The Chester Plays | Karl Tamburr (essay date 1984)
Karl Tamburr (essay date 1984)
SOURCE: "The Dethroning of Satan in the Chester Cycle," in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Vol. LXXXV, No. 3, 1984, pp. 316-28.
[In the following excerpt, originally given as a paper at Villanova University on September 26, 1981, Tamburr describes the uniqueness of the Chester Cycle's dramatization of the Fall of Satan.]
Some recent studies of the English cycle drama have shown how the medieval playwright would often go beyond the confines of his sources to emphasize particular stage actions. If repeated, these actions could become dramatic motifs that would, in turn, stress some larger theological point. For example, Thomas Rendall [in "Liberation Bondage in the Corpus Christi plays," Neuphilologische Mitteilunge 71, 1970] shows that the continual binding and loosing of Jesus during the Corpus Christi Passion sequences become a metaphor for the redemption of mankind from the bondage of sin. Another...
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