English Miracle Plays and Moralities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1907. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... The Morality or Moral Play was perhaps the most notable outcome of the mediaeval love of allegory. The tendency to express in concrete forms, purely abstract ideas, early influenced poetry and painting, especially in France. The Romaunt of the Rose and The Vision of Piers Plowman, poems of two worlds, widely sundered, the dream of the lofty-minded courtier and the aspiration of the struggling, submerged peasant, remain to show us how certain ideals leavened all society. Poems both of Life, we may contrast them with that other, sinister allegory, in which all ranks are confounded, the mediaeval paintings of the Dance of Death. In reading the one, in regarding the other, we are convinced of the immense influence exerted on the mediaeval mind by abstract ideas. Co-existent with this dominance of the Idea, and in no wise conflicting with it, was an insistent realism, an absolute refusal to rest content with vagueness. The age of the Impressionist was not yet. The childlike spirit K which asked for pictures of the truths of its religion, applied the same test to ethics, and to all the abstract truths within its grasp. Man's life is a constant warfare. Standing from birth between his Angels, good and evil, he makes the eternal choice, while hierarchies, celestial and infernal, contend for his allegiance. His youth concedes to follies, which his age, too late, deplores. Last of all Death waits with his sickle in the doorway, the inevitable shadow deepens, and within the shadow is the fire of Judgment. These things are vital, they are of enduring interest. Of them the mind of the Middle Ages said, Let us behold that which we so profoundly believe Play out before us the battle of these powers, let us see that immanent, abiding Self which is each one of us, and we shall ...