"The Corpus Christi plays were performed until 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years old" ❤️

“Shakespeare and the Cycle Plays”

by Helen Cooper | Critical Summary

Introduction

This essay titled, “Shakespeare and the Cycle Plays”, is taken from the book titled, Shakespeare and the Medieval World, written by Helen Cooper.

Helen Cooper is Professor Emerita of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge, and the first woman to become a Fellow at University College, Oxford, in 1978. In this essay she argues that, Shakespeare likely saw the Coventry Corpus Christi cycle plays and incorporated allusions and staging techniques from them into his own drama, suggesting a connection between the medieval theatrical tradition and the Elizabethan stage.

Evidences that Attest to Shakespeare’s Exposure to the Corpus Christi Cycle Plays

The cycle plays and early modern drama were watched by the entire social range, from monarchs to servants, just as they portrayed the entire social range.

The educated members of the audiences at the public theatres may have learned their Seneca and Plautus in grammar school, construing them phrase by phrase, or at university; since that was held to be an appropriate element of humanist education. But the dominant living theatrical experience of the childhood and youth of a large number of the playgoers of the period was religious drama carried forward from the Middle Ages.

The cycle plays were the most ambitious form of that, and survived the Reformation for longest – long enough to become part of the cultural memory of Shakespeare and his audiences.

The Corpus Christi plays were performed until 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years old. Coventry was only a day’s walk from Shakespeare’s home in Stratford. Shakespeare is the only Elizabethan dramatist to incorporate numerous allusions to the cycles, and the way he uses them suggests he expected his audience to recognize them as well.

Shakespeare’s Overt References from the Corpus Christi Cycle Plays in his Plays

Shakespeare’s most overt references specifically match what is known of the Coventry plays.

Hamlet’s “out-Heroding Herod” played as Coventry Herod in the Corpus Christi Cycle Plays.

Macbeth’s Porter played as Devil guarding the gates of Hell, in the Corpus Christi Cycle Plays.

Henry V’s description of the “mad mothers” at Herod’s slaughter played as Coventry’s Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors, in the Corpus Christi Cycle Plays.

Othello’s arrest scene is played as Christ’s arrest in the cycle plays. Othello’s “keep up your bright swords” recalls Christ’s injunction to Peter.

Macbeth’s ghost at the feast is played as Disruption of Herod’s feast by Mors (Death) in the N-Town Cycle

King Lear’s blinding of Gloucester is played as the scourging and mockcrowning of Christ in the cycle plays, where Gloucester is tied to a chair, similar to Christ being tied to a pillar and then seated for a mock-crowning in several plays.

Richard III seating himself on the throne is played as Lucifer’s attempt to claim God’s glory in the cycle plays. This act of self-enthronement was portrayed in every cycle that staged Lucifer’s fall, carrying huge political and symbolic weight.

Theatrical Vocabulary in Shakespeare

The widespread visual iconography of scenes like the buffeting, Crucifixion, and Pietà, common to both religious art and the stage, formed a living ‘memory bank’ for English audiences.

While religious art was destroyed in England, the cycle plays kept these visual symbols in front of the eyes of thousands of playgoers for decades after their official elimination from the churches, forming a theatrical vocabulary that Shakespeare picked up and made use of, in his plays.

Conclusion

Coventry is a day’s walk from Stratford, and in the mid-seventeenth century its oldest inhabitants were still recalling how ‘the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this city’. This comment is confirmed by what we know of the audiences for the cycle plays more broadly, that they brought in spectators from far outside the cities themselves; the extra income and prestige so generated was indeed one of the reasons for staging them.

Moreover, Cooper also states that, Shakespeare was the only one of the Elizabethan dramatists to have had such ease of access to any of the cycle plays, and he is the only one to incorporate a number of allusions to them in his drama.