22 Background: “The Second Shepherd’s Play”
Unknown date (possibly as early as the fourteenth century) The Wakefield Master
The Second Shepherds’ Play was written by an unidentified writer known as the Wakefield Master, whose plays are considered some of the finest work of the time.
He wrote at least five of the plays in the Wakefield mystery play cycle, in addition to revising and improving the rest. The plays were performed in the town of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, and are also called the Towneley plays, since the only surviving manuscript was owned by the Towneley family for a long time. Mystery play cycles were based on the Bible (with some significant changes and additions) and were meant to be performed chronologically, usually at a certain time of year (such as during Corpus Christi). The four surviving mystery play cycles begin with the Creation of Heaven and end with the Last Judgment, with as few as twenty-five plays (in Chester) to as many as forty-eight plays (in York). The Wakefield cycle, with its thirty-two plays, may have been a compilation of other cycle plays, while the N-Town cycle of forty-two plays (sometimes called the Coventry cycle) may have been used by traveling actors (the “N” stands for the name of whichever town they performed in at that moment). In general, however, the cycle plays were performed not by professional actors, but by members of trade guilds or other organizations. In York, the shipwrights performed the roles in the Noah play, and the wagon that was their stage (which moved from location to location in the city) would be built to look like Noah’s ark. Cycle plays are mentioned regularly in medieval literature; in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the “Miller’s Tale” (found in this anthology) references both the Herod play, in which Absalom performs the role of Herod to get attention, and the Noah play, which provides one of the main jokes of the story.
As may be clear from the name, there were two different nativity plays involving shepherds in the Wakefield cycle; it is possible that only one of the plays would have been performed, although both were written by the Wakefield Master. Of all of his plays, The Second Shepherds’ Play is undoubtedly the best. The play combines the serious story of the nativity with social commentary (from the perspective of the poorest members of society) and humor. The play is full of anachronisms: the shepherds reference the crucifixion, even though Jesus has only just been born; one of the gifts is a tennis ball; and the setting is clearly in the north of England (with a joke about Mak’s strange southern accent). The farcical birth of Mak and Gill’s “baby” (one of the highlights of the play) is a perfect contrast to the serious— and sweet—nativity scene at the end.
The “nativity” of Mak and Gill’s “baby” (a stolen lamb) serves as a foil to the traditional Christian nativity. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God. By contrast, Mak and Gill’s “baby” is a real lamb. According to The Gospel of Luke, Jesus is born in a stable, and is placed in a manger. By contrast, Mak and Gill’s “baby” is in a home, and is swaddled and placed in a crib. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is believed to be a virgin. Gill is clearly not a virgin. When the shepherds, whose sheep has been stolen from them, accuse Mak and Gill of the theft, Gill protests, “I vow to God so mild, / If ever I you beguiled, / That I will eat this child / That doth in this cradle lie!” The humor here resides in the fact that Gill and Mac completely intend to eat the lamb just as soon as the shepherds have left. Ironically, according to some Christian denominations, although Mary, the mother of Jesus, cannot envision this, she too will eat her son in the form of the sacrament where the communion wafer becomes the body of Christ and the wine becomes the blood of Christ.
Although this play is supposed to be set in Judaea, the birthplace of Jesus, the play, with all of the complaints about the weather, clearly occurs in Northern England. The shepherds are accurate representations of ordinary English shepherds. The play makes clear that it is for these ordinary people, and the ordinary people in the audience, too, that Jesus has come. It is the shepherds, after all, and not monarchs or nobles, who first see the baby Jesus and understand that their salvation is granted through him.
This material is from British Literature: Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century and Neoclassicism by Bonnie J. Robinson from the University System of Georgia, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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