Practical Uses of Comedy at a Seventeenth-Century Court: The Political Polemic in Caspar Stieler's "Der Vermeinte Printz"

Abstract

It is a commonplace in literary scholarship that Germans have no true comedy; if called upon to list the great German comedies, the harrassed Germanist of the past would usually list three or four (Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm of 1767, Heinrich von Kleist's Der zerbrochene Krug-The Broken Jug-of 1806, and Franz Grillparzer's Weh dem, der liigtWoe to him who lies of 1838, or perhaps Gerhart Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz -The Beaver Pelt of 1893) before arriving at the black comedies of Diirrenmatt and Frisch of the period after the second world war. And even the three from the Bliitezeit (blooming period, 1750-1850) of German literature, the Germanist will hasten to add with some embarrassment, exhibit more pathos and existential anxiety than the tragedies of some national literatures.1 As a matter of fact, German theatre did have an age of comedy, but since it lies back in the often neglected seventeenth century, few think to mention the wonderful Peter Squentz of Andreas Gryphius, Der Niederliindische Bauer-The Dutch Peasant-of Christian Weise, or Der Vermeinte Printz-The Assumed Prince-of Caspar Stieler.