'Verteufelt human'? Zum Humanitätsideal der Weimarer Klassik by Volker C. Dörr, Michael Hofmann

Abstract

MLR, 104.4, 2009 points toWorms or Oppenheim, with the author expressing a convincing, albeit tentative, preference forOppenheim. None of these towns, incidentally, appears in Eckehard Simon's lists of places with evidence of secular play production (see Die Anfange des weltlichen deutschen Schauspiels 13/0-1530: Untersuchung und Dokumentation, Miinchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 124 (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2003)). Most of the remaining chapters work through the play to establish which chants the various incipits indicate: before the Passion, two sections on the Passion, the Resurrection and theHarrowing ofHell, and the Empty Tomb. Throughout these sections the author exhibits impressive skills in garnering the evidence from other plays and not only those fromwithin theHessian tradition (see e.g. pp. 206-08). The authors deep knowledge here allows him to posit interesting theories on differences in performance, including the choice of chants for different episodes and sequences of religious drama, as, for example, with theAgony in theGarden sequence ,and also the function of the silence accompanying some processions, but he is ready to acknowledge limitations to the extent of our present knowledge. In the concluding eleventh chapter the author sums up what this book has achieved: the liturgical approach facilitates the localization of the plays; the chants for the St Gall Passion Play can be reconstructed; the music with its quasi sacramentality' (p. 393) makes an essential contribution to the nature of the play, its structure and effects.The audience for the Easter mystery is assisting at a sacra mental act' (p. 394). On the other hand, chants can be avoided for a small number of crucial scenes. Having established themusical requirements in the play, the author is able to set out the 'forces' (p. 394) needed to stage it, including themu sical competence of the performers required for the singing, and wonders whether other plays cast according to a hierarchical model had problems in this respect. The author hopes thatGerman scholars ofmedieval religious theatrewill givemore attention toquestions of performance?actual performances are still the exception. He stresses and has demonstrated the importance of a comparative approach to the study of this genre. The final chapter provides an extensive bibliography of plays and other primary, chiefly the liturgical, sources listed according to the threemain dioceses and other provenances, and then secondary sources. Munich John Margetts 'Verteufelthuman? Zum Humanitatsideal derWeimarer Klassik. Ed. byVolker C. Dorr and Michael Hofmann. Berlin: Schmidt. 2008. 200 pp. 39.80. ISBN 978-3-503-09841-5. This volume contains ten essays, by differenthands, on the concept ofHumanitat, mainly with reference toHerder, Goethe, and Schiller, but also toWilhelm von Humboldt, Wieland, Heinse, Kant, and Georg Forster. As Jiirgen Kost points out in his essay on Humboldt, this concept owes much to the rise of individualism in the n66 Reviews eighteenth century, since itfrequently denotes an ideal towhich individuals should aspire in theirpersonal development. As such, it is closely related to the concept of Bildung, to that ideal of the 'whole man' with which, as Carsten Zelle observes in his essay on Kant, Schiller, and Forster, the Weimar classicists sought to counteract the over-specialized culture ofmodernity. This ideal?as embodied, forexample, in Winckelmann's vision of the ancient Greeks?was essentially male in character. But as Helmut J.Schneider reminds us inhis essay 'Die schone Frau: Zu einer Symbol figur der klassischen Dramatik', the ideal figures in classical drama aremore often women thanmen?partly, no doubt, because the female sex, in thewake ofRousseau and Empfindsamkeitywas considered closer than themale to an idealized nature. As an ideal for individual development, the concept ofHumanitat plainly con tains a strongmoral element. But in itsassociations with female beauty and Greek humanity, ithas an equally pronounced aesthetic significance. This in turn lends itan elitist and Eurocentric weighting, asMichael Hofmann notes in his essay on Goethe and Schiller: for instance, though Iphigenie's triumphant departure from Tauris may liftthe curse from theGreek dynasty she belongs to, itdoes nothing to resolve the crisis faced by Thoas and his barbarian kingdom. These limitations are part of a wider deficiency in the concept ofHumanitat as a guide to individual conduct, for it can readily distract attention from social and political considerations; Humboldt, for...