The York Mystery Plays - Essay Example

English Essay With reference to at least two of the Corpus Christi plays we’ve studied, examine the ways in which the literary structure of the plays (stanza form, repetition, alliteration etc.) suit large scale outdoor performance. The York Mystery plays of Corpus Christi cover up the sacred history from the day of creation to the last Day of Judgment. The plays are 48 in number and they are a Middle English cycle (Beadle and King 12). The plays were presented on traditional festivals like Corpus Christi. This was a mobile feast, which took place on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday every year. The feast was celebrated between 23rd May and 24th June. The feast, which was celebrated in the city of York since mid fourteenth century, was lastly celebrated in the city in 1959 (Beadle and King 16). York Corpus Christi Plays is the only four full surviving English Mystical play cycles taught and remembered up to date. Others like Chester Mystery Plays, N-Town Plays and Towneley Wakefield Plays still exist, but are not strongly remembered like the York Corpus Christi Plays. This essay is an examination of the ways in which the literary structure of the Corpus Christi plays York creation and York Crucifixion, (stanza form, repetition, alliteration etc.) suit large scale outdoor performance. The plays use various verse forms, which rhyme to create a regular rhythm with comprehensible short lines and recurring alteration. The plays presents a balanced critical opinion to favour the issue of various clerics who are presented as responsible for their authorship. In addition, the plays have been presented chronologically to suit large scale outdoor performance. Both scholars of literature and non-scholars can follow the events comprehensibly (Toulmin 43). For instance, in York creation, the play begins with the creation of the world before proceeding to the fall of Lucifer. The play goes further to explain why Lucifer fell from glory. Lucifer was so handsome to an extent of admiring his face on the mirror (Toulmin 43). His handsomeness made him refuse to praise God together with other angels. Lord became angry and decided to punish him by casting him into hell and taking away his beauty. The play proceeds chronologically to address the creation story from day 1 to day 5. The five days God created the universe and everything in it show the power the God had over the physical world. On the sixth day, God created human beings who are Adam and Eve and brought them into paradise, which by then was the Garden of Eden (Toulmin 45). God prohibited them from eating from the tree of knowledge. The story proceeds systematically to the level where man failed to obey God by eating from the forbidden tree and God decided to expel him from the Garden of Eden. This is how sin came to man. Thereafter, Glovers Cain and Abel story is presented, the Shipwrights of Noah’s Ark, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and the Exodus where Moses led the Israelites out of Pharaoh’s leadership in Egypt (Toulmin 49). The story proceeds systematically up to the point Jesus was condemned to death by being crucified before the next series of the play York Crucifixion is ushered in. The York Crucifixion series has also followed the same trend. It begins with the crucifixion of Jesus, his death, the harrowing of hell, the resurrection of Jesus, the story of Jesus encountering Mary Magdalene, how Jesus was met by his followers while on his way to Emmaus, the encounter of Jesus with his Follower the doubting Thomas, the ascension of Jesus, the Pentecost where the Holy Spirit descended on earth, the death of Mary who was the mother of Jesus, the Assumption where the soul of Mary was taken into heaven after death, and the coronation where Mary is crowned and reunited to his son Jesus Christ (Beadle 102). Thereafter, the next series of the play is York Harrowing of Hell and York Last Judgment. In the York Crucifixion, the priest consecrates wine and bread over his head in prayer; a sign of elevation (Beadle 156). This was done for people to get a clear action view. People could run from church to church to see the elevated Host as much as possible because they believed the more elevations one saw, the more grace that individual acquired. This is a repetitive literary structure used to emphasize on the importance of elevation in the play. This was suitable for large scale outdoor performance because by the end of the 12th century, more miraculous stories began circulating as a result of elevation (Beadle 158). People claimed to have seen visions, which entailed host shone that resembled the sun, a little child that had appeared in the hands of the priest and so on. Some congregations opted to wait for the sance bell to ring to signal the appearance of consecration. As soon as elevation was over, people would rush out as fast as they had entered the church (Beadle 162). Elevation was given so much significance to an extent that people started complaining to ensure they were situated in pews, which would allow them to view the alter with ease, some priests sought to take bribes so as to protract the elevation (Beadle 163). Elevation was used in this case to symbolize grace. Both plays are communal events. Almost everyone can participate in the plays in one way or the other. The plays can accommodate the guilds, the church, tourists, city officials and other audiences. This is because the plays contain a lot of relieves like songs, music and costumes which mostly lavish special effects. The plays are overtly and preachy for the sake of passing the message to a wide public including the illiterate through performance (Toulmin 84). The performances are usually made back to back in the same location. For instance, the 48 episodes of the York cycle can last up to 48 hours. The performance is sometimes staggered and the performance stations are set a part to encourage actors to spend time moving their wagons or waiting anxiously on line to perform (Toulmin 89). This is done to extend the event’s duration so as to encourage more people to attend. The plays serve as religious outlets. The author of the plays chose this structure because most people were illiterate during the period. The illiterates played a crucial role in spreading the Christian message to the public. For instance, the York creation incorporates a long monologue, which was delivered by a learned gentleman to the audience (Toulmin 90). The gentleman gave a sermon discussing the relevance of the prophecies in the Old Testament, which aim at nativity. The speaker is used to ensure the audience comprehends everything they need to know so that they can appreciate the worth of the events portrayed to them by the actors (Toulmin 92). In this case, the actors symbolize the living icons and windows used to enter the spiritual realm, which seemed very close during the era. The participation of guild masters, tourists and town officials among others in the celebrations of Corpus Christi is a sign that the feast can accommodate a large scale outdoor performance (96). The York Mystery plays of Corpus Christi, like the York Creation and York Crucifixion are interwoven completely into the society. The plays were used throughout the year by city fathers to regulate the business for the local government (Toulmin 99). For instance, the merchants were ordered to pay fine by city officials when they imported leather, which impinged to regulate business. Half of the fine was given to pay tanner’s expenses for mounting the pageant for the following year while the city was allocated the other half. Similarly, fines for detractions like delays, procession disorders or burgher fails were carried forward to the following year’s production (Toulmin 111). These fines were imposed to maintain the quality of the show so that even if large scale outdoor performance was encouraged, the quality of the plays had to remain standardized. The two plays were produced by guilds. This encouraged competition among guilds to produce the best selling play. Guilds were economic, religious and social groups. These groups were linked in a unique way (Robinson 242). For example, in the York Creation, the story of construction of Noah’s ark, wainwrights performed the work. The characterization of Noah in the play was performed by an experienced shipbuilder who employs his craft with talent loaned to him by God. In the York Creation, Jesus is in most cases portrayed to be dressed in white. Most mockers call white the color of fools (Robinson 243). The colour white in these plays has been used as an allegory to symbolize Jesus and his followers to be fools. In this essence, the winesellers who did the feats of Cana, the bakers who did the last supper and the chaundlers who made chandeliers and candles paid for their clothing to be dyed (Robinson 243). The Corpus Christi, which was celebrated every year, had pious volunteering to carry crosses on streets and give them to be crucified temporarily with stainless steel nails, which were sterilized in alcohol (Robinson 246). These volunteers did this to characterize the crucifixion of Jesus. The volunteering to characterize Jesus through crucifixion was meant to make the audience understand fully the pain and grief, which Jesus underwent during his crucifixion on the cross (Robinson 249). This characterization encourages religious devotion in which followers of Christ meditate on the emotional and physical sufferings Jesus went through. Philippines have in most cases applied hyperbole to express the affective piety as an important part of religious instruction, which is designed to stir one’s devotion while living in a society that takes religious matters for granted (Robinson 251). The play York, Crucifixion used pictures, statues and spoken prayers in private chambers. The actors did this to feed their spiritual imagination and encourage martyrdom. They used these extreme cases to encourage serious large scale outdoor performance from believers of Christ. The plays of Corpus Christi are a pilgrimage from the creation to crucifixion to judgment. The plays use the past to direct how the present will progress (Robinson 251). For instance, after the last supper, Jesus is agonized and betrayed. The two plays; York Creation and York Crucifixion are written each in seven stanzas with rhyming couplets (Toulmin 202). The seven stanzas are used for religious significance. According to Christianity, seven is regarded as a perfect number, which makes sense just like Christ is mentioned in the seventh stanza. The tense also tends to continuously change from past to present from the fifth stanza onwards. Stanza one to four symbolizes the death of Jesus, which is a past even while the fifth to the seventh stanza symbolize the Christ who is alive and continues living among his followers. The York Crucifixion is an allegory that describes the crucified as wounded knight. The bleeding Knight symbolizes Christ who bleeds from time to time because of the sins of humanity (Toulmin 210). The verses in the play are written vigorously in alliterative verses. The verses are of high quality to attract the attention of many people into the incidental detail of story telling. This is also done to portray negative character like Pharaoh, Caiaphas and Herod among others. In the York Crucifixion, the stage directions comprise a dialogue involving four Roman Soldiers who crucified Jesus. This aspect holds the clue that people should know the actor playing Christ. The character Christ overstretches himself on the cross while waiting for the soldiers to go ahead and nail him. Instead, the soldiers tie him on the cross as a safety measure. The cross is then raised into a notch on the wagon end and Christ is raised up. Afterwards, the actor (Jesus) calls out to all walking past him and asks them to view his wounds (Toulmin 221). This reminds humanity how Christ loved man to an extent of undergoing great agony in order to save him from sin. The actor in this incidence projects his speech carefully to not only represent the speaking of historical Jesus to people in Jerusalem but to also address the crowds in York (Toulmin 223). The speech is constructed to attract the attention of those in the neighborhood and by extension to address everyone encountering the play. In both plays, the events are dramatized. For instance, the first steps are simple in the Christian faith and the resurrection of Jesus. Before Good Friday celebrations, the cross is made to stand above the altar to bear the figure of the savior (Toulmin 227). The cross is taken and laid beneath the altar during the Good Friday to symbolize the death and burial of Jesus Christ. Two days after Good Friday (Easter Sunday) choirs chant the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Most churches have embraced this drama, and they practice it every year during the Easter season. The drama has been extended to other Christian festivities like Christmas day (Toulmin 231). Little by little as time passes by, Easter scene from the Corpus Christi feast has been enlarged in various celebrations of Christ’s life by Christians. The similar treatment has been given to other festivals like Christmas, which dramatizes how Jesus was born in a manger, the visitation of baby Jesus by the wise men who were led by the star to the place Jesus was laid etc. other biblical scenes have been enacted through the year symbolizing the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Toulmin 236). These scenes have been referred to as liturgical plays, and they have attracted a large audience. Some people have opted to join Christianity because of liking how the liturgical plays are dramatized and, some enjoy dramatizing the plays. The York Mystery plays of Corpus Christi have over time modernized the degree of their texts to fit the audience of the time. This has been done by either radicalizing its policies or replacing all obsolete words and expressions by their modern equivalents or by using contemporary pronunciations (Beadle and King 227). The introductory studies of the York Corpus Christi plays leave a lot to be admired because of the new information availed. Some scholars in the field have provided convincing explanations of the York plays cycle and structure. The plays have been situated within the visual modes of seeing local iconography expectations. This has consequently attracted a large scale outdoor performance because people are interested in contemporary ideas, which can benefit them or help them solve their contemporary issues (Beadle and King 232). As much as The York Mystery plays of Corpus Christi were relevant and significant during the medieval period, and they are likely to loose essence if they are not altered to fit the contemporary era. This is the reason why the plays have been continuously updated. For instance, in 2012 the plays were returned to the Museum Gardens in York, which is their traditional home (Beadle and King 276). The scripts were adapted by various scholars like Mike Kenny, Cruden and Burbridge among others. The show held afterwards attracted a large multitude of thousands of people, some of whom volunteered to work alongside the theatre professionals in every area of production like amateur acting. Characters like God and Jesus were acted by Kingsley Ferdinand while Hawley Graeme acted the character Satan (Beadle and King 276). The production reviews came out positively and the audience was impressed with the modern stage design and the efforts of the volunteers. Since then, the audience kept on growing more and more. Works Cited Beadle, Richard and King, Pamela M. York Mystery Plays: A selection in Modern Spelling. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. Beadle, Richard. The York Plays. London: E. Arnold, 1982. Print. Robinson, Joe, W. "The Art of the York Realist". Modern Philology LX .4 (1963): 241–251.  Toulmin Smith L. York Plays: the Plays performed by the Crafts or Mysteries of York on the Day of Corpus Christi in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885. Print.  Read More