Периоды английской литературы. Карпова В.А - 27 стр.

       In a typical Morality Play personifications are grouped round a central
figure who is a man. This man is not a particular but a representative man,
Everyman. It is for the possession of his soul that these personified impulses and
forces contend.
       Further, in a typical Morality Play there are other important dramatis
personae who are not human. They are the metaphysical or supernatural beings
or powers of medieval theology or mythology – Angels and Devils. These Good
and Bad Angels (or Devils) imply a metaphysical or supernatural universe,
Heaven and Hell. Behind the forces of evil, as they concentrate in the mind of a
man for possession of his soul, is Hell; behind the forces of good, as they
concentrate for his protection, is Heaven.
       The earliest extant Morality Play is “The Castell of Perseverance” (1405).
One of the latest, and probably the best, is “Everyman”, a play which is still very
moving. It is the story of the end of Everyman's life, when Death calls him away
from the world. The world, everything, and everyone, that Everyman has loved
forsake him. He is deserted by Fellowship, his Kindred, his Goods, and, at the
very end, also by Strength, Beauty, even Knowledge. Only his Good Deed is
entirely faithful, who says finely:
                    Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide,
                         In thy most need to be by thy side.
        The Mysteries and Moralities had, indeed, like Chaucer’s work, shown
typically English traits, especially the good-humoured satire of which there is
relatively little in Continental literature.
        By the sixteenth century some of the morality plays had admitted so much
realistic and farcial material that they began to establish a tradition of English
comedy and doubtless contributed much to the interlude which was common in
late fifteenth – and early sixteenth century England.
        The term “Interlude” may mean a play brief enough to be presented in the
interval of a dramatic performance, entertainment, or feast, or it may mean a
play or dialogue between two persons. Some interludes imitate French farce, and
do not exhibit symbolic technique and didactic purpose, while others appear to
have developed from the Morality Play, and still others from the Latin school
drama: the two latter types are likely to be moralistic. The themes of the
interludes include science, philosophy, farcial situations, and even stories from
the Mysteries. The Interludes began to reintroduce the notion (largely forgotten
since Chaucer's time) of England as part of the European cultural community.
They were drawing more exclusively on non – religious and national sources.
The playwrights were often professional scholars from the universities, which
were introducing the Classics and paying more attention to music; not only were
they experimenting with the use of song in drama, but they were going to Latin
comedy for themes and treatment. Their presentation in colleges and in the
dining – halls of the nobles indicates the new purposes of the plays – the study
of declamation and the Classics, and the catering to learned and aristocratic
taste.
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