75:. Next, God reveals to an angel that he will test Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. The angel conveys this instruction to Abraham who, though he is distraught, agrees to comply with it. Abraham takes Isaac to the place of sacrifice, his grief made all the greater by Isaac (not yet knowing he is the "qweke best" intended for sacrifice) being eager to aid his father. When Abraham reveals that he means to kill him, Isaac at first pleads for his life. However, when he learns that it is God's will that he should die, Isaac acquiesces in his death, even urging his father not to tarry over the deed. Abraham binds Isaac so that he will not deflect his father's sword but when he draws that sword and prepares to strike, the angel appears and takes it out of his hand. The angel reveals that God is pleased with Abraham's obedience and that Isaac need not be sacrificed after all. Leaving them with a ram, the angel departs. As they make the offering, God appears above (the medieval custom was to have God act at a higher level than other characters) and promises them that “for thys dede | I schall mvltyplye yowres botheres sede | As thyke as sterres be in the skye”. In an epilogue a
156:. A comparison of the texts reveals around 200 lines of striking similarity, in particular during the debates between Abraham and Isaac that are at the hearts of the plays. A. M. Kinghorn judged the Brome play to be a superior reworking of the Chester pageant, and accordingly dated the play to late in the fifteenth century. However, comparing the two, J. Burke Severs decided that the Chester play was an expansion and reworking of the Brome one.
174:, a nineteenth-century editor, found it to be superior to others of the period on the same subject and in the twentieth century George K. Anderson thought the play, its "human qualities" and characterisation, "unusually good", and Gassner thought it "a masterpiece". Adams noted that it was often reprinted due to its being "justly regarded as the best example of pathos in the early religious drama".
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believed (though he conceded that it was to be supposed “that the stage was the usual pageant, and the mode of performance practically identical with that of the regular cycle plays”).
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The play is often considered the best of Middle
English Abraham plays, humane in its treatment of infanticide, inventive in its language;
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Drama from the Middle Ages to the Early
Twentieth Century: An Anthology of Plays with Old Spelling
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Studies in
English and Comparative Literature by Former and Present Students at Radcliffe College
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The text of the play was lost until the 19th century, when a manuscript was found in a
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At From Stage to Page – Medieval and
Renaissance Drama. NeCastro, Gerard, ed.
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edited by John
Gassner, Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1963, 1995 reprint
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At From Stage to Page – Medieval and
Renaissance Drama. NeCastro, Gerard, ed.
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It is not known whether the play was originally part of a larger cycle of
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A Comparison
Between the Brome and Chester Plays of Abraham and Isaac
214:, ed. by A. C. Cawley, Everyman's Library, 381 (London: Dent, 1922) .
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Kline, Daniel, “Doing
Justice to Isaac: Levinas, the Akedah, and
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The Norton
Anthology of English Literature: Norton Topics Online
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Old and Middle
English Literature From the Beginnings to 1485
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The Metres of the Brome and Chester Abraham and Isaac Plays
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All of the surviving English mystery cycles (such as the
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or if it stood by itself, as Osborn Waterhouse of the
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reckoned the Brome Abraham “must be dated as early as
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148:so called because the manuscript is kept at
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361:Early English Drama: an anthology
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91:dating from around 1470–80 at
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24:The Brome “Abraham and Isaac”
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571:Religious vernacular drama
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186:was performed in 1980 by
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334:Leeds Studies in English
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315:: A Possible Analogue
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