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Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. Often they were performed together in cycles which could last for days. The name derives from mystery used in its sense of miracle, but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ministerium, meaning craft, and so the 'mysteries' or plays performed by the craft guilds.
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References
- ↑ Garrett P. J. Epp, 'The Towneley Plays: Introduction', in The Towneley Plays, ed. by Garrett P. J. Epp (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2018).
- ↑ Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, ed. by A. C. Cawley (London: Dent, 1974) [first publ. 1956], p. 105.
- ↑ Peter Ramey, 'The Audience-Interactive Games of the Middle English Religious Drama', Comparative Drama, 47.1 (Spring 2013), 55-83 doi : 10.1353/cdr.2013.000 (p. 59).
- ↑ Katharine Goodland, '"Veniance, Lord, apon thaym fall": Maternal Mourning, Divine Justice, and Tragedy in theCorpus Christi Plays', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 18 (2005), 166-92 (p. 181).
- ↑ David Staines, 'To Out-Herod Herod: The Development of a Dramatic Character', Comparative Drama, 10.1 (spring 1976), 29-53, doi : 10.1353/cdr.1976.0015 (pp. 45-48).
- ↑ Peter Ramey, 'The Audience-Interactive Games of the Middle English Religious Drama', Comparative Drama, 47.1 (Spring 2013), 55-83 doi : 10.1353/cdr.2013.000 (p. 61).
- ↑ Jean E. E. Smith, 'The Characters of Herod the Great and of Herod Antipas in Medieval Drama of Western Europe' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1976), pp. 255-62.
- ↑ David Staines, 'To Out-Herod Herod: The Development of a Dramatic Character', Comparative Drama, 10.1 (spring 1976), 29-53, doi : 10.1353/cdr.1976.0015 (pp. 45-48).
- ↑ Bob Godfrey, 'Herod’s Reputation and the Killing of the Children: Some Theatrical Consequences', in Staging Scripture: Biblical Drama, 1350-1600, ed. by Peter Happé and Wim Hüsken, Ludus, 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 253–78 doi : 10.1163/9789004313958_013.
- ↑ Katharine Goodland, '"Veniance, Lord, apon thaym fall": Maternal Mourning, Divine Justice, and Tragedy in theCorpus Christi Plays', Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, 18 (2005), 166-92.
- ↑ Estella Ciobanu, Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) ISBN 978-3-319-90918-9.