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Enculturated, Embodied, Social: Medieval Drama and Cognitive Integration

Wright, Clare (2019) Enculturated, Embodied, Social: Medieval Drama and Cognitive Integration. In: Anderson, Miranda and Wheeler, Michael, eds. Distributed Cognition in Medieval and Renaissance Culture. The Edinburgh History of Distributed Cognition . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 978-1-4744-3813-1. E-ISBN 978-1-4744-3816-2. (doi:DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.001.0001) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:57607)

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Abstract

Highlighting the embodied, collaborative, and spatially and temporally divers nature of medieval English plays, this essay argues that the cognitive work of medieval drama is best understood through the theory of cognitive integration, and in particular niche construction. Using the famous fifteenth-century York Play of the Crucifixion as a case study, the essay illustrates how this pageant constructed its particular niche, and its reliance on social as well as spatial and material affordances. The Play of the Crucifixion, it is argued, created opportunities for highly personal, individual devotional responses in the midst of what was fundamentally, and necessarily, a social and collaborative act. What is more, as a niche created for the purpose of devotion, it was focused on stimulating emotion and feeling, rather than supporting rational problem solving. It also overlapped with, and perhaps influenced, other devotional niches active beyond the frame of performance, contributing to extensive feedback cycles to which it was also subject.

Item Type: Book section
DOI/Identification number: DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474438131.001.0001
Uncontrolled keywords: Cognitive theory, distributed cognition, cognitive integration, medieval drama
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology > BF41 Psychology and philosophy
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1600 Drama
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The theatre
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Clare Wright
Date Deposited: 26 Oct 2016 13:08 UTC
Last Modified: 02 Dec 2021 12:43 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/57607 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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