Mystery Plays The
word mystery refers to the spiritual mystery of Christ's redemption of humankind, and
mystery plays are dramatizations of incidents of the Old Testament, which foretells that
redemption, and of the New, which recounts it.
The English mystery plays can be divided into:
<I> Plays of the Fall: "The Fall of the Angels";
"The Fall of Man"; "Cain and Abel"
<II> Types and Prophecies of the Redemption: "Noah"; "Abraham
and Isaac"; "Moses and the Prophets"
<III> Nativity Plays I: "Caesar Augustus"; "The Early Life of
the Virgin"; "Joseph's Doubts"; "The Visit to Elizabeth";
"The Trail of Joseph and Mary"; "The Nativity"
<IV> Nativity Plays II: "The Adoration of the Shepherds"; "The
Adoration of the Magi"; "The Purification"; "The Massacre of the
Innocents"
<V>The Life of Christ between the Nativity and the Passion: "The Doctors
in the Temple"; "The Plays of the Ministry"; "The Entry into
Jerusalem"; "The Last Supper"; "The Agony in the Garden"
<VI>The Passion: "The Trial before Annas and Caiaphas"; "The
Trials before Pilate and Herod"; "The Buffeting and Scourging"; "The
Crucifixion and Burial"
<VII>Triumph and Eschatological Plays: "The Harrowing of Hell";
"The Resurrection and Resurrection Appearances"; "The
Ascension"; "The Coming of the Holy Ghost"; "The Death and Assumption
of the Virgin"; "The Antichrist"; "The Last Judgment"
| The mystery cycles begin and end in the
heavens, the opening play of the Fall of the Angels being on a subject never dramatized
before and rarely since. The story was reconstructed by the Fathers by the piecing
together of a number of biblical texts. The account of Satan's Fall is now best
known from the elaborate narrative in Paradise Lost, and present-day criticism of Milton
has made everyone highly conscious of the pitfalls that await those who venture to treat
this theme in literary rather than theological form. Medieval authors largely evade
these pitfalls by a concise and symbolic treatment of the subject, the most symbolic of
the plays, that in the York cycle, being also the most successful. |
Examples:
<II> Types and Prophecies of the Redemption: "Noah"; "Abraham and
Isaac"
"Noah's Flood": the biblical story of the Flood shows a
continuation of the Fall with the world become so wicked that God repents that He has made
man
Imagine the spectacle in "Noah's Flood." (The imaginative
reconstruction of the story)
Building of the ark (the ark was assembled from prepared sections rather than brought on
to the stage complete); the embarkation animals; the waters of the flood (simulated by a
painted cloth waved in front of the ark) around the ark; the "corpses of the
drowned", both men and animals… the exigencies of stage performance.
Noah's building the ark: their use of technical terms--having practical function of
serving to cover the time required for the assembling of the ark in front of the
audience.
* Noah: a type of Christ; the ark a type of the Cross and more importantly of the
church; occasionally in Noah's wife, a type of the Virgin (in this interpretation
conflict b/w virtue and vice is absent; the story-->sorely a foreshadowing of the
Redemption.
* Noah's obedience to God's will: Noah's being instructed to his own
advantage and in a way that he could readily see to be to his own advantage, and since
obedience seems scarcely meritorious, one may pass too lightly over the explicit
profession of obedience to God's will which Noah makes in all the plays.
We should bear in mind that God's command did not seem immediately attractive:
1) the flood was not an apparent danger 2) the building of the ark was a long and
burdensome duty 3) in some versions of the tale in which N's wife and one of his
sons mock for building a ship when living far inland.
Ex. The Wakefield Master has skillfully indicated that God's command was not an easy one
for an old man to execute (p 107 (30)). Whereas in the Towneley paly the idea that the
building of the ark will be a back-breaking labour is introduced only when Noah is at
work.( retrospective light upon his earlier obedience).
Speeches: Noah's opening prayers: do God's will-->echoed
by Noah's wife à Noah's three sons and their wives, each having an individual quatrain.
Balancing this set passage is similar series of speeches spoken by Noah and his family in
the ark, in which they mourn the sin that led to the destruction of the flood and thank
God for saving them.-->play ends in triumphant gratitude-->after the crow and the
dove have been sent forth, the dove (Holy Ghost) returns.
* Noah's wife: shrewish and obstinate--contrast with Noah's obedience. In the
medieval period, that women are greedy, deceiving, disobedient, angry and evil-tongued is
a proposition well exemplified by Noah's wife. Also the miseries of marriage; the subject
of the malicious, shrewish wife and the suffering husband…
She does not wish to be in the ark when the flood comes-->represents the
recalcitrant sinner, perhaps even the sinner on his deathbed, who refuses to repent
and enter the church.
But in fact the moment on board she becomes meek and submissive both to Noah and to God's
will: a psychologically unmotivated change of heart signals the allegorical meaning.
In York play she wants to go back to collect her belongings and she insists that
her friends and relations must come too; in Chester she wants to stay drinking with
her "gossips"; in Towneley she wants to finish her spinning. These
excuses are on a par with those in the parable suggesting all worldly concerns.
["Gossips" of Noah's wife (Uxor: wife in Latin) who appear fleetingly in the Chester
play are introduced to suggest the worldly pleasure which Noah's wife refuses to
forsake rather than the wickedness of the world which led to the Flood.]
In Chester play, when Noah calls to his family for help
after hearing God's command , his wife with the others co-operates benevolently in the
labor. But when a little later the ark is built and Noah summons his family in, Noah's
wife has turned into the perverse shrew (p 40, l. 99 Cawley) and (p 43, line 197
Cawley).
The Wakefield Master shows Noah's fear [p 104, (21)] when learning God's
command. Abuse and brawling continue for two hundred lines except for the stylized inset
of the des. of the building of the ark. The Wakefield Master developed the character
pattern of Noah's wife at the cost of obscuring the allegorical significance of Noah.
Three battles: before the building of the ark; Noah's wife will not enter; either at the
door or inside it [p 111, (42)]
In the plays of the Flood: the pattern was flawed by the disobedience of Noah's
wife.
<IV> Nativity Plays II: The Second Shepherds' Play
In The Second Shepherds' Play, by linking the comic subplot of Mak and Gill with the
solemn story of Christ's nativity, the Wakefield Master has produced a dramatic parable of
what the Nativity means in Christian history and in Christian hearts.
| The parallelism: the stolen sheep, ludicrously disguised
as Mak's latest heir, lying in the cradle, and the real Lamb of God, born in the stable
among beasts. |
| The charity shown by the shepherds--in the first
instance to the supposed son of Mak and in the second instance to Mak and Gill when they
decide to let them off with only the mildest of punishments--is rewarded when they are
invited to visit the Christ Child, the embodiment of charity. |
| The bleak beginning of the play, with its series of
individual complaints, is ultimately balanced by the optimistic ending, which sees the
shepherds once again singing together in harmony. |
| Mak is perhaps the best humorous character outside of Chaucer's works in this
period. A braggart of the worst kind, he has something of Falstaff's charm; and he
resembles Falstaff also in his grotesque attempts to maintain the last shreds of his
dignity when he is caught in a lie. |
Morality play
Moralities apparently evolved side by side with the mysteries, although
they were composed individually and not in cycles. The mysteries endeavored
to make the Christian religion more real to the unlearned by dramatizing significant
events in biblical history and by showing what these events meant in terms of human
experience. The moralities, on the other hand, employed allegory to
dramatize the moral struggle that Christianity envisions as present in every individual:
the actors are every man and the qualities within him, good or bad, and the plot consists
of his various reactions to these qualities as they push and pull him one way or
another--that is, in Christian terms, toward heaven or toward hell. The
intent of the morality is more overtly didactic than the mystery, but most of the
moralities share with the mysteries a good deal of rough humor.
| Sense of inevitability: Everyman is stripped, one
by one, of those apparent good on which he had relied. First he is deserted by his
patently false friends: his casual companions, his kinsmen, and his wealth.
Receiving some comfort from his enfeebled good deeds, he falls back on them and on his
other resources--his strength, his beauty, his intelligence, and his knowledge--qualities
that, when properly used, help to make an integrated man. At the end when he must go
to the grave, all desert him save his good deeds alone. |
| Allegory: each actor has his allegorical significance defined
by his name and behaves entirely within the limits of that definition. |
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