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English Moral Interludes
Real seller with inventory on hand. Trade Paperback. J.M. Dent & Sons, 1985. Very Good. Book shows very light wear only to covers. Binding is solid and square, covers have pretty sharp corners, Text/interior is clean and free of marking of any kind on age-toned paper. Contents Mankind, Fulgens and Lucres, The conversation of St. Paul. The tempation of Our Lord, Nice Wanton, The marriage between Wit and Wisdom.
213 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1976
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* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
See also: Anonymous
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 4, 2018
This is a fantastic collection of Interludes.
Mankind is on a par with Everyman in terms of its distillation of the temptations and stresses of human life in a few sharp images; unlike Everyman, it is very knockabout and bawdy at times, and the audience are slyly encouraged to enjoy the foolishness of the wicked characters New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought.
Fulgens and Lucres by Henry Medwall is the earliest extant secular play in English. It's a didactic piece, quite sophisticated in its interweaving of comedic and rhetorical elements, applying the Morality Play tradition to a social question. There's a clear path between this and Shakespearean double plotting. What's intriguing is that it dates from Tudor England, and was first performed as a Christmas entertainment for a social climber Cardinal. It ushered in centuries of the progressive middle classes using drama to both advance their cause and portray themselves as morally virtuous.
The biblical scenes of St Paul's conversion and Christ's temptation are less sophisticated but still actable. In the former, there's an inserted scene with the devil Belial (who the Sanhedrin and Saul worship) and his demons which has great energy, and in the latter the Devil is portrayed by the Protestant author and polemicist John Bale as a Roman Catholic priest.
Nice Wanton is a surprisingly moving tale of two children who go astray due to parental indulgence. It's theme is hammered home but it's characterisation makes it affecting. The end of poor Ismael (who is hung) and Dalilah (who dies of venereal disease) is humanly wretched and sad.
The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom is a highly developed farce in which the characters stand for human traits, with young Wit tempted away from Wisdom, his promised bride, by Idleness, who is a highly developed Vice figure with a Clockwork Orange-style rapport with the audience.
All of the plays point forwards to Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and are written by (for the most part) witty men for practical theatre purposes. There is great enjoyment to be had from the villainy, but the comeuppance for sin is usually wrenching and scary. Yes, these plays are very moralistic for our contemporary tastes, but experience shows that they are no less true to life for that...
Mankind is on a par with Everyman in terms of its distillation of the temptations and stresses of human life in a few sharp images; unlike Everyman, it is very knockabout and bawdy at times, and the audience are slyly encouraged to enjoy the foolishness of the wicked characters New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought.
Fulgens and Lucres by Henry Medwall is the earliest extant secular play in English. It's a didactic piece, quite sophisticated in its interweaving of comedic and rhetorical elements, applying the Morality Play tradition to a social question. There's a clear path between this and Shakespearean double plotting. What's intriguing is that it dates from Tudor England, and was first performed as a Christmas entertainment for a social climber Cardinal. It ushered in centuries of the progressive middle classes using drama to both advance their cause and portray themselves as morally virtuous.
The biblical scenes of St Paul's conversion and Christ's temptation are less sophisticated but still actable. In the former, there's an inserted scene with the devil Belial (who the Sanhedrin and Saul worship) and his demons which has great energy, and in the latter the Devil is portrayed by the Protestant author and polemicist John Bale as a Roman Catholic priest.
Nice Wanton is a surprisingly moving tale of two children who go astray due to parental indulgence. It's theme is hammered home but it's characterisation makes it affecting. The end of poor Ismael (who is hung) and Dalilah (who dies of venereal disease) is humanly wretched and sad.
The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom is a highly developed farce in which the characters stand for human traits, with young Wit tempted away from Wisdom, his promised bride, by Idleness, who is a highly developed Vice figure with a Clockwork Orange-style rapport with the audience.
All of the plays point forwards to Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and are written by (for the most part) witty men for practical theatre purposes. There is great enjoyment to be had from the villainy, but the comeuppance for sin is usually wrenching and scary. Yes, these plays are very moralistic for our contemporary tastes, but experience shows that they are no less true to life for that...
Displaying 1 of 1 review