Genre morality play Written by Anonymous | Original language Middle English Date premiered ca. 1460-1470 | |
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Characters Wisdom (dressed as Christ); Lucifer; Anima, the Soul; Mind; Will; Understanding; The Five Wits | ||
Wisdom (also known as Mind, Will, and Understanding) is one of the earliest surviving medieval morality plays. Together with Mankind and The Castle of Perseverance, it forms a collection of early English moralities called "The Macro Plays". Wisdom enacts the struggle between good and evil; as an allegory, it depicts Christ (personified in the character of Wisdom) and Lucifer battling over the Soul of Man, with Christ and goodness ultimately victorious. Dating between 1460-1463, the play is preserved in its complete form in the Macro Manuscript, currently a part of the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library (MS V.a. 354). A manuscript fragment of the first 754 lines also belongs to the Bodleian Library (MS Digby 133). Although the author of Wisdom remains anonymous, the manuscript was transcribed and signed by a monk named Thomas Hyngman. Some scholars have suggested that Hyngman also authored the play.
Contents
Synopsis
Unlike other early morality plays, the character signifying man is split into nine different characters: Anima (the soul of man), the three faculties of the soul (Mind, Will and Understanding), and her five senses (known as ‘’the Wits”). Despite boasting a large cast list, the only six speaking roles in the play are Anima, Wisdom, Lucifer, Mind, Will and Understanding. Although the manuscript does not contain scene demarcations, the play can be divided into four sections, based upon a theological schematic of transgression and redemption: innocence, temptation, sinful life, and repentance. In the first part (Lines 1-324), Anima declares her love for Wisdom, the allegorical figure for Christ. The stage directions note that Anima is dressed in white, a symbol of her purity and position as the bride of Christ. The five Wits enter (dressed as virgins), and dance. Wisdom advises Anima and her three faculties (Will, Mind, Understanding) about how to live virtuously. In the second part (325-550), Lucifer tempts each of the three faculties – Will with lechery, Mind with pride, and Understanding with Perjury. In the third part (551-837), each faculty (having exchanged monkish, acetic robes for more fashionable and luxurious ones) devotes himself to sin and dances wildly with six followers. In the final part (838-1108), Wisdom returns to chastise the three faculties for falling into temptation. Anima, Will, Mind and Understanding repent, and the devils are chased from the stage. Recognizing that redemption requires more than her remorse, Anima asks for God’s mercy and grace. Wisdom grants both, before turning to the audience and ending the play with a sermon on avoiding sin and seeking grace.
History
Like Mankind, the Macro Manuscript version of Wisdom bears a Latin inscription by the monk Thomas Hyngman and the phrase (translated), “Oh book, if anyone shall perhaps ask to whom you belong, you will say, “I belong above everything to Hyngham, a monk.” Similarities between this hand and the text of the play lead scholars to believe that Hyngman transcribed the play. Close parallels between the Digby version and Macro version (including congruence of transcription errors).
The particularities of the playtext’s dialect suggest that Wisdom dates between 1460 and 1470 (Davidson argues for a range between 1460 and 1463). The language is an East Midland dialect, particularly common to Norfolk and Suffolk at the time of composition. Although the play conventionally goes by the name Wisdom today, neither manuscript notes a title. Former owner Thomas Sharp referred to the play by the title "Mind, Will, and Understanding" (after the three major characters). The now common moniker “Wisdom” is shorthand for A Morality of Wisdom, who is Christ, pioneered in an 1882 publication of the plays by the philologist Frederick James Furnivall.
Editions and Facsimiles
Several editions of Wisdom have been printed in the past century and a half, including: