Comparing Piety in The Wakefield Mystery Plays, The Book of Margery Kem

Comparing Notions of Piety in The Wakefield mystery story Plays, The reserve of Margery Kempe, and Le Morte DArthurThe monastic lifestyle that Launcelot and his knights adopt after their conversion is one that Margery Kempe might approve of -- doing penance, singing mass, fasting, and remaining abstinent. (MdA, 525) But Launcelots change of shopping mall is not motivated by the emotions that move Kempe, nor is his attitude towards God the analogous as can be found in The Book of Margery Kempe and The Wakefield Mystery Plays. In the Wakefield plays, God wins piety through outright threats. He appears to his following in visions, as he does in Kempe, but never as a benevolent or comforting presence. Kempe receives her only comfort in life through Gods constant reassurances of her holiness in the face of the swearword of her peers in the Creation play, it is God who casts out Adam and Eve, just as Kempe is cast out of traveling party after traveling party. The terror of being si milarly punished keeps other Wakefield characters in line. Noah begins his play with a speech detailing the mistakes of the those who have angered the Lord First on Earth and then in hell . . . but to those no impose on _or_ oppress befell/who trusted in his truth. And God responds Vengeance I will take,/ On earth for sins sake,/My grimness thus will wake/Both gigantic and small. (WP, 91) God promises that All shall perish less and more that so spurn my plan. Fa... ...dA, 523) Works Cited and ConsultedKempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. Sanford Meech and Hope and Emily Allen. London Oxford UP, Early English schoolbook Society 212, 1940 rpt. 1961. Lawton, David. Voice, Authority, and Blasphemy in The Book of Margery Kempe. Margery Kempe A Book of Essays. Ed. Sandra J. McEntire. innovative York Garland, 1992. 93-116. Malory, Sir Thomas. Works. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. London Oxford University Press, 1966.Mann, Jill. The Narrative of Distance, the Distance of Narrative in Malorys Morte DArthur. The William Matthews Lectures 1991 delivered at Birkbeck College, London. Rose, Martial, ed. and trans. The Wakefield Mystery Plays. New York Norton, 1961.