"Johnson presents precise, dynamic readings of late-medieval religious English writings (prose, poetry, and drama) that she groups as 'contemplative' literature. . . . every page of this book has something cogent and new to show concerning how these works deploy English poetics to widen the horizons of 'contemplative' piety in the world."

CHOICE

"Staging Contemplation is an engaging, bracing read, full of interest for students and scholars not only of medieval drama but of Middle English religious writing generally. The book’s approach to a wide range of canonical works is so original because its author sees these texts, as blind Gloucester says to mad King Lear on the blasted heath, 'feelingly.'"

Modern Philology

“In her fine new book, Eleanor Johnson argues for the essentially performative character of the late Middle English literature of Christian contemplation and the essentially cognitive character of the sensory contemplative experience it seeks to further. Situating its readings carefully in the historical moment when English was most conscious of its status as a vernacular, the book moves easily between deft analyses of the style of contemplative texts and scripts and the effects these seek to produce in, and on, their readers and audiences. Staging Contemplation will energize the study and enlarge the readership of some of the most remarkable works of the English literary tradition.”

Nicholas Watson, Harvard University

“Eleanor Johnson’s bold wager in Staging Contemplation pays off richly: let’s think of contemplation as bodily, social, staged, and above all participatory. . . . A beautifully coherent, fresh, and persuasive argument.”

James Simpson, author of Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition

"Eleanor Johnson continues to challenge the traditional separation of cultural, social, and textual spheres to shape a new view of the place and practice of contemplative, lively, and flexible late medieval piety…This is an adept and engaging display of close reading...Even those intimate with these well-digested texts will be stimulated by her reinterpretation.”
 

James G. Clark | Journal of British Studies

"Staging Contemplation should reinvigorate the discussion of fifteenth-century literature by releasing drama from the ghetto to which it is often consigned... Provocative and filled with perceptive readings, it will inspire lively conversations about what ‘contemplation’ really means, and whether vernacular drama continues the trajectory of earlier religious writing or takes it in wholly new directions."

Barbara Newman | The Yearbook of Langland Studies

"Eleanor Johnson’s new study of Middle English contemplative literature (broadly understood) offers a series of exciting case studies in how formal literary effects can create spiritual benefits for readers...Other scholars have addressed the relation of contemplation and performance in late medieval literary cultures, but Johnson brings together a new and notably expansive set of examples through which to understand this relation better."

Jessica Brantley | Studies in the Age of Chaucer

"In this ground-breaking yet accessible book Eleanor Johnson argues convincingly that during the Middle Ages contemplation pervaded allegorical poetry, cycle dramas, and morality plays alongside devotional prose and disengagement from the business of the world. She also shows how this genre enabled and enhanced literature, especially spiritual and theological literature, in its use of the vernacular...Staging Contemplation is a brave study that amply rewards close and frequent reading, opening up the reader’s mind not only to fresh possibilities in contemplation but also to the way we may understand and appreciate the use of English in the century that followed the 1370’s."

Luke Penkett | Comitatus