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Article: Lay performances of work and salvation in the York Cycle.(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Comparative Drama
- Article date:
- June 22, 2009
- Author:
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That notions of work and its cultural value have captivated the attention of medievalists for quite some time is exemplified by James Simpson's recent claim that cycle plays "mounted a theology of labor at whose centre stands the practice of mercy in the active life." (1) This theology of labor becomes further nuanced and particularized when one examines the plays' contribution to what Nicola Masciandaro has called the "polysemy of werk," (2) which "attests ... to a cultural habit of perceiving relations between work and life, between occupational and personal agency." (3) The York plays emphasize the complexity and urgency of these relations by bringing them to bear upon ...