Publisher's Synopsis
The purpose of this book is to show the growth of the Carnival comedy, the form which the secular drama assumed in medieval Germany, from its earliest beginnings to its culmination in the "Fastnachtsspiele" of Hans Sachs. It is generally assumed that the secular plays grew out of the comical scenes which had early been introduced into the serious plays. Dr. Rudwin claims an independent origin for the comedy. Just as the Church drama developed out of Christian worship, so the secular drama, the author maintains, originated in the heathen ritual. He then attempts to reconstruct the ancient pagan rites out of the few fragments which have persisted until the present day among the European peasants. He proceeds in much the same way as a scientist reconstructs a dynosaur from the most meagre osseous remains. It is a most ingenious work; and what surprising analogies the pagan beliefs and practices show to Christian creed and cult! This part of the book will interest chiefly the students of the history of religion.
The Carnival, the author maintains, was not instituted by the Church. It is of pagan origin. The word "carnival" is not derived, as is generally assumed, from Latin "carnem levare," the removal of flesh as food, but from "carrus navalis," the ship-cart, which played a very important part in Carnival processions for centuries, and which may still be seen in the modern float. The ship had no relation to the sea, but was a symbol of femininity and hence of productivity. In addition to this ceremony were other charms intended to bring about, through "mimetic" magic, the revival of the earth-the death and resurrection of the fertility god, the burning or burying in effigy of Death or Winter, the bringing in of Life or Summer in a tree or branch procession, and the like. In all these magical rites we see the elements of drama, for the leaf-clad mummer is impersonating the vegetation demon. This masked performer the author considers as the originator of the rough and ready comedy of contemporary men and manners. Very soon the ritual acts, it is claimed, were supplemented by comical scenes in which certain individuals among the spectators were imitated.
The Carnival comedy is of country origin, but developed as an art when it later came into the hands of the burghers. In the course of its development it absorbed all the "ludi" of the Feast of Fools and of the Feast of Boys, the "spectacula" of the medieval minstrel, the successor to the Roman "mimus" on the one hand and the Germanic "scop" on the other, and was moreover influenced in its literary form by the Church play. This influence, however, was mutual. The sacred and secular plays of the Middle Ages influenced each other to such a degree that it is very difficult to state in definite terms on which side was the greater debt. The similarities between the two types of medieval drama became so great toward the end of the fifteenth century that they imperceptibly merged into each other. To draw a well-defined line of demarcation between the two would thus be a difficult task.
-"The Open Court," Volume 35 [1920]"
