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in the play are Anima, Wisdom, Lucifer, Mind, Will and
Understanding. Although the manuscript does not contain scene demarcations, the play can be divided into four sections, based upon a theological schematic of transgression and redemption: innocence, temptation, sinful life, and repentance. In the first part (Lines 1–324), Anima declares her love for Wisdom, the allegorical figure for Christ. The stage directions note that Anima is dressed in white, a symbol of her purity and position as the bride of Christ. The five Wits enter (dressed as virgins), and dance. Wisdom advises Anima and her three faculties (Will, Mind, Understanding) about how to live virtuously. In the second part (325-550), Lucifer tempts each of the three faculties – Will with lechery, Mind with pride, and Understanding with Perjury. In the third part (551-837), each faculty (having exchanged monkish, acetic robes for more fashionable and luxurious ones) devotes himself to sin and dances wildly with six followers. In the final part (838-1108), Wisdom returns to chastise the three faculties for falling into temptation. Anima, Will, Mind and Understanding repent, and the devils are chased from the stage. Recognizing that redemption requires more than her remorse, Anima asks for God's mercy and grace. Wisdom grants both, before turning to the audience and ending the play with a sermon on avoiding sin and seeking grace.
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Unlike other early morality plays, the character signifying man is split into nine different characters: Anima (the soul of man), the three faculties of the soul (Mind, Will and
Understanding), and her five senses (known as ‘’the Wits”). Despite boasting a large cast list, the only six speaking roles
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bears a Latin inscription by the monk Thomas
Hyngman and the phrase (translated), “Oh book, if anyone shall perhaps ask to whom you belong, you will say, “I belong above everything to Hyngham, a monk.” Similarities between this hand and the text of the play lead scholars to believe that Hyngman
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enacts the struggle between good and evil; as an allegory, it depicts Christ (personified in the character of Wisdom) and
Lucifer battling over the Soul of Man, with Christ and goodness ultimately victorious. Dating between 1460 and 1463, the play is preserved in its complete form in the
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dates between 1460 and 1470 (Davidson argues for a range between 1460 and 1463). The language is an East
Midland dialect, particularly common to Norfolk and Suffolk at the time of composition. Although the play conventionally goes by the name
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from the antiquarian firm
Bernard Quaritch for £1,125 (approximately $ 5,625). The manuscripts had been purchased by Quaritch earlier in 1936 at a Sotheby's auction on March 30 for 440 pounds.
305:. At the play’s conclusion, sections of Anima’s repentance (particularly the language of Mind, Will and Understanding) come again from Hilton, in his major work
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remains anonymous, the manuscript was transcribed and signed by a monk named Thomas
Hyngman. Some scholars have suggested that Hyngman also authored the play.
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transcribed the play. Close parallels between the Digby version and Macro version (including congruence of transcription errors).
229:. In August 1936, Joseph Quincy Adams, the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, purchased this manuscript along with
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297:. Lucifer’s arguments to the three faculties in the temptation scene are mutations of 14th century mystic
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today, neither manuscript notes a title. Former owner Thomas Sharp referred to the play by the title
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Beadle, Richard and Piper, A.J. eds. "Monk Thomas
Hyngham’s hand in the Macro Manuscript",
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Fifteenth-Century
English Drama: The Early Moral Plays and Their Literary Relations.
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163:(MS V.a. 354). A manuscript fragment of the first 754 lines also belongs to the
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The
Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages
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The Late Medieval Religious Plays of Bod¬leian MSS Digby 133 and E. Museo 160.
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Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada
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The Late Medieval Religious Plays of Bod¬leian MSS Digby 133 and E. Museo 160.
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New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books
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Some English and Latin Sources and Parallels for the Morality of Wisdom
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Some English and Latin Sources and Parallels for the Morality of Wisdom
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The Macro Plays: A Facsimile Edition with Facing Transcription.
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The Macro Plays: A Facsimile Edition with Facing Transcription.
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have been printed in the past century and a half, including:
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Furnivall, Frederick James and Pollard, Alfred William eds.
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Much of the play's theological material directly quotes the
217:(after the three major characters). The now common moniker
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The particularities of the playtext's dialect suggest that
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A drawing and text from the Macro Manuscript version of
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Baker, D. C., J. L. Murphy, and L. B. Hall, Jr., eds.
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Baker, D. C., J. L. Murphy, and L. B. Hall, Jr., eds.
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EETS o.s. 262. London: Oxford University Press, 1969.
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EETS o.s. 262. London: Oxford University Press, 1969.
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Two Moral Interludes: The Pride of Life and Wisdom.
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167:(MS Digby 133). Although the author of
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129:Mind, Will, and Understanding
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605:Folger Shakespeare Library
576:New York: AMS Press, 1998.
572:Riggio, Milla Cozart, ed.
383:Visualizing the Moral Life
357:New York: AMS Press, 1998.
353:Riggio, Milla Cozart, ed.
161:Folger Shakespeare Library
147:The Castle of Perseverance
118:(MS Digby 133, folio 158r)
601:Images of the Macro Plays
227:Frederick James Furnivall
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607:Digital Image Collection
590:Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
534:New York: Garland, 1993.
364:Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
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