Reading Everyman. By Leo Carruthers.

Abstract

Thislittle contribution to a series of introductions (intended primarily for French students, but in this case with a wider potential readership) to major works in English presents the play of Everyman clearly and fully, and merits notice as a useful adjunct to the reading of an important late medieval work in terms of understanding, literary and social contextualisation, and theology. While still a study aid, it is not to be compared with those at the pass-notes end of the scale within that genre. Carruthers divides his study into various sections. The first, contexts, is valuable in bringing together a body of well-known material in a succinct manner, with useful emphases on the language, on printing—Everyman survives only as a printed text—and on the historical-theological background, introducing the Lollards and the Hussites, while stressing the essential medieval orthodoxy of the text as such. The longest section—studies—covers the structure of the work, which is rather oddly broken down into what are here called acts and scenes, perhaps less than appropriate terminology for what is in fact a very short work, and one which is not solely a drama: its title is, of course, a treatyse on Death's; summoning of every creature, and Carruthers's; first two-scene ‘act’ only has about 80 lines. This is, however, simply a terminological point and the divisions are clear as such. Sources and analogues are also examined in terms of a whole range of genres (to which genre the work itself actually belongs remains a moot point in any case), and then the various relevant doctrinal aspects (such as the different sacraments) are looked at. This section is an important one, making clear that the concept of the ars bene moriendi implies of course a guide to proper living, and that is the point too (as Cawley stresses in his standard edition) of Everyman. One might also note the contemporary resonance in that Everyman himself, while not a modern figure, is still a financier of some sort, ‘the epitome of the unscrupulous man of business’ (p. 72). In theological terms, the potential medieval/Reformation conflict of grace and good works is well-handled because it is simply not of interest: Luther, after all stressed that the good man would produce good works, even if they were not a passport to heaven, and here Good Deeds is the only character that can go with Everyman into the grave.