МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБЩЕГО И ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
ЧЕРЕПОВЕЦКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ
КАФЕДРА АНГЛИЙСКОЙ ФИЛОЛОГИИ
УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКОЕ ПОСОБИЕ ПО ДОМАШНЕМУ ЧТЕНИЮ
BARRY UNSWORTH
MORALITY PLAY
Специальность 031001
Череповец 2008
The Author’s Style
Barry Unsworth is often thought of as an historical novelist. In one sense the description is unarguable, since a great deal of his work is set in the past, for example in the late Ottoman Empire (Pascali’s Island, 1980), The Rage of the Vulture (1982), in the Atlantic slave trade (Sacred Hunger, 1992), in medieval England (Morality Play, 1995), in ancient Troy (The Songs of the Kings, 2002). Furthermore, several of his novels involve transactions between past and present, in which present-day characters are imaginatively drawn to or influenced by historical antecedents – the restorer at work in Venice in Stone Virgin (1985); the stalled novelist witnessing the Toxteth Riots in the Liverpool of Sugar and Rum (1988); the expatriate couple whose attempt to buy a house in Umbria seems to invoke conflict stretching from the Second World War back to the Carthaginian invasion in After Hannibal (1996); the biographer in Losing Nelson (1999).
In another sense, Unsworth clearly stands apart from much contemporary historical fiction, which is a sort of pageant-writing, unable to muster the three-dimensional imagination which truly animates the form. For Unsworth’s fiction, the past figures as something far more considerable than the product of careful research and costumed elsewheres: the pleasures of imagination disclose intensity where pleasure draws close to pain. As well as sensual immediacy, Unsworth’s historical imagination also wields a critical power which exposes his present-day characters to their own weaknesses and shortcomings. History is not an escape-route. In dealing with historical characters he is strongly drawn to marginality and failure – the Turkish spy in Pascali’s Island whose meticulous reports are received and filed but never read; or the British spy, lost among the tombs of Istanbul in The Rage of the Vulture, while the dread regime itself is collapsing under the weight of its own arrogant inertia.
This eloquent sense of the irrelevance of the personal life to the grander movements of history and politics carries a strong reminder of Cavafy, whose most famous poem, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, is a classic account of having missed the historical moment while watching earnestly for its arrival. The suggestion of Cavafy’s work as a whole, that an eloquently dramatized futility can offer a kind of melancholy consolation for itself is, one suspects, very close to the heart of Unsworth’s concerns. As with Cavafy, the Mediterranean and Aegean world is the home of his imagination – the world of the Trojan wars, of Rome and the Ottoman Empire, of the remembered fury of battle and the long, eventless aftermath where individuals must try to find a place for themselves. Unsworth is a distinguished member of the long and various tradition of English writer-travelers in the ancient world. Unlike some of its exponents, Unsworth has not been tempted into inert exoticism, though he is clearly drawn to the sensuality and glitter of Mediterranean light and landscape, to the textures of stone and water, which he can render with a poet’s rich economy. He is likewise drawn also to the sense of ancient mystery, of a world almost within reach.
Annotation
Morality Play is a detective story by Barry Unsworth, a Man Booker Prize-winning author.
Published in 1996 by the W. W. Norton & Company, the book was critically acclaimed and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. This story is about players from the medieval times and a rogue monk. They do plays in various towns, until they arrive upon a town with a recently occurred murder of a young boy. The main player, Martin, suggests they do a play on this unsettling death of the boy named Thomas Wells. The players go out and delve deeper into what really happened. As the story continues, more things begin to occur. The idea of playing this murder is especially difficult for the rogue monk, Nicholas. Although he ran from his duties of a monk, he still holds onto the concept of church, or God which tend to give meanings to plays that are often shown. When they show the play for the first time, the mother of the child is watching and denies that the story is true. The players, after they are done, resolve to make a new play, the true story of Thomas Wells.
Part one
Microcontext analysis
Chapter one
Analyze the strong positions of the book after reading the information about the author:
Study carefully the title: what can the reader presuppose? What type of play is morality play?
Read attentively the whole of the chapter. Who is the narrator of the story? What are the time and the place of action? What are the peculiarities of the epoch? What do we get to know about the narrator’s social and educational background? What helped you to define it?
Analyze all the allusions given in the chapter. What did you get to know out of them?
What is the general mood of the chapter? How can you prove it?
P.1. Study the passage carefully to understand the real meaning of the phrase “it was death that began it all and another death that led us on”.
p.2. What peculiarities of the epoch can you find reading the second page? What allusions can you find there?
P.3. Find Russian equivalent of the Latin phrase ‘mea maxima culpa’. Find the personification in the text. Comment on it. Analyze the implications of the simile “like that scene in the Morality Play”
P.4. Comment on the usage of epithets implied in the description of the appearance of the main characters. What image do they create?
P.5. Find an examples of irony and metaphor. What do they imply?
P.6. Find Russian equivalent of the Latin phrase ‘humani nil a me alienum’. Comment on the allusion to Publius Terentius Afer. Comment on the usage of epithets used to describe the clothes. What image of the background of the epoch do they create?
P.7. Comment on the usage of parallel constructions in the dialogue. Find the thematic sets of evil and church. What do they imply?
P.8. Analyze the syntactical structure of the passage. What impression is created through syntax? What is the stylistic function of the allusions to the Bible? Analyze the implications of the similes given in the passage.
P.9. Comment on the historical personages mentioned in the passage. What can you get to know about the epoch? How can you explain the choice of a song? Find the information about the song ‘Lenten is come with love to town’. What does it imply?
P.10. What is implied in the phrase ‘Men are distinguished by the power of their wanting’? Find the examples of irony in passage. Comment on their usage.
P.11-12. Comment on the thematic set of Morality Play. Find the inversions in the text. Comment on their usage.
Chapter two
I.
Analyze the strong positions of the chapter. What SD is implied there? What is the significance of it?
What do we get to know about the life of the main character? What facts do we get to know from the description of life of the players?
What is general mood of the chapter?
II.
P.13. Analyze the SDs given in the chapter. What do they imply? Find author’s ironic attitude to the chivalry. What is the implication of the opposition between the seasons?
P.14. What is implication in the phrase ‘I lost it at dice’? What does anaphoric repetition imply? What is implied in the SD used in the phrase ‘…Brendan lay in his priest’s garb…And there stood I in the garb of a dead player’?
P.15. Comment on the usage of oxymoron. Find the examples revealing woman’s state in the society of the epoch. Find the examples of alliteration, inversion and irony in the passage. What do they imply?
P.16. Comment on the allusions to the Bible. Comment on the usage of SDs.
P.17-18. Study carefully the title and the words of the song. What sense do they imply? What is the significance of the description of plague? With what SDs is it reached? Comment on the lexico-grammatical pattern of the passage.
Chapter three
I.
Comment on the roles of each player of the band. What are their peculiarities? Pick up the peculiarities of the villages defining the epoch.
II.
P.20-23. Find the SDs which define the characters of players.
P.21. Find the allusions to the Bible and define what they imply. Find in the text SDs which help to reveal the attitude of aristocracy towards lower-class society.
P.22. Comment on the usage of anaphoric repetition in the passage. What does it imply? Comment on the usage of anthisesis and metaphor.
P.23. Comment on the SDs used in the phrase ‘Then once again Brendan decided our destiny’. What does it imply? Pick up all the epithets given in the passage. What mood do they create? Comment on the usage of metaphor and irony in the passage. Define thematic set of smell.
P.25. Define the exact time of the action. What is the implication in the mentioning of St. Lazarus feast? What is the hidden meaning implied in the roles chosen for each person?
P. 26-27. Comment on the usage of periphrasis and metaphor in the passage. Define the author’s irony in the passage. Find the examples of anthisesis. Comment on it. What can you say about lexico-syntactical pattern of the passage?
Chapter four
I. Pick up the peculiarities defining a typical medieval town and its citizens.
II.
a). P.28. Define irony which characterizes the conditions in which people had to live during that time. Comment on the usage of alliteration in the description of an innkeeper. Comment on the usage of repetitions.
b) P.29. Find in the text the examples of morals and manners typical for that epoch.
c) P.30. Define the significance of the simile used in the passage. Pick up the SDs which help us to reveal the feelings of the main character. Comment on the usage of the phrase ‘…pretending to be free’.
d) P.31. Comment on the irony in the dialogue. What mood does it imply? Comment on historical personages.
e) P.32. Comment on the thematic set of light. What mood does it create? Find the examples of irony. Comment on them.
f) P.33. Find the examples of irony. Comment on them. Define all the epithets used to describe the priest. Comment on the phrase ‘a piece of scorn’. Comment a thematic set of money revealed in the passage. What does it create?
ink of the devices which characterize the priest.
g) p. 34.Comment on a usage of Latin in the passage. What is the attitude of the players to it? Find the epithets characterizing the players. Find the examples of the position of a woman in the society. Comment on the phrase “These worms that eat the common body». What does this parenthesis stand for?
h) P.35.What is the attitude of Nicolas to Martin’s utterance about the Church? Define a general description of priests. How do we learn about it? Comment on a usage of Latin in the passage. Find antithesis used to describe an opposition between good and evil.
i) P. 36. Look for the information about Benedictine. What kind of monk is it? Comment on the general atmosphere in the barn. Define the metaphor describing something inevitable coming.
Chapter five
I. Comment on the details that help us reveal the peculiarities of Morality Plays which took part in the medieval society.
II.
a) P.37. Comment on the usage of pun in the passage. Comment on the metonymy in the passage.
b) P.39. Define the usage of simile in the passage. Find the example of oxymoron and explain what it stands for. Explain what is ‘the mutual sense of posse and esse’.
c). P.40-45. Comment on the discreet comparison in this passage. Find the allusion to the Bible. Comment on it. Find all the peculiarities of the medieval Morality play in the passage? Comment on the stylistic devices which help to create the atmosphere: similes, metaphors, epithets and periphrasis.
Chapter six
I. What reflections on the topic of religion can be found in the chapter? What facts about the life of Martin do we get to know?
II
a) P. 46. Dwell upon the thematic set of money. Think about the reason of the author’s mentioning it. Think about the significance of the description of the weather.
b). P.47. Find the antithesis between God and Satan. Comment on it. Speak about the significance of man and woman in comparison to God and Satan.
c) P.48. Comment on the usage of the names of historical personages. Comment on the graphic means and their significance. Speak about the opposition in the sentence ‘As a player….’ Define all the SDs used to denote religion.
d) P.49. Find the examples of metonymy in the passage. Comment on it. Speak about the metaphor used to describe the feelings of Nicholas. Dwell upon the usage of chiasmus in expressing Martin’s relation towards his being a player.
Comment on the phrase ‘I thought of our Play…’. Think about the significance of phrase ‘God keeps it still’. Define the SD used there. Speak on the usage of epithets and metaphors in the description of the garden. What atmosphere do these devices create?
e) P.50.Comment on the thematic set of weather in the passage. What stylistic devices you can find here? What is the general mood they create? Find metaphors characterizing Martin.
f) P.51. Look up the information concerning the plays given in the passage? What kind of plays are they and what is their content? Why do you think the author decided to include them in the passage? How do you understand the phrase “the wealth of the guild»? What side of life of the players does it reflect? Find metonymies in the passage. What image do they create? Comment on the usage of metonymy “travel with the Mysteries”
g) P.52. Dwell upon the features typical for medieval society. With the help of which stylistic devices is the image created?
h) P.53. Study the dialogue carefully. Analyze the syntactical structure of the sentences and the usage of the stylistic devices describing the murder. Speak on the phrase “Small puzzles removed do not make a lessening of wickedness. ». What stylistic device is implied here?”
i) P.54-55. Speak on the graphic pattern of the passage. How does the metaphor “truth compels me” characterize Nicolas? Speak on the opposition in the passage. What is its function? Dwell upon the repetition of the word ‘power’.
Chapter seven
I. Comment on the general mood of the chapter. Dwell upon the allusions given in the chapter.
II.
a). P. 56. Comment on the usage of epithets.
b). P. 57-58. Dwell upon the description of weather. What mood does it create? Find the allusions to the Bible. Pick up the SDs with the help of which the atmosphere of Death is created. Why do you think it is written with the Capital letter? Dwell upon the simile ‘hesitant, circumspect…’ speak about the graphic pattern of the passage. Find the means of personification in the passage. Think about the symbolical meaning of the mist. Dwell upon the repetition of the word ‘Beast’.
c). P. 59-60. Find the allusions to the Bible. What is the symbolic meaning of colour implied in the text? What is the significance of the metaphor ‘Knight and squire merged…’? Dwell upon other examples of metaphor and simile in the passage.
d). P. 61. Comment on the usage of simile in the passage. Speak about the attitude of players towards knighthood.
e). P.63 Dwell upon the oxymoron ‘good people – murder’. Find the examples of personification and metaphor in the passage. What is their function?
f). P. 64. Comment on the lexical repetition in the passage. Speak about the allusions to the Bible.
g). P.65. Find the SDs that reveal the attitude of the characters toward the play and religion.
h). P.66. Comment on the allusions in the passage. What aims do they serve to?
i). P.67. Find the means of alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification. Comment on the usage of epithets.
j) P.68-69. Comment on the usage of simile ‘Sins are like stones’. Speak on the other means of simile in the passage. Find the means of personification.
k). P.70-71. Comment on the simile ‘like an infection of light’. Speak on the thematic set of light in the passage. Dwell upon oxymoron ‘light – dark’. Think about its function. Comment on the usage of epithets in the description of the Knight. What are they used for?
Chapter eight
I. What new information does the reader get to know from the passage? How does the author describe the murder?
II.
a) P.72. What information does the reader get to know about the citizens of the town? Find the metaphor describing the attitude of the people towards the crime.
b) P.73. Find the epithets describing Thomas’s father. Study the dialogue and find the examples of irony.
c) P.74. Comment on the lexical repetition in the passage.
d). P.75. Find the examples of simile in the passage. Comment on the usage of oxymoron. Think about its significance. Speak on the parenthesis in the passage.
e). P.76. Dwell upon the SDs used to describe Straw. Define the SDs used to describe Nicholas thoughts about the monk.
f). P.78. Comment on the metaphors used to describe Martin.
g). P. 79. Define the SDs that help us reveal the position of the women in that society.
h). p.80. Find the allusions to the Bible. Dwell upon alliteration, personification, simile in the passage. What image do they create?
i). p. 82. Find irony in the passage. What is its function? Find the examples of allusions. What do they imply?
j). p.83-84. Find the metaphors characterizing the life. Dwell upon their functions. Speak on the inversion. What does it imply? Dwell upon the SD implied in the phrase ‘what mattered more to him’.
Chapter nine
I. What is the significance of the chapter? How does this Morality Play differ from the other Morality Plays held by the main characters? What is people’s reaction to it?
II
a). P.85. Dwell upon simile in the passage. Speak on the metaphoric repetition in the passage. Define the general mood of the main character before the play? With what means is it reached?
b). P.86. Find in the text metaphor which reflects thoughts of the main character of past and real life. Speak on the phrase ‘I was confused between the playing of the scene…’ What is the importance of it? Find the antithesis in the passage. Dwell upon it.
c). P.87. Find the epithets and other SDs describing the feelings of the player during the performance.
d). P.88. Dwell upon the name of the Interlude. What symbolic meaning does it have? Find alliteration in the passage. What atmosphere does it create? Think of the allusion to the Bible. What symbolic meaning does the thematic set of light carry?
e). P. 89. What SDs are used to describe the actions of the players. What sound pattern is created? Find metaphor in the passage. Dwell upon it.
f). P.90. Find metonymy in the passage. Dwell upon the details in the description of Nicholas’s play? Comment on the Straw’s personage in the play. Speak on the colour pattern implied in the description of play.
g). P.91-92. Describe in details the play of Straw. What are the peculiarities of his play? Prove your point of view with the SDs.
h). P.93. Dwell upon the simile in the passage. Pick up all the means of metaphor in the passage. Dwell upon them. Comment on the usage of oxymoron in the passage. What atmosphere does it create?
i). P.94. Dwell upon the SDs describing the behaviour of Straw. Comment on the inversion in the passage. Speak on the allusions to the Bible in the passage. Dwell upon the play of Springer. Describe it in details.
j). P.95. Find allusions to the Bible. Comment on the play of Stephen, Springer and Straw. Prove your opinion with the SDs.
k). P.96. What symbolic meaning does a constant woman’s changing of the mask create? Dwell upon the Martin’s play. Approve it with SDs. Comment on the phrase ‘when he spoke it was in rhyme’.
l). P.97. Comment on the significance of rhymes for each of the players.
m). P.98. Speak on simile and metaphor describing the state of the players after the play. Speak on the phrase ‘it might have seemed that Avaritia had the victory in the battle for us’. What SD is implied here and what image does it create?
n). P.99. Comment on the monk’s position at that time.
o). P.100-104. What are the impressions of the players after the play? What do we get to know new about the murder? Dwell upon the SDs implied.
Chapter ten
I. Comment on the general mood of the chapter. What typical features of the society of that period of time do we get to know from the chapter? What new information does the reader get to know from the chapter?
II.
a). P 105. Dwell upon the description of the nature. Find SDs denoting it. What atmosphere do they create? What is the significance of the lexical repetition in the passage? Comment on the description of the beggar.
b). P.106. Dwell upon the graphic pattern of the passage. Find the examples of metaphor and metonymy in the passage, comment on them. Speak on the antithesis in the passage. What general image is created by these SDs?
c). P.107. Speak on the description of snow in the passage. Find the examples of epithets and metaphor in the passage. Speak on them.
d). P. 108. Dwell upon aposiopesis in the passage. What mood does it create? Comment on the description of man’s appearance. Pick up the SDs used to describe him.
e). P.109-110. Speak on the peculiarities occurred in the dialogue (negative forms, addresses). Comment on the usage of similes, used to describe justices. Dwell upon the allusions to the Bible in the passage. What is the meaning of the Latin phrase used in the passage?
f). P. 111. Comment on metaphors in the passage.
g). P. 112-113. Dwell upon the address used in the Weaver’s reply. What is the significance of the metaphors in the passage? Speak on the allusions to the Bible.
Chapter eleven
I. Where does the action of the chapter take place? What are the peculiarities of an epoch described in the chapter? What new information does the reader get to know from the chapter? Dwell upon the general mood of the chapter.
II.
a). P.114. Comment on the phrase ‘buy immortal life for twopence’. What SD is implied there? Speak on the description of nature.
b). P.115. Dwell upon the inversions used in the passage. Comment on the way Martin speaks. Find simile denoting Nicholas’s and Martin’s state of mind at that moment.
c). P. 116. Comment on bathos in the passage. What image does the jailer’s sarcasm create? Comment on the examples of simile and parenthesis used in a passage.
d). P. 117. Dwell upon the general mood of the passage. With what SDs is it reached?
e). P.118. Speak on the personification, similes, metaphors and epithets used in the passage. What atmosphere do they create?
f). P. 119. Speak on the simile used to describe woman’s behaviour. Speak on the phrase ‘Martin surprised us…’ What is the significance of the lexical repetition of the word ‘light’? Comment on the simile used to describe Martin’s behaviour. Why does the narrator connect it with the beggar?
g). P. 120-121. Dwell upon the framing used in the passage. What is the purpose of its usage? Pick up other SDs used in the passage.
h). P. 122. Dwell upon the irony in the passage. Speak on metaphors. Comment on the phrase ‘this was the way…’
i). P. 123. Comment on the usage of antithesis in the passage. Dwell upon Stephen’s monologue.
j). P. 124. Dwell upon anaphoric repetitions in the passage. What mood do they create? Speak on simile and metonymy in the passage.
k). P. 125-126. Comment on the graphic pattern of the passage. Speak on aposiopesis.