''The
World of Wrestling' and Medieval English Drama
In
Roland Barthes' collection of essays Mythologies
he takes a variety of mundane objects and experiences and draws
philosophical observations from them. He opens the collection with
'The World of Wrestling' in which he discusses the spectacle of
wrestling in 1950's France. In this piece I will argue first that many
of the aspects of wrestling that Barthes remarks upon are shared with medieval drama and second that this means that some of Barthes'
philosophical conclusions could also be applied to early drama.
The
first aspect of wrestling which Barthes finds notable is the fact
that it was often 'an open air spectacle'1
that 'aligns with drama as well as the Spanish Bullfights' (page 3).
To Barthes, when wrestling occurs outdoors it has the grandiose sense
of being performed under the stars. Even when wrestling is actually
performed inside 'in the most squalid Parisian halls' (page 3), it
retains this grandiosity because the of the floodlights inside. The
key, Barthes argues, is that 'light without shadow generates emotion
without reserve' (page 3). Perhaps what he means here is that with
the lack of shadows and with no need for a spotlight, emotional
scenes and performances are made all the more raw.
These
things are true of medieval drama. Like the Parisian wrestling, it is
by its nature an 'open air spectacle' (page 3) with the sun as a
light source. In fact, the York play of 'The Crucifixion' is an
excellent example of the power of 'light without shadow' to produce
'emotion without reserve' (page 3). When Christ is pulled up on his
cross and addresses the spectators, saying 'All men that walkis by
waye or strete/ [...] Byholdes myn heede, myn handis, and my feete',
he would have been high and bathed in light, outside of the shadow of
the surrounding buildings.2
Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that the most raw and striking moment
in all the cycle plays occurs when Barthes' condition for 'emotion
without reserve' (page 3) is met.
Barthes'
description of the 'performance' of the wrestlers is also important.
He argues that, in the performances of the wrestlers, the public
wants:
'the
image of passion, not passion itself. There
is no more a problem
of truth in wrestling than
in theatre. In both, what is expected
is the
intelligible representations of
moral
situations which are usually private' (page 7).
The
phrase that interests me here is the expectation of 'the intelligible
representation of moral situations which are usually private' (page
7). While Barthes of course intends it to mean the exaggerated actions
and facial expressions of professional wrestlers in a staged match, I
would argue that this phrase rather perfectly describes so-called
'morality plays'. Plays like Mankind
are in their essence just that – 'intelligible representations of
moral situations which are usually private' (page 7). Mankind
is the exploration of one nameless individual's struggle
with temptation and religion. It is, then, a depiction of a moral
situation which is usually private.
A
second phrase from that passage that is worth further remark is when
Barthes states that 'there is no more a problem of truth in wrestling
than in theatre' (page 7). The type of wrestling which Barthes
discusses, like the modern WWE in the USA, is staged rather than
athletic or competitive; he states that 'wrestling is not a sport, it
is a spectacle […] the public is completely uninterested in knowing
whether the contest is rigged or not […] it abandons itself to the
primary virtue of spectacle' (page 3). Like staged wrestling,
medieval drama lacks any realism. By this I mean it lacks the truth
provided by any relatable or recognisable characters or situations,
opting instead for allegory and crude representations of
abstractions. Barthes' argument is that a spectacle with no real
truth is not necessarily robbed of meaning. The meaning is in
the spectacle and thus despite the fact that fantastic scenes such as
the battle between the vices and the virtues in The
Castle of Perseverance, which
shares the sense of a 'mythological fight between good and evil'
(page 12) with wrestling, have no truth or reality to them, the very
spectacle of the improbable has value.
Medieval
theatre is often seen as a rather remote subject matter but I hope I
have shown with this short piece the opportunities of applying modern
philosophy and literary theory to ancient texts.
1
Roland Barthes, 'The World of
Wrestling' in Mythologies (London:
Vintage, 2009), pp. 3-14, page 3. Further references follow
quotations in the text.
2
York, The Crucifixion in
Medieval Drama: An Anthology, ed.
by Greg Walker, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000), pp. 134-42,
ll. 253-5.
