Editing Morality play (section)

{{Short description|Genre of Medieval and early Tudor drama}}
{{For|the book by Barry Unsworth|Morality Play (novel)}}
[[File:Mundas-et-Infans-frontispiece-1522.png|thumb|The 1522 cover of ''[[The World and the Child|Mundus et Infans]]'', a morality play]]

The '''morality play''' is a [[genre]] of [[Middle Ages|medieval]] and [[Tudor period|early Tudor]] drama.  The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts (most often [[virtues]] and [[vices]], but sometimes practices or habits) alongside angels and demons, who are engaged in a struggle to persuade a protagonist who represents a generic human character toward either good or evil.  The common story arc of these plays follows "the temptation, fall and redemption of the [[protagonist]]".<ref name="ReferenceA">King, Pamela M. "Morality Plays." In ''The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre'', edited by Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008: 235-262, at 235.</ref>