THE GARDENER'S STORY AND WHAT CAME NEXT : A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE MARSHFIELD PAPER BOY'S MUMMING PLAY.

Format:

• Book
• Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

• LICHMAN, SIMON.

Contributor:

• University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

• Folklore.
• 0358.

Local Subjects:

• 0358.

Physical Description:

430 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 42-06A.

System Details:

• Mode of access: World Wide Web.
• text file

Summary:

• On Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, the village of Marshfield, southwest England, is, as Nina Lewis says, "Alive with mumming." The streets are filled with people, many of whom are strangers. The Marshfield Paper Boys perform an eight minute mumming play at least five times along the village streets at points of historic significance. The crowd follows them to each venue.
• Scholars often consider British folk drama to be "fragments" of "primitive" religious practices that have "survived." They believe the performers have little understanding of what the performance of the play means.
• This is a contextual study of an extant Hero-Combat mumming play as a contemporary event. The mumming tradition is seen as a process in which the mumming play exists. The mumming tradition is one context for the mumming play. Context also includes where the play is performed, why it is performed there, who performs it, who watches it. The history of the play is orally transmitted through the metafolklore or stories told about the play. Through these, the mummers transmit their aesthetics, concept of tradition, and raison d'etre of performance.
• The gardener's story tells how public troupe performance of the play lapsed in the 1880's. Vicar Alford overheard his gardener performing the play to himself, in the early 1930's. His sister, Violet Alford, the folklorist, talked to elderly villagers about the mumming, and public troupe performance was resumed.
• Part One of the dissertation provides ethnographic information and analysis of the performance of the mumming play. It includes: a socio-economic description of Marshfield; description of the mumming event; discussion of the structure of the event, audience, the collection, celebration of the mumming, and the significance of the acting sites. Disguise enables villagers to change their role to become mummers. How is this illusion wrought?
• Part Two begins with an ethnographic analysis of the metafolklore. The relationship between text and action is analysed. How do the words fit the drama and who are the characters? The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the Marshfield play in the context of the village community, its repertoire of ritualistic celebration and the political implication of the message.

Notes:

• Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2796.
• Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1981.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.