|
|
||
|
English 245 with Dr.
Gary Gutchess |
||
|
Course Lessons 2. Beowulf 1 3. Beowulf 2 4. Middle Ages 5. Romance 6. Sir Gawain 7. Malory 9. Wife of Bath 11. Biblical Drama 12. Play of Mankind 14. Thomas More 15. Philip Sidney 16. Print Culture 17. Walter Raleigh 18. Twelfth Night 1 19. Twelfth Night 2 20. Civil War 22. Aphra Behn 23. Reading Papers 24. Gulliver 25. Rape of the Lock 27. New God 28. Revolution
|
* *** 12. Mankind (the comedy) *** * |
|
|
READINGS FOR THIS LESSON
The staging of an idea
An internet text of "Mankind" can be found at U Maine site |
|
|
|
NOTES AND
COMMENTARY
Late Medieval
Allegory The allegorical drama employed a number of standard images to convey spiritual truths, among them the journey, the battle, and the building. These tropes have a long literary tradition beginning with Prudentius’ fourth-century Psychomachia (Battle of the Mind), which conveyed the battle between personified vices and virtues in epic terms, The morality play Mankind adapts the spiritual struggle in a much more dynamic way, as the colorful vices Mischief, Nowadays, New Guise, and Nought contend with the Priest Mercy for the plowman hero’s soul. Mankind Everyman, the twentieth century’s favorite morality play, is more sombre, psychological, and focused on the individual hero than the typical medieval allegory. Everyman faces death and is deserted by all of his friends, all except Good Deeds. Message: your good deeds will stay with you when you die. Much more typical of medieval morality plays is Mankind, a farcical comedy and serious homily with allegorical figures contesting for the hero’s soul. While its difficult language and scatological subject matter makes it a challenge to read, the effort is worth it. Its rural language is a mixture of pompous Latinate English (and Latin) and an irreverent colloquial English that undercuts and parodies it. The mix of high and low styles is essential to the play’s meaning, serving to focus the conflict between the Christian truth expressed by the self-righteous priest Mercy and the human carnality expressed by vice figures: Mischief, the three characters representing the world (Nowadays, New-Guise, and Nought), and the devil Titivillus. The Shakespearean mix of kings and clowns is only 100 years or so beyond Mankind. Mankind often appeals to students because of its earthy humor and puncturing of authority. The play opens with Mercy’s pedantic and abstract 44-line sermon, first surveying man’s fall and Christ’s redemption, and then urging the play goers to mend their ways:
Mankind’s use of offensive language and bad behavior to make a serious point is indebted to medieval sermon technique, which used grotesque realism in a way that often seems indecorous to modern readers. Preachers used concrete examples, such as the disgusting "Glutton" confessing his sins in Piers Plowman, to illustrate abstract moral principles to an unlettered audience, and the seduction of Mankind by New-Guise, Nowadays, and Nought can be seen as illustrating Mercy’s opening warning against "thingys transitorye" (l.30). Most readers agree that by the end of Mankind the hierarchy that has been inverted is restored, and Mercy has the last word: "Your body is your enemy. Let him not have his will!" The audience, after having been seduced by the antics of the vice figures, is, predictably, made to realize their error. Some commentators, however, have paid special attention to the subversive message within the play’s orthodox frame, looking at the social conditions referred to in the play. Mankind’s profession as a farmer is not only a timeless reminder of the laboring Adam, but a contemporary social reference, reflecting labor unrest in East Anglia. While for some members of the audience he might have a positive spiritual meaning, recalling the peasant hero Piers Plowman, for others he might seem to be an alarming specter of rebellion, one given to acting in the newfangled ways. The author appears to have been fundamentally conservative, giving temporary rein to license while still enclosing it within Mercy’s sermon, but the play can be performed in such a way that the subversive elements overwhelm the sermon.
Mankind’s association of the vices with novelty may reflect anxiety about new opportunities for social mobility ("The Allegorical Theatre: Moralities, Interludes, and Protestant Drama," in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature [1999]). Although allegory as a mode, with its focus on abstract truths supporting the existing social order, tends to be conservative, the nature of Mankind is slippery enough to call such conservatism into question. Piers Plowman is similar: it contains extensive criticism of specific social abuses from a conservative point of view, but the poem was understood as revolutionary by many of its contemporary readers, so much so that the author was forced to revise and republish the work to clarify that he was not advocating rebellion. Mankind
offers insights into the development of the Elizabethan theater. David
M. Bevington argues that it was the first example of professional drama
in England, as illustrated by the characters’ taking up a collection from
the audience (ll.457–59; From Mankind to Marlowe [1962]). The
play may have had a socially mixed audience similar to Shakespeare’s
over a century later, as reflected in Mercy’s address to both "ye
soverens that sitt and ye brothern that stonde right uppe" (l.29). The
play’s episodic structure or alternating comic and serious scenes also
anticipates Shakespearean dramatic tradition. Mankind is a bridge to any
number of Elizabethan plays, starting with Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus,
whose Mephistophilis is descended from Titivillus, and which became
tragedy upon dropping the morality play’s happy ending. The buffoonery
of the clowns and fools in Shakespeare's tragedies is anticipated in
Mankind’s vice figures, while the evil Iago and Richard III can be seen
as the vice figure merged into human and historical figures. There are
also significant parallels between the foregrounding of the theater in
Mankind and Shakespeare’s self-conscious depictions of it,
whether in the performance of Bottom and his company in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, the playing of Falstaff and Prince Hal in the tavern,
or Hamlet’s negotiation with the traveling players. |
Images on this page are from a college student production of the play:
|
|
|
OTHER RESOURCES & AMUSEMENTS Text of Mankind Another
text
Images related to medieval plays |
Students are not examined on these "other resources and amusements." However, if you know of an excellent website that would wonderfully complement this lesson, please send it to Dr. G. If he adopts it in his list, extra course credit will be awarded. |
|
|
ASSIGNMENTS FOR THIS LESSON The lesson includes both a quiz and a journal writing assignment to be submitted on the interactive course site at SUNY Learning Network. See General instructions on Journaling for this course. For a sample journal, see Dr. G's 2007 Brit Lit 1 Journal. Journal Write for an hour (or more if you have time). Summarize the readings. Some other journaling ideas for today include:
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
