Ständeklausel

The stands clause is a poetic dramas principle, which is often associated with the name Johann Christoph Gottscheds who tried to transfer to the German theater, the principles of French classicism. In tragedy, therefore, should only the fates of kings, princes and other high notables are presented. The ways of life of bourgeois people should contrast are brought to the stage only in comedies. The principle reason given was that it lacked the lives of commoners in size and importance and the dramatic representation of their people at the height of fall.

Not only the people on the stage, but the audience differed in relation to the stands clause. This was reflected in the privileges of the theater in the 18th and 19th centuries: The Court Theatre were entitled tragedies ( which included serious operas and ballets ) perform, while the proliferating folk theater which counted only comedies ( the comic operas and pantomimes were ) allowed to perform.

Reference to the falling height

The term drop height was from the French esthetician Charles Batteux (Les Beaux -Arts réduits à un même principe, 1746 ) coined and also much later taken up yet by scholars as Arthur Schopenhauer in his work The World as Will and Idea ( 1819/1844 ). It explains that motives such as hopelessness and tragic failure in the tragedy could be represented only makes sense if the main character of a higher, about a princely position would have. Based on the fates of bourgeois people can not all be expressed as commoners came only in situations in which they could be easily helped.

History

The stands clause goes, if at all, only indirectly back to Aristotle. An explicit objects clause within the meaning Gottscheds is not required by Aristotle. Indeed, in his Poetics that tragedy the conflict of good or beautiful people subject to the principle of kalokagathia, while the affairs of the bad or ugly people in the comedy should be presented. This very general statement which had seen and understood the characters in mind as it is today for comics or melodramas, was interpreted socially since the 16th century. In order not to jeopardize the status of the persons represented, the element of world reconciliation has been introduced. The world Reconciliation is a principle of comedy theory, which describes the return to the original state or to restore the honor of a stage character. This was particularly in the Greek Comedy necessary in order not to endanger the social ranking of the stage characters, so the preservation of honor to remain integrated in a society. The world reconciliation is practiced by a symbolic ceremony by which a Weltentzweiung is withdrawn. This reflects the peculiarity of the comedy as a game with the desire - the desire to columns and on assembling. It is also called by decomposition ( Reuss ).

Horace was the first to Aristotle socially interpreted ( Epistola ad Pisones, known as Ars poetica, from 13 BC). Both Julius Caesar Scaliger ( in the 1561 posthumous Poetices libri septem ) and Martin Opitz draw on his distinction: The good man, according to Aristotle, the nobles, the worse man of the people. Opitz said about that the tragedy does not suffer when " one small item of personal VND bad things introductory ", and vice versa those comedy writers were wrong, " the bringing in of Keyser VND potentates; such as the rules of Comedien straight zuewieder laufft " ( From the German Poeterey, 1624, Chapter 5).

Taking recourse to the Aristotelian concept of mimesis, which is no longer imitates the being, but its ( social) phenomena, the tragedy wins as a higher suggestive effect on the audience. This is explicitly associated with Opitz with concessions to Christian morality. A widely regarded as binding form found the objects clause in the French classicism: Nicolas Boileau invoked in L'Art poétique ( 1674) also on Horace and had the court theater of his time in mind.

Still in Gottscheds times that were strongly influenced by French absolutism, was retained this basic rule, as shown in Gottscheds attempt to Critische poetry ( 1730). The turning point came with Lessing, who was based on Denis Diderot's treatise De la poésie dramatique ( 1758) and his bourgeois pattern dramas. Lessing provided the basis for a domestic tragedy in German language, in which citizens were allowed to be presented with their constellations of problems, first in Miss Sara Sampson (1755 ). From some aristocrat as Frederick the Great was not demonstratively taken note of this. Friedrich tolerated only that nobles appeared in comedies, but by no means the citizens in the tragedy ( De la littérature anglaise, 1780).

Effects

Still in the 19th century theater played a return to levels clause (see grand opera ) or on the contrary the demonstrative overcome the clause stands a considerable role. This is reflected for instance in the application of the role of subjects. There was still an actor, on the socially not so serious roles, and those who were dedicated to the low comic roles.

"The role of Steffen [ a journeyman Seiler ] is not to fill the first comedian, but from the first lover who also plays outdoorsman. [ ... ] I wish Likewise Clara [ daughter of the rope-maker ] in the hands of the first lover. "

The two go at the end of the audition " gravely at the hand holding, but as far as possible apart from ". This corresponded to the Code of Conduct of the noble figures, quoted and parodied here because that had become " simple " behavior to the social ideal. The audience expected and appreciated the appreciation of the bourgeois characters who should be represented by the higher-ranking actors.

After the First World War finally showed the confidence to have overcome the aristocracy. A tentative appreciation of bourgeois figures was no longer necessary. The majority of middle-class audience could now feel superior to the noble characters on the stage, which is a reversal of the situation in the court theaters of 17-18. Century meant, where the nobles had still laughs at the " bourgeois " comic figures. Gustaf, who appeared rarely as a comedian, did not think it inappropriate for politically to give a ridiculous Duke Eduard Künneke operetta Liselott 1932. In the sung by Hilde Hildebrand duet " O God, as we are posh " he caricatured the refined manners of the nobility against the " Tumbheit these Germans."