The Noble Gyn of Comedy in the Middle English Cycle Plays

This study examines the cycle dramatists’ use of comedy as a noble gyn, a clever artifice used to bring their audiences, unawares, to a state of greater spiritual understanding and acceptance. Through their emotional involvement with the comic action of the mystery cycles, the spectators are lured to participate in often vigorous struggles with the difficult issues of faith: divine authority, the limits of humanity, divine incarnation, the meaning of Christ’s suffering.