SOURCE: "The Corpus Christi Drama as Play and Game," in The Play Called Corpus Christi, Stanford University Press, 1966, pp. 8-32.

In the following essay, Kolve explores the medieval view of drama, arguing that "the English Middle Ages described their religious drama as play and game…there was little fundamental distinction made between drama and other forms of men's playing. " Kolve explores the medieval "uneasiness" concerning dramatic representation of both sacred and evil figures and views the Passion of Christ as the central subject of the Corpus Christi.

Medieval drama owes nothing to the tragedy and comedy of either Greece or Rome; it was a fresh beginning, unrooted in any formal tradition of theater. The notion was common among learned men that Roman dramatic performances consisted of a poet or reciter reading from a pulpit while others mimed in silence the action he described. A few scholars, among them...