Содержание
Introduction 3
A comparative analysis of the episode with Noah in N-Town play and Towneley play 4
Conclusion 12
References 13
Выдержка из текста
Introduction
Medieval plays differs from the modern day plays a lot and not only in language or problems taken in the play but also in their goals and attitude to the theatre itself.
There was a special theatre genre in the Middle Ages – mystery plays. They In were performed not in the building, but on pageant wagons. Each wagon held a different story and moved from location to location around the town. Mystery plays were based on the biblical event, though sometimes rather loosely. Some plays were serious; some of them were more comical, even if the biblical story was told in the play.
There are four intact cycles that remain from the era: Wakefield, York, Chester, and N-town. The Wakefield Cycle (or Towneley cicle) was the most comedic and irreverent of the four, often mentioning contemporary events.
In the N-town Cycle, N stands for the Latin word “nomen” which means name. Any town could use their own name for that cycle. Cycles could range from the Fall of the Angels to Judgement Day. According to E. Prosser, a common theme of Mystery Plays “was to show a fall, then Redemption. But the number of separate plays and of playing stations varied widely” .
In this essay the differences and similarities between two different plays based on the same biblical episode is going to be revealed and compared. The episode with Noah is very wide-known and popular in the medieval theatre. It was used as a base both in the Towneley and N-Town cycles, but the representation of the episode in these two cycles are rather different. And the main difference is, as I think, concerns the representation of the characters in both plays.
Список использованной литературы
References
1. Epp G. Towneley: Recycled Plays. URL: https://www.ualberta.ca/~gepp/towneley/TowneleyRP.html. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
2. Genesis. The Bible. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1997.
3. Higgins I.M. The Book of John Mandeville: with Related Texts. Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2011.
4. Noah. N-Town Plays. URL: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajohnsto/noah.html. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
5. Noah. Towneley plays. URL: http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/litsubs/drama/noah.html. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
6. N-Town Cycle Essay. URL: http://www.enotes.com/topics/n-town-cycle. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
7. Prosser E. Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays: A Re-evaluation. Stanford, Stanford University Press. 1961.
8. Sugano D.I. N-Town Plays. URL: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0136.xml. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
9. The Towneley Plays Project. URL: http://people.ucalgary.ca/~scriptor/towneley/. (Date of reference: 03.01.2016).
10. Wolfthal D., Vitullo J.M. Money, Morality, and Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Burlington, Ashgate Publishing Company. 2010.
11. Normington K. Gender and Medieval Drama. Cambridge, DS Brewer. 2004.