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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Despite the renewal of interest in the Catholic vernacular drama of medieval England, critics generally have failed to understand the framework upon which the unity of the Wakefield Mactacio Abel (The Killing of Abel) rests. If, as I believe, the central issue in the play is the response of mankind to God's grace against the background of the whole of history, then those who would admire the play solely for its realism or for its farce are not properly responding to the drama. There are many who perhaps do find the theology implicit in medieval drama to be rather dull fare, but in no way can the religious doctrine be split away from other aspects of this play.
1 See Hurrell, John D., ‘The Figural Approach to Medieval Drama,’ CE 26 (1965) 599–600.Google Scholar
2 Prosser, Eleanor, Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays (Stanford 1961) 80.Google Scholar
3 Quotations from the Wakefield cycle are from The Towneley Plays , ed. England, George, EETS, E. S. LXXI (London 1897).Google Scholar
4 Taylor, Jerome, ‘The Dramatic Structure of the Middle English Corpus Christi, or Cycle, Plays,’ in Literature and Society , by Bree, Germaine, et al (Lincoln, Nebr. 1964) 182.Google Scholar
5 Gardner, John, ‘Theme and Irony in the Wakefield Mactacio Abel,’ PMLA 80(1965)515.Google Scholar
6 My approach to medieval drama in this paper is in line with an important aspect of medieval thought which is brilliantly interpreted by Erich Auerbach in his essay ‘Figura,’ which appears in his Scenes from the Drama of European Literature: Six Essays (New York 1959). This approach to the subject matter of the plays is implicit in the liturgy for Corpus Christi. In the sequence Lauda, Sion, we find: Google Scholar
In figuris praesignatur, cum Isaac immolatur: Google Scholar
Agnus Paschae deputatur: datur manna patribus.Google Scholar
Also, the Postcommunion asserts that the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ prefigures the eternal enjoyment of Christ's divinity.Google Scholar
7 Craig, Hardin, English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (Oxford 1960) 133.Google Scholar
8 In Ps. CII , 8, as quoted in An Augustine Synthesis , ed. Przywara, Erich (New York 1958) 382.Google Scholar
9 Adversus Marcionem , 3. 5, as quoted in Auerbach, , Six Essays, 42.Google Scholar
10 See Auerbach, , Six Essays , 40–41.Google Scholar
11 See Taylor, , art. cit., 184, who perceptively explains that ‘the conflict between these two groups [the descendants of Cain and the “instruments of God”] provides the substance of the complication’ for the structure of the mystery cycle as a whole.Google Scholar
12 Anderson, M. D., Drama and Imagery in English Medieval Churches (Cambridge 1963) 144.Google Scholar
13 Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas , ed. Adams, Joseph Quincy (Boston 1924) 91.Google Scholar
14 Anderson, , op, cit. , 26.Google Scholar
15 Judas's inverse tithe-offering reminds us that, in direct contrast to the worthy followers of Christ, the anti-saint takes away for his own use. The Offertory for Corpus Christi (Lev. 21.6) emphasizes the necessity of right sacrifice for a holy life.Google Scholar
16 Anderson, , op. cit. , 144.Google Scholar
17 See Wickham, Glynne, Early English Stages , I (New York 1963) 122 and passim. Wickham discusses the Corpus Christi procession and its relationship to the drama. While he believes that the dramatic presentation did not grow out of the procession, he does show that the meaning of the Corpus Christi procession is significant for an understanding of the drama.Google Scholar
18 See Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis (Garden City 1957) 138ff.Google Scholar
19 Auerbach, , Mimesis , 140.Google Scholar