Defining Acts

". . . an absorbing work on exegetical practices in late medieval literature. . . . Defining Acts is one of the most interesting investigations into exegetical politics in early English drama to be produced in many years." -Medium Aevum

"Nisse's discussions include much of value. [O]ne cannot but be grateful for her thoughts on the problems caused by men playing women's roles and Christians playing Jews and on the issues between governing and governed classes." -Choice

"Nisse's exceptional study of the political implications of interpretation both represented in, and occasioned by various dramatic enactments of religious texts offers a fascinating glimpse into not only the performance history of her dramatic texts, but also the interweaving of the great intellectual and cultural threads which produce the unique texture of the period." -Comitatus

"Defining Acts examines the ways that biblical and morality plays from later medieval England performed a 'vernacular theology' that addressed the social concerns of their diverse audiences. . . Her book explores the intersection of a religious-but not ecclesiastically controlled-drama with the multiple political and spiritual currents circulating during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; these include Wycliffite theology, female and male mysticism, Franciscan ideals, and anti-Jewish exegesis." -Speculum

"In Defining Acts: Drama and the Politics of Interpretation in Late Medieval England we see the challenges and problems of theatrical exegesis played out in a theater of remarkable range and urgency. Ruth Nisse ably persuades in this thoughtful, illuminating book that, as her epigraph from Beckett's Endgame extolls, 'Ah the old questions, the old answers, there's nothing like them!' " -Studies in the Age of Chaucer

"...an in-depth reflection upon surviving English theatrical works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and how they represent competing interpretations." -Midwest Book Review

"Using surviving theatrical works as the medium, Defining Acts provides an analysis of how texts were interpreted in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England. ...it provides insights into the fifteenth century controversy concerning the access of the laity to scripture. Theatrical works reflected this controversy, as well as opening up the politics of interpretation in new directions." -History: Reviews of New Books

"This forcefully argued and immensely detailed study makes a new case for the relationships among drama, dissent, and religion in the English fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It will be valued for its development of key ideas and motifs, its detailed working-through of textual associations and allusions, and its intuitive associations." -Seth Lerer, Stanford University

"Medieval drama, itself immensely confident, subtle, and profound, meets in Ruth Nisse a scholar able to match its demands. From her pyrotechnic opening discussion of the Miller's Tale to her penetrating final chapter on Wisdom, Nisse's cultural intelligence remains unfailingly alert and illuminating. Defining Acts is itself a defining act." -James Simpson, Harvard University

"This is an original, well-researched book of enormous interpretive richness and subtlety whose readings unostentatiously but tenaciously and persuasively build on and reinforce each other. It is certain to become a set text for students of medieval English drama." -Sarah Beckwith, Duke University