Medieval English Drama

Lecturer Dr. Oana-Alis Zaharia

 Medieval Literature in England
I. Anglo-Saxon literature (Old English) (5th to 11th centuries).

II. Anglo-Norman Literature (Middle English) (11th to 13th

centuries)

III. Late Medieval Literature (14th to 15th centuries)

I. Anglo-Saxon literature - written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) -
mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest in 1066.

- Juxtaposition of Christian and secular/ pagan worlds.

- Different genres: epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal
works, historical chronicles, riddles etc.
- 400 surviving manuscripts from the period
Some of the most significant Anglo-Saxon works include:
- Beowulf – heroic poem- national epic status in Britain.
- The poem Caedmon’s Hymn from the 7th century is one of the oldest surviving
written texts in English. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WaPIu1tAc
- The Seafarer - an elegy of a sailor who describes the hardships at sea in
wintertime. The voyage is compared to man’s life - spiritual journey – meant to
get him closer to God.
II. Anglo-Norman Literature (Middle English) (11th to 13th centuries)
- Norman-French Literature or Anglo-French Literature

- political and historical writings - Geoffrey of Monmouth - Historia Regum

Britanniae ( History of the Kings of Britain- a pseudo-historical account of England’s
history (most of it was mere fiction)- it introduced the figure of King Arthur and
his court into European literature. Although historically null, Monmouth’s books -
extremely popular in the Middles Ages and in the Renaissance.

- Monmouth’s chronicle circulated in Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon translations,

and it must also have reached France >>> King Arthur’s legends were turned into
romances by the 12th century French poet and troubadour Chretien de Troyes.
(the Knights of the Round Table, the quest for the Holy Grail, etc.)

- de Troye’s legends later influenced the Arthurian legends written by Thomas

Malory – Le Morte d’Arthur (~1470) - the first English-language prose version of
the Arthurian legend , printed by William Caxton in 1485.
III. Late Medieval Literature (14th to 15th centuries)

- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – a Middle English

alliterative anonymous poem, dating from the second half
of the 14th century.

- Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales (1390s) – one of

the greatest poetic works in English.

- Vernacular drama – miracle plays, morality plays, mystery

plays: Everyman
 Medieval Theatre
Three major genres (names given later by 19th century French medievalists):

• FOLK PLAYS (reprocessed pagan rituals): Robin Hood plays, Maygames (maypole
dance), Sword dance, St George and the Dragon .
– the fool= centre of vitality - interludes (cheerful, largely secular plays of no particular
length)
• MORALITIES: non-biblical topics, abstractions, allegorical psychodramas, moral
message, the Vice figure.
• CYCLES/MYSTERIES/MIRACLES: Biblical subject matter - the biblical and saints’ plays
- descended from liturgical drama.
Mystery - blend of two words, mysterium (‘hidden thing’), and ministerium, (‘service’).
“…often called Mystery Plays, partly because they deal with religious mysteries (making
known the ways of God – and the central principles of the Christian faith – to their
audiences), and also because .. they were put on by the craft guilds (RO: breaslă): the
organizations (part trade-regulating body, part religious confraternity) responsible for
administering the crafts or ‘mysteries’ that dominated the urb” (Walker 2000: 3)
 1311 - the establishment of the late spring festival of Corpus Christi, a celebration
of the doctrine of transubstantiation.
 The mystery play or Corpus Christi play was in expression the same as the
miracle play – different plots & characters .
 miracle plays - built their plot around the lives and the works of the saints. They
were usually performed on the saint's feast day.
 mystery plays - the major form of Medieval drama; the plot and characters -
drawn from the books of the Bible .
 Topics: the life of Christ (Christ’s Birth and the Magi, Christ’s Passions), the Genesis (Adam
and Eve, the Flood and Noah, the 2nd Judgment)
• Cycles - identified by the region they were performed in e.g. The
York Cycle (14th century) contained forty-eight short plays and took
approximately 14 hours to perform.
• Pageant - processional wagon-drama - a dramatic performance
made up of different, historical scenes, often performed during a
procession.
• pageant wagons moved through the streets while the audience
stayed in one place – like parade floats.
• The term "pageant" is used to refer to the stage, the play itself, and
the spectacle.
• The Latin equivalent and source of the term is pagina (‘page’). The
base meaning is probably something like ‘section’.
• Plays performed in sequence – each play was performed several
times.
Theatre as ‘Game’
- General medieval terms used for theatrical genres: ludus in Latin – play or game in
English. The people who performed them were players (the word actor was not used
in this context until 1581).
- festive: entertainment as opposed to hard work- religious plays take place on
holidays. -
- celebratory, optimistic >> moral plays show the hero – Mankind- ultimately
being saved.
- On the one hand, theatre >> not ‘serious’ – plays are not meant to
be real life. They are make-believe.
- On the other hand, PLAYS - seen as ‘quick [living] books’ (Walker
2000: 198; see Twycross 1988) >> MIXTURE of comedy and high
seriousness.
- ‘PERFORMATIVE ’ FEATURES:
- the use of direct address - the first-person authorial voice turns up embodied in a
metatheatrical character called the Expositor, or Doctor (Twycross 1983: 82–8).
- The Corpus Christi plays - three main functions: to show and tell the Christian narrative; to
explicate it; and to move their audience emotionally.
- Theatre was ideally suited to stir up an emotional relationship with the figure of Christ
the Man, to arouse compassion and thus love and emulation.
- PERFORMANCE SPACES: the plays took over and transformed everyday space:
- liturgical drama >> the churches
- processional religious drama >> the city streets;
- morality plays/interludes >> the great halls of households, university halls;
- other drama >> churchyards, inn-yards, market-places.
- Close audience - actors communication –audience all around, actors mingle with them.
Þ topical issues intermingled with the general (biblical/abstract) subject matter.
Þ costumes: not-historical but symbolic.
 MORALITY PLAYS

- Dramatized sermons – moral lessons- plays which deal, prescriptively, with

human behaviour.
- Allegorical plays on the Life of Man - plot the whole life of Man from the cradle
to the grave and beyond, or concentrate on a particular crisis point, (i.e.the
coming of death.)
- ALLEGORY is used as a tool for psychological analysis.
- CHARACTERS– no longer Biblical figures , but personified ABSTRACT qualities:
goodness vs. evil, virtues vs. vices – PSYCHOMACHIA – battle for the soul of
MANKIND/EVERYMAN.
- CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL SCHEME – temptation – fall –redemption;
 THE DANCE OF DEATH

- preparation for death >> denial of worldly pleasures - turning away

from the enticing World  “contemptus mundi” [“scorn of the world”] -
separation from Riches, Kindred, Friends- 5 Wits.
- DEATH - a journey with no partner => solitude and Angst
- the Dance of Death (Danse Macabre), medieval allegorical concept
of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the
drama, poetry, music and the visual arts of western Europe mainly in
the late Middle Ages.
- no matter one's station in life, the Danse Macabre unites all - the
inevitability and the impartiality of death - the dead or
a personification of death summon representatives from all walks of
life to dance along to the grave – a form of memento mori - meant to
remind people of the fragility of their lives and the glories of earthly
life.
 EVERYMAN
 PEDAGOGY OF FEAR (see Jean Delumeau)

Dies irae - the wrath of God incurred if one does not follow God but the
World, Man’s obedience to God and his Laws .

Memento mori - the Dance of Death, the brevity of life versus

everlasting death/life, the vanity of all worldly pursuits (power, riches,
beauty, love).

Ars moriendi - fear of unexpected death=> the need for a timely

preparation for death (Knowledge, Good Deeds, Rituals)

- the historical context: time of crisis, the effects of the horrors of

the Black Death, wars, social upheavals.
The Summoning of Everyman – late medieval play (c. 1530)
- allegorical characters : Death, Good Deeds, Knowledge etc.
- Everyman – central character - a common, sinful human being >> all mankind.

- He endeavors to achieve Christian salvation on his journey towards death.

- FEAR of the final reckoning- God’s overwhelming presence/God- the supreme

judge and ruler – not Christ the man.
- man’s awareness of finitude and of his helplessness in front of the angry God
(major message – see PROLOGUE)
- God >> like a feudal Lord who demands strict obedience (cf the Romanian “robul
lui D-zeu”) –
- Everyman = a subject/vassal, a fool (stupidus) BUT ALSO an initiand.

- DEATH = God’s captain BUT ALSO the one who starts the initiation process for
Everyman.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER STUDY

1. Jean Delumeau. Sin and Fear: The Emergence of the Western Guilt Culture, 13Th-18th
Centuries, Palgrave, 1990. (Păcatul și frica. Culpabilitatea in Occident)
2. https://www.britannica.com/art/dance-of-death-art-motif
3. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/everyman-a-morality-play