Morality plays (15th-16th c.): a type of theatrical allegory where the characters, in the form of personified moral attributes, must validate the virtues of Godly life by prompting the protagonist to choose such life over evil. These plays, most popular in 15th and 16th century Europe, helped move European theater from being religiously based to secularly based. However, the plays still offered moral instruction and together with mystery plays and miracle plays constituted the theater of the Middle Ages. Examples of morality plays include the FrenchCondemnation des banquets by Nicolas de Chesnaye and the English The Castle of Perseverance and Everyman, which is today considered the best of the morality plays.
Rather, Hauser and other morality researchers are working to tease apart "the system that allows us to intuitively, unconsciously make moral judgments about what's right or wrong," he said.
So for example: One ingrained moral principle that seems to span across ages and cultures is that doing something bad is worse than letting something bad happen, even though the ultimate effect is the same.
The study concluded, in part, that "how people's moral values influence their decisions is subject to where their attention is directed," Bartels said.
Moralities are a development or an offshoot of the Miracle Plays and together with these form the greater part of Medieval drama.
In the Miracle Play the subject-matter is concerned with Bible narrative, Lives of Saints, the Apocryphal Gospels, and pious legends, a certain historical or traditional foundation underlies the plot, and the object was to teach and enforce truths of the CathoIic faith.
The intention of both Miracle Plays and Moralities, as we have said, was religious; in the one it aimed at faith, the teaching of dogma, in the other morals, the application of Christian doctrine to conduct.
Feeds |
Contact