Transcript Medieval Drama

Take 20
on Medieval Drama
20 slides of information related to the Medieval
English Drama and the text Everyman, including key
literary terms and ideas
What was the center
of the medieval peoples’ social,
educational, and spiritual lives?
Photo by Keith Marshall @ Flickr
Tropes – embellishments on the
Mass liturgy
Photo by Groume @ Flickr
First English Play (in Latin)
Quem Quaeritis (Whom Do You Seek)
Angel: “Whom do you seek ye in the
tomb, O lovers of Christ?”
Marys: “Jesus of Nazareth, him that
was crucified, O heavenly being.”
Angel: “He is risen, as he hath
prophesied. Go announce, that he
that risen from the dead.”
Marys: “Alleluia, Alleluia.”
Photo by Dtcchc @ Flickr
Expanded into pageants with
costumes, scenery, props, etc.
Photo by Istolethetv @ Flickr
Moved to the church steps
Photo by Swamibu @ Flickr
Scripts to English and then
storylines became bawdy and
church dropped productions
Photo by Vauvau @ Flickr
Guilds of tradesmen
produced and performed on
pageant wagons
Three types of short plays
performed in cycles, or series
Mystery
Miracle
Morality
Mystery Plays -- dramas
based on stories of the Bible
Photo by Roger Smith @ Flickr
The Second Shepherd’s Play,
tells of a madcap
story of a sheep thief, but as
it ends
we learn the shepherds are
headed to the Nativity.
Miracle Plays -- dramas
about the lives of the saints
Photo by Lawrence OP @ Flickr
Morality Plays – allegorical
dramas in which abstrations are
personified in the struggle for a
human soul
extended metaphor in which characters,
objects, and events equate meanings
outside the work
Photo by Aristicrats-hat @ Flickr
Everyman,
written about 1500,
is the best example
of the English
morality play
The Dance of Death
motif in the humanities,
a late-medieval allegory
on the universality of
death: no matter one's
station in life, Death
unites all, or all are
equal in Death’s
presence
2010 Photo by Chris Willis at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8381313@N08/4653969061/
2007 Music by Kevin MacLeod. Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre, Opus 40 in G minor (Computer generated).
Black Plague 1348-49
Miniatur aus der Toggenburg-Bibel (Schweitz) von 1411
BLACK PLAGUE
Black Plague 1348-49
Europe 1348/49
Bubonic plague
so named for
swollen glands
called buboes
Engraving of
a plague doctor
Miniatur aus der Toggenburg-Bibel (Schweitz) von 1411
Hans Holbein II
c. 1498-1543
• German portraitist
• religious art
• satire
• Reformation
propaganda
1999 Stephanie Buck, Hans Holbein, Cologne:
Könemann, 1542
Pope
Gentleman
King
Astrologer
Queen
Miser
Bishop
Child