Overview

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: tenth-century Easter plays, twelfth-century Adam plays, and fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Passion plays. However, the author s intent is not to present a genre history. Instead, he seeks to mediate between the historical development of the plays and a systematic unfolding of the archetypal structure within which the plays grasp salvation history and act it out. His theoretical approach is grounded in the work of Niklas Luhmann, which strongly emphasizes the priority of social functions over institutional structures.

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9780804737913

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Reviews

. ..A remarkable undertaking. -- Comparative Drama

Medievalists in general as well as scholars of drama in particular will find this an important and thought-provoking study that is as relevant now as it was thirty years ago. --Claire Sponsler, University of Iowa

Author Information

Rainer Warning is Professor at the Institut für Romanische Philologie of the University of Munich. This is his first book to be translated into English.

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