Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-g96k6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T19:32:47.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Nuremberg Schembart Manuscripts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Samuel L. Sumberg*
Affiliation:
The College of the City of New York

Extract

The chief difficulty in tracing the origin of the secular drama in Germany is the lack of texts to prove the performance of other than religious plays. Nevertheless a sufficient number of secular texts have been brought to light to contradict the old belief that expansion of the comic scenes in the religious dramas resulted in the early Carnival play. M. J. Rudwin, in his notable study, proved the Carnival play to have been “the natural outgrowth of the Carnival customs themselves.” Modern historians of literature agree with him on this point but discuss the development of the Fastnachtspiel in Nuremberg no further than to declare its origin to have been in the most important masque of the time, the Schembartlauf. Yet in the recent special work on the history of the German drama, Das deutsche Drama, F. Michael disclaims any immediate connection between the Schembartlauf and the plays. Up to the present no detailed examination of the manuscripts in which the Schembartlauf was recorded, the so-called Schembartbücher, has appeared. It will be of advantage to study the actual content of the manuscripts in order to estimate their importance for the history of German literature. Conclusions may then be drawn as to the possible relation of the Schembartlauf to the Fastnachtspiele.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1929 , pp. 863 - 878
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable