Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
The term psychomachia, drawn from the title of Prudentius' fourth century work, dramatizes the "struggle for the soul of man by the personified forces of good and evil" (Bevington 117). In morality plays such as The Castle of Perseverance (circa 1400-1425), the embodiments of vice and virtue engage in a mock military conflict to win the allegiance of humanity. However, the difficulties of staging mock battles in limited space with a limited cast resulted in the evolution of the psychomachia intrigue plot where the figure of wickedness tempts the representation of humanity to embrace evil and reject good (Spivack 152, 170). Of course, the psychomachia served as the organizing principle for many of the morality plays, the chief form of popular drama between 1400 and 1550. Eventually, the psychomachia structure evolved, forming the nucleus of Tudor drama where the contest between contrary forces obtained a more realistic and secular context. The Elizabethan history plays, for example, adapted this structure to illustrate the dialectical influences on a king, conflicted by the leverage of good and bad counselors. What I have identified as Eminem's "psycho"-machia is a variation on the same structure that became early modern drama. Here the soul and allegiance of America's youth is the prize in a contest between Eminem's "wicked rhymes" and the moral guidance of parents and social institutions, the rapper himself becoming the comic trickster and/or devil figure of morality drama whose infectious humor and artful intrigue drove the narrative and popularized the art form, winning the audiences' complicity in his audacious villainy.
Repository Citation
Keller, James. ""God sent me to piss the world off": Eminem, 'Psycho'-Machia, and the Morality Vice." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 8, no. 4, 2008, pp. 1–20. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol8/iss4/4