Collection of essays on a neglected sector of the English dramatic tradition which fostered Shakespeare and conditioned many of the ways in which Elizabethan drama was to develop. English drama surveyed in its literary and theatrical aspects, from the earliest vernacular examples to the Tudor Interludes, with specific attention being directed at Saints' Plays and Moralities; at the question of violence and the comic in the Cycle Plays; at epic qualities in the cycles and popular elements in traditional drama. The essays point to the vivid and inventive talent of medieval playwrights and to the theatrical sophistication with which their plays were realised for a fuller understanding of the dynamics of the Elizabethan stage.