Morality play

A Morality play is a type of theatrical allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th century. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, they represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre.

History

The morality play has its roots in the miracle and mystery plays of the eleventh century. Miracle plays were dramas that revolved around the lives of Saints or the Virgin Mary. Mystery plays revolved around stories from the Bible and were also known as Pagaents or as Corpus Christi plays. Mystery plays were performed across Europe during the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Miracle plays were performed even earlier, often as a church service (until the thirteenth century, when they were separated from church services and could instead be seen performed at public festivals). However, due to the zeal of the Reformation, most miracle plays were burned and destroyed.

Morality plays rose from this tradition, and represent a transition between such religion based plays to secular, professional theater. The earliest surviving example in English is the long Castle of Perseverance (c. 1420), and the best‐known is Everyman (c.1510). By the dawn of the fifteenth century, morality plays were common throughout medieval Europe as didactic plays intended to teach good morals to their audience.

However, by the sixteenth century, these plays started to deal with secular topics, as medieval theatre started to make the changes that would eventually develop it into Renaissance theatre. As time moved, on morality plays more frequently dealt with secular topics, including forms of knowledge (in Nature and The Nature of the Four Elements) questions of good government (Magnificence by John Skelton and Respublica by Nicholas Udall), education (Wit and Science by John Redford, and the two other "wit" plays that followed, The Marriage of Wit and Science and Wit and Wisdom), and sectarian controversies, chiefly in the plays of John Bale.

Morality plays only gradually died out as tastes changed towards the end of the sixteenth century. Throughout his career, Shakespeare made references to morality characters and tropes, suggesting that the form was still alive for his audiences, at least in memory, long beyond the period of its textual flowering.

Characteristics

Most morality plays have a protagonist who represents either humanity as a whole (Everyman) or an entire social class (as in Magnificence). Antagonists and supporting characters are not individuals per se, but rather personifications of abstract virtues or vices, especially the Seven deadly sins.

Morality plays were typically written in the vernacular, so as to be more accessible to the common people who watched them. Most can be performed in under ninety minutes.

External links

All links retrieved July 3, 2008.

• NewPlays.org.uk - A brief history of Morality Plays.
• [[wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Moralities "|Moralities]".] Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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