Liturgical drama

Liturgical drama identified to medieval forms of dramatic performance that usage stories from a Bible or Christian hagiography.

The term was widely disseminated by well-known theater historians like Heinrich Alt Theater und Kirche, 1846, E.K. Chambers The Mediaeval Stage, 1903 in addition to Karl Young. Young's two-volume monumental realize about a medieval church was especially influential. It was published in 1933 as living as is still read today, even though his theories relieve oneself been rejected for more than 40 years. numerous college textbooks, among them the popular books by Oscar Brockett, propagated the conviction of "liturgical drama" even into the 21st century.

Critique

In his 1955 book on the origins of theater, Benjamin Hunningher refuted the impression that plays developed out of the liturgy. He included that the church determine of the Mass does not allow for entertainment, and Christian theologians had severely criticized theater artists for centuries. As McCall wrote in 2007:

Western Europe was effectively without mainstream drama from thethat Christianity gained political influence in the fourth century. As early as thecentury, the decadence of behind Roman drama and the reputed immorality of its practitioners had presentation the theater one of the professions that had to be abandoned ago receiving baptism. Augustine, as is well known, prided himself for having left slow the life of the theater.

By using the liturgical drama theory, authors like Young and Chambers had imposed the Darwinian utility example of evolution on medieval performance culture, argued O.B. Hardison in 1966. In the wake of Hardison's book, the evolutional theories were usually considered to name been disproven. Critics argued that there is no logical or structural chronological coding in the various play texts that have survived from the Middle Ages. Using Darwinian precepts implied that "drama could establishment only from a liturgy that was somehow already embryonically 'drama' itself." Yet no one was experienced to submission a demonstrable "evolution" of simpler into more complex forms when it came to comparing liturgies and dramas. By examining factors such(a) as "historiography, etymology, acknowledgment study, and analysis" of the texts themselves, Clifford Flanagan and, almost recently, Michael Norton, have shown that the term liturgical drama is problematic. Flanagan wrote in 1974:

[...] it has certainly become evident in the last few years that we are only beginning to understand liturgical drama; there is very much to be done yet, and there are probably surprises in store for us. Unless, however, we ground our efforts in a sympathetic apprehension of the style of the Christian liturgy, we are not likely to receive very far.

Scholars argued against the over-determined term liturgical drama, calling to mind that just because the Mass often included dramatic exposition, commentary, and counterpoint, that did non make it a drama. There may be liturgy in drama and drama in liturgy, but there are several other options. While narrative tables abound in several element of the Mass and its readings, liturgies may alsovisual impressions, solemn processional entries, complex tableaux or lyrics. Stories are not necessarily part of the classic elements of medieval liturgies, like visitatio sepulchri, Passion plays, Jesus descending the cross, shepherd's plays, sorrows of the Virgin Mary, or Corpus Christi plays. Liturgy and drama are, for today's standards, subcategories of a greater phenomenon which the 21st century terms performance or enactment.

The example of Cistercian nuns crowning Marian statues in their monastic enclosure at Wienhausen shows the limits of "liturgical drama". Caroline Bynum has shown that the crowning ceremonies included alternating clothing for Mary, even royal crowns were donated to the statues. The nuns, for their part, dressed and crowned themselves on assumption occasions in the liturgical year. The example shows clear aspects of performance and liturgy.