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LYLE, MARIE C[AROLINE] The original identity of the York and Towneley cycles.
Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1919 First Edition Hard Cover Good
Research publications of the University of Minnesota, vol. VIII, no. 3, June 1919, Studies in language and literature number 6. 113 pages, cloth, rebound ex-library with usual library markings otherwise very good. From the preface: "The theory of the formation of cycles of mystery plays held by earlier students of the subject was that they were written by various individual authors at various places and were collected into groups much as Elizabethan or other plays are collected . . In the thesis which follows, I endeavor to explain the problem presented by the tangled series of agreements and differences between two of the more important documents in early English literature. From various evidences in the forms preserved and from the scanty historical records of the gilds responsible for the acting of the plays, I attempt to discover the relationship between the two great cycles of Yorkshire plays, and arrive at the conclusion that, at an earlier period, the York cycle and the Towneley cycle were, as cycles, one and the same." From the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition: "miracle play or mystery play, form of medieval drama that came from dramatization of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. It developed from the 10th to the 16th cent., reaching its height in the 15th cent. The simple lyric character of the early texts, as shown in the Quem Quœritis, was enlarged by the addition of dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the performance was moved to the churchyard and the marketplace. Rendered in Latin, the play was preceded by a prologue or by a herald who gave a synopsis and was closed by a herald's salute. When a papal edict in 1210 forbade the clergy to act on a public stage, supervision and control of presenting the plays passed into the hands of the town guilds, and various changes ensued. The vernacular language replaced Latin, and scenes were inserted that were not from the Bible. The acting became more dramatic as characterization and detail became more important. Based on the Scriptures from the creation to the Second Coming and on the lives of the saints, the plays were arranged into cycles and were given on church festival days, particularly the feast of Corpus Christi, lasting from sunrise to sunset. Each guild was responsible for the production of a different episode. With simple costumes and props, guild members, who were paid actors, performed on stages equipped with wheels (see pageant); each scene was given at one public square and drawn on to its next performance at another, while a different stage succeeded it. Named after the towns in which they were performed, the principal English cycles are the York Plays (1430-40), the longest, containing 48 plays; the Towneley or Wakefield Plays (c.1450, in Yorkshire); the Coventry Plays (1468); and the Chester Plays (1475-1500)."
Price:
35.00 USD
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