The Second Shepherds' Play
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| The Second Shepherds' Play (The Wakefield Cycle) | |
| Written by | The Wakefield Master |
|---|---|
| Characters | 3 shepherds Christ-child |
| Date of premiere | Unknown (possibly c. 1500) |
| Original language | Middle English |
| Genre | Mystery play |
| Setting | Bethlehem, 1st c. AD |
The Second Shepherds' Play is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. It gained its name from the fact that in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds. In fact, it has been hypothesized that the second (and in most opinions, better) play is a revision of the first.[1]
The play is actually two separate stories presented sequentially; the first is a non-biblical story about a thief, Mak, who steals a sheep from three shepherds. He and his wife, Gill, attempt to deceive the shepherds by pretending the sheep is their son. The shepherds are fooled at first. However, they later discover Mak's deception and toss him on a blanket as a punishment.
At this point, the storyline switches to the familiar one of the three shepherds being told of the birth of Christ by an angel, and being told to go to Bethlehem, where they offer gifts (including a tennis-ball) to the Christ child.
Traditionally scholars have believed that the play is the work of an anonymous poet-playwright whom they dub The Wakefield Master who is responsible for other works in the Wakefield Cycle. It utilizes a regular distinctive cauda (or "tail") after each cross-rhymed octet, for example, and shares certain tonal qualities that have been noted by scholars from an early date.
Recent scholarship has reopened this question of authorship, however. In an article titled “Recycling ‘The Wakefield Cycle’” published in “Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama" in 2002, Barbara Palmer, retired professor of English at the University of Mary Washington and President of Records Of Early English Drama USA talks about the current state of scholarship with regard to the Second Shepherd's Play. Her research suggests that the story of the Wakefield Master and the suggestion that the Second Shepherd's Play was performed as part of the Wakefield Cycle were both inventions of an amateur historian named J. M. W. Walker.
According to Theresa M Coletti, Ph D , Professor of English at the University of Maryland, with regard to the Second Shepherd's Play, "I think that we have to acknowledge that we know nothing about the performance history of this play. It’s a really wide open question regarding where this play was performed, by whom it was performed, how it was performed, how often it was performed, and why it was performed."
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[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Robinson, J. W. (1991). Studies in Fifteenth-century Stagecraft. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University.
- Wakefield Master. The Second Shepherd's Play. Early English Drama - An Anthology. J. C. Coldewey. New York, Garland Publishing, Inc. 1313: 1-8, 343-363.
[edit] References
- ^ Robinson (1991)
[edit] External links
- "Everyman," with other interludes, including eight miracle plays, available at Project Gutenberg (includes the text of The Second Shepherd's Play as The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play)
