At its height, Middle Low German, the language of the three plays in André Schnyder’s edition, was the language of the Hanseatic League and thus a politically and culturally important language. Curiously, given this political and linguistic importance, there are few original literary texts in Middle Low German, though many texts were translated into the language. The three plays edited in this volume by André Schnyder, however, are not translations per se; rather, they are Middle Low German versions of a widely known medieval legend known as the Theophilus legend. The Theophilus legend tells the story of a sixth-century cleric who, with the help of a Jewish magician, contacted and then signed a pact with the devil in order to become a bishop; it is the original source of the Faust legend, and thus of interest to anyone working on Christian legends or folk religion.
Medieval religious drama is not usually presented in scholarship as folk drama, even though the plays were performed and managed by the laity. This lay control over the plays, however, clearly brings the plays into the realm of folk drama. And plays like these give us insight into what the laity perceived to be important religious stories and which religious stories circulated among the laity. Unlike many of the manuscript versions of religious legends, we know that the plays were seen, and performed, by the laity. These stories, as told in the medieval drama, include exempla (as in these three Theophilus plays), saints’ legends, and retellings of the Bible, many of which can also be found in later oral versions of the legends. Religious plays like the three Theophilus plays presented in this edition are thus a key source for understanding vernacular religious belief in the Middle Ages.
Schnyder’s edition presents two of the plays in parallel editions with facing-page translations, and the third following alone with a facing-page translation. The translations, which are perhaps more likely to be used than the Middle Low German originals, are very good. The edited texts and translations are followed by a detailed commentary on the texts and an introduction to the work, which includes lengthy discussions of the theological and legendary sources as well as a section on the iconography of the legend.
Das Mittelniederdeutsche Theophilus-Spiel is an excellent edition, translation, and commentary that deserves to be well-known among scholars of the medieval religious drama and folklorists. It is to be hoped that it will draw attention not only to these plays, but to Middle Low German literature more widely and thus to the other texts of folkloric interest to be found there.
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[Review length: 434 words • Review posted on September 22, 2010]