Zur Dramentechnik des Hans Sachs

Stuplich, Brigitte, Zur Dramentechnik des Hans Sachs. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog 1998. 363 pp. DM 98.00 paperback. Composing an inventory of his literary output in the Summa all meiner gedicht (1567), Hans Sachs writes: Da fund ich frohlicher comedi / Und dergleich trawriger tragedi, / Auch kurtzweiliger spit gesundert, / Gerade acht and auch zwey hundert. All of the dramas and Fastnachtspiele of this single most productive author of the early modern era were edited in the still definitive editions of Keller and Goetze. The bibliography of secondary studies is voluminous. Yet, scholars have typically ignored the 70 comedies and 58 tragedies, the so-called Meistersingerdrama, in favor of the some 85 Fastnachtspiele. True, Konnecker's Metzler Realienbuch (1971) treated them well, but now, finally, Stuplich gives them the attention they deserve. Her monograph establishes the standard for future work on Sachs's dramatic outpouring. At the end of the useful Forschungsbericht (9-23) Stuplich emphasizes her objective dispassion, a trait generally held to be lacking in Sachs research. The first section (25-100) goes on to contextualize his creativity in relation to Humanistendrama, to Schuldrama and to Fastnachtspiel, a valid approach based predominantly on the work of Creizenach and Wolfgang Michael. The value of the section lies in its contextual intent. While he surprisingly did not put Schuldrama in service of the Reformation (his Nurnberg contemporary Leonard Culmann had that goal), opting rather for confessionally neutral Christian pedagogy (his religious invective was generally reserved for his dialogs) Sachs' dramas did participate in the cultural trends of the day: Die dramatischen Experimente der Humanisten [i.e., Chelidonius, Locher, Reuchlin] nimmt Sachs sich zum Vorbild and bearbeitet deren lateinischen Vorlagen in der Muttersprache (322). In Teil II (101-242), Stuplich constructs a dramaturgical typology of Sachs' work, an invaluable presentation of what seems to be so self-evident to any reader of the dramas, but a project not previously undertaken with such great attention to detail. It is well nigh encyclopedic in scope and organization (with subsections: Strukturierung der Dramen, Auffuhrungstechnik, Kommunikation [i.e., monologues and dialogues], Figur and Handlung) and grounded in a careful review of any number of the texts. What she writes of her analytic treatment of monologues may stand pars pro toto for an eminently common-sense approach: Im folgenden soll die strukturell gliedernde, die handlungsbezogene and die figurenbezogene Funktion der Monologe bei Sachs einzeln betrachtet werden. Dazu wird entsprechend dem Thema dieser Arbeit zuerst untersucht, wie Sachs den Monolog technisch einsetzt. Erst dann wird unter inhaltlichem Aspekt auf den Monolog als handlungsstrukturierendes Element eingegangen. And she delivers on her promise in academic language of uncommon clarity, laced with citations from Sachs and with pertinent footnotes: Die angelsachsische Terminologie differenziert zwischen soliloquy and monologue, wobei die soliloquy den in dieser Arbeit unter Monologen verstandenen Einzelreden entsprechen (155)

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