Beginning of the Drama: The Miracle and Mystery Plays

 Beginning of the Drama: 

The Miracle and Mystery Plays

Drama appeared in England soon after the Norman Conquest, and in their simplified form. Clergy attempted to teach the Christian faith to masses by dramatizing the events of the Bible on Easter, Christmas and Corpus Christi Day. They are dumb shows in French or Latin and the actors are clergy.  Due to the increasing demand they moved to Church yard, and then to Moving platforms (Pageants=wheeled theatres, drawn by horses), and then to market places. Change of place added vernacular, comic elements to it, thus secularization of drama began.

      

Mysteries (= stories from Bible)

The whole of the scriptural story from the birth of Christ to his crucifixion and ascension was enacted in a cycle of plays called Miracles or Mysteries. A distinction is sometimes made between ‘mysteries’ and ‘miracles’, the former denoting plays dealing with the life of Christ and later those dealing with the lives of saints. The Miracles were well established by the fifteenth century and were very popular. Four of these cycles were preserved:

1)   Wakefield cycle: named after their city, 32 plays, Ex: Second Shepards Play, Noah play

2)   Chester cycle: 25 plays, Ex: The sacrifice of Issac,

3)   Coventry cycle: 42 plays

4)   York cycle: 48 plays

 

Miracles (=stories of saints)

The earliest Miracle in England was the Ludus de Sancta or St. Katherinewhich was performed in 1110. Other examples are St. Nicolas, Play of Sacrament,

 

Morality plays (with moral truths)

The next stage in the development of the drama was reached in moral plays or Moralities in which the characters were personified types of virtue or worldliness such as Sin, Grace, Repentance, Chastity, Beauty, Strength, Gluttony, Peace etc. The Morality was a sort of allegory of human life showing man struggling between Good and Evil. 

The Vice(=bad) is humorous imitation of evil became the forerunner of Elizabethan Clown. Abstract, symbolical and allegorical characters gradually emerged into real people. The earliest extant morality, the castle of Perseverance, dates back to early fifteenth century. The first best morality play is Everyman which is so good that it has been revived on the modern stage in both England and America. Everyman is summoned to God by Death. First extant political morality play, Skelton’s Magnificencewas based on Dutch morality play, Elckerlijic.

Famous Morality Plays: Everyman, the Marriage of Wot and Wisdom, the Four Elements, the Trial of Treasure, Lusty Juventus, the Pride if Life, the Castle of Perseverance.

 

The Interludes (= a short entertainment)

      It is a play performed between the course of a cycle of plays. The secular morality took a long step forward when it developed into a kind of play called the Interlude, which is nothing but rudimentary comedy. The interludes were dramatized at feasts and entertainments which supply amusement for court and nobility. They are transitional between morality and Elizabethan plays. The most prolific writer of interlude was John Heywood, a musician in the court of Henry VIII. He discarded the abstractions of moralities and introduced human characters from contemporary life. His most famous interlude is The Four P’s.

 

John Heywood: writer of interludes

1.   The Four P’s: Palmer, Pardoner (two churchmen), Pothecary(physician) and Peddler(salesman) are four characters in it. Peddler challenges other 3 to contest in lying and acts as judge. Palmer lies that, “He never seen or heard of any woman out of patience” and wins the prize.

2.   The Play of the Weather: Naturally everybody wants his own kind of weather. The climax is reached by a boy who announces that a boy’s pleasure consists in two things, catching birds and throwing snowballs, and begs for the weather to be such that he can always do both. Jupiter decides that he will do just as he pleases about the weather, and everybody goes home satisfied.

 

Henry Medwall (1462-1502): first known English Vernacular dramatist.

1.   Fulgens and Lucrece (1497): first vernacular play printed in English, first secular play survives in English, first paly to show classical antiquity, first play in which woman is the central character, first to include a subplot in drama. The heroine of the play, Lucrece, daughter of Roman senator, Fulgens has to choose between two rival suitors. Fulgens portrayed as father of great genuinely to see his daughter happy.

 

John Bale (1495-1563):

1.   King Johan (1538): first to insert historical figure in drama.; marks the genesis of history play. King Johan represented as the champion of the English church; it is against the Roman Catholic Church.

 

Erasmus (Desiderus Erasmus Rotterdamus): Dutch humanist, theologian, and catholic priest. “Known as Prince of Humanists”. Called as Gerrit Gerritzoon (Gerard Gerardson)

1.   Greek New Testament (1516): contributed to the protestant reformation, Martin Luther translated it into German, and Tyndale into English.

2.   Praise of Folly (1509): written in Latin, it as an attack on superstitions, traditions of the society ad church. He wrote this work when he was staying with his friend Thomas More. He derived its name from More (=Moros=fool in Greek.) He satirizes the foolishness of clergy, people, kings and foolish standards of education.