Translation as a Means of Dramatic Exchange : St Dorothy’s Play in the 17th Century
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The thematic frame of the paper forms the phenomenon of English strolling players who travelled across the European continent at the end of the 16th and during the 17th centuries. Especially in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, the Englishmen enjoyed an enthusiastic reception at court as well as in public. Even though the Englishmen’s merit consists mainly in the enrichment of German theatrical practice, the medium of dramatic translation also contributed to the dissemination of new motives and ideas from London as German translations of English plays were soon produced. The paper discusses one such instance of early modern drama translation, namely Johann Georg Gettner's play Die Heylige Martyrin Dorothea (1691?), which is a remarkably faithful, if shortened German translation of Phillip Massinger and Thomas Dekker's Jacobean play The Virgin Martyr (1620). Gettner's translation represents an interesting link between English Renaissance drama and its later German Baroque counterpart. |
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