Morality Play Essay

* Popular from the early 1400s to the 1580s. * Morality plays were about the fate of a single individuals soul. * The briny character represented on the whole creationpower and oft had a name such as Mankind or Everyman to expose their allegorical function. * They include vice and lure characters attempt to corrupt the Everyman figure. * Allegorical characters in like manner represent virtues. The Everyman character listens to them and takes note of warnings, often returning briefly to his good lifestyle.* A reform/relapse pattern is repeated several times. * Through a serial of blunders and moral lessons the hero is gradually enlightened into an understanding of the difference between adept and wrong and the nature of god. * At the contain, the main character settles his accounts with God and either lives or dies forgiven and Christian. He is wiser and better at the end of the play. * A chorus, such as the messenger and Doctor characters in Everyman, is used to chit- chat on and explain the action for the audience. Elements of spiritual rebirth plays.* Contain soliloquies in which a exceedingly distinct self reflects upon his own desires and actions. * honor the scope of human powers while acknowledging their boundaries there is a duality at mould which praises mans creative powers (by conditional relation also those of the poet, or author) but concedes that man is not God and that ultimately all his powers derive from God. * They begin to refer to the youthful countries and things being discovered by explorers, mentioning exotic settings and transporting their audiences around the human race.Renaissance ideas * The body and soul are separate and linked with antithetical elements and humours. * Catholicism was banned in England and the pontiff was considered the antichrist by some. * Renaissance scholars studied Hellenic literature, including Roman and Greek philosophy. Discussion of what it meant to be human centred on reason, balan ce and high-handedness much more individualistic than chivalric scholastic thinking.* The humanist attitude to the world was anthropocentric instead of regarding humanity as fallen and corrupt, their idea of truth and goodness was based on human value and experience people openly questioned religious theology and teaching. * The world was dynamic, changing and exciting. Plays explored the many an(prenominal) contrasts between how people should behave and how they real do, and the questions and contradictions thrown up by a changing world.