Persistence of Folly: On the Origins of German Dramatic Literature

Lande, Joel B.

Persistence of Folly: On the Origins of German Dramatic Literature

dc.contributor.author	Lande, Joel B.
dc.date.accessioned	2023-04-20T14:11:19Z
dc.date.available	2023-04-20T14:11:19Z
dc.date.issued	2018-12-15
dc.description.abstract	Joel B. Lande’s Persistence of Folly challenges the accepted account of the origins of German theater by focusing on the misunderstood figure of the fool, whose spontaneous and impish jest captivated audiences, critics, and playwrights from the late sixteenth through the early nineteenth century. Lande radically expands the scope of literary historical inquiry, showing that the fool was not a distraction from attempts to establish a serious dramatic tradition in the German language. Instead, the fool was both a fixture on the stage and a nearly ubiquitous theme in an array of literary critical, governmental, moral-philosophical, and medical discourses, figuring centrally in broad-based efforts to assign laughter a proper time, place, and proportion in society. Persistence of Folly reveals the fool as a cornerstone of the dynamic process that culminated in the works of Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist. By reorienting the history of German theater, Lande’s work conclusively shows that the highpoint of German literature around 1800 did not eliminate irreverent jest in the name of serious drama, but instead developed highly refined techniques for integrating the comic tradition of the stage fool.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7298/4b58-bt92
dc.identifier.isbn	9781501727108 (print hardcover)
dc.identifier.isbn	9781501727115 (print paperback)
dc.identifier.isbn	9781501727139 (epub)
dc.identifier.isbn	9781501727122 (PDF ebook)
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1813/113093
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	Cornell University Press	en_US
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	*
dc.subject	German Literature History & Critcisim	en_US
dc.subject	Plays & Playwrights	en_US
dc.subject	Theater	en_US
dc.subject	Comic Tradition	en_US
dc.subject	1500 to 1800 Literary Studies	en_US
dc.title	Persistence of Folly: On the Origins of German Dramatic Literature	en_US
dc.type	book	en_US
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schema.accessibilityHazard	none	en_US
schema.accessibilitySummary	"Accessibility Feature(s)" apply only to the EPUB file.	en_US