Читать книгу The Growth of English Drama - Arnold Wynne - Страница 10

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Miracle (Bible) Plays had three serious faults, not accidental, but inherent in them. They were far too long. Their story was well known and strictly confined by the two covers of the Bible. Their characters were all provided by the familiar narrative. It is true that a few additions to the canonical list were admitted, such as Cain's servant Garcio, Pilate's beadle, and Mak the sheep-stealer. Lively characters were also created out of nonentities like the various Judaeans and soldiers, and the shepherds. But these were all minors; they had no influence on the course of the action, and the smallness of their part made anything like a full delineation impossible. They were real men, recognizable as akin to local types, but no more; one never knew anything of them beyond their simplicity or brutality. Meanwhile their superiors, clothed in the stiff dress of tradition and reverence, passed over the stage with hardly an idea or gesture to distinguish them from their predecessors of three centuries before.

The English nation grew tired of Bible Plays. There can be no doubt of this if we consider the kind of play that for a time secured the first place in popularity. Only audiences weary of its alternative could have waxed enthusiastic over The Castell of Perseverance or Everyman. Something shorter was wanted, with an original plot and some fresh characters. To some extent, as has been shown, the Saint Plays supplied these requirements, and one is tempted to suspect that in the latter part of their career there was some subversion of the relative positions of the two rival types of Miracle. But what was asked for was novelty. Both forms of the Miracle were hundreds of years old, and both had to suffer the same fate, of relegation to a secondary place in the Drama. In letting them pass from our notice, however, we must not exaggerate their decline. The first Moralities appeared as early as the fifteenth century, but some of the great Miracles (e.g. of Chester and York) lasted until near the end of the sixteenth century. For some time, therefore, the latter must have held their own. Indeed the former probably met with their complete success only when they had become merged in the Interludes.

In its purest form the Morality Play was simply the subject of the Miracle Play writ small, the general theme of the Fall and Redemption of Man applied to the particular case of an individual soul. The central figure was a Human Being; his varying fortunes as he passed from childhood to old age supplied the incidents, and his ultimate destiny crowned the action. Around him were grouped virtues and vices, at his elbows were his good and his bad angel, while at the end of life waited Heaven or Hell to receive him, according to his merits and the mercy of God. The merits were commonly minimized to emphasize the mercy, with happy results for the interest of the play.

It is easy to see how all this harmonized with the mediaeval allegorical element in religion and literature. A century earlier Langland had scourged wickedness in high places in his famous allegory, Piers Plowman. A century later Spenser was to weave the most exquisite verse round the defeats and triumphs of the spirit of righteousness in man's soul. Nor had allegory yet died when Bunyan wrote, for all time, his story of the battling of Christian against his natural failings. After all, a Morality Play was only a dramatized version of an inferior Pilgrim's Progress; and those of us who have not wholly lost the imagination of our childhood still find pleasure in that book. In judging the Moralities, therefore, we must not forget the audience to which they appealed. We shall be the more lenient when we discover how soon they were improved upon.

Influenced at first by the comprehensiveness of the plot in the Miracle Play, the writers of the early Moralities were satisfied with the compression of action effected by the change from the general to the particular theme. This had brought about a reduction in the time required for the acting; and along with these gains had come the further advantages of novelty and originality. Accordingly the author of The Castell of Perseverance (almost the only true Morality handed down to us) was quite content to let his play run to well over three thousand lines, seeing that within this space he set forth the whole life of a man from the cradle to the grave and even beyond. But later writers were quick to see that this so-called particular theme was still a great deal too general, leaving only the broadest outlines available for characters and incidents. By omitting the stages of childhood and early manhood they could plunge at once into the last stage, where, beneath the shadow of imminent destiny, every action had an intensified interest. Moreover, within such narrowed boundaries each incident could be painted in detail, each character finished off with more realistic traits. It was doubtless under such promptings that the original Dutch Everyman was written, and the alacrity with which it was translated and adopted among English Moralities shows that its principle was welcomed as an artistic advance. An almost imperceptible step led straight from the Everyman type of Morality to the Interludes.

Before tracing further changes, however, it might be well to have before us a more definite notion of the contents of The Castell of Perseverance and Everyman than could be gathered from these general remarks. For a summary of the former we shall be glad to borrow the outline given by Ten Brink in his History of English Literature.[34]

'Humanum Genus appears as a new-born child, as a youth, as a man, and as a graybeard. As soon as the child appears upon the stage we see the Angel of Good and the Angel of Evil coming and speaking to him. He follows the Evil Angel and is led to Mundus (the World), who gives him Joy and Folly, and very soon also Slander, for his companions. By the latter—or, to stick to the literal expression of the poet, by this latter female personage—Humanum Genus is introduced to Greed, who soon presents to him the other Deadly Sins. We see the hero, when a young man, choosing Lust as his bed-fellow; and, in spite of the endeavours of his Good Angel, he continues in his sinful career until at length Repentance leads him to Confession. At forty years of age we see him in the Castle of Constancy [or Perseverance], whither he has been brought by Confession, surrounded by the seven most excellent Virtues. … The castle is surrounded by the three Evil Powers and the Seven Deadly Sins, with the Devil at their head, and with foot and horse is closely besieged. Humanum Genus commends himself to his general, who died on the cross; but the Virtues valiantly defend the Castle; and Love and Patience and their sisters cast roses down on the besiegers, who are thereby beaten black and blue, and forced to retire. But Humanum Genus in the meantime has become an old man, and now yields to the seductions of Greed, who has succeeded in creeping up to the castle walls. The old man quits the Castle and follows the seducer. His end is nigh at hand. The rising generation, represented by a Boy, demands of him his heaped-up treasures. And now Death and Soul appear upon the scene. Soul calls on Mercy for assistance; but the Evil Angel takes Humanum Genus on its back and departs with him along the road to Hell. In this critical position of affairs the well-known argument begins, where Mercy and Peace plead before God on the one side, and Justice and Truth on the other. God decides in favour of Mercy; Peace takes the soul of Humanum Genus from the Evil Angel, and Mercy carries it to God, who then pronounces the judgment—and afterwards the epilogue of the play.'

The plot of Everyman is as follows.

Everyman, in the midst of life's affairs, is suddenly summoned by Death. Astonished, alarmed, he protests that he is not ready, and offers a thousand pounds for another twelve years in which to fill up his 'Account'. But no delay is possible. At once he must start on his journey. Can he among his friends find one willing to bear him company? He tries. But Fellowship and Kindred and Cousin, willing enough for other services, decline to undertake this one. Goods (or Wealth) confesses that, as a matter of fact, his presence would only make things worse for Everyman, for love of riches is a sin. Finally Everyman seeks out poor forgotten Good-Deeds, only to find her bound fast by his sins. In this strait he turns to Knowledge, and under her guidance visits Confession, who prescribes a penance of self-chastisement. The administration of this has so liberating an effect on Good-Deeds that she is able to rise and join Everyman and Knowledge. To them are summoned Discretion, Strength, Beauty and Five-Wits—friends of Everyman—and all journey together until, as they draw near the end, the last four depart. At the grave Knowledge stays outside, but Good-Deeds enters with Everyman, whose welcome to Heaven is announced directly afterwards by an angel. The epilogue, spoken by a Doctor, supplies a pious interpretation of the play.

Such are the stories of the two best known Moralities. From them we can judge how great a change had come over the drama. Nowhere is there any incident approaching the nature of 'The Sacrifice of Isaac', nowhere is there any character worthy to stand beside the Mary of the Miracle Play. Those are the losses. On the other hand, we perceive a new compactness—still loose, but much in advance of what existed before—whereby the central figure is always before us, urged along from one act and one set of surroundings to another, towards a goal which is never lost sight of. Also there is the invention which provides for these two plays different plots, as well as some diversity of characters. The superiority of the shorter play—Everyman contains just over nine hundred lines—to the older one is less readily detected in a comparison of bare plots, though it becomes obvious as soon as one reads the plays. It lies in a more detailed characterization, in a deliberate attempt to humanize the abstractions, in the substitution of something like real conversation for the orderly succession of debating society speeches. The following extracts will illustrate this difference.