Charles Daindaon — English Mystery Plays. 295 



XXVII. 

 CONCLUSION. 



In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to explore one 

 of the sources of the English drama, and to solve some of the prob- 

 lems presented to us in the mass of inchoate dramatic material known 

 as the English Mystery Plays. 



Literary motives know no national boundaries ; therefore it is not 

 surprising that we find our English plays in close connection with 

 the French, and can watch in the Italian and German the action of 

 the national spirit under diverse literary influences upon a common 

 literary material. But this inheritance came from the mother church. 

 The church in the Middle Ages was the conservator of letters. A 

 spirit of devotion produced the church drama. A comprehension of 

 this drama within the church, and of the causes that gave rise to it, 

 can be gained only through the study of the liturgy and of its 

 sources, w^hich, in turn, leads us back to the foundation of the 

 church itself. 



The exploration of the dramatized Bible story necessitated, there- 

 fore, a sketch of the growth of dramatic symbolism in the early 

 liturgy. It has been shown in outline how the church on the one 

 hand drew into its service dramatic elements from the Greek, and, on 

 the other,- sought in the West a more materialistic phrasing for its 

 thought. When these materialistic conceptions found final issue in 

 transubstantiation, the symbolic drama became a true tragedy, and 

 the cycle of the litui-gy became the prototype of the cyclic play. 



Little by little the plays that clustered about the two most touch- 

 ing festivals of the church, the Crucifixion and the Birth of Christ, 

 approached each other, and the whole antecedent Bible story, to- 

 gether with the doom of saint and sinner, fell naturally into place as 

 cause and consequence of these two central movements of a world 

 drama. 



All literary activities were drawn into line with the church, or 

 denounced as impious. The material through which the spirit of 

 the day could best and most safely express itself was the church 

 drama. As a consequence, the religious drama that arose there- 

 from represents most accuratel}" those ill-defined movements of the 

 national spirit which determine a literature as national. 



This religious drama became the truest exponent of the folk-spirit 

 when it had passed from the church through the Puy to the Confre- 



