Gammer Gurton's Needle

Alternative title(s): Diccon of Bedlam [ from Stationers’ Register ] | Mother Gurton’s Needle  [ from Marston’s Histriomastix ]
Author(s): Stevenson, W. (attributed)
Note: Perhaps revised by J. Bridges (Annals, p. 34)
Date of composition:
  • 1553 (best guess, Wiggins, vol. 1, p. 267)
  • 1551 -1554 (Wiggins, vol. 1, p. 267)
Date of first performance: 1552 - 1563 approx.
Date of first publication: 1575
Genre (Annals): Comedy

Catalogue references: Wiggins: 253 (Vol. 1)
HIERONIMO/EMOTHE text(s): 1575 quarto transcript
  • 1575 quarto Colwell, Thomas Printed title: A Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt and merie Comedie: Intytuled Gammer gurtons Nedle single-play print

  • STC/WING:  STC 23263
  • ESTC:
  • DEEP: 95   
  • Greg: 67a
  • Wiggins:

Early Performances

  • Company: Venue: Christ's College Date: 1552-1563 approx,
    Cast:
      Location: Venue type:
      Information source: Harbage, Alfred; Schoenbaum, Samuel; Wagonheim, Sylvia Stoler. Annals of English Drama, 975-1700, 3rd edition. 1989.
    • Company: Robert Brown’s company (perhaps the Admiral’s Men) Venue: Date:
      Cast:
        Location: Venue type:
        Note: August.
        Information source: Wiggins, Martin. British Drama 1533-1642: A Catalogue. Volume 1: 1533-1566. 2012.

      Modern editions

      • Whitworth, Charles, ed. Three Sixteenth-Century Comedies. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984. New Mermaids.
      • Tydeman, William, ed. Three Sixteenth-Century Comedies. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 207-89. Penguin English Library.
      • Fraser, Russell A.; Rabkin, Norman, ed. Drama of the English Renaissance II: The Stuart Period. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1976, pp. 35-58.
      • Gassner, John, ed. Medieval and Tudor Drama. Newark: Bantam Books, 1963.
      • Adams, Joseph Quincy, ed. Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas.. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924, pp. 469-99. Supposes, pp. 536-67.

      Select Bibliography: Criticism

      • Hornback, Rober. "Reformation Satire, Scatology, and Iconoclastic Aesthetics in ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’". Ed. Cartwright, Kent. A Companion to Tudor Literature. 2010 ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 308-322.
      • Cheng, Elyssa Y. "The Needle and the Tramp: Destructive Potential of Vagabondage in Gammer Gurton's Needle". Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture. 2012, vol. 1, 6, p. 167-182.
      • Fletcher, Alan J. "‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’". Ed. Betteridge, Thomas; Walker, Greg. The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 276-292.
      • Ardolino, Frank R. "Misperception and Protestant Reading in Gammer Gurton's Needle". SEL Studies in English Literature, 1500-190. 2010, vol. 1, 50, p. 17-34, 259.
      • Hiscock, Andrew. "'Hear My Tale or Kiss My Tail!' ‘The Old Wife's Tale’, ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’, and the Popular Cultures of Tudor Comedy". Ed. Pincombe, Mike; Shrank, Cathy. The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature, 1485-1603. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 733-748.
      • Thomson, Peter. "Sound City Jests and Country Pretty Jests: Jack Juggler and ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’". Ed. Hüsken, Wim; Happé, Peter. Interludes and Early Modern Society: Studies in Gender, Power and Theatricality. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007, p. 315-330.
      • Perry, Curtis. "‘Commodity and Commonwealth in Gammer Gurton's Needle’". SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 2002, vol. 2, 42, p. 217-34.
      • Mullini, Roberta. "Da testo parlato a testo scenico: 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' a Christ's College, Cambridge". Ed. Innocenti, Loretta; Marucci, Franco; Pugliatti, Paola. Semeia: Itinerari per Marcello Pagnini. Bologna: Mulino, 1994, p. 241-51.
      • Cartwright, Ken. "Gammer Gurton's Needle: Towards a Dramaturgy of Empathy". Renaissance Papers. 1993, , p. 117-40.
      • Kozikowski, Stanley J. "Gammer Gurton's Needle". Ed. Bowers, Fredson. Elizabethan Dramatists. Detroit: Gale, 1987, p. 365-68.
      • Duncan, Douglas. "Gammer Gurton's Needle and the Concept of Human Parody". SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 1987, vol. 2, 27, p. 177-96.
      • Robinson, J. W. "The Art and Meaning of Gammer Gurton's Needle". Renaissance Drama. 1983, 14, p. 45-77.
      • McFadyen, N. Lindsay. "What Was Really Lost in Gammer Gurton's Needle?". Renaissance Papers. 1982, , p. 9-13.
      • Graham-White, Anthony. "Elizabethan Punctuation and the Actor: Gammer Gurton's Needle as a Case Study". Theatre Journal. 1982, vol. 1, 34, p. 96-106.
      • Ross, Charles H. "The Authorship of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle". Modern Language Notes. 1982, vol. 6, 7, p. 161-67.
      • Kozikowski, Stanley J. "Stevenson's Gammer Gurton's Needle". Explicator. 1980, vol. 3, 38, p. 17-18.
      • Grove, T. "Some comments on mediaeval comedy in 'The Foure PP' and 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'". Journal of the Karnatak University. 1978, 22, p. 62-3.
      • Dust, Philip; Wolf, William D. "Recent Studies in Early Tudor Drama: Gorboduc, Ralph Roister Doister, Gammer Gurton's Needle, and Cambises". English Literary Renaissance. 1978, 8, p. 107-19.
      • Kozikowski, Stanley J. "Comedy Ecclesiastical and Otherwise in 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'". Greyfriar: Siena Studies in Literature. 1978, 18, p. 5-18.
      • Toole, William B.,III. "The Aesthetics of Scatology in 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'". English Language Notes. 1973, 10, p. 252-58.
      • Ingram, R. W. "'Gammer Gurton's Needle': Comedy Not Quite of the Lowest Order?". SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 1967, vol. 2, 7, p. 257-68.
      • Roberts, Charles W. "The Authorship of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle". Philological Quarterly. 1940, 19, p. 97-113.
      • Hanford, James Holl. "The Source of an Incident in 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'". Modern Language Notes. 1910, vol. 3, 25, p. 1910, 81.

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