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Morality play is a term that theatre historians use to describe a genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 of Medieval
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 and early Tudor
Tudor period

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII of England ....
 theatrical entertainments. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes," a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral
Morality

Morality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong....
 theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory
Allegory

Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of Mimesis, or representative art....
 in which the protagonist
Protagonist

A protagonist is the main Character of a drama or Narrative. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek language p??ta????st?? , "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the othe...
 is met by personification
Personification

File:Wien Hofburg Constantia et Fortitudine.jpgPersonification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person....
s of various moral
Morality

Morality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong....
 attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil.






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Morality play is a term that theatre historians use to describe a genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 of Medieval
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 and early Tudor
Tudor period

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII of England ....
 theatrical entertainments. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes," a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral
Morality

Morality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong....
 theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory
Allegory

Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of Mimesis, or representative art....
 in which the protagonist
Protagonist

A protagonist is the main Character of a drama or Narrative. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek language p??ta????st?? , "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the othe...
 is met by personification
Personification

File:Wien Hofburg Constantia et Fortitudine.jpgPersonification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person....
s of various moral
Morality

Morality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong....
 attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 during the 15th and 16th century. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery play
Mystery play

Mystery plays and Miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in Church as tableau vivant with accompanying antiphonal song....
s of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, they represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre.

History of morality plays

The earliest morality play, The Pride of Life, may have been written in 1337. By the dawn of the 15th century morality plays were common throughout medieval Europe as didactic plays intended to teach good morals to their audience. Plays like Condemnation des banquets by Nicolas de Chesnaye, The Castle of Perseverance
The Castle of Perseverance

The Castle of Perseverance is a c. 15th century morality play and the earliest known full-length vernacular play in existence. Along with Mankind and Wisdom , The Castle of Perseverance is preserved in the Macro Text that is now housed in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C....
 or Everyman
Everyman (play)

Everyman is a late 15th-century England morality play, There is a similar Dutch language morality play of the same period called Elckerlijc....
 are all surviving plays that were written and performed with this intention.

However, by the 16th century these plays started to deal with secular topics as medieval theatre
Medieval theatre

Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. The term refers to a variety of genres because the time period covers approximately a thousand years of the art form and an entire continent....
 started to make the changes that would eventually develop it into Renaissance theatre
Renaissance theatre

For Renaissance theatre see*History of theatre#Renaissance theatre*English Renaissance theatre*Theatre of France#Renaissance theater*German Renaissance theatre...
. As time moved on morality plays more frequently dealt with secular topics, including forms of knowledge (in Nature and The Nature of the Four Elements) questions of good government (Magnificence by John Skelton
John Skelton

John Skelton, also known as John Shelton , possibly born in Diss Norfolk, was an England poet....
 and Respublica by Nicholas Udall
Nicholas Udall

Nicholas Udall , was a England playwright and schoolmaster, the author of Ralph Roister Doister, generally regarded as the first comedy written in the English language....
), education (Wit and Science by John Redford
John Redford

John Redford was a major England composer and organist of the Tudor period.From about 1525 he was organist at St Paul's Cathedral and Choir there from 1534....
, and the two other "wit
WIT

WIT is:* The ticker symbol for Wipro Technologies, India.* The timezone Waktu Indonesia Timur, covering Time_in_Indonesia* National Women's Register - A Women's discussion group in Zimbabwe...
" plays that followed, The Marriage of Wit and Science and Wit and Wisdom), and sectarian controversies, chiefly in the plays of John Bale
John Bale

John Bale was an England churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being dispersed....
.

Morality plays only gradually died out as tastes changed towards the end of the sixteenth century. Throughout his career Shakespeare made references to morality characters and tropes, suggesting that the form was still alive for his audiences, at least in memory, long beyond the period of its textual flowering.

Characteristics of morality plays

Most morality plays have a protagonist who represents either humanity as a whole (Everyman
Everyman

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances....
) or an entire social class (as in Magnificence). Antagonists and supporting characters are not individuals per se, but rather personifications of abstract virtues or vices, especially the Seven deadly sins
Seven deadly sins

The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, are a classification of the most objectionable vices that were originally used in early Christian teachings to educate and instruct followers concerning fallen man's tendency to sin....
.

Morality plays were typically written in the vernacular
Vernacular

Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to Lingua franca, official standards or global languages....
, so as to be more accessible to the common people who watched them. Most can be performed in under ninety minutes.

Sources

  • Richardson, Christine and Jackie Johnston. 1991. Medieval Drama. English Dramatists ser. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0333454774.


External links

  • - A brief history of Morality Plays.*