Playing at Maturity in John Redford's Wit and Science

John Redford's early-sixteenth-century interlude Wit and Science incorporates elements of popular entertainments to explore the obstacles facing early-sixteenth-century educators and their pupils. In particular, Redford probes the difficulties involved in distinguishing between harmful idleness and healthful recreation, a distinction that could only be made by an individual who had acquired the complex combination of self-examination and worldly experience the interlude implicitly identifies with true maturity. Students could reach this destination only by discovering their own capabilities and limitations, learning about the world, engaging in the kind of vicarious experience offered by healthful playing, and acknowledging their own mortality.