Name: 【TED-Ed】Development of English drama - Mindy Ploeckelmann
Uploaded: 2013-09-22T16:19:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Since they had no way to learn the Bible,

the clergy came up with an inventive solution:

they'd create plays out of certain Bible stories

so even people who couldn't read could learn them.

because they revealed the mystery of God's word.

the clergy members acted out Bible stories

that soon they needed to move out to the street

By building moving carts to put on each play

and was used for costumes, props, and dressing.

The top platform was the stage for the performance.

Spectators assembled in various corners of the town,

and the pageant would move around in the cycle

until the villagers had seen the entire series.

different guilds were asked to be responsible

for acting out different parts of the cycle.

For example, the carpenter's guild might put on

and the baker's guild might put on The Last Supper.

Can you imagine what might happen to the story

if the butcher's guild put on The Crucifixion of Christ?

By the end of the 14th century, a new form of drama,

And, at the same time, the opposite virtues

The morality plays were allegorical stories

in which these characters battled for the control of the soul.

and even getting into scuffles with other spectators

into a hell that was depicted as a dragon's mouth.

The virtuous Biblical stories had morphed

The clergy intended to teach against immorality.

How ironic, then, that the morality plays

actually encouraged vices as more popular than virtues.

the church started to outlaw these performances.

was built like a larger version of a pageant,

encircling a grassy area in front of the stage.

The medieval morality play had led to Renaissance playwrights

And that, in essence, is how drama emerged