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The aim of this study is to analyse the rhetorical means of temptation used in medieval morality plays. I am going to present the most popular and successful methods of tempting applied by the Vices in medieval moralities. The main objective of this productions was to enlighten and discipline people. To do it successfully the performers needed to focus the audience’s attention on the presented play. “Among the tools at the playwright’s disposal is humor, and medieval plays show that the playwrights of the period used it often.” Maintaining the established contact required using powerful and effective verbal and non–verbal tools and activities. In the next part of this essay I will concentrate on the properties of the spoken utterances and other actions taken by the Vices that were meant to successfully tempt the human protagonist. The most common method of temptation employed in the medieval moralities was contrast. Juxtaposing the Virtues with the Vices made the latter seem more significant and visible. The evildoers were supposed to tempt the human protagonist as well as entertain the audience. To be successful at both these tasks they needed to use a very specific type of language, reinforced by certain verbal features and on–stage activities. It must be said that almost all the efforts to tempt the mankind were at the same time supposed to entertain the audience. The tempters were movable and vivid, oppose to almost stationary Virtues, their language appealed to both the tempted and the audience better than the pompous utterances of Virtues. A good example of such juxtaposition is Mankind. The play opens with a long and tedious speech on hard work and its benefits which is delivered by Mercy, a personified Virtue. The language that is being used reminds a sermon not only in its tone but also in that it contains many educated words and may remind the kind of language used by priests. When the audience is quite bewildered by the way in which Mercy talks, Mischief, the Vice, enters. As Paula Neuss says: “The transition from sermon to dramatic allegory is skilfully created. The dramatist satisfies the audience’s desire to end Mercy’s harangue with an interruption just at the right moment.” Initially the evildoer talks in the same way as Mercy does, which was possible thanks to the play’s rhyme structure, but it soon comes out that he ridicules his interlocutor.
Approximate Word count = 1436
Approximate Pages = 5.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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