Op reis met “Elckerlijc” en Stefan Mrożewski

This article deals with modern illustrations accompanying medieval text, with special attention to one publication – the modern edition of Middle Dutch Elckerlijc and the woodcuts made by Stefan Mrożewski. The article introduces the circumstances in which the book was published and in which the Polish artist prepared his prints. The main analysis discusses the choices made by Mrożewski and the many different ways in which he refers to the historic past in his work. In order to show a broader framework of the subject, the article also briefly sketches the Polish literary reception of the medieval morality play.

Simeon Polockij a Playwright: The New Study Aspects

The study of the dramaturgic complex which has come to us in a manuscript created in the 1680s–early 1690s in Moscow (kept in the Austrian National Library, Vienna) established that the dramaturgic heritage of Simeon Polockij was not limited to two plays (about Nebuchadnezzar and the prodigal son) in the «Rythmologion». It also includes morality play about the struggle of the Church with the «host of infidels» and seven interludes, previously known from a single list as an anonymous works of the first third of the 18th century. The analysis of the historical and cultural context of the time the morality play was created, as well as its vocabulary, in particular, a rare lexeme (Turchin) and literary techniques typical for the texts of Simeon Polockij (using of the liturgical texts as a structural and thematic motives), leave no doubt about the authorship. Simeon Polockij is also the author of the interludes that can be proven by the content, plot-thematic, stylistic and lexical calls observed between them. Certain situations, plot motives and the vocabulary of the(«Vertograd mnogostvetnyj», «Rythmologion», etc.). interludes can be identified in the context of Simeon’s works.

Morality Plays

The “morality play” is one of the most recognizable medieval European dramatic genres, yet much about this term, including the form’s status and influence, remains contested. While the label morality play is a useful one for modern scholars, its origins lie in 18th-century antiquarianism rather than in medieval categorizations. The idea of a distinct morality play genre or tradition is further challenged by the vast array of staging and dramaturgical conventions and techniques displayed by extant playtexts; in the range of different audiences, occasions, and spaces for which they were designed; and in the extent to which they overlap with other dramatic and performance modes (saints’ plays, biblical plays, sotties, debates, mummings, and interludes, for example). Nevertheless, a distinct collection of plays from premodern Europe share characteristics and conceptual and dramaturgic frameworks, justifying their analysis as a group. What links these plays, whether they are written in Latin or in the vernacular, is their sustained use of personification allegory and the clear exposition of a moral sentence. At the core of any morality play sits a central figure, a personification of, say, a universalized concept of “mankind” (Humanum Genus, Everyman, Mankind), an aspect of human nature (Man’s Desire in Menschen Sin en Verganckeljcke Schoonheit), or a specific stage in life (like Youth or the Child). Such figures often also act as a mirror or an avatar for the audience. French moralités often have two central figures who represent opposing moral paths. The plays’ central figures are accompanied by an array of abstract personifications representing virtues, sins, vices, temptations, moral distractions, bad and good advice, and facts of life. These could be faculties or qualities of humankind, such as Flesh, Raison, Wit, or Ignorance; temptations and forces in the external world, such as New Guise, Custom, or Goods; facts of human existence, such as Life, Death, and Kinship; human behaviors, such as Flattery or Deceit; social groups, such as Nobility and Clergy; personifications of God’s qualities, such as Mercy; as well as supernatural beings, such as God and the Devil or Good and Bad Angels. Every part of the performance is enlisted into the allegory, from staging, props, and costumes to the actions of and between performers. Whether the protagonist is saved at the end of the play varies, but often an alignment is explicit between the life journey of the mankind figure and that of Adam, connecting the life of the individual with the great scheme of cosmic history.

A Reading of Philip Roth’s Everyman as a Postmodern Parody

Philip Roth’s 2006 novel Everyman borrows its title from the famous fifteenth-century morality play The Summoning of Everyman. Yet, Roth establishes no clear or working connection between his novel and its medieval namesake. Roth scholars and critics have endeavored to identify intertextual continuities between these two works but with no tangible results. This article offers an alternative approach with which to view this problem by exploring the potential parodic nature of Roth’s text. More specifically, the paper theorizes that Roth fashioned a postmodernist brand of parody in his novel to negotiate the politics of representation of the issues of universality and determinism in the Medieval Everyman and the ideological discourses foregrounding their textual construction.

An English Poetic Rhapsodic Vision of The Spanish Civil War: An Intertextual Analysis of Roy Campbell’s Poetic Oeuvre

This article revisits and re-examines Roy Campbell’s poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War: Flowering Rifle, Talking Bronco and “A Letter from the San Mateo Front”. The studies carried out by Esteban Pujals (1959), Stephen Spender (1980) and Bernd Dietz (1985) reflect the scarcity of research about Campbell’s warlike poems. The methodology used in this article aims to develop a better understanding of Campbell’s war images and literary references to the Spanish conflict, by analysing them in the light of the poet’s own political ideology. Campbell presents a paean to the ‘Nationalist’ leadership and this exaggerated idealising of the rebels and their deeds contrasts with the way he denigrates those in favour of the Republic. The article concludes that this exaggerated feat transforms most of these poetic works into quasi-Manichaean pamphlets resembling more a morality play than a work of modern literature.

The Canonization of Carmen

This article explores many of the ways in which performance of a modern Basque pastorale, or morality play—an art form with medieval roots—explores issues and conundrums of contemporary Basque society and culture. These include maintenance of the Basque language and identity, the attitude of Basques towards others, notably Spaniards and gypsies, and vice versa, and the survival of Basque rural life in the face of the many challenges to it. Karmen Etxalarkoa Pastorala is but the most recent recounting of the tragedy of Carmen, the quintessential gypsy of Prosper Merimée's novel and Bizet's opera. In the work, she claims descent from the Navarrese village of Etxalar, and her ill-fated lover, José Lizarrabengoa, is from the adjacent Valley of Baztan. I interweave my own mid-twentieth-century anthropological research in Etxalar with the biographies of local residents and that of the pastorale's author, Gerardo Mungia, as a ploy for narrating the genesis and significance of Karmen Etxalarkoa Pastorala, not to mention its many ironies.