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    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play"
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play"
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play"
    Ebook40 pages1 hour

    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 12, 2016
    ISBN9781535839471
    A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Anonymous's "The Second Shepherds' Play" - Gale

      08

      The Second Shepherds' Play

      Anonymous

      C. 1450

      Introduction

      The Second Shepherds' Play is part of the Wakefield mystery play cycle. It is play number thirteen of thirty-two contained in the only surviving manuscript, currently held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The Second Shepherds' Play dates from the latter half of the fifteenth century. No exact date can be determined, but studies in handwriting analysis of the manuscript suggest an approximate date of mid to late fifteenth century as a composition date. The play was written in Middle English, which is the vernacular (everyday) language that was used in England between about 1100 and 1500. The ascendancy of King Henry VII to the throne marks the end of the medieval period and generally signifies the shift from Middle English to Modern English (the basic predecessor of English as we know it today). Authorship of The Second Shepherds' Play is unknown, and the play is simply attributed to the Wakefield Master, whose real identity was also unknown, although a local cleric or monk was probably the author. The Second Shepherds' Play is included in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1 (1993) and in The Towneley Plays (2001), Volume 1, edited by Martin Stevens and A. C. Cawley.

      The title refers not to a second shepherd but to the fact that this play was the second of two plays that dealt with the biblical Nativity story. Mystery plays, which are so named because they refer to the spiritual mystery of Christ's birth and death, combine comic elements with biblical stories. For example, in The Second Shepherds' Play, the author combines the Shepherds' story of stolen sheep and a swindle involving the birth of a nonexistent infant with the biblical story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. The dual plot is designed to remind the audience of the two-fold nature of man's existence—the real world on earth and the spiritual world of the afterlife. The play, itself, contains no divisions of act or scene, but there are three distinct scenes: the Shepherds' soliloquies in which they lament their poverty, the oppressive natures of their lives, and the terrible weather; the scene with Mak and Gil in which they try to disguise the stolen lamb as their newborn child; and the adoration of the Christ-child in Bethlehem. The text shifts both time and place, referring to Christian saints

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