half of the tenth century. Vernacular drama has been tracked to the twelfth century, as typified by the Anglo-Norman Le Mystère (or Jeu) d’Adam. While recitative and mimesis likely accompanied storytelling in Old English, the Anglo-Saxon period is considered devoid of any vernacular drama. As M. Bradford Bedingfield points out, the words Anglo-Saxon and drama are rarely linked. Anomalies in Old English literature, two dialogues within the first work of the Exeter Book closely resemble in structure the Visitatio sepulchri. Despite this correspondence, these works, unlike the Visitatio, are not marked for performance. It is, however, because of this comparability that I argue here that drama as a literary form does exist in Old English, if drama is also defined in terms of text alone, rather than just performance. My argument will begin with a discussion of what constitutes medieval drama. I will analyze the feasibility of also defining drama strictly in textual terms from the perspectives of medieval European drama scholarship and performance studies. After a close examination of these dialogues, I will show the structural parallels with the Visitatio. Finally, with my reassessment of certain texts as dramas, I will draw the resultant implications for the history of medieval English drama.