Chapter page
             1. Basic facts about Mankind 2
             1.1 Characters in the Morality Plays 2
             1.2 The Author of Mankind 4
             1.3 Sources and Analogues 5
             1.4 The Staging of Mankind 5
             2. A Summary of the Plot 7
             3. The Significance of Mankind 10
             3.1 An Interpretation of the "Court Scene" 10
             4. The genesis of Shakespeare's theatre in Mankind 12
             Works Cited 14
             1.1 Characters in the Morality Plays
             There are some obvious differences between the morality and the miracle plays. The latter did stress moral truths besides teaching facts of the bible, but on the whole did not lend themselves to allegorical formulation except when there was no well – defined Bible story to be followed. A good example in this case is the life of Maria Magdalen, before she was converted. The miracle play dealt with what were believed to be historical events and its main characters were for the most part ready- made for the playwright by the Bible and inherited tradition.
             The morality play on the other hand, stood by itself, unconnected to a cycle, and the plots were extremely stereotyped. "They afforded less scope for original creation than those of the miracles, which were crowded with major and minor characters, Herold, Pilate, Pharaoh, Noah's wife, Satan, Adam and Eve," (Kinghorn 1968: p.116) and a host of others, b...