Stagings of holiness 2023

Contrary to what one might assume, plays about saints in German-speaking Switzerland are not primarily a pre-Reformation literary form. They became highly topical during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and served to promote confessional conflict and strengthen group identities.

This volume analyzes the German-language plays of saints from Lucerne, Sarnen, Einsiedeln, Solothurn and Zug from the period between around 1520 and 1630, as well as their Protestant counterparts from Bern and Basel. The play texts are examined together with the specific performance venue and stage form, embedded in religious, urban and theater-historical contexts and questioned with regard to the specific staging of holiness and its function.

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Author(s): Cora Dietl / Julia Gold / Elke Huwiler / Heidy Greco-Kaufmann / Björn Reich‍

Title: Stagings of sanctity. The Swiss play of saints of the 16th and early 17th centuries in the context of confessional conflict‍

Publisher: Basel/Berlin: Schwabe Verlag‍

Publication date: Spring 2023

‍ISBN: 978-3-7574-0014-9