morality play. Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature

Morality plays were popular dramatic entertainments in late medieval England. In contrast with
the
MYSTERY PLAYS, which retold the universal biblical history of salvation from the Creation of the
world to Doomsday, morality plays focused on the
salvation of an individual human being (whose
name—“Mankind,”“Everyman,” or the like—indicates that he represents all human individuals).
Whereas the mystery plays were set in the physical
world, including earth, heaven, and hell, the setting
of the morality play was most often the individual
psyche, and the characters’ personifications of abstract qualities, attributes, sins, and virtues that
play a part in the spiritual health and salvation of
the individual soul. Where mystery plays took their
inspiration from Scripture, morality plays took
theirs from sermons and from allegorical texts like
P
RUDENTIUS’s well-known PSYCHOMACHIA, a fourthcentury poem describing a struggle between personified sins and virtues within the psyche.
The medieval morality plays dealt with one of
three themes: the
psychomachia in which Virtues
and Vices vie for the man’s soul; the summoning of
Death, wherein the Mankind figure is summoned
to his judgment where he must give an accounting
of his life; and the debate by the daughters of
God—Mercy and Peace against Justice and
Truth—over the salvation of the deceased. The
earliest extant complete morality play,
The CASTLE
OF
PERSEVERANCE (ca. 1425), contains all three elements in a long script of some 3,600 lines. That
play is known to have been performed on a stationary stage made up of separate platforms (as
opposed to a movable pageant wagon characteristic of the mystery plays).
The earliest morality play we have any record
of was called
Pater Noster and was performed in
York in the late 14th century. There is some speculation that it may have been written by John
W
YCLIFFE, but it has not survived. Five medieval
morality plays are extant: The fragmentary
Pride of
Life
(late 14th century) and the well-known EVERYMAN (ca. 1485), both of which concern the confrontation of Death; and the so-called Macro
play—named for the owner of their manuscripts—including the aforementioned
Castle of
Perseverance
along with Wisdom (ca. 1460) and
MANKIND (ca. 1473), the last two of which essentially follow the psychomachia pattern of temptation and resistance.
Clearly the purpose of morality plays was didactic and gravely serious, but the plays were also
highly theatrical and often entertained their audiences with a folksy kind of humor. Particularly
popular was the character called the V
ICE, a demonic trickster figure who became a favorite stage
figure. The pageantry of something like a parade of
the Seven Deadly Sins, personified and costumed,
was also a popular feature. As morality plays continued to be performed well into the Tudor period,
the influence of some of these characters extended
to Elizabethan drama: Marlowe includes a pageant
of deadly sins in
Doctor Faustus, while the Vice
character survives in the countless clowns that appear in Elizabethan plays.
Although the initial impetus of morality plays
was the promulgation of orthodox Catholic doctrine, morality plays continued to be written well
into Reformation England. Often the subject of
these later moralities (or “interludes” as some later
allegorical plays were called) was political rather
than religious, or had to do with the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism. Some of
these later moralities include John Skelton’s
Magnyfycence (ca. 1516), Sir David LINDSAY’s Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (1540), and John
Bale’s
King John (ca. 1548). The late survival and
the popularity of the morality play genre made it a
vital link in the development of Renaissance drama
in England.
Bibliography
Davenport, W. A. Fifteenth-Century English Drama:
The Early Moral Plays and Their Literary Relations.
Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 1982.
King, Pamela M. “Morality Plays.” In
The Cambridge
Companion to Medieval English Theatre,
edited by
Richard Beadle, 240–264. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Potter, Robert.
The English Morality Play. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.

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