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This translation and introduction is intended to fill a crucial void in German literary and linguistic scholarship by 1) making the play available to an English-speaking audience; 2) examining its origins, development, staging, and unique contributions to the genre; and 3) providing a companion text for students of late Middle High German. The Alsfeld Passion Play represents the culmination, and perhaps the most complex stage of development of the German Passion Play tradition. The Alsfeld play was a three-day play, with performances in 1501, 1511, and 1517. With roles for 188 players it was presented on the open market square, and was conspicuous for its extensive devils' scenes, portrayal of Mary Magdalene before her conversion, and lengthy disputation scenes. At present there are no known translations of the Alsfeld play, in modern German or in English. The original manuscript, preserved at the Landesbibliothek in Kassel, contains 8095 lines of dialogue along with incipits, stage directions, and a rich variety of liturgical songs. Text and translations appear on facing pages. This book is available at a special text price. Call (716) 754-2788 for information on text orders.
First published in 2001, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive guide to the German and Dutch-speaking world in the Middle Ages, from approximately C.E. 500 to 1500. It offers detailed accounts of a wide variety of aspects of medieval Germany, including language, literature, architecture, politics, warfare, medicine, philosophy and religion. In addition, this reference work includes bibliographies and citations to aid further study. This A-Z encyclopedia, featuring over 500 entries written by expert contributors, will be of key interest to students and scholars, as well as general readers.
What is medieval religious drama, and what function does it serve in negotiating between the domains of theology and popular life? This book aims to answer these questions by studying three sets of these dramas from Germany, France, England, and Spain: 10th-century Easter plays, 12th-century Adam plays, and 15th- and 16th-century Passion plays.
The early-fourteenth-century St Gall Passion Play comes from the Central Rhineland. Unfortunately its music (over one hundred Latin and German chants) is given in the manuscript only as brief incipits, without any musical notation. This interdisciplinary study reconstructs the musical stratum of the play. It is the first full-scale musical reconstruction of a large German Passion play in recent times, using the latest available scholarly data in drama, liturgy and music. It draws conclusions about performance practice and forces, and offers a sound basis for an authentic performance of the play. The study applies musical and liturgical data to the problem of localizing the play (the first time this has been systematically attempted), and assesses how applicable this might be to other plays. It presents a detailed study of the distinctive medieval liturgical uses of three German dioceses, Mainz, Speyer and Worms. The comparative approach suggests how the music of other plays might be reconstructed and understood, and shows that a better understanding of the music of medieval drama has much to teach us about other aspects of the genre. The book should be of interest to literary scholars, theatre historians, musicologists, liturgical scholars, and those involved in the performance of early drama.
It is commonly held that medieval Christians viewed medieval Jews in exclusively negative terms. This is certainly the dominant opinion in much twentieth-century scholarship, and it is not wholly without justification. It is, however, an opinion that does not accurately reflect the breadth of medieval German Christian thinking about medieval German Jews. Drawing on Passion plays, hagiographical narratives and didactic literature, this monograph reveals a hitherto largely unacknowledged diversity in medieval German representations of Jews. In many of the best-attested texts from the late medieval and early modern periods, Jews appear in German literature as sympathetic, even morally exemplary figures.
This innovative and multidisciplinary collection visits representations and interpretations of Mary Magdalene in the medieval and early modern periods, questioning major scholarly assumptions behind the examination of female saints and their depictions in medieval artworks, literature, and music. Mary Magdalene’s many and various characterizations from reformed prostitute to conversion-figure to devotee of Christ to "apostle to the apostles" to spiritual advisor to the Prince of Marseilles to hermit in the desert, to list just a few examples, mean that the many conflicted representations of Mary Magdalene apply to a staggering variety of cultural material, including art, liturgy, music, literature, theology, hagiography, and the historical record. Furthermore, Mary Magdalene has grown into an extremely popular and controversial figure due to recent books and movies concerning her, and due to a groundswell of general speculation concerning her relationship to Jesus: was she his acquaintance, follower, companion, wife, family-member, or lover? This volume employs a broad spectrum of theoretical methodologies in order to present poststructuralist, postcolonial, postmodernist, hagiographic, and feminist readings of the figure of Mary Magdalene, addressing and interrogating her conflicting roles and the precise relationship between her sacred and secular representations.
Vince has provided a useful and, for the most part, usable reference work. His introduction should be required reading for anyone approaching medieval theater. Choice Scholars increasingly see medieval theatre as a complex and vital performance medium related more closely to political, religious, and social life than to literature as we know it. Reflecting the current interest in performance, A Companion to the Medieval Theatre presents 250 alphabetically arranged entries offering a panoramic view of European and British theatrical productions between the years 900 and 1550. The volume features 30 essays contributed by an international group of specialists and includes many shorter entries as well as systematic cross-referencing, a chronology, a bibliography, and a full complement of indexes. Major entries focus on the theatres of the principal linguistic areas (the British Isles, France, Germany, Iberia, Italy, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and Eastern Europe), and on dramatic forms and genres such as liturgical drama, Passion and saint plays, morality plays, folk drama, and Humanist drama. Other articles examine costume, acting, pageantry, and music, and explore the theatrical dimension of courtly entertainment, the dance, and the tournament. Short entries supply information on over one hundred playwrights, directors, actors and antiquarians whose contributions to the theatre have been documented. This informative guide brings new depth to our appreciation of the richness and color of medieval public entertainments and the symbolism and pageantry that were a part of daily life in the Middle Ages. Designed to appeal to general reader, this volume is also an attractive choice for libraries serving students and scholars of theatre history, English and European literatures, medieval history, cultural history, drama, and performance.