Everyman

As we read Everyman, we are not going in strict chronological order, as we have in all else that we have read. Instead we are jumping ahead more than 200 years after Dante's Inferno and saving Decameron until later. The reason is that Everyman is a part of the Medieval world, as was Dante, while the next reading we will do (from The Decameron) is a part of the Renaissance world, a different world altogether

An Introduction to Medieval Drama
After the fall of the Roman Empire, little in the way of drama was produced in western world literature. In fact, most people think that almost no drama as we know it today was produced during the Middle Ages. In the late medieval period drama was re-invented from a religious motivation. The Church in the Middle Ages is given credit for re-inventing drama after a long period of its absence.

Much if not most of the population in Medieval Europe were illiterate. How could the Church reach these people with a religious message? Clearly, they could not ask people to read the Bible, since most people were illiterate. Clearly, it would do no good to write up simple religious tracts or stories--no one could read them either. Sermons are oral and so a good way to reach an illiterate populace, but sermons can do only so much. What could the Church do to sponsor religious teaching and ideas among its believers?

A play or drama was one possibility. Beginning by pulling short dialogues and narratives from the Bible, the clergy (persons ordained for a life in the Church) of the 12th to 15th century in Europe began to put on plays closely associated with the Bible and special holy days. Most of these were presented on days of high celebration in the Church calendar--Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and so on. The plays were used to explain to the masses the Church's dogma (organized beliefs), the stories of the Old and New Testaments, the teachings of Christ, and the meanings of the church liturgy (ceremony, Holy Sacraments, and ritual). (Recall that all Church services from the founding of the Church until 20 years ago were in Latin.) The plays became so helpful in explaining that whole "cycles" (a series of connected plays) explaining Genesis to Revelations were produced. Because they followed the content of the Bible closely and included especially the miracles performed by Christ, as told of in the New Testament, they were termed "miracle" plays.

Other plays, called morality plays--of which Everyman is an example--were developed later and also produced by the Church. The morality plays did not follow the content of the Bible but presented a moral or lesson that the Church deemed necessary for its members to heed.

These plays, both miracle and morality plays, were a success, such a success in fact that they attracted crowds beyond the capacities of the Church buildings to hold the unruly and unwashed throngs. By the 14th century, the plays were moved outside of the buildings proper and onto the steps around the churches, and--later--into the towns. Such was the beginnings of the re-invention of drama in the West after the fall of Rome.

An Second Introduction to Everyman
Read the introduction to Everyman given on pages 2119-2120 of your textbook. As you read, use the following as a guide to your reading.

3. What does your editor mean when he says that the characters in Everyman are "personifications of more abstract concepts" (2122)?

An Outline for Reading Everyman
[Note Well: Throughout, read the footnotes for explanations of word meanings. Notice, especially, that the word "and" often means "if." You are reading a translation from the Middle English. [We have not yet read anything that is not a translation.] And although this is a translation, it still retains much of the language of Middle English--a language very different from modern English, so different in fact that English speakers must be trained in Middle English as a foreign language before they can read Everyman in the original.)

22-44: God tells what He has done for mankind and mankind's spiritual state today.

45-46: A "reckoning" (The word "reckon" comes from the same word as the modern verb "know." In parts of the Southeast today, we still use "reckon" to mean "guess, suppose, think, know" as in "I reckon I'll be there." It also means to count up (as an accountant would do) or to judge (as in the phrase "a day of reckoning.")

74-79: Death says that he will separate Everyman from heaven unless Everyman has Almsdeeds (Good Works, Good Deeds) as a friend.

80-84: Death sees Everyman who is not thinking about death, but instead is thinking about his lusts and his treasure.

85-102: Death accosts Everyman and tells him God is thinking of him although he is not thinking of God and that God demands a reckoning with Everyman.

103-119: Death tells Everyman he must take a long journey and bring with him his "book of count" (his record of deeds), that the journey is now, that he will make a reckoning before God of his good and evil deeds, and that no on else may stand in his stead.

131-145: Death will not be bought though Everyman tries again to get postponement; Death tells Everyman that "the tide abideth no man" (the tides do not wait for anyone).

146-154: Everyman wants to know if he can return to this place shortly after he makes his trip with Death. Death replies.

155-160: Everyman wants to know if someone can accompany him on the trip. Death replies.

161-170: Death asks Everyman if he thought that his life and material possession were given to him. Every replies and death shows him how wrong he is.

171-183: Everyman asks if he can escape this day. Death tells him no man can escape it and to ready himself for death shortly.

195-240: Everyman resolves to go to Fellowship; they meet; Fellowship notes his sorrow and tells Everyman that if "thou go to hell, / I will not forsake thee by the way" (232-3).

241-288: Fellowships tells Everyman all the things he would do with Everyman, but not this journey.

378-391: Everyman resolves to see if his Goods (material possessions) will make the journey with him.

486-515: Everyman encounters his weakened Good Deeds and his blank book of account (book of reckoning).

522-542: Knowledge enters and tells Everyman to go to Confession. (In the doctrine of most Christian churches, the person who would receive salvation must first acknowledge his fallen sate--that is, his separation from God--and must say so aloud [confess his sinful nature]. Note that in order to come to Confession Everyman must first have knowledge [awareness] of his state).

543-560: Confession tells Everyman that in order to be cleansed he must do penance. (Penance is a working off of sin, a work or action or deed done in order to be cleansed; that is, he must actively seek cleansing, not passively accept it. Penance is also called shrift, purging.)

561-565: Confession tells Everyman that to do penance he must take up the scourge. (Literally, a scourge is a whip whose tails have sharp barbs on them, a cat-o-nine-tails. Symbolically, a scourge is that self-awareness and self-accusation that sees self as fallen from grace.) Confession further tells Everyman that his Savior did this and that Everyman must follow His example.

656-572: Confession tells Knowledge to continue with Good Deeds to accompany Everyman and, if so, Everyman can have salvation.

581-610: Everyman praises God, the Son, and Mary for this plan of salvation revealed to him.

636-650: Knowledge give Everyman the garment of contrition (heart-felt repentance).

657-693: Enter Discretion (wisdom in making decisions, discernment), Strength, Beauty, and Five Wits (the five senses).

706-711: Knowledge tells Everyman to receive sacraments and extreme unction from the priest.

712-730: Five Wits explains to Everyman the Seven Sacraments of the Church, each of which is given to priests to administer to believers: baptism, confirmation (entrance into the Church), priesthood, hold sacrament (communion, the Lord's Supper), marriage, extreme unction (the last rites at the time of death), penance.

731-749: Five Wits explains the functions of the priest. (Note that Everyman exits the state at this point. As Knowledge and Five Wits speak, we imagine that Everyman goes to the priest for the sacraments.)

750-771: Knowledge and Five Wits discuss the good and bad priests but conclude that "[w]e be their sheep and they shepherds be / [b]y whom we all be kept in [safety]" (767-768).

851-886: Everyman enters the gave. (Note the similarity of Everyman's words to the words spoken by Christ in his last hours on the cross.)

902-921: Enter Doctor to speak. (This figure represents a learned man, not a physician. Just as we today earn a "doctorate" with a Ph.D. degree, so too the doctor here is a man of letters, a learned individual.) He addresses the audience and gives us the point of the play we have just seen.

Themes and Ideas to Note in Everyman
As we read Everyman, think about some of the themes and ideas developed in the play:

Reading Assignment: Everyman
Read Everyman, beginning on page 2121 of your textbook.

Optional: Available on the Web

(If you find any spots out on the web concerning Everyman, please share them with me and the class.)