ABSTRACT
Dialogues and disputations were popular from Anglo-Saxon times, and many preaching friars and other predicants made their sermons into quasi-theatrical happenings. The moralities especially seem to be derived from such preaching: they are didactic, involved in argument and controversy and rooted in disgust at the Church’s obvious corruption, its worldliness and political entanglements, its pastors’ absenteeism and pluralism, simony and benefit of clergy, which gave priests virtual legal immunity. After the Black Death especially, a new emphasis was laid on the individual soul: anyone, it was argued, could be tempted, and all were sinners, but redemption could be found through penitence and Divine Grace. Pessimistic and serious, this play seeks to define goodness, as it traces its protagonist’s last journey towards death. Nevertheless, it too contains striking dramatic moments, as when Death confronts Everyman early in the play, or when Everyman comes to his grave.
