Whether deriving from field collection or imaginatively assembled from eclectic sources, traditional plays are generally treated naturalistically in fiction. From Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native to Ngaio Marsh's Off with His Head-even in Elsie J. Oxenham's The Abbey Girls Go Back to School-performances by "the mummers" are contextualised as part of the English rural calendar, and appear mainly as indexes of traditionality in the "old, prior culture". Folkloristic considerations of these manifestations have been limited to uneasy discussion of the documentary status of the performances-where is the text from? Is it "genuine"? how far do the activities described reflect the actuality of performances of traditional plays in the "real" geographical area indicated in the fictional work? This paper attempts to extend the content of discussion of traditional drama in literature by examining the non-naturalistic use of elements drawn from mummers' plays in early works by W.H.Auden (1907-1973).
[Ron Shuttleworth Collection holds audio tape recording, with transcript.]