Such was in England the fortune of the
stage play. At a time when Chaucer was writing character-sketches that
were really dramatic, the formal drama consisted of rude miracle plays
that had no literary quality whatever. These were taken from the Bible,
and acted at first by the priests as illustrations of Scripture history
and additions to the church service on feasts and saints' days.
Afterward the town guilds, or incorporated trades, took hold of them,
and produced them annually on scaffolds in the open air. In some English
cities, as Coventry and Chester, they continued to be performed almost
to the close of the 16th century. And in the celebrated Passion Play at
Oberammergau, in Bavaria, we have an instance of a miracle play that has
survived to our own day. These were followed by the moral plays, in
which allegorical characters, such as Clergy, Lusty Juventus, Riches,
Folly, and Good Demeanaunce were the persons of the drama. The comic
character in the miracle plays had been the Devil, and he was retained
in some of the moralities side by side with the abstract vice, who
became the clown or fool of Shaksperian comedy. The "formal Vice,
Iniquity," as Shakspere calls him, had it for his business to belabor
the roaring Devil with his wooden sword:
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