Henry Medwall

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Henry Medwall

Henry Medwall fl. 1486, first known English vernacular dramatist. He was chaplain to Cardinal Morton. His Fulgens and Lucrece (1497), whose heroine must choose between two suitors, is the earliest known secular English play. Medwall also wrote Nature, a morality play.

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Medwall, Henry

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | | Â© The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Medwall, Henry (fl. 1490–1514), early English dramatist whose work was practically unknown until in 1919 the manuscript of his Fulgens and Lucrece came to light in a London saleroom. An interlude, performed in two parts as an entertainment at a banquet, it was probably acted in 1497, and as an example of secular drama is much earlier than anything hitherto known. With its story of the wooing of Lucretia and comic subplot of the wooing of her maid, it foreshadows the mingling of romantic and comic elements which was to be a feature of later Elizabethan drama.

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Medwall, Henry." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 23 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Medwall, Henry." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (December 23, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-MedwallHenry.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Medwall, Henry." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved December 23, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-MedwallHenry.html

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	Middleton's 'Michaelmas Term' Inductio 13-19. (Thomas Middleton) Magazine article from: The Explicator; 6/22/1993; ; 700+ words ; ...Oxford UP, 1913). (4.)See, for instance, Henry Medwall, Nature 1.462; 1024--50, in The Plays of Henry Medwall, ed. Alan H. Nelson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer...
	From Playhouse to Printing House: Drama and Authorship in Early Modern England.(Book Review) Magazine article from: Shakespeare Studies; 1/1/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...twenty-two have no author or translator on the title page. 1 and 2 Fulgens and Lucrece were "compyled by mayster Henry Medwall," as were 1 and 2 Nature. John Bale "compyled" The Chief Promises of God, The Temptation of Christ, and The...
	Studies on Old and Middle English literature in Poland (1910-2006) (1).(LITERATURE)(Bibliography) Magazine article from: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies; 1/1/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...marriage and social order--Linguistic and non-linguistic exponents of high and low cultures in Fulgens and Lucres by Henry Medwall, in: Siergiej Grinev-Griniewicz et al. (eds.), 183-192. In press "The comic and the camivalesque in Mankind...
	Drama in Early Tudor Britain, 1485-1558. (book reviews) Magazine article from: ANQ; 3/22/1998; ; 700+ words ; ...Wilson, and Elyot, who are all discussed here) so they could compete more effectively with the old aristocracy. Henry Medwall was well aware of this competition, as his Fulgens and Lucrece indicates, and Norland's discussion of that play...