Accessing the Records of Early English Drama in Norwich, 1540-1642

拟议研究项目的核心是当地社区与公民机构之间的互动，以及各种各样的戏剧和庆祝活动——这些互动发生在早期现代诺维奇的街道、客栈院子和大厅里，这些互动在21世纪还在继续发生。由于学术和非专业观众都提供了访问和参与城市丰富而重要的戏剧遗产档案的手段。该项目的重点是制作一个新的学术版本的档案记录的戏剧，音乐，节日，娱乐，假面舞会，在诺里奇在1540年至1642年之间进行的盛大活动。作为王国的第二大城市，诺维奇拥有广泛的市民戏剧传统由城市文法学校的校长，市政公司，以及郡贵族支持的小剧团制作。它也是伦敦巡回演出公司的热门站点。我的研究将所有这些活动的记录汇集在一卷中，包括表演者、音乐家、演奏空间、公民参与和监管、当地赞助以及收入和支出的细节。它还提供了早期现代时期为在城市演出而写的戏剧和娱乐作品的注释文本，包括为伊丽莎白一世1578年东安格利亚进步而制作的新版本——这是伊丽莎白一世神话中首次使用处女女王形象的时刻之一——以及拉尔夫·克内特为1631年诺维奇花商盛宴上的一次性演出而写的剧本。该卷将在早期英国戏剧记录（REED）系列中出版，包括硬拷贝和绿色开放获取，它修订并大大扩展了这些记录的第一版-现在已绝版-由大卫加洛韦在20世纪80年代早期编辑。（我所修订的书的范围详情载于“支持理由”。）发表的研究成果本身将作为各种各样的档案，为所有对早期现代文学、节日文化、公民管理和社会历史感兴趣的学者提供有价值的原始文献注释集。修订后的介绍，该卷还将提供一个最新的改革对戏剧和传统娱乐的影响的关键讨论，使用诺里奇及其周边地区作为一个详细的例子。我的研究项目不仅将使这些文献更容易为学者所获取，而且还将积极鼓励最广泛的非学术受众和读者使用这些记录。为此，它涉及到为中小学创建一个教育包，内容都是关于伊丽莎白一世1578年访问诺里奇和东安格利亚。包和随附的日志将由PI与位于诺维奇千禧图书馆的论坛信托基金会合作制作，并绘制出不同的叙述和表演时刻，这些叙述和时刻被描述或暗示在文学和行政文件来源中，现在位于诺福克县档案室和其他存储库，包括国家档案馆。因此，该项目作为一个整体，提供了一个创新的示范，展示了诺维奇早期的现代公民戏剧是如何被新观众接触到的。最后，也是最重要的是，该项目将作为一个案例研究，可以咨询和应用于东盎格鲁以外的直接背景，说明传统上被认为是受限制或不可接近的深奥档案资源如何在非专业教育环境中使用。通过档案和精心编辑的学术版本，它追踪了早期英国戏剧如何从城市的街道和原始的表演场所，到大学研讨会或学校课堂，再到当地社区。

At the heart of the proposed research project are the interactions between a local community and its civic institutions, and a wide variety of drama and festivities - interactions that took place when such entertainments were first produced in the streets, inn-yards, and halls of early modern Norwich, and those that continue to take place in the twenty-first century, as both academic and non-specialist audiences are provided with a means to access and engage with the archives of the city's rich and important dramatic heritage. The project centres on the production of a new scholarly edition of the archival records of drama, music, festivity, entertainments, masques, and pageantry performed in Norwich between 1540-1642. The second city of the kingdom throughout this period, Norwich boasted a tremendously wide-ranging tradition of civic drama produced by schoolmasters of the city's grammar school, the city corporation, and small troupes supported by the county nobility. It was also a popular stop for itinerant London-based playing companies. My research brings together in one volume the records of all this activity, including details of performers, musicians, playing spaces, civic participation and regulation, local patronage, and monies made and spent. It also provides annotated texts of plays and entertainments written for performance in the city during the early modern period, including new editions of those produced for Elizabeth I's 1578 East Anglian progress - one of the first moments at which the figure of the virgin queen was used in Elizabethan mythography - and those of a play written by Ralph Knevet for a one-off performance at the Norwich Florists' Feast in 1631. The volume will be published in the Records of Early English Drama (REED) series, in both hard-copy and green open access, and it revises and greatly expands upon the first - now out of print - edition of these records, edited by David Galloway back in the early 1980s. (Details of the scope of my revised volume are set out in the Case for Support.) The published research will itself serve as an archive of sorts providing all subsequent scholars with interests in early modern literature, festive culture, civic administration, and social history with a valuable annotated collection of primary documentation. The revised introduction to the volume will also provide an up-to-date critical discussion of the impact of the Reformation on drama and traditional entertainments using Norwich and its environs as a detailed exemplar. My research project will not only make these documents more accessible for scholars, but it actively encourages the records to be used by the broadest range of non-academic audiences and readers. To this end, it involves the creation of an educational pack for primary and secondary schools all about Elizabeth I's 1578 visit to Norwich and East Anglia. The pack, and accompanying logbook, will be produced by the PI in collaboration with the Forum Trust based at the Millennium Library, Norwich, and draws out the different narratives and moments of performance that are described or alluded to in both literary and administrative documentary sources now located in the Norfolk county record office and in other repositories, including the National Archives. The project as a whole thus offers an innovative demonstration of how Norwich's early modern civic drama can be accessed by new audiences. Finally, and most significantly, the project will serve as a case-study that can be consulted and applied beyond the immediate East Anglian context illustrating how recondite archival sources traditionally perceived as being restricted or inaccessible can be used in a non-specialist educational setting. It tracks how early English drama moves from the city's streets and original playing places, via the archive and scrupulously edited scholarly edition, to the university seminar or school classroom, and out into the local community once again.