The Ceremony of Innocence (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Ronald Ribman
- First Published: 1968
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Historical
- Time of Work: Winter, 1012, to Christmas, 1013
- Setting: A monastery on the isle of Wight and a castle in England
- Genres: Drama, History play
- Subjects: Justice, History, Murder or homicide, England or English people, War, Christianity, Good and evil, Kings, queens, or royalty, Castles, Denmark or Danish people, Monasteries, monks, or monasticism, Diplomacy or diplomats, Christmas, Dark ages
- Locales: Isle of Wight, England
Characters Discussed
King Ethelred, the poignantly idealistic, moralistic king of England. Against the wishes of many of his advisers and all of his family, he has signed a truce with the Danes. The plot turns around his dogged but hopeless attempts to stave off the unraveling of the fragile peace. He is a visionary who uses the peace to try to educate the peasants and equip a ship for a voyage of discovery. His ethical sense is rooted in guilt: The one man he idolized in his youth, his pious stepbrother who was ruling the country, was killed by his mother so that Ethelred...
[The entire page is 893 words long]
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