The Beginnings of English Drama

The Beginnings of English Drama Drama came back to Europe in the service of the Church.  The language of all the early dramatic dramatic pieces is Latin. The The vernacular had no part to play in religious drama, for religious religious drama was still a part of Church ceremonial. ceremonial.  The Normans introduced sacred drama to England which soon became popular. popular. lays about the !ospel characters and the miracles of the saints became more elaborate, demanded "stage managing", turned into complete presentations separated from the ritual of the Church.  # priest could act Christ$s resurrection resurrection in the Church, but on highways and greens it tended to be regarded as entertainment rather than as religious teaching. The word used by %annyng to describe these plays is %iracles. &n '()* ope +rban instituted the feast of Corpus Christi, and after ''', a Church Council decreed that it should be celebrated. This day was chosen by the trade-guilds of the towns of England for the presentation presentation of a cycle of plays based on incidents from the ible, plays which we can call %ystery lays. Each guild would choose an episode from the ible which would usually be appropriate to the craft or trade practised and had its own decorated cart, called a /pageant0. The plays were presented in strict chronological order. They are anonymous, but they have a certain art in language and construction, a certain power of characteri1ation, which no minor poet need have been ashamed to put his name to.  The secular sub2ects make make their way way into drama through through the %orality. %orality.  The %orality was not not a guild play and it did not take take as its sub2ect a story from the ible. &t tried to teach a moral lesson through through allegory, that is, by presenting abstract ideas as though they were real people. #n e3ample of the %orality tradition is Everyman that tells about the appearance of Death to Everyman. &n the last days of the 4fteenth century we found very di5cult to distinguish between the %orality and the &nterlude. #n interlude6 was a short play performed in the middle of something else, perhaps a feast. The most en2oyable of all the interlude dramatists is 7ohn 8eywood whose plays were The 9our $s and the lay of the :eather. Now the raw materials for Eli1abethan drama are being gathered together. together. The noble houses have their groups of interlude-players which will become the Eli1abethan companies. The wandering players

of moralities, playing in inn-yards, take over these inn-yards as permanent theatres. Learned men are writing dramas - like the "+niversity :its" who are going to lay the foundations for ;hakespeare. The "+niversity :its" were graduates of <3ford or Cambridge. Their dramatic fortunes are tied to the theatres of London and they produce something better than the old popular morality-plays.