Lynn Forest-Hill - Transgressive Language in Medieval English Drama

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Transgressive Language in Medieval English Drama

Transgressive Language in
Medieval English Drama

Signs of Challenge and Change

Lynn Forest-Hill

First published 2000 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition copyright Lynn Forest-Hill, 2000

Lynn Forest-Hill has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 99042634

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-71873-9 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-315-19572-8 (ebk)

Contents

For present-day readers of late medieval religious and didactic drama the use of copious amounts of abusive, insulting and mocking language in some plays can come as a surprise, or even a shock, and poses problems of interpretation. While a number of excellent short critical studies have been published which shed light on the forms and possible functions of such bad language in the drama, no full-length study of the topic has been done. This book is intended to redress that situation and to illuminate the skill and sophistication with which dramatists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries used a wide vocabulary of abuse, insults, oaths, curses and mocking language to create characterizations, define spiritual states, and drive home didactic points while providing entertaining drama.

My enthusiasm for medieval drama I owe to my former supervisors Dr John J. McGavin, of the English Department at the University of Southampton, and Dr Peter Happ, and I am deeply indebted to them for their help and encouragement, as I am to Dr Bella Millett, also of the English Department at Southampton, who was my adviser and constant intellectual inspiration throughout my research period. I also take this opportunity to thank Professor Greg Walker, of the English Department at the University of Leicester, for his generous help and advice during the preparation of this book.

I should like to record my gratitude to the School for Research and Graduate Studies and the Faculty of Arts, at the University of Southampton, who provided funding for my first year of research, to the University of Southampton for funding the remaining two years, to the Wessex Medieval Centre for additional funding, and to the Hartley Institute for providing funding and facilities during the preparation of this book.

However, without doubt the greatest debt of gratitude I owe is to my family for their constant support and encouragement, and so this book is dedicated to Neville, Diane, and David.

In medieval society some forms of language broke the rules which governed its use. These were not rules of grammar, but concerned vocabulary and modes of expression, and language such as insults, abuse, oaths, and curses transgressed against these rules. The authors of biblical and morality plays in late medieval England used this familiar form of social transgression as a means of commenting on their society. New Historicism has encouraged us to examine texts for evidence of resistance to social authority, and the play texts reveal, through the use of transgressive language, many kinds of cultural behaviour which appear to resist that authority. However, the language, and sometimes the sentiments, which this study will focus on, function in complex ways which are not adequately illuminated by doctrinaire interpretations.

The significance of language is always determined by the contexts in which it is used. Although transgressive language remains indebted to its social significance, in the biblical, moral, and political drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it is subject to the artistic endeavour of the dramatists. Wherever transgressive language is used it contributes to the interactive relationship between words, action, and audience which is unique to drama, and prompts complex audience responses. Although the latter cannot be derived from non-dramatic sources, they can be inferred from the drama, and from knowledge of the auspices under which the plays were produced.

Transgressive language in didactic drama derives an important part of its significance from its social context, and an examination of the medieval sermons and laws which laid down the rules governing its use will show that language could be sinful, or conducive to sin, or illegal in secular terms, and was punished by penance, humiliation, and fines. These sermons and laws show that language had moral significance in medieval society, and this was used with subtlety by dramatists in both biblical and morality genres to create characterizations and draw spectators into relationships with characters. These would prompt emotional and intellectual responses from spectators, and change with the action of a play.

Dramatists created their characterizations using the moral significance of transgressive language in conjunction with prosodic style, costume, and action. By examining the diversity, complexity, and development of this language in the cycles of biblical plays commonly referred to as the mystery cycles; in the three fifteenth-century moralities known as the Macro plays; and then in three sixteenth-century political moralities: John Skeltons Magnyfycence, John Heywoods The Play of the Wether, and John Bales King Johan, we will see how these characterizations create changing relationships between audiences and characters, and serve the didactic purposes of the plays.

Dramatists exploited the flexibility of transgressive language to create varied and subtle characterizations which mirrored for late medieval society its own imperfections. Such language used by any character defines the extent of that characters sinfulness and rejection of the social and religious ideals of medieval society, while changes in a characters use of transgressive language signal changes in his or her sinful condition. However, virtuous characters may use the same language to punish sinfulness. The ways in which characters use this language would provoke emotional and intellectual responses from spectators, which reflect, and contribute to, the didactic purposes of the plays.

When the condemnation of transgressive language in the sermons and laws is compared with its exploitation as a means of creating social, spiritual, or moral characterizations, a difference is revealed between the society represented in drama and the society producing the drama. In that gap between reality and representation social criticism and religious instruction flourish. The most extensive use of transgressive language for social and religious comment is in the cycles of biblical plays.

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