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The Metres of the Brome and Chester Abraham and Isaac Plays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Margaret Dancy Fort
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Extract

Of the six English miracle plays' dealing with the Sacrifice of Isaac, no two bear such marked resemblance as do the Chester and Brome plays. The close verbal agreements between these two have long been recognized and the problem which they present has been the subject of much discussion. To explain this special relationship two theories have heen advanced: first, that the plays are derived from a common source (either of French or early English origin), second, that one play is based directly on the other.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 1926 , pp. 832 - 839
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 The six plays ate: Chester, York, Towndty, Hegge, Brome, and Dublin.

2 A. W. Pollard, Eng. Miracle Plays, p. 185.

3 E. K. Chambers, Medieval Stage, II, 426.

4 A. R. Hohlfeld, Mod. Lang. Notes, V, 222.

5 Carrie A. Harper, “A Comparison between the Brome and Chester Plays of Abraham and Isaac,” Radcliffe Coll. Monographs XV, 51-73.

6 Vv. 26-32, 109-115, 122-128, 212-218, 228-234.

7 Vv. 47-58. The rime-scheme in this stanza makes a remarkably close approach to the characteristic 13-line stanza in the Hegge plays. (ababababcdddc). The Hegge stanza (with some corruptions) may also be recognized in B vv. 443-455.

8 It would be an easy matter to reconstruct this stanza by reversing the rimes in the first two lines, thus converting the rime-scheme to abaab—B's usual 5-line stanza.

9 The text of the Chester play is quoted from the E.E.T.S. edition; that of the Brome play from J. Q. Adams, Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas.

10 I quote these lines in the order in which they occur in the MS. Miss L. Toulmin Smith, followed by later editors, reverses the order of vv. 141, 142.