Morality Or Moral Period
Morality plays are presented in personified virtues and dramas depicting the struggle of the soul. Morality plays were designed to teach people a lesson in how to live their life according to the rules of the church. In morality plays, the character were allegorical personified such as death, sin, good and bad angel, seven deadly sins, etc. { representing virtues (beauty, strength, chastity, good deeds ) and vices (greed, envy )}. The main purpose of this drama was didactic, to give moral lesson to the audience. The morality plays generally ended with the virtue win against the evil. This play was marked by the introduction of personage called vice, who was mischievous, comic and humorous character. Vice was the predecessor of the modern clown or jester.
The morality plays were highly didactic in nature having Abstraction and allegories. Abstract ideas represented as characters, Abstract ideas is virtues and vices, sin and repentance, good and evil shown as characters. main focus on Conflicts within human soul in choosing between good and evil. morality plays were Showed the glorification of Christian life and death and Teaching of Christian faith. Morality play got famous in the 16 century. Gorboduc was an important tragedy play of that time. The morality marks a distinct advantage over the Miracle in that it gave free scope to the imagination for new plots and incidents.
The best known of the Moralities is Everyman, The subject of the play is the summoning of every man by Death, Its the pure Greek drama, there is no change of time or scene, the moral is that nothing can take away the terror of the inevitable summons but an honest life and the comforts of religion and the stage is never empty from the beginning to the end of the performance. Other well-known Moralities are the Pride of Life, Hyckescorner, Castell of Perseverance, and mankind.
Transformation in The Plays
Now The entry of common man as an actor in the plays and Proved as better actor than the priests , Increased the number of common actors. The subject of the plays started changing from religious matters to social problems, social human life.The religious matters in the plays vanished. Because of the influence of the renaissance, tragedies, comedies emerged in english literature. English drama give lot of success. Morality Plays were never a part of any cycle. The known authors of Moralities, two of the best are john Skelton and sir David Lindsay, whose religious business it was to make rules uncomfortable by telling them unpleasant truths in the form of poetry, with these men a new element enters into the Moralities. They satirise abuses of church and state, and introduce living personages thinly disguised as allegories.
Interludes
the Interlude is the short version of morality play. Generally interludes were given during break of the scene, short entertainment inserted within a longer play or amidst some other festivals. It was a short stage entertainment in a sense of humor, witty dialogues and was considered as the forerunner of comedies. Heywood’s Interludes were written between 1520 and 1540. His most famous is The Four P’s which performed around 1497, a contest of wit between a Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedlar and a Poticary. The characters here strongly suggest those of Chaucer. a favorite retainer and jester at the court of Mary, credit for raising the Interlude to the distinct dramatic form known as comedy. Interludes Flourish during medieval times.
Another interesting Interlude is called The Play of the Weather. In this Jupiter and the gods assemble to listen to complaints about the weather and to reform abuses. Naturally everybody wants his own kind of weather. The climax is reached by a boy who announces that a boy’s pleasure consists in two things, catching birds and throwing snowballs, and begs for the weather to be such that he can always do both. Jupiter decides that he will do just as he pleases about the weather, and everybody goes home satisfied.
interludes were more popular than the Moralities. Interludes Were very famous in Late 15th and early 16th century. The dramatic scenes, at banquets where a little fun was wanted. The interludes were for amusing and entertaining purposes. Interlude play was like johan johan the husband , tyb his wife.
The Artistic Period Of The Drama
The artistic is the final stage in the development of the English drama. the artistic period plays a vital role to raise the English drama. It is a different from the earlier plays like Miracles, Mysteries and moral as morality. Because it represents human life as it is. During this period, English drama was influenced by classical drama. The first comedy or true play was “Ralph Roister Doister” written by Nicholas Udall on 1556. The play divided into acts and scenes and wrote in rhyming couplets. This first comedy had become the model and predecessor of English comedies. The next play, gammer gurton's needle is a domestic comedy, a true bit of English realism, representing the life of the peasant class.
Our first tragedy, Gorboduc, was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, and was acted in 1562, only two years before the birth of Shakespeare. It is the first play to be written in blank verse, and divided into acts and scenes. The story of Gorboduc is taken from the early annals of Britain and recalls the story used by Shakespeare in King Lear. Gorboduc, king of Britain, divides his kingdom between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The sons quarrel, and Porrex, the younger, slays his brother, who is the queen’s favorite. Videna, the queen, slays Porrex in revenge; the people rebel and slay Videna and Gorboduc; then the nobles kill the rebels, and in turn fall to fighting each other.
Therefore, English drama gradually develop from the liturgical drama to Miracle and Mystery plays, continuously to Morality and interlude followed by the influence of classical model. which flourish during Elizabethan reign and finally evolve to the regular drama forms which known till today.
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