extraordinary productiveness of the Jesuit dramatists, and the steadiness of self-repetition which is equally characteristic of them, should warn us against underrating its influence upon a considerable proportion of the nation’s educational life during a long succession of generations.
While the scholars of the German Renaissance, who became so largely the agents of the Reformation, eagerly dramatized scriptural subjects in the Latin, and sometimes (as in the case of Luther’s protégé P. Rebhun[1]) in the native tongue, the same influence made itself felt in another sphere of dramatic activity. Beginnings of the vernacular German drama.Towards the close of the middle ages, as has been seen, dramatic performances had in Germany, as in England, largely fallen into the hands of the civic gilds, and the composition of plays was more especially cultivated by the master-singers of Nuremberg and other towns. It was thus that, under the influence of the Reformation, and of the impulse given by Luther and others to the use of High German as the popular literary tongue, Hans Sachs, the immortal shoemaker of Nuremberg, seemed destined to become the father of the popular German drama. In his plays, “spiritual,” “secular,” and Fastnachtsspiele alike, the interest indeed lies in the dialogue rather than in the action, nor Hans Sachs.do they display any attempt at development of character. In their subjects, whether derived from Scripture or from popular legend and fiction,[2] there is no novelty, and in their treatment no originality. But the healthy vigour and fresh humour of this marvellously fertile author, and his innate sympathy with the views and sentiments of the burgher class to which he belonged, were elements of genuine promise—a promise which the event was signally to disappoint. Though the manner of Hans Sachs found a few followers, and is recognizable in the German popular drama even of the beginning of the 17th century, the literature of the Reformation, of which his works may claim to form part, was soon absorbed in labours of a very different kind. The stage, after admitting novelties introduced from Italy or (under Jesuit supervision) from Spain, was subjected to another and enduring influence. Among the foreign actors of various nations who flitted through the innumerable The English comedians. courts of the empire, or found a temporary home there, special prominence was acquired, towards the close of the 16th and in the early years of the 17th century, by the “English comedians,” who appeared at Cassel, Wolfenbuttel, Berlin, Dresden, Cologne, &c. Through these players a number of early English dramas found their way into Germany, where they were performed in more or less imperfect versions, and called forth imitations by native authors. Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick-Luneburg[3] (1564–1613) and Jacob Ayrer (a citizen of Nuremberg, where he died, 1605) represent the endeavours of the early German drama to suit its still uncouth forms to themes suggested by English examples; and in their works, and in those of contemporary playwrights, there reappears no small part of what we may conclude to have been the “English comedians’” répertoire.[4] (The converse influence of German themes brought home with them by the English actors, or set in motion by their strolling ubiquity, cannot have been equal in extent, though Shakespeare himself may have derived the idea of one of his plots[5] from such a source). But, though welcome to both princes and people, the exertions of these foreign comedians, and of the native imitators who soon arose in the earliest professional companies of actors known in Germany, instead of bringing about a union between the stage and literature, led to a directly opposite result. The popularity of these strollers was owing partly to the (very real) blood and other horrors with which their plays were deluged, partly to the buffoonery with which they seasoned, and the various tricks and feats with which they diversified, their performances. The representatives of the English clowns had learnt much on their way from their brethren in the Netherlands, where in this period the art of grotesque acting greatly flourished. Nor were the aids of other arts neglected,—to this day in Germany professors of the “equestrian drama” are known by the popular appellation of “English riders.” From these true descendants of the mimes, then, the professional actors in Germany inherited a variety of tricks and traditions; and soon the favourite figures of the popular comic stage became conventional, and were stereotyped by the use of masks. Among these an acknowledged supremacy was acquired by the native Hans Wurst (Jack Pudding)—of whose name Luther disavowed the invention, and who is known already to Hans Sachs—the privileged buffoon, and for a long series of generations the real lord and master, of the German stage. If that stage, with its grossness and ribaldry, Separation between the stage and literature. seemed likely to become permanently estranged from the tastes and sympathies of the educated classes, the fault was by no means entirely its own and that of its patron the populace. The times were evil times for a national effort of any kind; and poetic literature was in all its branches passing into the hands of scholars who were often pedants, and whose language was a jargon of learned affectations. Thus things continued, till the awful visitation of the Thirty Years’ War cast a general blight upon the national life, and the traditions of the popular theatre were left to the guardianship of the marionettes (Puppenspiele)!
When, in the midst of that war, German poets once more began to essay the dramatic form, the national drama was left outside their range of vision. M. Opitz, who holds an honoured place in the history of the German language and literature, in this branch of his labours contented himself with translations of The literary drama of the 17th century.classical dramas and of Italian pastorals—among the latter one of Rinuccini’s Daphne, with which the history of the opera in Germany begins. A. Gryphius, though as a comic dramatist lacking neither vigour nor variety, and acquainted with Shakespearian[6] as well as Latin and Italian examples, chiefly devoted himself to the imitation of Latin, earlier French, and Dutch tragedy, the rhetorical dialogue of which he effectively reproduced in the Alexandrine metre.[7] Neither the turgid dramas of D. C. von Lohenstein (1665–1684), for whose Cleopatra the honour of having been the first German tragedy has been claimed, nor even the much healthier comedies of Chr. Weise (1642–1708) were brought upon the stage; while the religious plays of J. Klay (1616–1656) are mere recitations connected with the Italian growth of the oratorio. The frigid allegories commemorative of contemporary events, with which the learned from time to time supplied the theatre, and the pastoral dramas with which the idyllic poets of Nuremberg—“the shepherds of the Pegnitz”—after the close of the war gratified the peaceful longings of their fellow-citizens, were alike mere scholastic efforts. These indeed continued in the universities and gymnasia to keep alive the love of both dramatic composition and dramatic representation, and to encourage the theatrical taste which led so many students into the professional companies. But neither these dramatic exercises nor the ludi Caesarei in which the Jesuits at Vienna revived the pomp and pageantry, and the mixture of classical and Christian symbolism, of the Italian Renaissance, had any influence upon the progress of the popular drama.
The history of the German stage remains to about the second decennium of the 18th century one of the most melancholy, as it is in its way one of the most instructive, chapters of theatrical history. Ignored by the world of letters, the actors in return deliberately sought to emancipate their art from all The stage before its reform.dependence upon literary material. Improvisation reigned supreme, not only in farce, where Hans Wurst, with the aid of Italian examples, never ceased to charm
- ↑ Susanna (Geistliches Spiel) (1536), &c. Sixt Birk also brought out a play on the story of Susanna, which he had previously treated in a Latin form, in the vernacular (1552).
- ↑ Siegfried; Eulenspiegel, &c.
- ↑ Susanna; Vincentius Ladislaus, &c.
- ↑ Mahomet; Edward III.; Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet, &c.
- ↑ The Tempest (Ayrer, Comedia v. d. schonen Sidea).
- ↑ Herr Peter Squenz (Pyramus and Thisbe); Horribilicribrifax (Pistol?).
- ↑ His son, Christian Gryphius, was author of a curious dramatic summary (or revue) of German history, both literary and political; but the title of this school-drama is far too long for quotation.
