Part of every legend is true. Or so argues Jody Enders in this fascinating lookat early French drama and the way it compels us to consider where the stageends a... » 

Part of every legend is true. Or so argues Jody Enders in this fascinating lookat early French drama and the way it compels us to consider where the stageends and where real life begins. This ambitious and bracing study exploresfourteen tales of the theater that are at turns dark and dangerous sexy andscandalous humorous and frighteningstories that are nurtured by theconfusion between truth and fiction and imitation and enactment until itbecomes impossible to tell whether life is imitating art or art is imitatinglife.Was a convicted criminal executed on stage during a beheading scene? Was anunfortunate actor driven insane while playing a madman? Did a theatricalenactment of a crucifixion result in a real one? Did an androgynous young manseduce a priest when portraying a female saint? Enders answers these and otherquestions while presenting a treasure trove of tales that have long seemed truebut are actually medieval urban legends. On topics ranging through politicsreligion marriage class and law these tales Enders argues do the culturalwork of all urban legends they disclose the hopes fears and anxieties oftheir tellers. Each one represents a medieval meditation created or dramatizedby the theater with its power to blur the line between fiction and realityengaging anyone who watches performs or is represented by it. Each one alsoraises pressing questions about the medieval and modern world on the eve of theReformation when Europe had never engaged more anxiously and fervently in thegreat debate about what was real what was pretend and what was pretense.Written with elegance and flair and meticulously researched Death by DramaandOther Medieval Urban Legends will interest scholars of medieval andRenaissance literature history theater performance studies and anyonecurious about urban legends. «