Medieval English Drama and the Rise of Printing
Characteristics of Mystery Plays
- They were all in verse and they were all short since the cycles had to be performed in the course of a single day or two days.
- They dramatized virtually the same biblical episodes, though sometimes their treatment is surprisingly different, and they contain apocryphal, folk, and invented materials to a greater or lesser degree.
- There are also many anachronisms because biblical events are set in a medieval present as if the message of the play were for all time.
The Chester Cycle
It dates from 1375. It is uniform in character and relatively straightforward.
The York Cycle
It dates a bit later. It mixes characters and contains the work of several authors of several periods. The brevity of these plays reduces the dramatic effect. The Crucifixion is a good example of this.
The Wakefield Cycle
It is clearly based in part on the York plays. The most notable plays were written by a playwright known as the Wakefield Master, and with these plays, the genre reaches its highest development. The master’s plays give the impression of absolute freedom. An example is The Second Shepherd’s Play.
The N-Town Cycle
The N is for Latin nomen, and it indicated where the name of the town in which the plays were to be performed had to be written. It is less dramatic and only contains a sequence of episodes on the life of the Virgin Mary.
Morality Plays
This is a type of religious drama, and it would continue changing form throughout the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, culminating in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (16th century).
These plays take as their theme the drama of humankind, always fighting with the forces of good and evil. Examples of morality plays:
The Castle of Perseverance (c. 1420) has the whole life of man, from the cradle to death, as its subject. Others concentrate on a single stage of life, as for example the humorous Mankind and the deeply moving Everyman, in which man has to face his deeds at the moment of death and learns the importance of repentance and confession.
The Printing Press
A key event in the history of the English language was the establishment of the printing press in Westminster Abbey by William Caxton (1476).
Before, literary texts had to be written by hand, but now multiple copies became more or less available.
A degree of standardization in language and spelling became necessary, and this marked an advance in the development of Standard Literary English (SLE) and also the decline of regional English as a medium of literature.
William Caxton was a creative printer. He edited the texts when necessary, adding prologues and epilogues of his own.
He chose to print people’s favorite medieval texts.
The most important book he printed was La Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (1469-1470). This book is a history about Arthur and his knights, written under the ideals of literary romance.
He offers a glamorous picture of medieval times, and it was written in prison during the War of the Roses.
Despite the achievements of pre-Renaissance writers, early English literature is usually identified with the works of Chaucer. However, he wrote in the context of other writers, both English and European, whose work he used and recreated, and he also inspired other writers, for example, the Scottish Chaucerians.