Week 9: Everyman

“How transytory we be all daye”

© Jigl
® University of Almería
 Everyman

Critical Terms
Everyman: history; form
The Allegorical plot of
Everyman
http://www.theatrehistory.com/medieval/ev
eryman001.html
 Critical Terms

Miracle Play or
Mystery Play
Morality Play
Allegory

Series of images from Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death:

http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/assignments/everyman/everymansg.html
 Miracle Play or Mystery Play
A form of medieval drama which dramatized the
liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church that reached its
height in the 15th century. Written in Latin, the play
was preceded by a prologue or by a herald who gave a
synopsis and was closed by a herald's salute. When
control of the plays passed from the clergy into the
hands of the town guilds in 1210, and various changes
ensued: vernacular language replaced Latin, and scenes
were inserted that were not from the Bible. The acting
became more dramatic as characterization and detail
became more important.
http://www.anglistik.uni-freiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/DramaTypesofStages01.htm
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.co
m/whitsunday_whitsuntide.htm
l
http://www.waits.org.uk/festival2.html
http://www.assemblyrooms.org.uk/history/boughton/everyman.html
http://www.miracleplayers.org/everyman/images/everyman_17.jpg
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/english/everyman.htm
 Morality Play
The "moralities" were a fairly rich, late medieval genre
encouraged by the church and civil authorities because
they taught social and moral values through amusing
dramatic actions. Morality characters are allegorical, and
the plot's action must be interpreted as teaching
something about the human condition. The form was
generally static. The moralities were performed by
troupes of actors, outdoors with rudimentary costumes
and scenery, before an audience of people from all social
classes. They also might have been staged as travelling
shows on a "pageant wagon." They contributed
significantly to the secularization of European drama.
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven
Cardinal Virtues

The Sins: Envy, Anger, Sloth,

Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Pride

The Virtues: Love,

Kindness, Zeal, Charity,
Temperance, Self-Control,
Humility

http://www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod28.htm
 Allegory

A symbolic story that serves as a disguised

representation for meanings other than those
indicated on the surface. The characters in an
allegory often have no individual personality, but
are embodiments of moral qualities and other
abstractions.
 Everyman

After 1485
4 printed copies,
different editions,
1508—1537
Regularly performed
Possibly a translation
of a Dutch play,
Elckerlijk
http://www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod35.htm
Image over: http://www.kb.nl/galerie/100hoogtepunten/029-en.html
 Form

Rhyming verse in irregular meter and rhyme

scheme, but tending toward rhyming couplets in
four- or five-stress lines that often would be, if
smoothed out, reasonable iambic tetrameter and
iambic pentameter.
“Nothing in the play is extraneous to the central
homiletic* purpose.”

*Homily:
A sermon, especially one intended to edify a congregation
on a practical matter and not intended to be a theological
discourse. An inspirational saying or platitude.
American Heritage Dictionary
The Allegorical Plot of Everyman

Messenger
God
Death
Death demands the
account book from
Everyman and tells him
to prepare for his
Pilgrimage
http://www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod23.htm
Everyman loses his
companions

    Fellowship

    Kindred and Cousin

    Goods

http://www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod39.htm
Good Deeds (bound to the ground by Everyman's sins, l 486)

Everyman's penance

    Confession

    Knowledge (or contrition, Knowledge of sin)

    "Scourge of Penance" (l 605)

Everyman's good deeds are liberated (l 619)

Knowledge gives Everyman a "garment of sorrow" (l 643)

Knowledge advises Everyman to seek out a priest and receive

extreme unction (l 706)
Digression on the priesthood

Everyman's bodily progress toward death: He loses

    Beauty

    Strength

    Discretion

    Five-Wits

Knowledge remains until he sees where Everyman

"shall become" (l 863)
Everyman and Good Deeds
Descend into the Grave

Knowledge hears the

Angels sing

The angel welcomes

Everyman and tells him his
"reckoning is clear"

Doctor recounts the Moral http://www.godecookery.com/macabre/holdod/holdod48.htm