Mankind
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Mankind
（Middle English texts）
Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, c2010
- : pbk
- Uniform Title
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Note
"The project is sponsored by the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS) and is affiliated with the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo"--Back cover
Bibliography: p. 81-85
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Kathleen M. Ashley
Mankind
Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes
Bibliography
by "Nielsen BookData"