THE STAGING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SELECTED WAKEFIELD NEW TESTAMENT MYSTERY PLAYS (TOWNELEY CYCLE)

Using selected New Testament Wakefield plays, the dissertation examines the way in which play movement on the scaffold interacts with text, illuminated by extra-biblical sources, to produce significant meaning for the audience. A chapter is given to the study of each of the following plays: The Annunciation, The Salutation of Elizabeth, Offering of the Magi, The Flight into Egypt, The Purification of Mary, The Play of the Doctors, John the Baptist, Lazarus, The Conspiracy, The Crucifixion, The Deliverance of Souls, The Resurrection of the Lord, The Pilgrims. A three-step recursive process has been followed to determine the significance of the play. The first step involves a close reading of the text, noting not only story and idea, but also words that are frequently repeated signalling biblical themes not overtly stated. Next there is an attempt to determine the picture on the scaffold. This is done in two ways: first, reading devotional sources, known to be popular in fifteenth-century England, such as Ludolphus of Saxony, and Nicholas Love\u27s translation of Bonaventura, to discover the mental pictures the faithful were encouraged to form for meditation; second, examining visual art of the period relating to the biblical event in the play. Where correlation is discovered between these sources and the play text, it is argued that the play on the scaffold may have corresponded in setting and movement. Finally, the possible picture on the scaffold having been determined, the exegesis of the biblical event is consulted in such standard works as the Glossa Ordinaria. This last step determines the significance of the interaction, mentioned earlier, between text and the movement of the players, their overt physical movement frequently becoming a visual metaphor for the exegesis while simultaneously telling the biblical story