Excerpt: The drama of the Middle Ages ends with a sort of theatrical explosion. Everything disappears at once, under all forms and on every side. It included, like that of earlier times, "mysteries" drawn from the Old and the New Testament; "miracles" and plays borrowed from legends, tragedies inspired by the acts of the martyrs and by chivalric romances, by ancient history and by modern history; "moralities" whose allegorical impersonations represent the vices and the virtues; pious comedies like those of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, upon the Nativity of Jesus Christ, upon the...