Chapter I: A Plethora of Evils: Introducing the Negative Characters

In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities.1The names of the characters in English and Dutch drama of the late medieval and early modem eras make it clear that there was a proliferation of negative conceptual characters.2 These names by themselves give little further information as to the kind of character involved: it could be a protagonist, a minor vice, a devil, or, depending on whether it is an English or a Dutch play, a Vice or a sinne ken. The distinction between these various kinds of characters resides to some extent in their dramatic function: the protagonists tend to be victims whereas the vices, Vice, and sinnekens tend to be instigators of the action. Another distinguishing factor is the prominence given to characters: the Vice and sinnekens generally have more lines and more stage presence than the minor vices. Their theatricality can also tell us something about the characters: the Vice and sinnekens are normally more entertaining and memorable than the other characters. The distinction between the devil on the one hand and the Vice, sinnekens, and minor vices on the other seems to have been primarily one of costume. The other element of difference lies in the fact that the devil is not a personification but rather a 'theological-mythological being' unlike the other kinds of negative characters who are personifications of negative human characteristics and who are to some degree represented as humans.3Three forms of personification are particularly important for the moral plays under discussion.4 Firstly, there is personification or prosopopoeia, i.e. 'the translation of any non-human quantity into a sentient human capable of thought and language, possessing voice and face', as Reason in Medwall's Nature. Secondly, characters can be formed by isotyping, i.e. 'the representation of a collective where there is only a quantitative difference between the abstract personified and its personifier', which is used in the everyman figure. Thirdly, there is typification leading to 'exemplary property characters', that is 'characters who exemplify the abstract qualities reflected in their names', such as Den Daghelicxschen Snaetere (The Daily Chatterbox) in Everaert's Tspel van dOnghelycke Munte (The Play of Unequal Coinage). Typification is a variety of isotyping, and I shall use the term type to describe characters based on either personification strat egy. The main distinction between personification, on the one hand, and isotyping and typification, on the other hand, is that the former tends to lead to unchangeable, immortal characters - even if they are visually represented as humans -, whereas types tend to be changeable and mortal.Minor vices, the Vice, and sinnekens typically are personifications whereas the protagonists are normally types. However, this distinction is not always maintained. In the Dutch plays there tends to be a great deal of emphasis on the personified nature of especially the sinnekens: they are represented as eternal, general evils and they do not fear death. In the English plays, on the other hand, the supposedly immortal and unchangeable characters can be susceptible to death: Newguise in Mankind escapes being hanged and Courage in The tyde taryeth no man (henceforth Tide) is taken off to his execution at the end of the play.5 They are occasionally changeable: Perverse Doctrine in A new Enterlude ... entituled New Cusiome (henceforth New Custom) converts.6 Given the fact that the Vice and sinnekens and the minor vices normally belong to the same personification category, and given the oscillation between different personification strategies in the English tradition, the personified status of the Vice and sinnekens cannot be used to distinguish them from other vice characters. The boundaries between the various kinds of negative characters are not firm or clear in either the Dutch or the English plays and perhaps it would be foolhardy to define the different characters rigorously as this would go against the fluidity exemplified in the plays. …