Theater and the sacred in the Middle Ages / / Andrzej Dąbrówka ; translated by Jan Burzyński and Mikołaj Golubiewski.

• Superior document: Interdisciplinary studies in performance ; 20
• VerfasserIn: Dąbrówka, Andrzej,
• TeilnehmendeR: Burzyński, Jan,; Golubiewski, Mikołaj, 1985-
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin : : Peter Lang,, [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Interdisciplinary studies in performance ; 20.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (574 pages).

The book presents a theory of relationships between the forms of devotion and early drama genres. The historical background is the circumstances of the Church becoming independent of the Empire. A theological and philosophical aspect of the transformation of piety at the time was the specification of the ontological status of the sacred (spiritualization) and "shifting it to Heaven" (transcendentalization). In opposition to a theory of Western civilization as a process of increasing individual self-control, the author argues for the need to take into account purely religious conditions (the idea of recapitulation). This allows the author to develop a holistic aesthetics for the religiously inspired creativity in the period spanning the 11th-15th centuries and to propose a new typology of medieval drama.

Table of Contents

Part I. Literature and history -- A philological exercise -- Language and history : the cognitive turn -- Pious spectacle -- The sacred -- Forms of devotion -- Part II. Changes in the ontology of the sacred -- The ontology of the sacred -- The sources of the spiritualization process -- The material symbol and the linguistic sign -- The stages of spiritualization -- The transcendentalization of the sacred as a civilizational transformation -- Part III. The profane : the human estate -- Lower tiers of sacrality -- The new place for people in nature -- From the universalism of obedience to the pluralism of predictability -- Confraternities as media in the civilizing process -- Part IV. The aesthetics of recapitulation : to inscribe into the living hearts -- Theatrica -- Spectator, participant, co-author -- The incarnational aesthetics of the theatrical performance -- The aesthetics of articulation and factuality -- Knowledge of the miracle -- Recapitulation and creativity -- Part V. Spirituality and subjectivity in drama -- The forms of devotion and drama -- The mystery play -- The miracle play -- The morality play -- The recapitulatory drama -- The farce -- Concluding remarks -- Bibliography -- Index.