N-Town Cycle | K. S. Block (essay date 1922)
K. S. Block (essay date 1922)
SOURCE: An introduction to Ludus Coventriae or the Plaie Called Corpus Christi, edited by K. S. Block, Early English Text Society, 1922, pp. xi-lvii.
[In introducing her edition of the cycle, Block describes the details of the manuscript. This excerpt includes her assertions that the manuscript is a compilation and that the cycle differs from other cycles in its ritual and dramatic complexity.]
The general evidence of the various features of the MS …shows that the collection contains parts or the whole of four separate groups: (1) the composite Contemplacio group (viii to xiii); (2) the first Passion (xxvi to xxviii); (3) the second Passion group (xxix to xxxii), dovetailed on by means of the Descent into Hell (xxxiii), of different style, to a Burial play (xxxiv) of similar style, which in its turn is joined (p. 314, beginning of U quire) to a (4) Resurrection and...
[The entire page is 4475 words long]
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