The Second Shepherds' Play
The masterpiece of English medieval drama, from the Wakefield cycle, written by an unnamed playwright scholars call the Wakefield Master.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Plays
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
The Second Shepherds' Play is the crown of the Towneley manuscript's Wakefield mystery cycle, doubling the Nativity with the farce of Mak the sheep-stealer, whose stolen sheep is swaddled as a baby in a cradle. Its author is unknown. Scholarship attributes it, with several companion plays, to a single brilliant reviser known only as the Wakefield Master, a label for a hand and a talent, not a person. Whoever he was, he wrote the funniest scene in medieval English drama and bound it to the tenderest. The play's authorship is recorded here as unknown, the Master being a name for the mystery.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote The Second Shepherds' Play?
Nobody knows. No author for The Second Shepherds' Play has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read The Second Shepherds' Play for free?
Yes. The Second Shepherds' Play is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at the Internet Archive.
Related works
- Still unknown
Actio Curiosa
An anonymous seventeenth century Hungarian dramatic work. No author has been identified in the documented record.
- Still unknown
La Farce de maître Pierre Pathelin
The greatest French medieval farce, in which a trickster lawyer is out-tricked by a shepherd. Written around 1460 by an unknown playwright.
- Still unknown
Amduat
An ancient Egyptian netherworld book describing the sun god's journey through the twelve hours of night. Like all Egyptian funerary literature, it names no author.
- Still unknown
Beowulf
The Old English epic of the hero's fights with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. Its poet is unknown, and the single surviving manuscript names no author.