8 Development of English Drama

Dr. Gargi Talapatra

General Introduction

In this chapter, we shall study in detail the gradual development of drama as a literary form in medieval England, and make an attempt to understand the changes in form and content, with reference to the changes in the people and the English society.

Drama, as a form of literature, has been unique in adhering to a dialogic mode of representation. While poetry might as well be performed, as it was by the wandering minstrels or still is in contemporary performance poetry, drama is distinctly that single stream of literature which permeates the conscious resistance of the audience. It introduces new thoughts and doctrines effortlessly through an apparent distraction in the form of entertainment. It might, therefore, be said that of all the literary genres, drama is the one most intimately linked to the society – the people and their lives.

The development of drama in the medieval period in England also took place under similar circumstances and responded to the changing social scenario of the English society.

Social Picture

Medieval England was a transitional society in every sense of the term – socially as well as economically. The economy towards the end of the Old English period was largely agricultural and was controlled through feudal manor. Sheep farming was also a prevalent form of livelihood. However, means of subsistence largely remained in the hands of the lord until the twelfth century.

The control of the lord upon the farmers grew stronger in the thirteenth century, especially with the rise in population, which implied a larger dependence on land. However, with the advent of the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, the scenario changed, as more than one-third of the inhabitants of the kingdom died of plague. This brought about a reversal of the power structure, as the lord now had few farmers to work on his land. Consequently, emerged a more affluent and independent class of people comprising free labourers who tilled the land at higher wages and the yeoman farmers, who took over the lord‟s cattle on lease.

Trade and commerce also flourished with the manufacture and export of wool and cloth. This led to the emergence of towns and the formation of craft guilds. The craft guilds of the medieval England, rich and powerful, are known to have even exercised political influence, as at times, even the King would borrow money from his own subjects, i.e., these wealthy merchants. They came to attain an important control over the State and the people, gradually.

The Church, in medieval England, was guilty of corruption, as depicted in Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales, and reforms were long overdue. However, it exercised immense control over the lives of the common people who believed in the Christian concepts of sin and repentance. Confession was a deed mandatory for all and the fear of hell was a medium used by the preachers to implement ecclesiastical authority. The Bible in English was largely inaccessible and people came to be familiar with episodes and stories from the Bible either from the sermons delivered by the friars, or the frescoes at the church depicting scenes from the scriptures and the lives of the saints.

The Beginnings of Medieval English Drama

With the infiltration of Christianity into England, the tradition of drama began in England as ecclesiastical dialogues based upon liturgical stories chanted between the priest and the choir. The purpose was undoubtedly to replace the pagan religion with the concept of Christianity. The content of these performances, known as “tropes”, included narratives linked to Christmas, Easter and other points of significance in the life of Jesus Christ. Often, the performance would extend to dramatization of scenes in the form of two or more characters. This might be said to mark the beginning of medieval drama.

The earliest known trope is Quem Quaeritis (Whom do you seek) which dates back to the 10th century. A dialogue between three Marys and the Angel, this trope narrates the story of the three Marys seeking Christ in his tomb, when they are informed by the Angel that He has risen from the grave, as per his promise of resurrection.

A mention of this trope is found in Regularis Concordia (970 A.D) where Bishop Etholwold of Winchester records the performance of this trope. E.K. Chambers translates the Latin version in The Medieval Stage as comprehensive directions for the enactment of the trope, which finally concludes in: “When the anthem is done, let the Prior, sharing in their gladness at the triumph of our King, in that, having vanquished death, He rose again, begin the hymn Te Deum laudamus. And this begun, all the bells chime out together”. Later, more characters were added to it, and by the 12th century it had developed into a fully developed liturgical drama.

The initial medieval English drama mainly comprised stories from the Old and the New Testaments. Vernacular elements gradually started permeating as these plays grew in popularity and began to outgrow the original religious rituals of feast days. The increasing crowd led to the performance being extended to the churchyard, and later to the marketplace. This brought about a secularization of drama as Latin elements gradually disappeared and drama became a form of entertainment completely vernacular in nature.

Miracles and Mysteries

These were the two earliest forms of medieval English drama. Technically, miracles referred to the plays based upon the lives of the saints, while mysteries dealt with themes taken from the Bible. However, these terms came to be used synonymously in England. The content of the plays now stretched across the entire range of sacred history from the Creation to the Last Judgment. As drama, as a form, moved out of the church, the establishment of the feast of Corpus Christi, falling in May or June, in 1264, provided an occasion suitable for the performances, which became a regular trend in the 14th century.

The medieval stage, known as “pageant”, was a wagon with six wheels which moved from station to station. The emerging affluent trade guilds assumed the role of sponsoring and staging these plays across various towns. Performances were delivered on this pageant by actors who were members of various other trades and were paid for this, but did not take it as their regular profession. Each guild would make itself responsible for a pageant and the stories enacted on it.

The interests of the medieval English society were diverse, and this is reflected through the plays. Though devoutly religious, as depicted by the content of the plays, the society was inclined towards a license away from theological rigidities. As discussed earlier, the spiritual standards propagated by a corrupt institution in the form of the medieval church, though binding, also left for the people to expect some liberation. This approach is discernible in Chaucer‟s Canterbury Tales – the representative work of medieval ages, as Chaucer narrates the story of pilgrims from various backgrounds with an amused tolerance, devoid of any harsh criticism.

There are four available records of complete cycles of miracle plays from Chester, York, Wakefield and Coventry. Though they included multiple fragmented narratives from the Bible, collectively, they came to form a unity covering an entire span of time depicted in theological discourse. Penned by multiple anonymous writers, they reflected in their own original ways, the medieval society and the lives of the common people. These developed rapidly through the newly emerging towns and classes of England in the 13th century. The plays were so immensely popular that records of their performance in England can be found even during the 15th and 16th century.

The Chester cycle comprised twenty five plays, beginning with the Fall of Lucifer and ending with Doomsday. The stories are presented in simple outline and the development of dialogue and action is plain. The plays are written in an eight-line stanza form with a rhyme scheme derived from the Romances. Innovations are introduced into the Biblical stories through characters such as Noah‟s wife, who appears as a scolding shrew. She refuses to enter the boat despite repeated pleas from her husband and finally when forced, slaps him. Apart from the elements of grotesque, originality of emotions were also seen, as for instance, in the play of Abraham’s Sacrifice. The dialogue between Abraham and Isaac abounds in expression of simple emotions, much familiar to the people.

Comparatively simpler is the York cycle, which comprises forty eight plays, out of an original cycle of fifty four. These plays are mostly didactic in tone. Twelve of these are written a twelve-line stanzaic form, with an octave and a quatrain, and six are written in four or eight-line stanzas. However, these eighteen plays seem to be earlier compositions. A higher literary quality is discernible in the plays dealing with the Passion of Christ, towards the end.

It is the Wakefield cycle, also known as the Towneley plays, which exhibits literary merit much higher than the other cycles. It consists of thirty two plays in the form of stanzas which display traces of real poetry. Five of these plays, dealing with the story of Noah, two tales of Shepherds, the Adoration and the last days of Christ reflect a distinct mark of an individual and independent author. The art of characterization and the demonstration of ironic humour distinguish these plays from the rest of the miracle plays. Written by an author unknown to the posterity, these plays are ascribed to Wakefield master, who is often regarded as the first English writer of original plays for his contribution to the medieval stage.

Of the five plays mentioned above, the most remarkable is the second Shepherd‟s play, also known as Secunda Pastorum. The action of the play progresses from the sorrow of winter and death to joyful birth. It mirrors the picture of the contemporary society through the dialogues between the two shepherds who grieve the atrocities of winter and add to it the sorrows brought upon them by the rich and wealthy class. As the third shepherd, Daw, arrives, he is shown to be a servant employed by the first two, and irony is discernible in their treatment of him in the same manner of which they complain against the richer people at the beginning. A native pastoral is added through the characters Mak and his wife Gyll, who carry out an episode of sheep stealing. A final mark of comedy is made as the three shepherds finally discover the sheep in the cradle in Mak‟s house in a cradle, alluding to the story of the birth of Christ and the three shepherds. The play ends with the discovery of Mak‟s deed and he is tossed in a blanket which enables the play to retain a good humour relating to Christmas. Due to these touches of individuality in form and content, Wakefield Master has also been regarded as the first writer of comedy in English.

Of the Coventry cycle, only two plays are known to have survived which comprise fragments from the New Testament. Mention must be made of Ludus Coventriae, which consists of forty two miracle plays. The increasing popularity of this form of entertainment led the trade guilds to use it as a means to popularize their own trade in the greater towns. The representatives of various established trades would accompany the procession, dressed in livery and displaying banners associated with their craft. Often, particular trade guilds would perform plays linked with their trade, such as the performance of Noah‟s Ark at Chester by „Water-leaders and Drawers in Dee‟ and at York, by Fishers and Mariners.

Other miracles and mysteries are of little literary value in the tracing of the history of medieval English drama. However, two important landmarks in the history of the miracles are the Norwich plays of The Fall and those in Croxton Sacrament. These plays, enacted in the second half of the 15th century, exhibit for the first time inclusion of characters beyond the sacred history of mankind narrated in the Bible and a tendency towards allegorization in the form of characters such as Myserye and the Holy Ghost. They mark a point of transition as the medieval English stage matures from imitation to imagination, and the medieval audiences, from simple narration to figurative representation of life in its complexity.

Morality Plays

While the miracle plays still continued, a new form of drama developed on the English stage in the form of the morality plays. Unlike the miracles, these plays did not deal with stories from the Bible. They, instead, represented personifications of the abstractions like virtues and vices in their struggle for the soul of man. As is evident from the medieval English allegories, the practice of comprehending life through abstract tales with morals was not unknown to the audience of the medieval times in England. This perspective, popular through medieval English literature, is supposed to have been derived from the Latin poem entitled Psychomachia or “Spiritual Combat”, written by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (c. 5th century).

In his poem, Prudentius depicted an allegorical tale, proclaiming the victory of Christianity over paganism. Virtues and Vices were personified and shown to engage in a battle in order to possess the soul of man. The Virtues emerge victorious in the end and erect a temple in honour of Wisdom. This concept of psychomachia, i.e. the battle for the soul, was popular amongst the people as evident in contemporary literature, and drama, being a form of common entertainment directly linked to the people and their lives, soon started portraying it on stage.

That it was widely accepted as interesting, can perhaps be seen in the fact that even as English drama moved on from the medieval to the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, this conflict of the tormented human soul remained constant, though the representation gradually grew more complex, as proper names and allusions replaced abstractions. For instance, in moving from the realms of morality plays to Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, the battle for possessing the human soul remains constant; what becomes problematized is the representation of evil – as the general vices of the morality plays acquire the shape and character of Mephistophilis.

Structurally, the morality plays were much longer than the mysteries. They were also divided into acts and scenes. Since drama, as a form, reflects the general qualities of the society in which it is written, the morality plays portray a picture of a more refined audience who could comprehend and appreciate the analysis of human life and nature beyond the rigid demarcations of biblical manifestations. The fact that apparently through a process of allegorization of human nature, the morality plays were able to reflect a more realistic picture of human life and nature, and are identified as the peculiar paradox of this genre. Though abiding by the Christian doctrines of sin and grace, their genuine literary merit lies in their ability to transcend the immediate contexts as well the prescribed fables of spiritual hereafter as propagated by institutional religion.

The earliest reference to a morality play is that of Pater Noster in the fourteenth century. This play depicted a conflict between the seven deadly sins and the seven cardinal virtues. It is known to have been performed in York towards the end of the fourteenth century. However, morality plays are known to have attained full development only in the fifteenth century, with performances such as The Pride of Life, Mankind, Wisdom and Everyman. The earliest extant morality play is The Castle of Perseverance, dating around 1425, with a large cast of thirty three characters. It is preserved in the Macro Manuscript, along with Mankind and Wisadom. All these three moralities are written in stanzaic verse.

The Castle of Perseverance begins before the birth of Humanum Genus – the representative figure of mankind on stage, and concludes with his salvation. The play begins with the declarations of the enemies of mankind – the World, the Flesh and the Devil, who are followed by the seven deadly sins. They impinge upon the soul of Humanum Genus, who is later guided by Confession and Penitence, to accept the invitation of the Good Angel and start residing in the castle of Perseverance. The seven deadly sins attempt a siege of the castle, but are defeated by the virtues. However, the battle does not end. Humanum Genus, is, in old age, misguided successfully by Greed, before being finally stricken by Death. The play ends in God answering to the plea for mercy made by the protagonist in his hour of death, and his soul being eventually redeemed from the possession of Devil and Hell. The play acquires a greater significance for the inclusion of a stage drawing, illustrating the details of medieval theatre.

In The Pride of Life, the main character is a king – Rex Vivus or the King of Life, who represents mankind as a whole. From the beginning of the play, he is already in a state of sin, due to his pride. Virtue is represented by the queen, who warns the king of Death which overcomes all men, irrespective of power and position, along with the bishop. He, however, ignores her message and is, eventually, defeated by Death. His soul, however, seems to be saved at the end of the play. The manuscript of this play was destroyed towards the beginning of the twentieth century, with the blowing up of the Four Courts in Dublin, and the surviving text is taken from a transcription of the original made by James Mill in 1891.

Mankind is an amusing morality of the fifteenth century which depicts a struggle of the central character Mankind, between good judgment and temptation to sin. The protagonist is misled by Titivillus to fall for worldly temptations. Comic elements are introduced into the action of the play by the tricks played by the demonic incarnation of Titivillus, executed by the four characters of New Guise, Nowadays, Mischief and Nought, who mislead Mankind into sin.

Compared to the other moralities, Wisdom represents a much more diverse content in the form of the story depicting the marriage of Anima and Wisdom. Here, Wisdom represents Christ. This play is much longer and divided into scenes which depict the gradual seduction of Anima and her three faculties – Mind, Will and Understanding by Lucifer. Anima is finally misled and leaves the stage accompanied by her three faculties singing penitence. Wisdom is left alone on stage to deliver to the audience a sermon about the nine things which please God. At the end of the play, Anima returns to seek God‟s grace from Wisdom. Her fall is compared to the pain to Crucifixion, and she is finally redeemed through her penance. She concludes the play by stating that the virtue of life lies in avoidance of sin and the renewal of grace.

The most popular morality of the medieval stage is, perhaps, Everyman, dated around 1495. It is often said to have been derived from a Dutch play of the same time, entitled Elckerlijk. Very different in its depiction of the journey of man, this play looks upon the entire span of life as a journey through the realms of vices, as man seeks to gain recognition of his strength in his own good deeds and acknowledgement of follies. The play begins as God sends Death to seek Everyman, the central character representing humanity. Asked to undertake this journey, Everyman seeks his companions in Fellowship, Kindred, Cousins and Goods – and all of them refuse to accompany him. He realizes that the only willing companion in this journey will be his Good Deeds, who is too weak to join him. He, therefore, makes an effort to strengthen her by a journey to the holy man called Confession, accompanied by Knowledge. The play ends in the redemption of the soul of Everyman by the divine grace of God.

These are the five main plays which constitute the tradition of the later medieval moralities on the English stage. Interestingly, owing to the theological traditions of the age, the medieval English plays display a complete subordination of plot and character to the thought-content of the play. Characters involved in the play act as mere medium of conveying the thought related to the human soul, in accordance with the doctrines of Christianity. Marked progress is gradually seen in the assimilation of the spoken idiom as an integral part of the style. The later morality plays, like Everyman, exhibit this characteristic as the language of the play comprises the lexical usage of the common man of the medieval times. It is the basic aim of the play which dictates its dramatic method, catering to entertainment as well as, acceptability.

Interludes

Drama, as a form of literature reflecting the gradual progress of the society on stage, as well as the socio-political currents of the age, has never been static in any society. Matters were not different with the English stage, either. A major religious development to transform the English society entirely from the first half of the sixteenth century was the English Reformation and the advent of Protestantism.

The English plays during the early sixteenth century and thereafter, before the Elizabethan drama, reflected the socio-political developments of the society. The form of morality, thus, gradually gave rise to a different genre known as Interlude. The interludes were different from the moralities in the sense that they transformed the abstractions represented by the moralities into a more direct political and social content. The comic and realistic elements became much more pronounced.

An early example of this may be found in Magnificence by John Skelton. In this play, Magnificence is the central character, who is tempted by political evils like Crafty Conveyance and Courtly Abusion, but restrained by political virtues, such as Measure and Perseverance. It depicts the fall of the character from grace and prosperity in being misled by false values. As the theme clearly indicates, the subject matter was still the conflict between virtues and vices; however, the message now related more directly to the present state of political and social affairs.

Another important interlude of the period is King Johan (1536) by John Bale. Often noted as the first English drama based on national history, the play portrays King John of the thirteenth century, who had suffered excommunication at the Pope‟s displeasure, as the precursor of Henry VIII, who finally liberated England from the restrictive stronghold of the Roman Catholic Church. Mention must also be made of The Play called the foure PP by John Heywood. A play in the form of a dialogue between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potycary and a Pedlar who indulge in telling of stories, it aims at revealing the hypocrisy of the Pardoner.

The journey from the moralities to the interludes, thus, becomes a journey from the realms of abstract symbolism towards a greater social realism. The interludes lead English drama towards complete secularization and create the ground for Tudor secular drama.

Conclusion

The gradual evolution and development of drama in the medieval age in England portrays a process of the development of the English society, as a whole. The journey from the mysteries to the interludes, though not perhaps, remarkable in terms of literary merit, delineates a very complex narrative of the changing perspectives of the people with the changing understanding of the self and the world, in the English society. It is these plays which prepare the English stage and the audience for the reception of Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre. Refinement, spiritual progress and individual follies acquire a representative form of art, as life in its complexities, begins to evolve on stage. One may not be incorrect to find in Othello and Iago, the traces of Wisdom and Lucifer, or to read in Macbeth‟s realization of life as “a tale told by an idiot”, the enlightened self of Everyman on his journey towards Confession, accompanied by Knowledge.