252 



Charles Davidson — English Jlystery Plays. 



3. The Coventry plays exhibit prevailingly an interchange of 

 three stanzas, the choice apparently influenced only by a desire for 

 variety. 



4. The Chester plays are, as uniformly as an author of limited 

 poetical resources could make them, cast in the mold of one stanzaic 

 form. 



The importance of the foregoing conclusions in determining the 

 structure of the cycles of plays is evident. We proceed now to the 

 defense of certain propositions relating to the cycles themselves. 



XX. 



A STJUVEY OF THE CYCLES OF MYSTERY PLAYS. 



In considering the cycles of plays as wholes, certain general struc- 

 tural characteristics appear. A discussion of these will prepare us 

 for a more minute investigation of cycle construction. 



I. The York cycle contains plays of widely different styles and 

 vocabulary. Such plays as X and XI have little in common with 

 XXXI and XXXII, and still less with XL VI. The differences are 

 not such as arise from an unskillful re-working of an old play. Such 

 scribal changes are found in Woodkirk 'Pharao,' when compared 

 with York XI. They lead to the distortion of the stanza — 



a) By the insertion of extra-stanzaic verses, as the quatrain in W 

 after the first stanza, or the two verses separating the cauda from 

 the pedes in stanza 22. 



b) By the breaking of rime, as in stanza 25. 



c) By the disarrangement or obliteration of the alliteration through 

 the displacement of alliterative words by non-alliterative synonyms, 

 as through the substitution of 'words' for 'saws' in L 17, or by the 

 complete loss of alliteration in 1. 23. 



d) By the destruction of the iambic movement, as in lines 21. 39, 

 52, 53, etc. 



e) By the loss of a stress, as in line 28. 



The differences between the above-named plays are not of this 

 character, but fundamental. They concern — 



a) The structure of the line, which in XXXI and XXXII is ex- 

 cessive in alliteration, inordinate in length, irregular in rime, and 

 contains occasionally an unusual tag, as line 10, XXXII. 



