Andreas Friz’s Letter on Tragedies (ca. 1741–1744) Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe Editor-in-Chief Jan Bloemendal Editorial Board Cora Dietl ( Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen) Peter G.F. Eversmann (University of Amsterdam) Jelle Koopmans (University of Amsterdam) Russell J. Leo (Princeton University) volume 4 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/dtem Andreas Friz’s Letter on Tragedies (ca. 1741–1744) An Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Contribution to Theatre Poetics Critical Edition and Introduction by Nienke Tjoelker leiden | boston Cover illustration: Jesuit Stage Design taken from the Sopron Collection of Jesuit Stage Designs, Inventory Numer 98.25. Courtesy of the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute, Budapest, Hungary. The Illustration is identified as a design made for the Prologue to a Jesuit production staged at Vienna in 1710. (Eva Knapp: ‘The Sopron Collection of Jesuit Stage Designs’, in Jûzsef Jankovics [ed.], The Sopron Collection of Jesuit Stage Designs [Budapest: Enciklopèdia, 1999], p. 48.). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tjoelker, Nienke, author. Andreas Friz's Letter on Tragedies (ca. 1741-1744) : An Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Contribution to Theatre Poetics / by Nienke Tjoelker. pages cm. – (Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe ; volume 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-28373-2 ((hardback) : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-28374-9 (e-book) 1. Friz, Andreas, 1711-1790. Epistola de tragaediis. 2. Tragedy–History and criticism. 3. Drama–History and criticism–Theory, etc. 4. Jesuit theater–Europe–History–18th century. 5. Jesuit drama–Europe–History and criticism. I. Friz, Andreas, 1711-1790. Epistola de tragaediis. II. Friz, Andreas, 1711-1790. Epistola de tragaediis. English. III. Title. PN1892.F7538 2014 872'.04–dc23 2014034772 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2211-341X isbn 978-90-04-28373-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-28374-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. To my grandmother, Corry Tjoelker-van der Kleij ∵ Contents List of Illustrations ix Andreas Friz, Letter on tragedies Introduction: Jesuit Theatre, Poetics and Andreas Friz 3 The History of Theatre in Jesuit Schools 4 The Relevance of Jesuit Theatre in the Eighteenth Century 9 Developments and Innovations in the Eighteenth Century 11 Andreas Friz: Life, Work and Historical Context 19 Structure and Content of ms 938 and the Epistola de Tragaediis 22 Friz’s Place in the Literary Tradition 29 Commonplace Conceptions in Jesuit Poetics 29 French and Italian Classicism in Jesuit Poetics 38 Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Poetics 56 Description of the Manuscript and Edition Principles 70 Description of the Manuscript 70 Edition Principles 70 Latin Text and Translation 74 appendix Analysis tragaediarum Racini Introduction to Friz’s Analyses to Racine’s Plays 175 Latin Text 196 Bibliography 283 Index of Personal Names 294 List of Illustrations 1 Title page of the section which includes the Epistola de Tragaediis. Ms 938, University Library Graz, f. 222r 23 2 First page of the Epistola de Tragaediis. Ms 938, University Library Graz, f. 224r 71 Andreas Friz, Letter on tragedies ∵ introduction Jesuit Theatre, Poetics and Andreas Friz1 Latin theatre was an important activity in humanist colleges because of the many educational possibilities.2 On the one hand, it offered an opportunity for the pupils to bring into practice the rhetoric that they had learnt in school. On the other, it was a possibility to teach a moral lesson, through moralis- tic stories and a style of language with many sententiae, that could easily be remembered. The practice of Latin theatre was taken up by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century and became the most successful manifestation of Latin the- atre. All across the Catholic world Jesuit colleges staged public performances from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Whereas the first two centuries have been the object of a number of standard works on the Jesuit theatre,3 up to now the eighteenth century has been mostly ignored in scholarly works. Due to this relative lack of scholarship on the topic, many stereotypical prejudices about Jesuit theatre in this period still persist. This volume, and in particu- lar its introduction, aims to remedy this and offer a new insight into Jesuit drama of the eighteenth century. It comprises an edition of a letter on tragedy, written in 1741–1744 by the Graz Jesuit Andreas Friz, which offers us a better insight in the character and function of Jesuit drama of the eighteenth cen- tury. 1 I am grateful to Stefan Tilg for his helpful comments and suggestions, to William Barton and Ian Campbell for proofreading my English, and to Ludwig Fladerer for providing me with his transcription of the text. I would also like to thank Anne Spica for her help with interpreting Friz’s use of French classical models, as well as Jan Bloemendal and the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments. For any errors or inadequacies that may remain in this work, of course, the responsibility is entirely my own. 2 On the relevance of early modern Neo-Latin drama in humanist culture and education, two important publications appeared recently: Philip J. Ford and Andrew Taylor, TheEarlyModern Cultures of Neo-Latin Drama (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013) and Jan Bloemendal and Howard B. Norland (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 3 For example, Jean-Marie Valentin, Le théatre des Jésuites dans les pays de langue allemande (1554–1680): Salut des âmes et ordre des cités (Bern-Frankfurt-Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1978), 3 vols. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163/9789004283749_002 4 introduction The History of Theatre in Jesuit Schools However, in order to understand the theatre from the eighteenth century bet- ter, a short recapitulation of the early development of the genre in the Ger- man speaking countries, the area in which the subject of this edition, Andreas Friz, was active, seems useful. This area offers a relatively large amount of primary sources, as the German speaking countries were the most prolific area of European Jesuit drama. Finally, focusing on the German speaking area has the additional advantage that it is the only area of which we have a real overview (at least in terms of basic tools) from beginning to end, thanks mostly to Valentin’s repertoire and to Szarota’s edition of periochae (playbills).4 How- ever, individual examples of the discussion will also concern other parts of Europe. Theatre had been a characteristic element of Jesuit education from the early years of its existence. Comedies, tragedies and other types of plays which com- bined elements from both of these genres (such as tragicomedia and comico- tragoedia) were performed at Jesuit schools throughout Europe. The Jesuits began using the school stage in a Counter-Reformation context in the middle of the sixteenth century and continued to do so until late in the eighteenth.5 Early on, as there was no fixed Jesuit repertoire yet, the Jesuits took up and adapted material from various traditions, such as the Bible and miracle plays, morality or mystery plays, the humanistic dialogue and comedy, as well as medieval traditions.6 That the Jesuits in the early period relied on existing traditions of school theatre can be illustrated by the fact that one of the most popular plays in the early Jesuit theatre was Euripus (first 4 Jean-Marie Valentin, Le Théâtre des Jésuites dans les Pays de Langue Allemande: Répertoire chronologique des pièces représentées et des documents conservés (1555–1773) (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1984) Bibliographische Handbücher, volumes 3.i and 3.ii; Elida M. Szarota, Das Jesuitendrama im deutschen Sprachgebiet: Eine Periochen-Edition: Texte und Kommentare (München, Wilhelm Fink, 1979–1987), 4 vols; Reinhart Meyer, Bibliographica dramatica et dra- maticorum: Kommentierte Bibliographie der im ehemaligen deutschen Reichsgebiet gedruckten und gespielten Dramen des 18. Jahrhunderts nebst deren Bearbeitungen und Übersetzungen und ihrer Rezeption bis in die Gegenwart (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1986–). 5 For a short introduction to Jesuit drama with bibliography, cf. Ruprecht Wimmer’s lemma ‘Jesuitendrama’, in: Georg Braungart a.o. (eds), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissen- schaft, 2 (Berlin etc.: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 196–199. 6 On the various cultural and literary origins of Jesuit theatre, cf. Fidel Rädle, ‘Jesuit Theatre in Germany, Austria and Switzerland’, in: Bloemendal and Norland, Neo-Latin Drama, pp. 185– 292, esp. pp. 197–214. jesuit theatre, poetics and andreas friz 5 performed in 1548) by the Franciscan Levin Brecht.7 Through the combination and adaptions of elements from all these traditions, the Jesuits developed their own type of theatre, which was characterised by the theological message of the counterreformation. There were regular public performances at the beginning or end of the school year (depending on local customs) at the occasion of the distributio praemiorum, when prizes were given to the best students.