SOURCE: "The York Cycle," in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, edited by Richard Beadle, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 100-08.

In the excerpt below, Beadle evaluates the variety of alliterative verse in the York cycle. Focusing in particular on the Crucifixion pageant and the second Christ Before Pilate play, he remarks on the verbal subtleties and structural details that are carefully woven into the twelve-line stanza throughout the play.

Most of the York cycle still awaits detailed study along lines that move towards an integration of the textual, documentary and theatrical evidence, complex and resistant to consensual interpretation though some of it is. Recent illuminating accounts of the Nativity (Play 14) and the Resurrection (Play 18) show what can be done. An extended commentary on the cycle as a whole, along the lines of that provided by [R. M.] Lumiansky and [David] Mills for Chester or [Stephen] Spector for...