Shared Flashcard Set

Details

Early Drama
Terms
54
English
Undergraduate 3
12/03/2013

Additional English Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Mystery Plays
Definition
also known as miracle plays, cycle plays or civic drama. Biblical plays tracing the history of the Fall and Redemption of Man.
Term
Morality Play
Definition
allegorical psychodrama. They deal with the perpetual struggle between the forces of good and evil for the possession of the individual soul. 15th-16th centuries. Frequent in didactic lit: moral values (vices and virtues), concepts (death, the world), human and social types (the poor).
Term
Interludes
Definition
cheerful, largely secular plays of no particular length.
Term
Liturgical Plays
Definition
usually in Latin and sung, they are embedded into a church service.
Term
Biblical plays
Definition
most familiar as an individual pageant in the major cycles.
Term
Saints' plays
Definition
prolific genre evidence very early. Known plays emphasize the miraculous, expressed by grand special effects. Closely related: plays about miracles (the Croxton Play of the sacrament).
Term
Tropes
Definition
can be defined broadly to include all additions to pre-existent chants, with the verb 'troping' meaning to embellish or decorate a chant. The generic term trope, however, is commonly broken down into three categories, and the term applied only to the first category. Thus tropes, narrowly speaking, are interpolated new verses (both text and music). Additions of words only to pre-existing melismas or expansive worldless melismas.
Term
Antiphonal Psalm
Definition
the alternating singing or chanting of the psalm made by one side of the choir to the other.
Term
Responsorial psalms
Definition
all the verses are allocated to the cantor with only the briefest or repeated answers left to the rest of the community
Term
Longinus
Definition
soldier who pierced the side of Christ on the cross.
Term
Tail-rhyme stanza
Definition
a stanza that combines longer lines with 2 or more short lines or 'tails.' The measure associated in particular with a group of ME romances in which a pair of rhyming lines is followed by a single line of different length and the three-line pattern is repeated to make up a six-line stanza. Deus in Creation and Fall of angels: aabccb, closing with aabaab.
Term
Couplets
Definition
a pair of rhyming verse lines, usually of the same length; one of the most widely used verse-forms in European poetry.
Term
Fabliau
Definition
a coarsely humorous short story in verse, dealing in a bluntly realistic manner with stock characters of the middle class involved in sexual intrigue or obscene pranks. Fabliaux flourished in France in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Term
Corpus Christi
Definition
body of Christ. day on which the real presence of Christ in the host at Mass is celebrated. Feast instituted in 1264 as a movable feast between 21 May and 24 June.
Term
Travail
Definition
a hard physical labour, toil. Vocation, craft, spiritual or physical labour as religious obligation; suffering, punishment.
Term
Seven Last Words of Christ
Definition
various versions of his last words "father why hast thou forsaken me" or "forgive them father for they know not what they've done."
Term
Hell Mouth
Definition
a 'mansion' structure or 'house' representing hell often appeared in the simultaneous setting of cycle biblical plays in medieval theatre. It took the form of a monstrous dragon's head with gaping jaws, inside which the dammed could often be seen boiled in a cauldron.
Term
Allegory
Definition
a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. Personification as its main technique. Continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning.
Term
Place and Scaffold
Definition
production in the round using "scaffolds" or raised stages and also the "platea" or the "place" between the stages
Term
Platea
Definition
Latin Plattus (flat area) translated "the place" used to describe the main acting area in medieval theatre, particularly when this was within a surrounding circle of audience or mansions.
Term
Great Hall
Definition
chief room in any substantial household whether the court of the king or of a lord. Temporal or spiritual.
Term
Shrovetide
Definition
3 days before Lent. Taking name from "shrive" meaning to confess. Ash Wednesday Up to Easter.
Term
Lent
Definition
40 day fast before Easter
Term
Macronic Verse
Definition
poetry in which two or more languages are mixed together. The term denotes a kind of comic verse in which words from a vernacular language are introduced into Latin.
Term
Bal des ardents
Definition
28 January 1393 in Paris at which Charles VI of France performed and him and actors were dressed as trees and caught fire.
Term
Dance of Death (Totendanz, Danse Macabre)
Definition
This motif in literature and art consists of figures various strata of society being led by dancing figure of Death. They are reminders of mortality and human equality in the face of Death.
Term
Ars Moriendi
Definition
the art of dying. "good death" From 13th century concerned for a greater involvement of the faithful, the Church manifested a concrete desire to assist the sick and dying. At this time sermons specifically devoted to death were composed. Its one message: death must be expected at any moment and in every place.
Term
Parable of the Talents
Definition
Mat 25:14-30. Man gives 3 servants money. One gets 5 doubles it, the other gets 2 and doubles it and the one who gets one buries it.
Term
Zacheus
Definition
sinner wants to give his money to poor. Jesus says it's acceptable-- he too is a son of Abraham.
Term
Works of Mercy
Definition
The seven love for neighbor. Visit, drink, feed, ransom, clothe, bind up, bury
Term
John Lydgate
Definition
1371-1449. Monk at Bury St. Edmunds
Term
John Shirley
Definition
Scribe. He has rubrics and notes about attributions to what he copies and the performances.
Term
Mumming
Definition
In England, a processional visitation by silent, masked figures to a private house, where dice might be played or a gift bestowed, followed by music and Dancing. Banned in 1418 but continued to 1511. No dialogue, presenter recites lines. Presented at court, in the homes of civic officials at special times.
Term
David
Definition
1000-961 BC. King and Prophet. Author of Psalms. Type figure of Christ King, but he's also his prophet. There is Juvenile pastoral David (shepherd), Warrior (Goliath), Older as King and psalmist. Often seen with a harp in last.
Term
Bycorne
Definition
FAT feeds on meek husbands
Term
Chyschevache
Definition
THIN feeds on patient women
Term
Locus Amoenus
Definition
a pleasance; an ideal setting such as a garden, woods or springs, that can inspire or allegorically illustrate love, virtue, or other qualities.
Term
Roman de la Rose
Definition
Medieval French poem which was an important literary influence during the Middle Ages. First half is Guillaume de Lorris to expound the "art of love" and the second is Jean de Meung: the anatomy of love in an encyclopedic and philosophical tradition.
Term
Candelmasse
Definition
2nd February -- women who had given birth no access to Biblical stuff for 40 days. That's it for Mary.
Term
Eucharist
Definition
Holy Communion from early Christianity, a commemorative ritual re-enacted Christ's sacrifice in the form of an offering of bread and wine which was also a ritual of fellowship. It became part of the Christian liturgy and community worship, and used Christ's words at the Last supper which represented the oncoming Passion: "this is my body" (Mt 26:26).
Term
Transubstantiation
Definition
in the catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, this term signifies the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
Term
Holy Week
Definition
the week that precedes Easter. It includes the commemoration of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), the Last Supper (Holy Thursday), the crucifixion (Good Friday) and Christ's resurrection (Holy Saturday/paschal vigil).
Term
Judas
Definition
one of Jesus' twelve apostles "who betrayed him" for a sum of money: 30 pieces of silver. HIs sin was made more odious by the fact that it was associated with cupidity. He even became the symbol of it.
Term
Apocrypha
Definition
Biblical books which are not in the Canonical Bible such as the Gospel of Nicodemus, which was not accepted in the Canon.
Term
Liturgy
Definition
the ritualized public celebration of the faith of the Church. A form of public worship, especially in the Christian Church. it is all of the prescribed services of the Church, as contrasted with private devotion.
Term
Canonical Hours
Definition
cycle of eight non-Mass services celebrated daily by monks and clerics living in community in the Middle Ages (Matins, lauds, prime)
Term
Figure
Definition
the way God is designated in The Service for Representing Adam. Auerbach: figural interpretation defines a view of reality, at work in Christian thought and biblical narrative. Figural prophecy implies the interpretation of one worldly even through another' the first signifies the second, the second fulfills the first.
Term
tithe
Definition
the payment of a tenth of the produce from lands and stock for the support of the church and clergy.
Term
Farce
Definition
a dramatic genre that developed mainly between 1450 and 1550. Face is a brief comic piece (300-500 verses) with a small number of characters (generally two to six). Conjugal fights etc. -- close in the spirit of fabliau. Its characters are types.
Term
Guild
Definition
groups of individuals with common goals. Their activities, characteristics and composition varied greatly across centuries, regions and industries, but it is typical to divide them into merchant and craft guilds.
Term
Merchant guilds
Definition
Organizations of merchants who were involved in long-distance commerce and local trade.
Term
Craft guilds
Definition
organized along lines of particular trades. The members typically owned and operated small business or family workshops.
Term
Lollards
Definition
name given to the heretical movement of late medieval England based on the ideas of John Wyclif. They took issue with the church on a number of grounds, but especially the power of the papacy, transubstantiation, and the privileges of the priesthood.
Term
John Wyclif
Definition
religious reformer. Doctor of theology at Oxford, attempted religious reform in the wake of the Great Schism.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!