Mankind (TEAMS Middle English Texts Series) - Softcover

Kathleen M Ashley, Gerard NeCastro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580441408 ISBN 13: 9781580441407

Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010

Synopsis

One of the most interactive and theatrically sophisticated early English plays, the fifteenth-century Middle English morality play Mankind balances and complicates a conventional allegory of vice and virtue with a thematic emphasis on language. Associated with Lent and the pre-Lenten season of Carnival, it dramatizes a verbal battle waged for Mankind’s soul: it pits the stately, Latinate preaching of Mercy, who embodies Lent’s emphasis on penitence, confession, and piety, against the rhetorical tricks of the demon Titivillus and jokes, derision, and vulgarity from the four vices of worldly temptation, representing carnival themes of revelry, trickery, and social upheaval. Each side addresses the audience throughout the play, implicating them in their machinations for or against Mankind. Engaging with the late-medieval religious conflict between English-language Lollardy and a Catholic orthodoxy built on Latinate authority, Mankind demands that its audience distinguishes between virtuous and vicious uses of language, whether in Latin or English.

About this title

About the Authors

Kathleen Ashley is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Southern Maine. Her research interests include medieval literature, autobiography studies, African-American literature, cultural theory, and contemporary women writers.

Gerard P. NeCastro is a Professor of English at the University of Maine at Machias. His research interests include early Middle English drama, Chaucer, and healing in the Middle Ages. He is the founder and current secretary of Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages.

Edition details

• Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1580441408
• ISBN 13: 9781580441407
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96