• DOI:10.1086/389557
• Corpus ID: 161567250

The Art of the York Realist

@article{Robinson1963TheAO,
  title={The Art of the York Realist},
  author={J. William Robinson},
  journal={Modern Philology},
  year={1963},
  volume={60},
  pages={241 - 251}
}

• J. Robinson
• Published 1 May 1963
• Art
• Modern Philology

imaginative realism that has gone into their composition.3 For these two reasons, they stand apart as a group and may be referred to as the work of the York Realist. His plays, all about Christ's Passion, deserve to be critically evaluated; his genius awaits a thorough estimation.4 It is my purpose to discuss briefly the conventional aspects of his dramaturgy, and then to examine and emphasize the unique quality of his realism; in other words, to show that his realism is exceptional, but did not constitute a break with tradition. I should add that it is only partly for the sake of convenience that I write of the art of the hypothetical "York Realist," rather than of "eight York Passion plays that technically resemble each other"; the particular excellence of these plays excites a corollary interest in the purposiveness of their composer. Of course, the York Realist did not compose these eight plays from nothing. He revised plays that already existed in the