Quite simply comedy

It makes no difference that it is popular literature and not high literature: Katrin Dennerlein is researching comedies of the 18th century. (Photo: private)

They offered pomp and circumstance, acrobatics, humor, instruction, and emotion: German-language comedies of the 18th century. German scholar Dr. Katrin Dennerlein is taking a closer look at these works, and this has earned her a place in the Förderkolleg, a program specifically set up by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities to promote young talent.

In the 18th century, going to see a comedy was a sensual pleasure that was almost always accompanied by music. Some of the plays were also rather formless, and at their most successful when a buffoon or harlequin appeared who was greedy, lazy, and avaricious and who, with his jokes that were as bawdy as they were radical, would have been a match for a modern-day comedian like Ingo Appelt.

And yet, “comedies from this period before 1800 are very alien to us today. The majority have long since been forgotten,” says Katrin Dennerlein. The 34-year-old is a Research Associate at the University of Würzburg’s Department of Computer Philology and Modern German Literature and is presently travelling the length and breadth of Germany for her current research project.

“The comic in German-language comedy of the 18th century. Manifestations and functional transformation” is the title of her project. This project has now seen her admitted into the Förderkolleg of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities – as one of six excellent young scientists.

Theater in the 18th century

A trip to the theater in the 18th century was nothing like it is today. Well-furnished playhouses with a regular ensemble and a secure budget only emerged toward the end of the century. Theatrical dramas and comedies were usually presented in three guises: “Firstly, there were the courtyards in which operas and musical comedies that dealt primarily with historical and mythological material were mainly staged,” says Dennerlein. As a rule, these performances were not open to the public, but reserved for members of the court. Only if they were running short of money would they possibly lower themselves and allow the middle classes to attend as well – for a fee, of course.

Travelling theaters formed the second pillar of theater culture in the 18th century. “They moved from place to place and tried, where possible, to obtain a license in the cities at the same time as trade fairs and markets were taking place,” says the literary scientist. On these occasions, there would be a lot of people out and about and presumably a bit more relaxed with their money than usual. The troupes advertised their appearances using playbills, which these days we would call flyers.

And there was also the school theater of the Jesuits, which was dedicated to ancient and biblical material. This has its origins in the Counter-Reformation and in efforts to oppose the very successful Protestant school theater. Originally, school theaters served to familiarize pupils with Latin; during the course of the 18th century, however, German also established itself as a language used in performances.

The literary comedies of Luise Gottsched, Johann Elias Schlegel, Lessing, or Lenz, which we can find today in literary histories, only constituted a tiny fraction of the work produced and were performed with comparatively little success. Nevertheless, these comedies and the theorizing that surrounded them were important for the subsequent history of comedy.

Playbills are a key source for Katrin Dennerlein’s research today. They tell her which theater gave a guest appearance when and where; they provide details of which plays were in the repertoire. This helps because it is not exactly an easy task when it comes to the plays; they cannot usually be ordered in a bound form, like with the complete works of William Shakespeare.

“The texts tended not to exist in printed form. And each travelling troupe went to great lengths not to pass their own play on to third parties,” says Dennerlein. The fear of unauthorized copies was often so great that not even the actors themselves were given the full text. Instead, they had to make do with fragments that only contained their own words and just the necessary cues. So, among other things, the young scientist is also having to travel around a lot and search in archives and libraries for old manuscripts. Even licenses from the historical archives of towns and cities might help her make progress.

The research project

Which theaters and which plays were successful during this era? How did they change over time? Who were the authors? What means were employed to produce a comic effect? What relationship did they have with social structures? These are some of the questions that Katrin Dennerlein will address over the next few years. She cannot rely on large academic works for her preparations. “Comedies are popular literature, not high literature. This may be a reason why they have received so little attention from German scholars to date,” she says. This presents her with a problem as well: “What should I choose?” After all, the topic is as extensive as it is diverse, and the quest for something representative is not exactly easy.

That said, she has a fairly clear idea of her conclusion. This will focus on the comedies of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe, who was born in Frankfurt/Main in 1749 and died in Weimar in 1832, is not necessarily a prototypical representative of a comedy author in the 18th century. His plays hardly featured in the repertoire of travelling theaters. “Yet Goethe took much of his inspiration in his comedies from the tradition of baroque theater,” says Dennerlein.

Such elements can even be found in what is undoubtedly his most famous tragedy: “Faust”. In this work, the “Prelude in the Theater” features a theater director, a poet, and a clown (representing the actors) arguing about the sense and purpose of a successful play; its “Prologue in Heaven” has God making a bet with the Devil. And all this takes place before the main part of the action has even begun. These, for example, are precisely the elements that were practically always found in the plays of travelling theaters as well.

About the person

Katrin Dennerlein was born in Nuremberg in 1977. From 1998 to 2004, she studied Modern German Literature, Sociology, and Theater Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and at Paris Sorbonne University (Paris IV). She obtained a doctorate from TU Darmstadt in 2009, with a thesis on the “Narratology of Space”. Since 2009, she has been a Research Associate at the University of Würzburg’s Department of Computer Philology and Modern German Literature. She is currently acting as a Junior Professor for Modern German Literature and Media at the University of Bayreuth.

The Bavarian Academy’s Förderkolleg

In 2010, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities founded the Förderkolleg. It admits six excellent young scientists into the program each year. They must be no older than 34, they must live in Bavaria, and they must be working on their scientific career at a university or a non-university research institution in Bavaria. “To be in this position, they must have completed a broad-based scientific education followed by an exceptional doctorate”, according to one of the Academy’s information flyers.

The participants receive 1000 euros a month for at least three years, which they can spend on whatever they want, be this laboratory materials, conference visits or a child minder for their own youngsters.

There are regular meetings intended to promote interdisciplinary scientific exchange, and mentors are on hand to provide the young scientists with help and advice.

Contact

Dr. Katrin Dennerlein, e-mail: katrin.dennerlein@uni-wuerzburg.de

By: Gunnar Bartsch

12.03.2012, 11:27 Uhr