A Comparison Of Medieval And R
It is amazing how aspects of society can and will change so significantly over the course of a few hundred years. Between the time periods of the Medieval era and the Renaissance, one can note numerous significant changes, mainly those pertaining to religion and art, and specifically, drama. In Medieval times, people seemed to rely mainly on the church and God for their entertainment purposes; whereas during the Renaissance, the focus was more secular: humans and life on earth. In general, ideals and subjects evolved from unquestionable Church dogma (and therefore very safe subject matter) to ideas that focused on the questions of humanity (and therefore creating an unstable and ...
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at making advancements in the church. Thus, the Cycle Dramas or English Passion Plays were performed with the permission and "help" of the church. It is thought that church clergy probably wrote the playlets and then gave it over to the Guilds to be performed. Although the appearance of the Cycle Dramas seems unimaginative and commonplace at a first glance, there are some striking innovations in terms of furthering a dramatic structure. This is the first time we see the use of a double plot in which the honored and revered story is compared to a similar situation but of a base (and most times, immoral) story. A perfect example of this is in The Second Shepard's Play where Mak and Mak's wife, Gill, imitate the glorious scene of Christ's birth in the manger by putting the stolen lamb in a basket and pretending it is a baby. Almost every Cycle Drama has a similar structure, and the dramas that came after the Cycle Dramas continue to use this structure. We can see the double ...
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strife between the Catholics and Protestants, and to avoid conflict, Queen Elizabeth forbid the subject matter of religion to enter into any play, and thus Shakespeare very craftily described worlds in his plays that related to religion, but had none as specific as Christianity. With these circumstances he was able to open the door to a type of thought not used since the Greek age. In his play, King Lear, Shakespeare describes a world in which "the gods are just, and of our pleasant vice make instruments to plague us." In other words, the gods are just but cruel. And thus, dramatic focus had changed from the security of religious dogma in the Medieval era to a more humanistic, ...
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"A Comparison Of Medieval And R." Essayworld.com. January 31, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Comparison-Of-Medieval-And-R/40455.
"A Comparison Of Medieval And R." Essayworld.com. January 31, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Comparison-Of-Medieval-And-R/40455.
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