Everyman (play)
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| Everyman (play) | |
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| Name | Everyman |
| Caption | Title page of a 1530s edition |
| Writer | anonymous (commonly attributed to a late medieval dramatist) |
| Premiere | c. 15th century |
| Place | England |
| Original language | Middle English |
| Genre | Morality play |
Everyman (play) is a late medieval English morality play that dramatizes the allegorical journey of a protagonist summoned by Death to give an account of his life before God. The work, composed in Middle English, distills influences from Christianity-derived devotional literature, late medieval mystery play traditions, and scholastic moral theology debates, and has been central to studies of late medieval drama, English Reformation cultural history, and devotional didacticism. Scholars situate the piece within the corpus of anonymous didactic dramas transmitted alongside texts associated with William Caxton, Thomas Aquinas, and John Wycliffe-era religious discourse.
Background and Origins
Everyman emerges from the late medieval theatrical and literary milieu of fifteenth-century England when allegorical didactic drama flourished alongside liturgical drama and popular cycles such as the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, and the Wakefield Cycle. Influences cited include continental Latin exempla, the Dutch play Elckerlijc (often compared in attribution debates), and devotional prose like the works of Richard Rolle and Benedicta of England-era meditative texts. The play’s anonymous authorship has prompted attribution hypotheses linking it to members of urban guilds, clerical dramatists, or translators working in the wake of William Caxton’s printing initiatives and the circulation of vernacular moral literature across Flanders, Holland, and England.
Plot Synopsis
The drama opens with allegorical figures such as Death and ecclesiastical personifications summoned to reprimand a sinful world. Death confronts the protagonist—an everyman archetype analogous to a late medieval layperson—and demands reckoning before God. The protagonist seeks companions for his final journey; he turns to Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Knowledge, Discretion, Strength, and other personified abstractions. Each, in turn, abandons him: Fellowship declines, citing obligations to temporal life and war; Kindred refuses for fear of social shame; Goods confesses impotence before mortality. Only Good Deeds, initially weakened by sin, pledges to accompany him once restored by Confession and Faith. The play culminates in a Last Judgment scene where Everyman’s solitary account before God emphasizes repentance, charity, and sacraments such as Confession and Communion as salvific acts.
Characters and Dramatic Structure
Principal dramatis personae include Everyman, allegorical figures Death, God, Good Deeds, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, and secular personifications like Fellowship and Goods. The structure follows a didactic progression: prologue and moral summons, pilgrimage and solicitation of companions, desertion of worldly allegories, reconciliation with spiritual allegories, sacramental restoration, and trial before divine judgment. The staging conventions reflect guild-sponsored pageants, portable scenic devices similar to those used in mystery play wagons, and liturgical intonation patterns akin to performance practices in churchyard and civic venues.
Themes and Moral Theology
Everyman articulates central late medieval concerns: the transience of secular attachments, the efficacy of sacraments, and the necessity of contrition and almsgiving. It negotiates theological currents associated with scholasticism, debates on merit and works tied to the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and pastoral emphases found in Wycliffite and Lollard reformist contexts. The play is both catechetical—teaching norms of penance, confession, and charity—and pastoral, addressing lay anxieties about death and salvation in the face of plague, war, and social upheaval characteristic of late medieval England.
Performance History and Reception
Performance records suggest circulation in manuscript and early print forms during the sixteenth century, with editions appearing in humanist and antiquarian collections by the time of Matthew Parker and later collectors such as Francis Douce. Early modern reception intersected with the tumult of the English Reformation; the play was read variably as orthodox devotional literature by conservatives and as a text amenable to reformist appropriation. From the nineteenth century, Victorian antiquarians revived interest in medieval drama; notable twentieth-century productions incorporated modern stagecraft, with directors drawing on traditions from Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, and civic repertory companies performing in venues like the Globe Theatre re-enactments and university drama departments.
Textual Versions and Manuscripts
The principal surviving texts include an early printed edition from the early sixteenth century and a related Dutch version, Elckerlijc, preserved in continental manuscripts. Surviving English texts exist in multiple printings and fragmentary manuscripts, with textual criticism revealing variant readings, stage directions, and marginalia suggesting diverse performance contexts. Editorial work has involved collation of editions attributed to printers operating within the networks of William Caxton’s successors and comparative philology referencing Middle English dialectology and continental parallels.
Influence and Adaptations
Everyman’s allegorical template influenced subsequent English drama, devotional literature, and continental vernacular theatre, informing works by later dramatists and moralists in Renaissance and Baroque performance cultures. Adaptations range from Tudor sermons and Puritan homiletic uses to modern reinterpretations in radio, film, choral oratorio, and contemporary theatre companies reworking the text for pluralist audiences. The play’s archetypal confrontation with mortality has echoed through cultural artifacts connected to Reformation polemics, Victorian medievalism, and modern religious studies curricula.
Category:15th-century plays Category:English plays Category:Religious plays