Editing Morality play (section)

=== Thematic characteristics ===
What binds morality plays together as a genre are the strong [[family resemblance]]s between them. These resemblances are most strong in regard to personification allegory as a literary form. The plays also resemble each other in regard to thematic content. They feature other common characteristics that are not necessarily common to all texts within the genre. Particularly notable thematic commonalities include: the transitoriness of life in relation to the afterlife, the importance of divine mercy, the use of misprision by vice characters, and the inevitable cycle of sin and penitence found in the Macro plays and Henry Medwall's ''Nature'' (c. 1495). The emphasis on death in these plays underscores how to live a good life; in the medieval moralities and Medwall's ''Nature'' in particular, virtue characters encourage the generic human protagonist to secure a good afterlife by performing good deeds, practicing penitence, or asking for divine mercy before their death.

John Watkins also suggests that the principal vices in medieval morality plays, avarice, pride, extortion, and ambition, throw anxieties over class mobility into relief.<ref>Watkins, John. "The Allegorical Theatre: Moralities, Interludes, and Protestant Drama." In ''The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature'', ed. David Wallace, 767–92, at 767-68. Cambridge University Press, 1999.</ref> Fifteenth-century plays like ''Occupation and Idleness'' and later morality plays (commonly considered Tudor interludes, like John Skelton's ''Magnyfycence'') portray class-mobility positively. Whether for or against class mobility, morality plays engage with the subject. Other, smaller commonalities include audience participation, elaborate costuming, the virtue of labour, and the governance of the body/passions by the soul/reason in the service of Catholic virtue, money management, or the proper methods of governing a state.

The cohesion of the medieval morality play genre in particular is questionable as their family resemblances are loose in some instances. Despite being treated as the archetypal morality play, ''Everyman''{{'}}s plot has little in common with the other plays in the genre.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Little|first1=Katherine C|title=What Is ''Everyman''?|journal=Renaissance Drama|volume= 46|issue= 1|year=2018|pages=1–23|doi=10.1086/697173 |s2cid=195005744 }}</ref>{{rp|at 1–2}} That said, ''Everyman''{{'}}s straightforward focus on death, uninterested in the cycle of sin and penitence found in the Macro plays, resembles the ''Pride of Life''. These two plays are less like the Macro plays than Medwall's ''Nature'', which is not traditionally considered as a medieval morality play. Scholars such as Katherine Little, who claims that ''Everyman'' is not a medieval morality play, continue to pull at the genre's incohesive threading.

There are points of distinction in morality plays, beginning with ''Everyman'', which can generally be attributed to humanism. According to Thomas Betteridge and Greg Walker, the majority of English dramas were religious in some form.<ref name="Betteridge 1603" />{{rp|at 4–5}} However, plays are increasingly divorced from religion, and in particular, the staging of God and priests.<ref name="Betteridge 1603" />{{rp|at 5}} While drama continued to contain religious themes, it was less and less often the case that religion was expressed directly. Betteridge and Walker also note that morality plays began to focus on the importance of education, specifically in regard to classical literature.<ref name="Betteridge 1603">{{cite book|last1=Betteridge|first1=Thomas |last2=Greg |first2=Walker|chapter=Introduction: 'When Lyberte ruled': Tudor Drama 1485-1603|title=The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Drama|editor-first=Thomas |editor-last1=Betteridge|editor-first2=Greg |editor-last2=Walker|pages=1–20|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012}}</ref>{{rp|at 12}}

In Medwall's ''Nature'', the opening speech prompts readings of [[Ovid]] and [[Aristotle]]. However, a strong focus on education can be found in ''Occupation and Idleness'' as well, which stages an errant schoolboy being taught to respect and learn from his teacher—this play is roughly contemporaneous with the Macro plays, suggesting that humanist trends are traceable in the morality play much earlier than ''Everyman''.<ref>Lee, Brian S. "Occupation and Idleness." In ''Medieval Literature for Children'', edited by Daniel T. Kline, 249–83, at 249. New York: Routledge, 2003.</ref> There is also a general, continuous increase in the individuation and complexity of characters. In ''Nature'', a prostitute is given a regular name rather than the name of a concept. In ''Everyman'', Everyman's mercantile language suggests a generic protagonist that represents a much smaller generic portion of humanity, '"every merchant," in juxtaposition to Mankind's earlier, full representation of all humanity.<ref>Watkins, John. "The Allegorical Theatre: Moralities, Interludes, and Protestant Drama." In ''The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature'', ed. David Wallace, at 101. Cambridge University Press, 1999.</ref> In Skelton's ''Magnyfycence'', Magnificence and the vices that corrupt him represent a particular person, King Henry VIII, and his court 'minions' who were expelled for their poor behaviour.<ref>Skelton, John. Magnyfycence. In Medieval Drama: An Anthology, edited by Greg Walker, 347–407, at 350. Wiley-Blackwell, 2000.</ref>