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Lecture 1:

Development of Drama

Introduction:

Elizabethan drama had its roots in Religious and Liturgical drama. The mystery plays, miracle
plays and moralities all contributed to the development of English drama.

Mystery plays were popular play cycles of the 15th century. These plays were extremely popular
due to the following reasons:

- They appealed to the common folk

- They used vernacular rather than Latin to convey stories/ incidents/ scenes from the Bible
- People were curious to look at these performances

They were traditionally performed between MAY and JUNE, during the Corpus Christi festival.
These plays were religious in theme and dealt with the Christian version of the history of the
world.

Christ’s life was a common theme seen in these plays. These plays were staged outside the city
and fairs and celebrations were the settings of these plays.

Four manuscripts of the cycles survive. They belong to York, Chester, Wakefield and one
unknown place. These date back to the last decades of the 14th century.

Trick to remember:

Y- CH- W-C (York, Chester, Wakefield and Coventry)

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The didactic agenda of religious drama:

The medieval drama was from religious ceremonies of Catholic Church. One of the reasons is
that medieval people have higher abilities to comprehend drama, and because the Church
wanted to strengthen the effect of preach, the Church believed that drama is a good way to
deliver sermons. In order to deliver sermons, the Church performed Biblical stories. But the
performance was inserted in the formal religious rites. The Church believed that if their
followers see the performance, they will know more about the doctrines. Besides, in the middle
ages people didn’t have very proper entertainment, so the performance of drama also
entertained them. Gradually, the followers were more interested in plays, so the Church
expanded these plays. But it took a lot of money to do this, so the Church asked some
merchants to support the funds. Thus, the merchants had more power to lead the plays. In
religious plays the elements of entertainment were more and more for the sake of those
merchants’ favor, even though they are from the Bible, there are some plots including
comedies.

The 16th century saw a new form of drama called the interlude

- Derived from the Latin INTERLUDUM

- Meaning between plays
- Whose origins have been traced back to the Tudor period
- It generally took place in the banquet hall before or during a meal in a nobleman’s house
- This was an important shift in the tradition of theatre as earlier plays received their
performance on fixed festival days
- The interludes used morality themes but was much broader in scope
- It often included farces with no moral lesson
- The interludes often had comic subplots and parodied the main them (like A Midsummer
Night’s Dream provides an example with the villagers performing Pyramus and Thisbe,
an interlude)

John Heywood (1497-1580)

● He was the most popular author (in the case of interludes)

● He produced interludes with a distinctive moral tone
● The Four PPs (early 1540s)- a debate between pedlar, apothecary, palmer and pardoner
sets the tone for the realist comedy that flourished during the 16th century

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To conclude:

The later Middle ages bring a rapid growth in the native drama that prepares the way for the
great age of Elizabethan drama.

It is in the Church and its liturgy that we find the stimulus which leads to the rebirth of drama.
The authorities were quick to appreciate the instructional value of such presentations as an
addition to the Latin liturgy.

The writers turned to the Annunciation and Nativity stories from the New Testament and then to
the Old Testament, where Fall and the stories of Noah and Daniel were popular.

By the 14th century we have the evolution of complete cycles of plays, covering the history of
the world from the Creation to the Day of Judgement and there is a common tendency to
incorporate material from legend and the saints' lives.

It has long been the fashion to call the Biblical plays MYSTERIES and those dealing with the
saints’ lives as miracles. But there is no evidence to justify this distinction in England, though it
seems to have been used in France. (Critics usually hear of no play being called a mystery in
England before the 18th century and it seems probable that all out of door liturgical dramas in
the country of England were known as miracles).

The performances were part of liturgy and spoken in Latin by clerics and their role was a
subordinate one. However, slowly the vernacular crept in to usurp the place of the Latin, minor
clerics and laymen were introduced as actors and numerous episodes began to be found in single
performances.

This growth necessitated the moving of the presentation from the choir to the nave of the church.
By the 12th century, the dramas in quest of still more space, seem to have moved into the open
and the organization had begun to pass from eccleiastical to lay hands. The vernacular was by
now the usual medium and the growing secularization of the drama is reflected in an edict of
1210 forbidding clergy to take part in the plays.

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Shift of power:

From the clergy, control passed first to the religious and social guilds and then to the trade guilds
under the general control of the council of the town. The wealthy guilds became responsible for
the productions. Each guild took on a separate episode from a cycle and often an episode suited
to its own interests. Thus at Chester, the water leaders and drawers of the Dee performed Noah’s
deluge.

This growing elaboration of presentation stimulated by guild rivalry and the extension of the
cycles led to the evolution of the ambulatory cycle in which each episode was performed on a
two decked cart or pageant.

Summer was suitable for the performance of such elaborate cycles which were presented out of
doors. The creation of Corpus Christi festival in 1311 which fell in May or June, when the
weather was likely to be good and the hours of daylight were long. Corpus Christi was made a
great public holiday.

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