EN392 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Seven Deadly Sins, Titivillus, Theatricality
EN392
Week 2 Readings
Criticism of Bakhtin
•
Quem Quaeritis (p. 698-699)
• Originally a trope, or an expansive insertion into the standard text of the Mass
• Originated in early 10th cen., taking the form of an antiphonal song, wherein 2 groups of the
choir on opposite sides of the cathedral nave would sing in a call-and-answer form
• Turned into a play
• Just tells the story that Jesus has risen and the cloths he once bore remain without him
The Chester Play of Noah’s Flood (p. 741-52)
• Chester is a northern English town near the Welsh border
• The story of Noah was a popular subject in medieval biblical drama and encapsulates a mini
version of the broader narrative of creation, fall, and redemption
• Part of a yle of pageats perfored & as assiged to the aterleaders ad draers of Dee,
who drew and carried water from the river Dee which runs through Chester
• Different from the traditional biblical narrative, especially regarding his wife’s role
• God tells Noah to build an arc
• Whe he tells his ife to joi hi she o’t
• Then tells him to bring animals to save and that can be eaten
• Wife o’t go uless her hole faily a oe
• Her son forces her onto the boat but she takes a swing at Noah
• God then gives them further instruction and blessing
• The it’s the proper ile story i oder Eglish
Mankind (p. 753-73)
• Oe of ay orality plays that eae popular i Eglad etee 4-1550, at roughly
the same time as the surviving biblical pageant plays
o Not a medieval term, but created in the 18th cen.
o A secular form &, unlike the cycle plays, does not tell stories from the Bible or about the
lives of the saints
o Often have an overtly religious message and tone
o May’e deeloped out of the Pater Noster prayer & its draati deriaties fousig
on the 7 cardinal virtues & 7 deadly sins, depicting life as a psychomania, or the constant
struggle between good and evil in the human soul
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