A Seminar aimed primarily at MA students
In medieval Europe, human psychology was understood in terms of the operation of forces seen as in some sense external to the individual: vices and virtues. The human being is the site of an ongoing conflict between the two, and in early drama the vices and virtues were physically realized as personifications that ranged from the general to the specific and increasingly political. In this course, we will examine these personifications, considering their language, their theatricality, and their variety. What did the vices and virtues offer as a way of discussing human experience? What were the possibilities and limitations of the allegorical mode of drama that they occasioned?
- Enseignant·e: Elisabeth Dutton