Scaramutza in Germany
The Dramatic Works of Caspar Stieler
240 pages | 6.125 x 9.25 | 1989
Cloth edition is not available
ISBN 978-0-271-02846-0 | paper: $25.95 sh
Scaramuzza, Scaramouche: the commedia dell'arte figure made a triumphal entry into German literature in the plays of Caspar Stieler (1632-1707). Transformed into a master of language and languages, Scaramutza - social critic, voluptuary, and mouthpiece for his author - ushers in a new type of comedy that depends more on the happy ending than on laughter for its effect. This study should both establish the significance of the long-neglected dramatic works of Caspar Stieler, already regarded as an important lyric poet of the German Baroque, and serve to initiate a reevaluation of German comedy and of the standard definition of the comic genre used by Germanists as Aikin explores the heroic or romantic comedy as a subgenre of literary merit. The study includes a discussion of Stieler's important contributions to the development of the German-language Singspiel and opera.
Judith P. Aikin, Professor of German a the University of Iowa, is the author of German Baroque Drama and one of the editors of the forthcoming two-volume edition of the collected plays of Caspar Stieler. Her studies of seventeenth-century German drama and dramatic theory have appeared in numerous journals.