Formen von Theatralität in mittelalterlichen Weihnachtsspielen

The medieval Christmas play was part of an extensive festive calendar and was characterized by a thematic diversity of the Christmas repertoire. Nonetheless, Christmas plays were often marginalized by traditional theatre and literary studies as artistically not very demanding offshoots of the Easter and Passion plays. This initial situation motivates the aim of this work to make four medieval Christmas plays from the German speaking area more visible as “Kunsttheater” (“theatre”) within the discourse of theatre studies. The focus lies on the investigation of the plays as theatrical negotiating places of social energy under a cultural-poetic perspective.