1420–1471

Playwright
Musician

A Mystical Dramatist.

Arnoul Gréban, with his brother Simon, is one of the very few named authors of a medieval play of any sort and the first named author of a passion play. He wrote a Mystère de la Passion or Mystery of the Passion of Christ, a strongly visual, lyrical, and carefully structured work of some 35,000 lines containing music and involving a variety of literary styles such as the sermon form, the debate, and the lamentation; the play moves from comic to tragic in tone and back again. Passion plays of this kind were quite popular in France from the late thirteenth century (with the Passion of Paulinus) and were performed as late as 1549. More than 100 performances are recorded at French cities like Arras, Valenciennes, Angers, and Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne.

A Playwright and Teacher.

Gréban...