Discuss how miracle and morality plays contribute to the development of Middle English drama.

Discuss how miracle and morality plays contribute to the development of Middle English drama.

The early liturgical drama assumed the more developed form of the miracle and mystery plays sometime in the fourteenth century, though, of course, there is evidence that the first representation of a miracle play took place in Dunstable as early as 1119. In England the "miracle plays" and "mystery plays" are often considered svnonvmous. but technicallv there is a difference between the two. The miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints (non-scriptural matter), whereas the mystery plays handled incidents from the Bible (scriptural themes). The miracle and mystery plays differ from the early liturgical drama in their slightly more developed sense of drama and better dialogue. They were both written and enacted by ecclesiastics and had for their obvious object the instruction of the people in scripture history. They treated of such themes from the Bible as the Creation, the Flood, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of the Saviour. But they had an element of entertainment too. in the form of crude grotesqueries which may appear to the modern reader as outright profanities.

With the development of the early liturgical play into the miracle and mystery, there were significant changes of locale and players. The place of performance shifted from the inside of the church to the churchyard, and from the churchyard to the market-place, because vast crowds, especially at the time of fairs, had to be accommodated. The clergy could not go to the market-place to perform and in 1210 there was a papal edict forbidding their appearance on the stage. The performance therefore fell in the hands of laymen who were amateurs. With the change of the locale and the performers, the strictly religious nature of the performances underwent ................TO GET COMPLETE STUDY MATERIAL JOIN NSOU ENGLISH COACHING

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