Particularly, I enjoyed the conversation between Knowledge and Five-Wits about the priesthood (I hear the shadows of indulgences and looming Luther's plaint). Interesting to note too, how priesthood is not understood fundamentally as provider of the Sacrament, but exists also as the place of instruction from God's Word:
That really is an interesting insight. This play is so complicated in its theology, I think, right there on the cusp of change and reflecting, in some ways, the best of both worlds.
"We moderns have to drill down to begin to see the complexity that is naturally carried when material objects are assumed to inhere with spiritual meaning" - how much we do! I was preaching from Mark 8 last Sunday where the miracle of the blind man who got healed in 2 stages is used by Mark to illuminate what's going on with the disciples in their one-step-forward-two-steps-back grasp of who Jesus is and what it means for him to be Messiah and then for them to follow him. It really struck me how the 'Wow!' response to Jesus' miracles is only ever first-base, that there is so much more to consider - and how in popular apologetics the emphasis has so often been on getting people to share in the Wow as though that was what settled things. But it seems to me that in evangelical biblical studies in the past several years there's been greater openness to responsible figural reading of the text, which is very welcome.
That is an excellent example of how hard it can be to “see” what is really important! We are so easily satisfied in our understandings and interpretations. I agree: “responsible figural reading” has entered (re-entered?) the room, and it is a good thing.
I would have thought I was the only professor who referred to Meatloaf, but I would do so in reference to The Merchant of Venice. A pound of flesh is certainly doing a lot.
I adapted the original after I left the Catholic Church and became a Christian and when a small drama group at my church asked me to write them something. As a playwriting major at NYU in NYC, I had studied the medieval work but as a new Christian the Good Deeds nagged at me. In my version, Everywoman (Jane Doey Smith) follows the same storyline as the original, her various trappings being brought before her and found wanting. The Angel who comes to her - and freezes the surrounding action during a church coffee hour - challenges her, and Jane is suddenly left in darkness. It's in this darkness that she articulates and finally realizes that within her busy Christian church activity, she's forgotten about God, the reason for all her activity, her life, her forgiveness, and that it is only through Christ's work and merit that she has any hope of eternal life. Good Deeds does not go with her because they are but filthy rags. Christ's work saves her. - So a modern spin, for what it's worth. - Yvette
What?!? This is amazing. This is worth a lot. I love how universal and adaptable Everyman is. Thank you for sharing what you did with it. I love your more Protestant spin on the story and the modern application.
If I may add a few words about morality plays and Everyman . . .
Everyman has become the most taught and read morality play in literature courses, but it is atypical of the genre in English. As Karen has noted, it may be a translation from Flemish; I think it is. Morality plays were a part of Northern European culture. Literature and theatre were more transportable than other arts in Renaissance culture, so English playwrights were regularly finding plots in works from Italy (Romeo and Juliet, for example), France, Germany, etc.
Homegrown English morality plays usually have allegorical plots. Mankind and Youth are most like Everyman in showing the ways for all fools to salvation. The English do tend to use more humor, bawdiness, and vulgarity in their morality plays than we find in Everyman. The earliest use I have read of the f-word appears in a morality play by a 16th century Scottish Presbyterian; he uses the the word to indicate what a Pope was doing with a nun. Not every man is moral in a morality play.
This brings up a mid-16th century development of the morality play genre: its adaptability to Reformation theology. The genre lasted far longer through the writing and performance of new works than the mystery and miracle plays, which were suppressed after Elizabeth began her reign. The morality plays from the mid-1550s onwards have villains identified as Pope, Friar, and Falsehood (theologically). These plays were performed at least into the 1580s, when Shakespeare likely saw some of them performed by traveling troupes in Warwickshire and Lancashire.
It's hard to draw a direct line from any one morality play to any work of Shakespeare's, but he alludes to the genre in several plays, most notably in Richard III: "Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity,/ I moralize two meanings in one word" (3.1.83-84). Through a process of de-allegorizing the morality genre, we get the earliest examples of the genre of history plays. John Bale's King Johan is a morality play offering a Protestant interpretation/allegorization of King John, the king of the Magna Carta and the Robin Hood tales. He's not a villain in the Protestant play. Shakespeare's play The Life and Death of King John is a more naturalistic and skeptical version of the king's life. His plays Henry IV parts 1 and 2 portray Prince Hal as a prodigal son figure led astray by the morality play vice figure Falstaff (False-Staff). The work of Shakespeare's early contemporary Christopher Marlow, Doctor Faustus, is also a development from the morality play tradition.
Thanks for bringing all this history forward, Jack. It’s really interesting and helpful. It helps rxpon why Everyman doesn’t “feel” as English to me, and where that sparseness perhaps comes from.
I think I do want to cover Dr. Faustus. It’s one of my favorites. Maybe after Shakespeare (even if that might be a little out of order, but if so, not by much).
Just saw this news: medieval artwork discovered at Cambridge https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67926737.amp
Particularly, I enjoyed the conversation between Knowledge and Five-Wits about the priesthood (I hear the shadows of indulgences and looming Luther's plaint). Interesting to note too, how priesthood is not understood fundamentally as provider of the Sacrament, but exists also as the place of instruction from God's Word:
God will you to salvation bring,
For priesthood exceeded all other thing;
To us Holy Scripture they do teach,
And converteth man from sin heaven to reach;
That really is an interesting insight. This play is so complicated in its theology, I think, right there on the cusp of change and reflecting, in some ways, the best of both worlds.
"We moderns have to drill down to begin to see the complexity that is naturally carried when material objects are assumed to inhere with spiritual meaning" - how much we do! I was preaching from Mark 8 last Sunday where the miracle of the blind man who got healed in 2 stages is used by Mark to illuminate what's going on with the disciples in their one-step-forward-two-steps-back grasp of who Jesus is and what it means for him to be Messiah and then for them to follow him. It really struck me how the 'Wow!' response to Jesus' miracles is only ever first-base, that there is so much more to consider - and how in popular apologetics the emphasis has so often been on getting people to share in the Wow as though that was what settled things. But it seems to me that in evangelical biblical studies in the past several years there's been greater openness to responsible figural reading of the text, which is very welcome.
That is an excellent example of how hard it can be to “see” what is really important! We are so easily satisfied in our understandings and interpretations. I agree: “responsible figural reading” has entered (re-entered?) the room, and it is a good thing.
I had never heard of this piece, or if I had, I missed the reference. I enjoyed the simplicity and seriousness of it. Memento Mori.
Lovely description, Kevie. Glad you appreciated it!
I would have thought I was the only professor who referred to Meatloaf, but I would do so in reference to The Merchant of Venice. A pound of flesh is certainly doing a lot.
Heh. Also, you reminded me that I meant to put a link for anyone who didn't get that reference. Now added. We are both of a certain age, Jack!
In 1994 I had my one act adaptation of Everyman published by Baker's Plays Boston/Samuel French. "Everywoman: A Modern Morality Play" can still be found for performance permission here (under my maiden name!) https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/8160/everywoman-a-modern-morality-play
I adapted the original after I left the Catholic Church and became a Christian and when a small drama group at my church asked me to write them something. As a playwriting major at NYU in NYC, I had studied the medieval work but as a new Christian the Good Deeds nagged at me. In my version, Everywoman (Jane Doey Smith) follows the same storyline as the original, her various trappings being brought before her and found wanting. The Angel who comes to her - and freezes the surrounding action during a church coffee hour - challenges her, and Jane is suddenly left in darkness. It's in this darkness that she articulates and finally realizes that within her busy Christian church activity, she's forgotten about God, the reason for all her activity, her life, her forgiveness, and that it is only through Christ's work and merit that she has any hope of eternal life. Good Deeds does not go with her because they are but filthy rags. Christ's work saves her. - So a modern spin, for what it's worth. - Yvette
What?!? This is amazing. This is worth a lot. I love how universal and adaptable Everyman is. Thank you for sharing what you did with it. I love your more Protestant spin on the story and the modern application.
When I see the words 'Danse Macabre', this is what I hear: https://youtu.be/qNMzBnuBC6Y?feature=shared
Well, if this song doesn't just make you see the skeletons dancing, I don't know what will. Marvelous! Thank you so much for sharing.
If I may add a few words about morality plays and Everyman . . .
Everyman has become the most taught and read morality play in literature courses, but it is atypical of the genre in English. As Karen has noted, it may be a translation from Flemish; I think it is. Morality plays were a part of Northern European culture. Literature and theatre were more transportable than other arts in Renaissance culture, so English playwrights were regularly finding plots in works from Italy (Romeo and Juliet, for example), France, Germany, etc.
Homegrown English morality plays usually have allegorical plots. Mankind and Youth are most like Everyman in showing the ways for all fools to salvation. The English do tend to use more humor, bawdiness, and vulgarity in their morality plays than we find in Everyman. The earliest use I have read of the f-word appears in a morality play by a 16th century Scottish Presbyterian; he uses the the word to indicate what a Pope was doing with a nun. Not every man is moral in a morality play.
This brings up a mid-16th century development of the morality play genre: its adaptability to Reformation theology. The genre lasted far longer through the writing and performance of new works than the mystery and miracle plays, which were suppressed after Elizabeth began her reign. The morality plays from the mid-1550s onwards have villains identified as Pope, Friar, and Falsehood (theologically). These plays were performed at least into the 1580s, when Shakespeare likely saw some of them performed by traveling troupes in Warwickshire and Lancashire.
It's hard to draw a direct line from any one morality play to any work of Shakespeare's, but he alludes to the genre in several plays, most notably in Richard III: "Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity,/ I moralize two meanings in one word" (3.1.83-84). Through a process of de-allegorizing the morality genre, we get the earliest examples of the genre of history plays. John Bale's King Johan is a morality play offering a Protestant interpretation/allegorization of King John, the king of the Magna Carta and the Robin Hood tales. He's not a villain in the Protestant play. Shakespeare's play The Life and Death of King John is a more naturalistic and skeptical version of the king's life. His plays Henry IV parts 1 and 2 portray Prince Hal as a prodigal son figure led astray by the morality play vice figure Falstaff (False-Staff). The work of Shakespeare's early contemporary Christopher Marlow, Doctor Faustus, is also a development from the morality play tradition.
Thanks for bringing all this history forward, Jack. It’s really interesting and helpful. It helps rxpon why Everyman doesn’t “feel” as English to me, and where that sparseness perhaps comes from.
I think I do want to cover Dr. Faustus. It’s one of my favorites. Maybe after Shakespeare (even if that might be a little out of order, but if so, not by much).