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Literature vocabulary · Drama and Theatre

Morality play

Meaning in literature, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In literature, morality play means: An allegorical drama in which personified qualities present moral choices.

In Turkish: ahlak oyunu

How it is used

Use especially for medieval drama with figures such as Good Deeds or Greed; distinguish it from biblical narrative plays.

Example sentences

  1. In the morality play, Greed offers the traveller a purse that grows heavier with every lie.

    An abstract fault becomes a character who tests the traveller.

  2. The class adapted a morality play by replacing its medieval costumes with everyday clothes.

    The visual setting changes while the allegorical moral conflict remains.

Common collocations

  • medieval morality play
  • stage a morality play
  • allegoryA story, poem or picture in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas or real situations, so that it has a second, hidden meaning, often moral or political.
  • personificationA figure of speech that gives human qualities, feelings or actions to animals, objects, places or ideas, as in 'the wind whispered'.

More terms: Drama and Theatre

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