The term Corpus Christi can and does refer to a great variety of occurrences and subjects within the religious sector of English history. It is representational of a wide dramatic genre, and styles may vary dependent on the specific region. These plays grew out of Christian liturgy. Much of the language and structure is marked by those origins. In working with The Fall of Man, we felt the need to modernize and simplify the old text to grasp a better understanding of the meaning and theme of the play. Throughout the time and place these plays originated, the language held much meaning to the type of messages created by the playwrights. These plays were written and performed in hopes of creating "a new awareness of man's position in the physical world" (Diller, 77). Man's journey and struggle with religious beliefs caused the plays to popularize throughout English society.
The Corpus Chrisit feast, the first element in the cycle, was created by a thirteenth century Augustinian nun, who, troubled by a recurring dream of the moon in partial eclipse, came to understand the moon as a symbol for Christ's body, and the dark shadow as a figure lamenting the absence of a special feast in honor of the Blessed Sacrament (Travis, 5). This became a celebration of the mysteries of faith and Christ's sacrifice for his people.
"The feast of Corpus Christi added an intellectual and metaphysical beauty to the otherwise indirectly articulated ideas of the day. By invoking the acts of Scripture which derived their typological reality from the Eucharist, the reading of the feast demonstrated the perfection and economy of the history of Christian salvation" (Travis, 12).
The Corpus Christi play evolved to evoke similar feelings and notions from Mass, the feast, and the procession: to reiterate the intensity of the community's faith in the meaning of Christ' pressence for the stage and categorized in two groups. The first involves the practical transformations from the Bible to the stage, and the second introduces new and innovative dramatic techniques to these stories by performing them on stage (Diller, 55). The Corpus Christi plays differed from Medieval dramatic traditions in the 15th century. Many viewed the plays as less orthodox than other religious drama, blurring categories of substance and accident, faith and imagination, metaphor and reality, ritual and drama (Travis, 19). This type of drama used reality to play specifically to their audiences. There was a need for drama to make phenomena never experienced in the normal life to become real and visible on stage (Kolve, 25).
Within the cycle, different plays were created to expressdifferent traditions and meanings. The Fall of Man is thought to be written and performed as an introduction or explanation for the redemptive work of Jesus Christ in the New Testament (Muir, 121). In the cycle from Chester, the character Adam within this play is viewed as sinning in three ways: gluttony, avarice, and pride (Muir, 124). Intentionally, these are the same three temptations that Christ resisted. These sins are stressed though various actions performed by Adam and often blamed on Eve. This displays Adam's faults as man, and Christ's immortality and superiour sacrifice for his people. The fall plays contain notions of man's sin and the consequences for that sin. "In theological terms, the atonement was seen as the restoration of the relationship between man, and God which had been impaired by man's deliberate disobedience" (Muir, 122).
I had a rather difficult time finding specific documented information on The Fall of Man. Much of the information was concentrated on the realm of the entire fall plays. The Fall plays have been separated into two categories emphasizing first, the classic doctrine of the atonement, and second, those that are closer to the early Latin doctrine (Muir, 122). Both depict the conflict between good and evil, and the triumph over evil by God. Overall, all fall plays make a clear statement of the differences between man and Christ.
Diller, Hans-Jurgen. The Middle English Mystery Play: A study in Dramatic Speech and Form. 1992. Great Britain. The Cambridge University Press.
Kolve, V.A. The Play Called Corpus Christi. 1966. Stanford, California. Stanford University Press.
Muir, Lynette. "The Fall of Man in the Drama of Medieval Europe," Studies in Medieval Culture, X (1977), 121-131.
Travis, Peter. Dramatic Design in the Chester Cycle. 1982. Chicago. The Universtiy of Chicago Press.