![]() Although many attempts have been made by historians to connect the liturgical drama with a secular theatrical tradition surviving from classical antiquity, there is little or no proof of such continuity. It was a phase of the literary and artistic work that accompanied the renovations of liturgical service books under charlemagne's direction, and was preceded by many experiments of an essentially lyrical character that are known under the general name of tropes. The medieval religious drama was a creation of the Benedictine monks during the carolingian renais sance (see benedictines). This survey traces the development of the early drama: the Latin liturgical drama, the vernacular mystery cycles, and dramatization of the saints' lives, or miracle plays (see morality plays). The allegorical element still continues in the interludes, but is progressively employed in the service of farce. These belong mainly to the 15th and 16th centuries and are distinguishable from the miracle plays by their extensive use of allegory and by the shift in subject matter, as the period advances, from religious truths to secular, and even political, indoctrination.įinally, with the rise of the interludes as almost an inevitable corollary of the moralities, the medieval drama lost its original religious inspiration and concern. From the 10th to the 13th centuries the plays were in Latin, the official language of the Roman liturgy, but in the 14th and 15th centuries a vernacular religious drama flourished in each of the western European countries, and in this stage of expansion was marked by the composition of cycles dramatizing the full range of scriptural events from Creation to the Last Judgment.Ī second stage in the development of the medieval drama resulted in morality plays. Originally associated with the Church's annual festival of Easter Sunday, it was gradually expanded to include the events commemorated at other great feasts such as Christmas and the Epiphany, and even saints' days in some locales. ![]() The drama of the Middle Ages began as mimetic representations of religious history, in which clerics and subsequently laymen enacted the events of Holy Scripture, God's dealings with His people in the Old and New Testaments.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |