Ordo Virtutum - Plot

Plot

Ordo Virtutum is about the struggle for a human soul, or Anima, between the Virtues and the Devil. The piece can be divided as follows:

Part I: Prologue in which the Virtues are introduced to the Patriarchs and Prophets who marvel at the Virtues.

Part II: We hear the complaints of souls that are imprisoned in bodies. The (for now) happy Soul enters and her voice contrasts with the unhappy souls. However, the Soul is too eager to skip life and go straight to Heaven. When the Virtues tell her that she has to live first, the Devil seduces her away to worldly things.

Part III: The Virtues take turns identifying and describing themselves while the Devil occasionally interrupts and expresses opposing views and insults.

Part IV: The Soul returns, repentant. Once the Virtues have accepted her back, they turn on the Devil, whom they bind, and then God is praised.

Part V: A procession of all the characters.

Read more about this topic:  Ordo Virtutum

Famous quotes containing the word plot:

    “Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
    —Jane Rule (b. 1931)

    “Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
    why are they no help to me now
    I want to make
    something imagined, not recalled?”
    —Robert Lowell (1917–1977)

    ““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
    —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)