Project Details
Projekt
Manifestations of spiritual intermediality in Protestant drama around 1700: plays, operas and oratorios
Subject Area
German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
Musicology
Musicology
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435118611
The intermedial configuration of the arts is of essential importance for sacred drama, sacred operas and oratorios. As fundamental as the question may be in this context as to what combinations of text, music and performance are effective in symmedial terms, the forms of them are so diverse that they cannot be accurately assigned to any specific genres. Firstly, the dramatisation of sacred material involves a process of exchange with secular models of drama, and secondly, the sacred drama genres of the 17th and early 18th centuries vary to such an extent that it is impossible to find a starting point where the boundaries between genres are clearly defined. The term ‘sacred drama’ is therefore used in this project to refer to all of the relevant genres. Consequently, it will first be necessary to determine which parameters are specific to a medium, genre or function in each case before moving on to determine the differences and, most of all, the overarching similarities between the various forms of drama. This will serve as a basis for identifying the specific forms of spiritual intermediality used in sacred drama.Given the diverse processes of exchange within sacred drama, referencing a denominational framework is necessary for pragmatic reasons. The greater the degree of precision in reconstructing the spiritual parameters and analysing the relationship between intermedial dramatic production and the ‘vertical axis’ of salvational mediality, the more accurate are the conclusions that can be drawn, which go as far as formulating generic intermedial phenomena that are characteristic of sacred drama. During the first phase of funding, special attention will therefore be paid to Protestant practices, the focus here being on the German-speaking region – a perspective that reflects the geographical confines that applied to the repertoire, given the widespread rejection of sacred music by Calvinist theology. Building on the current state of research in the field, the project will concentrate on Hamburg, Lübeck, Braunschweig (Brunswick)/Wolfenbüttel, Nuremberg and Zittau, which were all leading Protestant centres of sacred drama in this period. The members will look at its corpus of primary sources in detail in order to examine the inherent dynamics of the genre and the intermediality typical of each genre. Their research findings will be published in an anthology of articles including papers given at a conference on the intermediality of sacred drama, and in two monographs primarily consisting of papers from the fields of literary studies and musicology. The members of the project will work closely with researchers from other sub-projects, particularly SP 1 (the intermedial representation of angels in sacred drama), SP 2 (models of spiritual love in opera and oratorio) and SP 3 (meditative practices focusing on oratorio).
DFG Programme
Research Units
