Towneley Plays | John Gardner (essay date 1974)
John Gardner (essay date 1974)
SOURCE: A prologue to The Construction of the Wakefield Cycle, Southern Illinois University Press, 1974, pp. 1-12.
[In the following prologue to his study of the structure and unity of the Wakefield plays, Gardner argues that, although the dramas may have been written by different hands, "at a late stage of cycle evolution, one poet took the whole hodgepodge in hand and, by ingenious revision and some rewriting, shaped the collection into an artistic unity."]
If we concentrate principally on the more obvious features of the techniques found in the Wakefield pageants—the characteristic stanza, the randy language, the social criticism—we find the pageants unusual. But if we look at other, less obvious features of the technique found here, such as the thematic use of verbal repetition, the ironic use of scriptural typology, the consistent manipulation of patterns of imagery (especially satanic imagery), and...
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