A Survey of Medieval Drama and Theater in Germany

Abstract

A Survey of Medieval Drama and Theater in Germany Hansjürgen Linke ? My aim is to provide a general introductory survey for scholars and students in the field of drama which will present the largest possible variety of factual information about drama in Germany and other German-speaking countries. Of course, as the other papers in the present collection also show, medieval drama and theater are a common European'phenomenon of immense interest with regard to the content of the plays and performance practice. Nor was all drama that was performed in the Germanspeaking region of Europe in the German language. As all specialists in the field know, medieval drama is bilingual since it comprises purely vernacular plays as well as pieces written entirely in Latin—in addition to a large number of mixed-language plays in both the vernacular and Latin. Furthermore, even in vernacular plays we more often than not find Latin stage directions. Chronologically, it is important to remember that Latin offices and plays were staged for several centuries after the close of the Middle Ages. Though they appear as early as the tenth century, they also extend as late as the eighteenth century—a period of time spanning more than eight centuries. And German vernacular plays also had a very long run, being played from the mid-thirteenth century up to the Reformation, which affected different areas at different times during the sixteenth century, and even later in the Southwest—the Swabian and Alemannic region —and in the Tyrol. These plays were played simultaneously with the drama of the Reformers, the Humanists, and the Jesuits, and continued up to the early decades of the seventeenth century. This is still a range of time longer than that from the baroque through contemporary drama. In Germany as in many other parts of Europe, the richness 17 18Medieval Drama and Theater in Germany of medieval drama, including its full historical diversity, is largely unknown except among specialists. Not only are the medieval drama and theater of Germany dead to the contemporary public, but also, due to peculiarities in academic training, even philologists tend not to be knowledgeable about this field. One of the reasons for this predicament is, most importantly, the way in which the drama has been approached by critics and the inadequacy of their standards of judgment. While there has been some improvement in academic circles in the past twenty years, the old stereotypes can be found even today. The codification of older expectations concerning drama by Gustav Freytag in his "Technik des Dramas" (1863) revealed exactly what people believed drama must be, and there was also the continuing reliance on Aristotle as a source of prescriptive theory of the stage. The medieval drama, which was rediscovered in the nineteenth century , failed to come up to the standards of Aristotelian dramaturgy or, for that matter, to the aesthetic and moral values expected during this time. Medieval drama was found to be entirely different in content and form, in intention and function, comparable neither to anything preceding nor to anything following it. If an approach was nevertheless ventured, it was motivated by national-historical, religious, or partly ethnological interests, never by any recognition of the artistic value of the plays. While the cultural and historical situation has recently received considerable attention, especially in English-speaking regions with the advent of the Records of Early English Drama and Early Drama, Art, and Music projects, it may still be useful to outline some aspects of the medieval drama from a German perspective.1 Importantly, the performances may not be grouped under the term Laienspiel, which indicates amateur performance, and indeed the term 'amateur' is inappropriate in a time when there were no professional theaters and in which also the word 'lay' denoted only non-clerics (not, as nowadays, non-professionals —a denotation which did not appear until later). As we know, laymen (in the medieval sense) were quite often joined on stage by clerics, and in some cases religious plays were in fact produced entirely by the clergy. Also inappropriate, although still frequently in use, is the term Volksschauspiel ('folk play') because it blurs the borderline between medieval theater and...