Battling with the body : physical and allegorical violence in the English morality plays

Abstract

Battling with the Body: Physical and Allegorical Violence in the English Morality Plays' investigates ways in which medieval allegory finds corporeal expression in the violence of the late medieval stage. Using the Psychomachia as a touchstone, the work analyzes many medieval sources and analogues, attempting to elucidate the unique dramatic expression of allegorical violence in the medieval English morality plays. The Castle of Perseverance, the Digby, Mary Magdalen, The Pride of Life, and Mankind each contains moments of physical and allegorical violence in which significance confronts physicality and allegory jostles with dramatic verisimilitude. In each case the playwright must attempt to reconcile the idea -usually weighted by non-dramatic narrative tradition -- with the medium of drama. As this investigation demonstrates, allegorical violence is where this struggle for reconciliation is most often manifested and where the morality playwrights most often exhibit their remarkable aristry.