Of "Stages" and "Types" in Visitatione Sepulchri (Part II)

Abstract

Of "Stages" and "Types" in Visitatione Sepulchri (Part II) Michael L. Norton The classification for distinguishing variants of the Visitatio Sepulchri proposed by Carl Lange and enhanced by E. K. Chambers was systematized by Karl Young in his 1933 collection, The Drama of the Medieval ChurchA Young's work was an expansion of the third book of Chambers' The Mediaeval Stage. Its subject, as the title makes clear, was the drama of the Church, and its scope encompassed the medieval liturgy, the dramatic manifestations of the liturgy, and the various forms of the liturgical drama. Although Young provided a "sizable addition to the documentary facts made available by Chambers," his primary contribution to Chambers' conceptual framework, as Hardison noted, was "in the direction of definition."2 Building on Chambers ' approach to the liturgical drama, Young saw the crux of the issue in the definition of drama itself.3 It is obvious that no satisfying study of these phenomena can be made without the guidance of a candid and practical definition of the term drama. By some criterion we must be able to discriminate between what is merely dramatic or theatrical, because of its similarity to things familiar upon the stage, and what is authentically a play. ... A play ... is, above all else, a story presented in action, in which the speakers or actors impersonate the characters concerned . (Young, I, 79-80) Like Lange's edition forty-six years earlier, the two volumes of The Drama of the Medieval Church combined a textual edition with commentary. The first volume treated the origin of the liturgical drama and the plays of the Easter season, while the second focused on the plays of Christmas, saints' plays, MICHAEL L. NORTON is a musicologist who lives in Virginia. Part One of this study appeared in the Spring (1987) issue of this journal. 127 128Comparative Drama plays of the Old Testament, plays on the Virgin Mary, and plays from Eschatology. Ostensibly organized along logical lines, Young's study traced the progression of the liturgical drama from its ritual roots to its religious but non-liturgical descendants , and it was Young's definition of drama that gave form to the exposition. Following a brief introduction on the decline of classical drama and on the various dramatic spectacles of the Middle Ages, Young laid the foundation for his edition with an inquiry into the structure and nature of the medieval liturgy. Young's discussion of the liturgy, filling some one hundred and eighty-six pages, was divided into two sections. The first outlined the structure of Roman Mass and Office, while the second investigated the dramatic and literary aspects of the medieval liturgy. Young's emphasis lay not with the dramatic character of the Mass and Office, however, but with those dramatic embellishments that had invaded the liturgy during the Middle Ages, in particular the burial of cross and host, the harrowing of Hell, and, of course, tropes. Of the ceremonies described by Young in these preliminary chapters, though, none could be considered drama. Although all were dramatic, none involved impersonation. Concerning the dramatic elements within the so-called authorized liturgy of the Church, for example, Young remarked: It is clear . . . that [these] dramatic phenomena . . . cannot be regarded as effectual origins of the genuine drama of the Church. The Mass is excluded from the possibility of dramatization because of its fundamental meaning. It is not a representation of an action, but an actual re-creation of it. The horae of the Canonical Office never gave promise of development into drama, since they were designed as devotional exercises, and exhibit no intention of representing actual events. (I, 110) Certain ceremonial aspects of the Holy Week liturgy were also dramatic in nature, and some of these would even be reflected in the later liturgical dramas, but "of the drama of the Church as a whole [these] liturgical observances . . . [were] not the essential beginnings" (I, 111). The burial and removal of the cross and host were more dramatic yet, but still they were not drama, for although "uncommonly tender or vivid or splendid . . . they lack the essential of true drama [i.e., impersonation]" (I, 148). Even tropes, with their occasional use...