Morality Play Research Articles

Staging Conscience

Through an in-depth analysis of Johannes Nomsz’s play Iemant en Niemant (1768), this article explores how the seemingly anachronistic genre of zinnespel (morality play) could serve to negotiate key issues of eighteenth-century aesthetical discourse. The combination of abstract ideas and sensual images ingrained into this genre made it an ideal vehicle with which to approach one of the primary problems of the period, namely the mediation between reason and the senses. Nomsz’s play deals with this rationalist/empiricist divide concerning the moral philosophical question of whether reason or feelings guide human ethical behaviour. Through empathy with the allegorical character of Nobody, Nomsz draws his audience into the teeth of a moral dilemma through emotion rather than teaching them a moral lesson. At the same time, he connects moral sentiments to a rational procedure of moral self-judgement by staging conscience as an inner court. I call this way of applying the late medieval genre of morality play to the key questions of eighteenth-century aesthetics and philosophy ‘Enlightened zinnespel’. Turning to the zinnespel with its special capacity to merge mind and senses indicates that at this time, the role of art changed. Art was no longer seen as a medium of knowledge transference, but as a medium that could generate knowledge in a unique way because of its ability to combine cognitive, affective, and sensual dimensions.

The Tragedy of Humanity: Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta Revisited

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta is a significant example of the transition from Morality Plays to a period of more developed and mature drama in the Elizabethan period. The themes that Marlowe handles and the protagonist he presents in the play emerge as aspects of a distinctive approach to dramatic representation and the concept of drama of that time. The play is set against the background of the struggle for economic, political, and military dominance between the Catholic Spain and Moslem Ottoman Empires and the Catholic administration and Jewish mercantile class in Malta. Religious conflicts and bigotry, intrigues, betrayals, and revenge plans committed by almost all characters representing different religious communities, ethnic prejudices that affect not only individuals but also the whole society, greed, and moral corruption emerge as the basic themes. Although the full title of the play was Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta, the play could not gain the status of a tragedy in the Aristotelian or Elizabethan sense of the word for many critics due to its dominant farcical characteristics. For a modern reader, however, The Jew of Malta can be considered as a satirical tragedy, the tragedy not of the protagonist Barabas, but of humanity that craves material benefits and political power, and for the sake of achieving these, commits all kinds of villanies including exploitation, theft, and murder, and as a result, socially experiences the fall of the tragic hero.

The realization of the concept of the features of the historical novel by Walter Scott on the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Moralite"

The article examines the features of the concept of the historical novel by Walter Scott on the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Morality Play". The purpose of this article is to identify the features and principles of the historical method. The great merit of the outstanding Scottish writer Walter Scott (1771-1832) is that he introduced the principle of historicism into literature and wrote a number of brilliant historical novels. In them, readers see a picture of the struggle of contradictory and complex interests of various social groups, parties, and religious sects. His historical novels provided a better understanding of contemporary issues. He combined historical truth with fiction, explaining the validity of such a connection by saying that “the most important human passions in all their manifestations, as well as the sources that feed them, are common to all classes, states, countries and epochs; hence it invariably follows that although this state of society affects opinions, way of thinking and the actions of people, these latter are extremely similar in their very essence. Walter Scott was the founder of the historical novel in its modern sense. In the XIX century, he developed the principles of the historical method, which made it possible to create fascinating novels, freed from excessive archaization of language and at the same time fully conveying the originality and recognizable imprint of the described epoch. In the 19th century, along with the tradition dating back to Walter Scott, another form of aesthetic insight into the past also asserted itself. Real historical characters in such works are optional, although their presence is not excluded. The "hero" for the writer is not a historical event, but an "epoch". The author of such a work creates his own self-sufficient world, achieves credibility not by more or less accurately following historical material, but by the reality of the psychological experience of the characters, the reality (often illusory) of everyday life. The novel "Morality Play" is a historical detective novel by British writer Barry Unsworth, was published in 1995, and was first published in Russian in 2005. The novel is an example of a fruitful combination of two updated genres: new historical fiction and metaphysical detective.

A New Historical novel: traditions, evolution and specifics of the genre by the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Morality Play"

Despite the large number of literary works written, there are still debates in determining the genre structure of the historical novel and the features of its poetics. This is apparently due to the fact that for most experts the focus should traditionally be on history, and not on genre theory. Authors of historical novels help recreate historical images of the past, allowing readers to see the world through the eyes of people who lived in other eras. The historical novel can be both an entertaining genre and a tool for the study of history, stimulating interest in the past and raising important questions about how people lived and acted in different times. Different points of view allow us to better understand the versatility of the genre and its influence both on literature and on the understanding of history and life. The author used the technique of “new historicism” literature. Along with the canons of the historical novel of the 19th century, B. Unsworth resorts to the traditional techniques of the historiographical meta-novel of the postmodern era. This novel represents a new approach to the genre of historical fiction, different from the traditional Walterscottian one. The new historical novel and metaphysical mystery can be viewed through the lens of the new historical novel, which focuses on the historical aspects of the story, accurately recreating the setting of a specific era with each fictional character and event, and taking the reader back to the reality of the 14th century. The murder investigation is an important element of the novel's plot, but it only makes sense if the setting of the era in which everything takes place is recreated. Medieval drama plays an important role here, especially the author's transformation from religious to secular drama. Transformation of genre form is a characteristic feature of modern literature. Barry Unsworth's novels are interesting in that they synthesize several genre combinations and at the same time reproduce aspects of the formation of a new genre for its time – morality tales.

The Traditions of the Rise of the Prodigal Play in the English Renaissance

Prodigal plays originated in the intellectual environment of the early European Renaissance and penetrated the whole stage of the English Renaissance. It takes the Prodigal fable in the Gospels as a carrier, integrates the content of the new Roman comedy, especially Terence’s works, inherits some traditions of neoclassicism, at the same time, it focuses on the conflict between virtue and evil in the experience of the prodigal son, and inherits the tradition of the native morality play in a general sense. On the basis of inheriting the tradition, the prodigal drama highlights its own distinctive characteristics and shows great vitality by incorporating the elements of the times into the open prodigal fable.

Obrazy stalinizmu w twardym jądrze i na peryferiach. Kłopoty ze Sceną Faktu TVP (2006–2010)


 
 
 The text refers to the part of the performances of TVP’s Fact Stage (2006–2010), devoted to the Stalinist period, as well as to its journalistic and scholarly reception. In no small part, it is a polemic with the position and reasoning expressed in Mariusz Mazur’s article TV Theater: Fact Stage – a specific vision of history. On such historical politics polemically. The author points to the need to interpret the phenomenon of Fact Stage as it really was, to understand its genesis, social conditions and cultural context. However, he rejects the method of contrasting the works in question with the abstract and normative postulates formulated by Mazur. Finally, the article points to the religious (morality play and passion play) sources of the conception of Fact Stage performances.
 
 

Features of the narrative structure of the novel of the postmodern era on the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Moralite"

The author examines the features of the narrative structure of the novel of English postmodernism "Morality Play" (Unsworth "Morality Play"). The purpose of this article is to identify the features of the construction of the novel of postmodernism. Postmodern writers tend to transform genres of high literature, making them accessible to mass reading. Moralite is a special kind of dramatic performance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance. A detective novel is a phenomenon of mass literature. The detective genre is based on three main elements that form the plot: crime, investigation and solution. In the article, these three elements are considered on the example of the novel "Moralite". Despite the fact that the plot-forming element is a detective component, the author does not fulfill all the genre strategies of the detective. In the presented work, the detective influence of the construction of a postmodern novel will be considered, in which readers are involved in the active process of reconstructing the incident, and the main character finds a solution to all the mysteries and riddles. The relevance of the work is due to the lack of full–fledged Russian-language research on the designated topic - dissertations, collections of articles, monographs. In the novel moralita, the identity of the murderer is not important, the victims are not important. The author is interested in the effect produced by the "performance" played out on the stage. Barry Unsworth demonstrates his vision of creating a new Medieval genre, he shows how this transition to everyday themes took place. One person can change the usual way of life by taking a risk and leading. Wandering comedians, who are the main characters, appear to readers as naive amateur detectives. They are passionate about the process and improve their "Thomas Wells Game", but not for the sake of punishing and exposing the killer. In the process of research, it can be concluded that two main genre layers can be distinguished in the novel – detective and historical. In addition to these genres of features, it can be argued that this is a novel about the genre.

Theaters of Solitary Selves

Abstract The psychomachic model of the self as an unstable coalition of miscellaneous entities enables both detailed psychological analysis and intersubjectivity. It is a scalable form that may map an individual, a household, a city, or the world, thus permitting mutual indwelling. It is an implicitly dramatic form: a devotional text such as Sawles Warde has the potential to become a closet drama if read aloud, and it is possible that such devotional texts influenced the otherwise obscure early history of the psychomachic morality play. Psychomachic drama such as The Castle of Perseverance replicated the structure of anchoritic enclosure, inviting its audience to participate in its staging of an expanded self. The fifteenth-century poets John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve use the psychomachic form for self-analysis. Lydgate’s autobiographical Testament replicates the form of his mummings to account and repent for his past. Hoccleve, however, finds that self-analysis only produces further instability and that he needs social engagement with others in order to recover his self.

Dr. Faustus as a Morality Play

Dr. Faustus's tragic history embodies a play by Christopher Marlowe, in which a man sells his soul to the evil spirit for power and knowledge. The play begins with the hero at the height of his arrival and ends with his falling into grief, death and curse. Faust entered into a contract with Lucifer, 24 years of life on Earth will be allocated, during which time he will have Mephistopheles as his personal servant and attached to the use of magic; however, in the end, he will give his body and soul to Lucifer as a push and spend the rest of his time as a cursed man in hell. This transaction must be sealed in the form of a contract written in the blood of Faustus. After cutting off his arm, the wound heals divinely and the Latin words Homo, fuge! ("Man, run!") Then he shows up on it. Faust ignores the inscription while asserting that he has already cursed his actions so far, thus leaving nowhere to escape. Faust seems to repent in the end and regret his actions, yet it may be too late or irrelevant, because Mephistopheles takes his soul together, so Faust obviously goes to hell with him. The current research addressed "Dr. Faustus" as a morality play after explanation the importance of "morality play", and then its connection through this tragic drama.

『파우스투스 박사』에 함축된 종교적·정치적 저항과 도덕극의 재해석

From a religious perspective, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus has primarily been analyzed in two contrasting ways. Some critics have claimed that this play advocates orthodox Christianity and others have argued that Marlowe defies Christianity and the Elizabethan England in the 16th century. There are several reasons why the interpretation of this play has been divided into conflicting views: the confusion in the aftermath of the Reformation, the unexplained notoriety for Marlowe being an atheist, and much of his life and death that has remained a mystery. Both sides have taken a confrontational stance. Accordingly, these conflicting aspects have imposed limitations on analyzing his life and works from an objective perspective. In this paper, the author reinterprets the meaning of the morality play in Marlowe’s own position and conclude that Marlowe capitalized on the morality play as an effective way to ardently criticize the harsh and strict Christianity of England while avoiding the accusation that he is an atheist.

REPRESENTATIONS OF DEATH IN THE STORY OF DELİ DUMRUL AND EVERYMAN

Death is a reality of human life that everybody will experience sooner or later. As a universal concept, the reality and fear of death can be observed in many literary works. The Story of Deli Dumrul Son of Duha Kodja and Everyman are among the literary works in which death is included as a cultural representation. The Story of Deli Dumrul is one of the stories from the Book of Dede Korkut and tells the adventures of Deli Dumrul, who challenges Azrael. Everyman is an allegorical English morality play, in which the protagonist Everyman’s journey of death and reckoning process are told. Both of the texts belong to medieval times, and the concept of death is not handled as just a literary theme but also a fact of life in each. In the Story of Deli Dumrul, as a result of his challenge to Azrael, Deli Dumrul is punished by God via the decision of his death. In Everyman, the sinful character Everyman’s process of pre-death is depicted as a spiritual journey on the basis of the Christian religion. Each text deals with the concept of death in a different cultural context. Hence, they each represent death in accordance with their cultural features. In each text, death is personified and included as a character, namely Azrael and Death. The primary objective of this study is to discuss the way death is portrayed as a character in the light of the cultural milieu in these texts. For this objective, the way death is represented in relation to other characters is tried to be examined and analyzed in a comparative way with regard to the texts’ sociocultural and religious background. The arguments are discussed with relevant references to the literary texts mentioned. In the study, representations of death are investigated in terms of three aspects: death as God’s wrath; death as a threatening and disturbing character; death as a trigger in the protagonists’ awakening/rationalization process. Thus, representations of death in the mentioned texts are discussed in relation to God’s and the protagonists’ attitudes and actions. This study also investigates how cultural patterns are reflected in each text on the basis of representations of death. Death, in the form of a character in both of the texts, functions as a trigger by which the protagonists go through a maturation process. The fact that death’s being a trigger in the maturation process of the protagonists is common in both texts confirms that facing the reality of death has a didactic effect/function and that the representations of death in literary texts could have an educational aspect.

Ambivalence as a Carnival Category in Barry Unsworth's Novel "Morality Play"

The article examines the main category of carnival - ambivalence based on the material of the novel of Barry Unsworth "Morality Play", which reveals the features of the carnival worldview, a characteristic feature of which is the idea of the dialogical nature of truth. In the novel by the English author Barry Unsworth "Morality Play", the main goal of the carnival is realized, which is to turn inside out the usual ideas about the world as a reasonable hierarchical system, to turn the usual order of things upside down, to ridicule everything familiar and frozen, in order to through denial, ridicule (symbolic death) contribute to the revival and renewal of the world. During the analysis of the character system of the novel by the English author Barry Unsworth "Morality Play", paired images characteristic of carnival thinking were identified: priest Nicholas Barber - confessor of Lord Simon Damian; Margaret Cornwall - a deaf-mute girl; Brendan - Thomas Wells. Scenes and characters paired by contrast and similarity have an impact on the figurative system and poetics of the novel. The findings suggest that the carnival tradition penetrates deeply into the structure of the novel, affecting the plot, forms a comic effect, preserving the uniqueness of ambivalent carnival laughter.

Theater of the Word: Selfhood in the English Morality Play

Theater of the Word: Selfhood in the English Morality Play

A Letter from Eugene O'Neill to Patrick McCartan (June 11, 1934); or, Yeats, the Abbey Theatre, and Days Without End (April 16, 1934)

A Letter from Eugene O'Neill to Patrick McCartan (June 11, 1934); or, Yeats, the Abbey Theatre, and <i>Days Without End</i> (April 16, 1934)

Op reis met “Elckerlijc” en Stefan Mrożewski

This article deals with modern illustrations accompanying medieval text, with special attention to one publication – the modern edition of Middle Dutch Elckerlijc and the woodcuts made by Stefan Mrożewski. The article introduces the circumstances in which the book was published and in which the Polish artist prepared his prints. The main analysis discusses the choices made by Mrożewski and the many different ways in which he refers to the historic past in his work. In order to show a broader framework of the subject, the article also briefly sketches the Polish literary reception of the medieval morality play.

Simeon Polockij a Playwright: The New Study Aspects

The study of the dramaturgic complex which has come to us in a manuscript created in the 1680s–early 1690s in Moscow (kept in the Austrian National Library, Vienna) established that the dramaturgic heritage of Simeon Polockij was not limited to two plays (about Nebuchadnezzar and the prodigal son) in the «Rythmologion». It also includes morality play about the struggle of the Church with the «host of infidels» and seven interludes, previously known from a single list as an anonymous works of the first third of the 18th century. The analysis of the historical and cultural context of the time the morality play was created, as well as its vocabulary, in particular, a rare lexeme (Turchin) and literary techniques typical for the texts of Simeon Polockij (using of the liturgical texts as a structural and thematic motives), leave no doubt about the authorship. Simeon Polockij is also the author of the interludes that can be proven by the content, plot-thematic, stylistic and lexical calls observed between them. Certain situations, plot motives and the vocabulary of the(«Vertograd mnogostvetnyj», «Rythmologion», etc.). interludes can be identified in the context of Simeon’s works.

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Hawthorne’s True Artist in The Marble Faun: The Jewish Miriam?

The Marble Faun (MF), besides being a travelogue account of Rome, is a story about sin, guilt, suffering and abuse; it is also a tale about love and friendship. It is a story about the relationships between four different individuals united by their mutual love of art. The more interesting and convincing woman of the two female characters in the novel is unquestionably Miriam. Miriam is a rebel, an artist, and a compassionate and redemptive figure. Nevertheless, her art has been almost totally neglected, probably because most critics maintained that Miriam is an allegorical character lacking moral development or growth, whose function in the romance is limited to bringing about the Model’s murder and enacting the romance’s moral drama. The aim of this paper is to rectify a long and undeserved history of neglect and award Miriam her due status of Hawthorne's sole genuine artist. Keywords: art, Hawthorne’s female artists, The Marble Faun

“I Said Something Wrong”: Transworld Obligation inYesterday

Danny Boyle's film Yesterday (2019) is a contemporary morality play in which the main character, Jack Malik, a failing singer-songwriter, is magically sent to a different possible world in which the Beatles never existed. Possessing his memory of the Beatles’ catalogue in the new possible world, he is now in sole possession of an extremely valuable artifact. Recording and performing the songs of the Beatles and passing them off as his own, he becomes rich, famous, and deeply unhappy. Once he confesses his wrong-doing, however, he is redeemed and his life becomes wonderful. The presupposition that underlays the plot is that in claiming authorship of the songs of the Beatles in a world in which the Beatles never existed, he is acting immorally. But on what theoretical grounds can this intuitive judgment be justified? Can one plagiarize work for which there is no author in one's world? Saul Kripke, in Naming and Necessity, dubs terms that refer in all possible worlds to be “rigid designators” and considers the metaphysics necessary to support them. In this case, it is not reference but moral responsibility that is invariant under changes of possible world and so we must ask a similar question for “rigid obligators.” We argue that a virtue ethics approach is the only way to support the foundational moral intuition.

Systems-theoretical observations of moral media panic debates

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine and analyse the fierce debate regarding children and young people’s use of digital social media, going on in Denmark (and in many other countries) in both mass media and social media. The overall question is what this panic is about and why the mass media and the public do not listen to the media sociologists than to self-appointed experts?Design/methodology/approachUsing a systems-theoretical angle, this paper analyses the debate and answers the following questions: Why are researchers not taken more seriously, and why are their views neglected and criticised? What part does morality play in such debates? How and why do the mass media act as they do, for instance, listening more to debaters than to the researchers? 4) What is the role of the so-called social media? And are these debates best understood as conflicts?FindingsThe scientific code is only one among several other codes. The mass media also communicates about truth but only as a result of their own code and programs, which also counts for other functional systems such as the juridical and the political system. In the code and programmes of a given mass medium, it has information value that different actors has different truths, to which comes that conflicts between different opinions of truth is a direct selection criterium. This is the function of the mass media, and nobody would like to live in a society without (except for dictators and their henchmen). Finally, science is very programmatic and communicates only through its own code and programs why research results seldom reach the public in its own form (scientific books and articles) but through the lens of mass media organisations and the debaters. When science is observed from other systems, it happens through their codes and programs why science often does not count more than ordinary people’s meanings.Research limitations/implicationsThe debate is polarised: on the one hand, there are debaters (self-appointed experts), whereas on the other hand, there are media researchers especially media sociologists. It turns out that the debaters have better communication possibilities than the researchers, as the scientific code does not trigger the news criteria as good as the often alarming statements from the debaters, who also use the moral code of communication that the researchers do not, as they are obligated to communicate solely in the scientific code.Originality/valueThere is no other systems-theoretical analysis of the moral media panic debates. The application of Luhmann’s systems theory is well suited, as it is both a communication theory and a sociological theory, whereas it is including both the relevant functional systems, such as the mass media, and the relevant communication codes, such as the news criteria of the mass media.