Markéta Klosová
Two Dramatizations of the Janua lingvarum: J. A. Comenius and Sebastian Macer
Every serious student of culture and
scholarship in 17th-century
From the 1630’s to the 1650’s the
Leszno school was among the best in Great Poland, thanks largely to the
involvement of Comenius, who arrived in Leszno in 1628 and, with the exception
of a number of absences occasioned by his ecclesiastical and scholarly
pedagogical duties, remained there for the 28 years. The school included
various nationalities and religious confessions. Along with the children of
Bohemian exiles from the Unity of Brethren and Polish students of the same
denomination, there were also German-speaking Lutherans as well as several
Arians.2 This situation was also to some extent reflected in the
dramatic productions staged at the Leszno school. The decision to stage the
plays was made in 1635.3 More plentiful information about dramatic
productions comes from the 1640’s, although some of the plays are known only by
their titles.4 Two plays by Comenius have been preserved. In 1640
his Diogenes Cynicus redivivus was presented three times, and a year
later his Abrahamus patriarcha. Two further plays have survived,
although their authors are unknown: Susanna was presented in 1646 and
the following year Hercules, monstrorum domitor.5 The latter
is an allegorical treatment of various events from the story of Hercules, who
in the 17th century was frequently treated as a Christ figure. The
interludes in the play were full of amorous frivolity and always included
several scenes, for which the author lifted practically the entire third Act of
Turbo, a play by German Lutheran J. V. Andreae. The three scenes of the
first Act of the drama Susanna, incorporating often-used Biblical
material, comprises ten pages and is taken over from a play of the same name
written in the 1580’s by the German Lutheran Nikodem Frischlin. The author of
the Leszno play merely deleted certain awkward passages, such as that in which
the elders observing Susanna in her bath comment on her comeliness, and
rendered the original verse into prose. The second and third Acts are simply
blocks of running text without any division, amounting to twenty and thirty
pages respectively. On the other hand, the play also contains allegorical
interludes.6 Both these plays are no more than mediocre and scarcely
bear comparison with Comenius’ dramatic works, not to mention better school plays
of the age.
In the summer of 1650 a work by
Sebastian Macer was presented in Leszno which dramatized 31 chapters of
Comenius’ textbook Janua lingvarum, which were devoted to the world of
nature. For unknown reasons, however, the title page of the work, printed the
same year, speaks of only 30 chapters.7 In 1651 the press at Leszno
published two sequels. At this point Macer suffered a stroke from which he
never fully recovered, and his ambitious project remained incomplete.8
In 1650 when Comenius was called to
Sárospatak, the local school was as cosmopolitan as that at Leszno. Along with
the Lutherans and Calvinists speaking different languages, there were also
Orthodox Rumanians as well as students from the local Anabaptist community.
However, the curriculum and methods employed at Sárospatak were more
conservative than at Leszno,9 and Comenius, whose mission here was
to implement improvements, soon began to press for a program of dramatic
presentations, as is evident from his early Sárospatak text Scholae
pansophicae delineatio, in which he envisaged one annual presentation by
each of the projected seven classes.10 In the event, only three
classes were opened, which were to follow the curriculum delineated in
Comenius’ Vestibulum, Janua and Atrium,11 but
his advocacy of drama led Comenius into a struggle with the school’s
leadership, especially its rector János Tolnai, whose opposition was only
overcome by the eventual intervention of the Transylvanian princess in November
of 1653. However, Tolnai continued to forbid the presentation of Biblical
dramas, which he regarded as a profanation of Holy Scripture, although he could
raise no objection to staging the Janua.12
In the preface to the first edition
of his collection of school plays Schola ludus,13 dated
In the Continuatio admonitionis
fraternae, which appeared only in 1669 but was based on his diary, Comenius
recalled that he had worked up the first twenty chapters of the Janua
and staged the result with great success, with a cast of 52 noble pupils.15
But just what he was referring to here is unclear. Macer’s first play contained
material from 31 chapters of the Janua, with 37 roles, whereas the first
part of Comenius’ Schola ludus had 52 parts, but included material only from
the first 19 chapters. Josef Hendrich concluded that Comenius may have revised
Macer’s work to create roles for 52 of his pupils. Thus he was able to refer to
the play as his own work. However, Hendrich provided no explanation for the
reference to 20 chapters. In Hendrich’s conception Comenius continued with his
dramatizations of those parts of the Janua, which were not covered in
Macer’s work, and completed Parts One and Two of the Schola ludus, which
corresponded to Macer’s first play, only as the entire dramatic cycle was under
preparation for publication.16
Whatever the case, we must not
ignore the version presented in the preface of 1654, when Comenius was still in
Sárospatak. According to this, Macer’s drama was performed and provided the
incentive for the eight-part cycle Schola ludus. I shall now attempt to
analyze the first two parts of the Schola ludus and compare them with
Sebastian Macer’s first play.
The two dramatizations and their relationship to the Janua;
additions made by the authors. The essential difference in
the two dramatic versions of the Janua lies in the way the authors used
the original text. In the 17th century more than a hundred editions
of Comenius’ best-known work appeared in varying versions,17 not all
of them with the author’s approval or even awareness. The authorized editions
may be divided into two groups. The first, type of the Janua lingvarum
was based on the original shorter and simplier work of the 1630’s. The editions
based on the later, more elaborate version appeared in the 1640’s and 1650’s.18
The second group includes among others the Latinae lingvae Janua reserata,
rerum et lingvarum structuram exhibens ordine nativo, published at Leszno
by the Bohemian émigré printer Daniel Vetter in 1649 (hereafter referred to as Janua
1649) and the Eruditionis Scholasticae Pars II., Janua, rerum et
lingvarum structuram externam exhibens, published for the school at
Sárospatak in 1652 (hereafter Janua 1652). Comenius made extensive
stylistic revisions for the edition of 1652, as he indicated in his preface.19
Sebastian Macer’s play was based on Janua
1649 and contains entire paragraphs reproduced word for word. Most often Macer
revised only the beginning of a paragraph, in order to change it into a reply.
A brief example will serve as an illustration:
Janua 1652, para. 39: Si (aër)
calescit, tum rarescit et dilatat se extra se: quum frigescit, tum spissecit
et contorquet se intra se: utrobique si quietus est, stat, si commotus, flat:
nunc lenius, nunc vehementius.
Janua 1649, para. 39: Quum
etenim (aër)
calescit, tum rarescit et se extra se collatat; quum frigescit, tum
spissescit et se intra se contorquet; utrobique autem si quietus est, stat, si
commotus, flat nunc lenius, nunc vehementius.
Macer, A. I, sc. 4: Status aeris
est, cum aer calescit, tum rarescit, et se extra se collatat; quum frigescit,
tum spissescit et se intra se contorquet: utrobique autem si quietus est, stat,
si commotus, flat; nunc lenius, nunc vehementius.
A further indication of Macer’s
reliance on the 1649 edition is the lucid rendering of the names and the
classes of winds in Act I, sc. 4. The same figure is find in Janua 1649,
after paragraph 41.
Revisions of Comenius’ text are
rather rare in Macer’s play. One comes in Act II, sc. 1, in the passage on the
various forms and organization of the earth’s surface, in which Macer revised
the text of paragraph 55 of Janua 1649.
The ordering of themes in Macer’s
play is essentially the same as in Comenius’ textbook, and the single
significant departure comes in the second scene of Act III. Here the passage
concerning fish (Janua 1649, chapter 17) is placed after the passage
concerning cattle (chapter 18), and the section dealing with amphibians
(chapter 19, para.194), is quite logically appended to the passage on fish and
swimming creatures. Elsewhere Macer changes the order of the paragraphs of Janua
1649. For example in the section on water in the second part of the fourth
scene of Act I, paragraphs 44-49 appear in a different order: 49, 48, 44, 45,
46, 47. The preceding scene omits a passage on heavenly bodies with the
explanation that it will appear in the section dealing with astronomy. Thus,
this part of Janua did not appear in first Macer’s play, and the scene
mentions only the comets in its explanation of fiery meteorological phenomena.
At the same time, Macer included
material that does not appear in Janua 1649. The fourth scene of Act I
(on air) includes an explanation of the three atmospheric regions (which
Comenius later included in the Schola ludus – as will be seen below).
The section on fire (I, sc. 3) adds for example sydus Helenae to the
text of Janua. These as well as further additions suggest that Macer had
at his disposal another text on physics besides the Janua. In the first
scene of Act Two, there is an extensive passage on mining spoken by a character
who claims to have made several visits to the royal mines. This text, too,
belongs to Macer. Also from Macer’s pen are the introductory monologues to
scenes, in which various characters present themselves. Finally, Macer’s play
contains a number of verses, sometimes of classical provenance: for example in
A. III, sc. 2 Melibaeus delivers a part of the first poem of Horaces’s Epodes
(book II). In the fourth scene of Act Two, Hortensius quotes various
classic authors to underline the importance of gardens.
A peculiar feature of Macer’s work
is its frequent reference to the position of the poor rural population, and
relations of the ruler and the nobility to the peasantry. Thus Despota Arendarius,
a sort of estate bailiff, complains of the peasants’ combination of indolence
and cunning at the beginning to A. III, sc. 2, while in the following scene
Nimrod, master of the royal hunt, deplores their laziness and the difficulty of
dealing with them. The opening scene of the second act expresses the view that
the ruler ought to live frugally and pay due attention to mining and keep
careful track of its yields. In this way it would be possible to improve the
position of the people. The first part of sc. 3, A. II includes a remark that
Olitor, a market gardener, gained the ear of the king, who was aware that even
a simple man may be wise. Thus he was a good ruler. Moreover, the king realized
that his own safety depended on the trust and love of his subjects.20
Such sentiments are entirely absent from Comenius’ Schola ludus.
In Comenius’ Schola ludus we
find traces of both editions of the Janua. Quite often the scenes in the
Pars I and Pars II of Schola ludus are the result of radical revisions
and extensive rewording or paraphrase of text from the Janua. The text
of paragraph 39, mentioned above, is similar to Janua 1652 in the first
play of the Schola ludus cycle (Pars I, A. II, sc. 4): Nempe dum aër
calescit, tum rarescit et se dilatat extra se; cum frigescit, tum spissescit et
contorquet se intra se... Utrobique autem (in calore et frigore) si aer quietus
est, stat; si commotus, flat nunc lenius, nunc vehementius. It is, however,
divided into two parts, between which there are inserved several lines inspired
by Macer on the qualities of the three zones of the atmosphere (the changeable
layer near the earth, the middle layer with clouds, and the entirely motionless
upper layer), and there is an additional reply. Comenius’ exposition of
mushrooms (Pars I, A. IV, 1) again depends on paragraphs 80 and 81 of Janua
1649. Elsewhere we find traces of both texts in a single thematic treatment.
For example, the exposition of vegetables (Pars I, A. IV, sc. 2) deals with
leafy vegetables after paragraph 88 of Janua 1652, while the section on
root vegetables, onions and leeks corresponds to neither of the texts, although
the passage on vegetable fruits (fructus oleracei) derives from Janua
1649, with the exception of a single sentence on the strawberry plant which
appears only in paragraph 90 of Janua 1652.
Furthermore, there is evidence that
Comenius also made some use of the Eruditionis scholasticae pars III.
Atrium, rerum et lingvarum ornamenta exhibens... [Patakini]
MDCLII. (hereafter Atrium). The Schola ludus of course
contains no stylistically complex poetic passages from the Atrium, but
only individual phrases, synonyms and versions of some paragraphs of the Atrium
in some of the replies. In A. IV, sc. 4 of the Pars I, the section on the types
of forest underbrush includes tempe and tesqua as in paragraph
120 of the Atrium. In the following Act
in the section on unicorn (sc. 4) the Greek name for the creature is
given as in paragraph 177 of the Atrium. In the second part of the Schola
ludus cycle, the second scene of Act One contains a passage concerning
mankind as a microcosm, which is essentially taken over from paragraph 195 of
the Atrium.
Like Macer, Comenius also changed
the order of the paragraphs of the Janua. For example, in Pars I, A. II,
sc. 5 the section on water is treated following paragraphs 44 to 49, including
traces of both editions of the Janua, but in an order which corresponds
neither to the original nor to Macer’s work. In Pars I, Comenius modified the
thematic order according to chapters of the Janua only in the fifth Act,
in which he placed the passage on fish (sc. 2, chapter 17. in the Janua)
before the section on birds (sc. 3, chapter 16 in the Janua). Comenius
also gives additional information not found in the Janua, for example at
the end of A. II, sc. 2, where he mentions the comets of 1618, 1652 and 1653.
Thus Comenius treated the text of
the Janua far more freely than did Macer, possibly because Macer was
restrained by his great respect for the author from making more radical changes.
This is not to say, however, that Macer’s play is entirely devoid of his own
contributions.
It is difficult to think of a text
less amenable to dramatization than a textbook of Latin and natural history.
This, after all, is no epic tale such as the authors of historical or Biblical
dramas usually produced in the age of the Reformation and which could not be
presented in the form of classical drama.21 A good example would be
Comenius’ dramatic treatment of the sufferings of Father Abraham. The Janua
by contrast was an encyclopedically organized system of knowledge. How can a
system be dramatized?
The basic organization of the two dramas. Macer treated
Comenius’ description of the natural world in a single four-act play. A long
prologue, featuring a personification of Nature, is followed by the first Act,
divided into four scenes, including an introduction to the play and a general
description of the world: an exposition of the four elements and specially of
the fire, air and water. The second Act includes the earth and all that exists
within it and on its surface (sc. 1 – earth; sc. 2 – minerals; sc. 3 –
mushrooms and herbs; sc. 4 – shrubbery and trees). The third Act is devoted to
living creatures (sc. 1 – crustaceans, clams, reptiles, birds; sc. 2 – domestic
four-legged animals, fish, amphibians; sc. 3 – wild quadrupeds). Act Four
concerns human beings (sc. 1 – human limbs and organs, the skeleton and fleshy
parts of the body; sc. 2 – human physiology; sc. 3 – thought, will,
consciousness; sc. 4 – human maladies; sc. 5 – malformations and
abnormalities). The play ends with a long epilogue. It includes the entirety of
what was then known of the physical world and natural history, and it forms a
logical and complete whole. The division into acts appears clear, but the
scenes present problems. Macer formed them so as to include material from two
chapters of the Janua (for example in scenes 2, 3 and 4 of Act Two and
in scenes 1 and 2 of Act Three). At one point he even fitted four chapters into
a scene (A. IV, sc. 2, which included chapters 24-27). As a result of this
approach, some of the scenes appear rather ill-sorted – for example the first
two scenes of Act Three. To include all of the physical world in one play
appeared to be logical, but the resulting work was too long and any
presentation must have lasted several hours. The long and not very numerous
scenes can only have added to the tedium.
Comenius decided to present the
material on the physical world from the Janua in two plays (Pars I, Pars
II), of which the second was devoted to human beeings. He thereby shortened the
length of the presentation and was enabled to organize the material into a
greater number of scenes, most of which dealt with just one chapter of the Janua.
The first play had five Acts, of which the first contains very little from the Janua.
Its three scenes include essentially a consultation between the king and his
counsellors and their decision to call to the court scholars who would help to
create the ideal school. It is a lengthy exposition, but it must be remembered
that this first Act was intended to serve as the introduction to the entire
projected cycle of eight plays. The second play contains only a brief opening
of the situation in a single scene. In the first play material from the Janua
appears beginning in the second Act, which includes a brief description of the
world and its elements (sc. 1), the heavenly bodies (sc. 2), fire (sc. 3), air and wind (sc. 4), water
(sc. 5). The third Act has four scenes dealing with the earth (sc. 1) and with
mineral wealth (scenes 2 - 4). The fourth Act presents plant life (sc. 1 –
mushrooms; sc. 2 – herbs; sc. 3 – shrubbery; sc. 4 – trees). The first four
scenes of the fifth Act describe animal life (sc. 1 – crustaceans, clams,
worms, reptiles; sc. 2 – fish; sc. 3 – birds; sc. 4 – wild and tame four-legged
animals, amphibians). A final scene, in which the king and his advisers
announce that in the presentation of the physical world it only remains to deal
with human beeings, closes the first play. Only the fourth scene of Act Five
includes material from two quite lengthy chapters (18 and 19) of the Janua.
This was probably an effort to have a similar number of scenes in each of the
acts. The first and second of Comenius’ plays are opened with a prologue
indicating the content and end with an epilogue. The second, shorter play is
devoted entirely to human beings. Scene 1 of the first Act is the introduction,
while the remaining four deal respectively with the periods of human life,
human limbs and internal organs, the skeleton, the muscle tissue. The second
Act deals with human physiology, and its five scenes describe the fundamentals
of physiology, digestion, movement, sensory functions, and finally thought,
will and consciousness. The third and final Act focuses on illnesses and
imperfections – first external maladies (sc. 1), then internal diseases (sc.
2). The third scene deals with errors of nature, defects and malformations. In
the final scene the king evaluates the entire content of the play.
The division of the material into
two shorter sections brought certain advantages, but a weekness was that the section on natural
imperfections, defects and malformations had to come at the end of the section on
human beeing, which in Comenius’ view represented the pinnacle of Creation. In
Macer’s work, by contrast, this passage comes at the end of the entire work.
Here it appears natural, since a systematic and encyclopedic treatment of the
earth as presented in the Janua deals first with standard phenomena,
then proceeds to deviations from the norm.
Like Macer, Comenius obviously aimed at a balanced composition in his
two plays. Both authors present a roughly equal number of scenes in the various
acts. Comenius, who attempted a greater compartmentalization in the text,
divided the material into a greater number of scenes and acts than Macer. A
dramatic treatment of a textbook certainly did not offer an audience much in
the way of dramatic moment. However, the larger number of scenes at least
helped to create an impression that something was happening on the stage.
The
dramatis personae and their dialogues. In his list of characters
Macer informs us that 37 actors will appear on the stage. Comenius has 52
different roles in the first part of the Schola ludus and 40 in its
second part. Together they represented 85 different roles, since king
Ptolomeus, his counsellors Plato, Eratosthenes, Apollonius and Pliny,22
and Prologus and Epilogus appear in both plays. The huge number of roles in
Comenius’ version is given by the fact that each character appears only for a
particular section of the material to be presented. The names of Comenius’
characters generally evoke whatever the character is called upon to present.
Thus Piscenus, unsurprisingly, deals with fish and Sylvanus with forests. In
this Comenius conformed to a standard Baroque practice.
Macer, on the other hand, showed a
preference for concrete figures from history, literature, classical mythology
or the Old Testament (the huntsman Nimrod, the theologians Gerson and Alanus,
the physician Asclepius, the encyclopedist Psellos, or Vergil’s shepherds
Melibaeus and Maeris).24 Whether the character of Maccus was
inspired by the figure from the commedia dell’arte cannot be determined, since
no correspondence is suggested by his lines (A. III, sc. 3). Most of the names,
however, were chosen at random. Many of Macer’s dramatis personae have
their own particular field of specialization, but the small number of
characters also means that often one character presents multiple paragraphs of
the Janua. Thus for example Aeolus delivers the entire section on water
(paragraphs 44-49, in A. I, sc. 4) as a monologue. Some of the characters
appear in more than one scene – for example Psellos, who appears in A. IV, sc.
4, also delivers the following scene as a monologue.
Some of Macer’s characters take the
opportunity to introduce themselves in the long introductory passages of the
scenes. Aeolus, in the section on wind and air, delivers a bombastic monologue,
extending for an entire page, affirming that in antiquity he was called king of
the winds and emphasizing his importance (A. I, sc. 4). Such speeches may be
understood as an attempt to impart character to dramatis personae. But
what can be the purpose when each figure appears but once or at most twice in
the play, and in no way contributes to the development of its character and
become a cause of any conflict? Such a figure has a leading position in the
given scene and to a significant extent directs the conversation. The Prefect
Argobus (A. III, sc. 1) questions another participant, who answers with one or
more paragraphs from the Janua. Elsewhere, for example in A. IV, sc. 1
and 2, the dialogue runs so that the first character questions the second, then
the second a third, and so forth. In the third scene of the same act Gerson
first questions Alanus on human thought; then the two exchange roles. More
frequently, however we find an exchange of information between two characters,
and the question-and-answer scheme is preserved. This clumsy device resembles
the interrogation of a delinquent or a school examination. Most of the
monologue sections create a similarly awkward impression.
By apportioning the text among more
characters who appear and reappear on the stage, Comenius created a livelier
dialogue in which more people participated. Thus the dialogues possess a
certain cadence. The impression is reinforced by the way in which Comenius
constructs his dialogues. Since the author did not strictly follow the text of
the Janua but rather reformulated it, he was able to go beyond the
limits of the question-answer scheme. The actors were able naturally to react
to the lines spoken by their partners, and questions or requests for
elucidation occur only occasionally (as for example in A. III, sc. 4 of the
first play). Sometimes Comenius creates scenes in which one character more or
less directs the entire dialogue, but this does not become a stereotype, as in
Macer. Comenius tends to involve more than just two characters in a
conversation, as in A. IV, sc. 4 of the first play. The structure of Comenius’
dialogues thus acquires a greater deftness and interest than those in Macer’s
play. Finally, Comenius uses fewer monologues.
In Macer’s work king Ptolomeus and
his counsellors Eratosthenes, Cleanthes, Apollonius and Pyrrhus25
are the characters who initiate the play’s action. The king is present only in
the introductory parts of the play (A. I; A. II, sc. 1 and 2), and is elsewhere
absent. His advisers, however, do reappear. Moreover, the king is often spoken
of as someone absent (A. II, sc. 3 and 4.; A. III, sc. 3). At the beginning of
Macer’s play the various themes are declaimed by philosophers and experts (A.
I, sc. 1-3). However, further along he gave preference to characters known from
the practical life. When Despota Arendarius, the dignitary overseeing
husbandry, inquires of a shepherd whether cattle ruminate, the resulting
impression is one of absurdity (A. III, sc. 2). The same occurs when the shepherd
with the Vergilian name Melibaeus replies by the verses of Horace. In addition
to the king and his advisers, who represent the highest social stratum of any
of the characters, and along with the experts in various fields occupying less
important positions, Macer introduces other, subordinate, figures from the
ranks of the common people. These include the shepherd as well as Maeris and
Maccus, Nimrod’s adjuncts in scene 3 of the same Act. Such a division of
characters according to their social role would have been useful in the usual
type of drama of the day. But in the dramatization of a textbook on natural
history such a threefold hierarchy of characters is quite pointless. The
absence of the king in the greater part of the play, moreover, creates a suspicion
that the various themes of the Janua appear in the stage for no cogent
reason, which would not have been the case had they been given meaningful
context by the presence of the king.
In Comenius’ version, by contrast,
Ptolomeus is always on stage and listens to all the explanations, as do most of
his advisers – the philosopher Plato, the geographer Eratosthenes, Appolonius
and Pliny. Plato and Pliny are Comenius’ significant additions to the circle
of royal counsellors. The king and his
advisers are the only figures provided with any substantial characterization,
and that right at the beginning of the first play – in the prologue and in the
remarks preceding the first scene. Indeed, these are the only characters to
endure through the major part of entire cycle of the Schola ludus. These
five characters serve as the keystone holding up the entire structure of the
various scenes elucidating the natural world, which comprise both the plays.
They accomplish this task in the opening parts of the first play by their
decision to call on experts to explain to the king the fundamentals of each of
their fields. In this way Comenius brings to the scene two types of dramatic
figures: the king and his advisers on the one hand and the group of experts on
the other, the latter of whom stand somewhat lower on the social scale. The
appearance of these experts as teachers confers a distinct advantage: such
figures have leave to say practically anything, including the elementary
knowledge appearing in the Janua, with the logical justification that
the material has been tailored to the age of the auditors. In so far as these
figures must inform the public for example that rain may be divided into drops
or that water may form bubbles, this is easily justified by the fact that it is
necessary for the moment to focus on the terminology (Pars I, A. II, sc. 5).
King Ptolomeus, moreover, was played by a youthful nobleman (see below), and it
would have been entirely credible that the edification of this particular king
would require that he see the world on the stage just as it is described in the
Janua and the Schola ludus.
The authors’ aims and their
realization. Macer appears to have attempted to write a
full-scale Baroque play. The long, bombastic prologue, delivered by a personification
of Nature and explaining how scholars and philosophers consider nature, was
obviously intended to impart lustre to the performance, but it only created
tedium.
Equally telling is Macer’s attempt
at a superfluous characterization of several of the characters, his effort to
classify them socially so as to correspond to the real world, or his
introduction of figures from the common people with the intent of livening up
the action. His effort to improve the text with classical citations also
creates a curious and strange effect. The scene with Nimrod, Maeris and Maccus
(A. III, sc. 3) was obviously intended to be comic, since it includes several
artless jokes as well as a quite sharp exchange of views between Maeris and the
other two – a quarrel which the author tried to enliven with several innocuous
epithets. All this takes place among the edifying paragraphs of the Janua.
Such devices would have been in order in a usual play of the age inspired by
historical or Biblical events, but they create a decidedly bizarre effect in
the context of the material of the Janua.
Macer also attempted to create a
scenic synopsis, based on the three-page didactic table with which Comenius
introduced the organization of Janua 1649 and the contents of its
individual chapters. Macer’s synopsis gives the content of the various acts and
scenes and is so overgrown with details (for the fourth act, for example, the
numbers of all the bones of the human skeleton are given), so that the entire
synopsis takes up an incredible ten pages of text. Moreover, Macer proved
unable to maintain the order of his scenes. For example, the synopsis of Act
One includes information which in fact appears in Act Four.26 Macer
was usually unable to fit the program of an act on one page, so that the
synopsis is practically useless as a guide. It can only be understood by
someone already well acquainted with the play’s content.
The application of elements that
were common in the dramas of the age but inappropriate to the Janua
makes Macer’s dramatization seem strange as well as heavy-handed, clumsy and
lacking in internal logic.
Comenius, on the other hand, felt
and indeed could see from Macer’s example, that he could not dramatize the
systematically conceived material of the Janua to the usual dramatic
conventions. He understood that his only hope lay in a simple treatment and a
precise organization of the text. A simple arrangement of the characters as
king and his advisers on the one hand and experts-pedagogues on the other
imparted a firm logical framework to his plays. A usual play, of course would
have suffered from such a mannered treatment. Comenius unlike Macer freed
himself from the obligation to incorporate current dramatic devices into the
material of the Janua. He relied rather on well-constructed dialogues
distributed among a large number of characters, brief lines, concise and
precisely aimed scenes. Comenius appears to have realized from the outset that
the only hope of bringing the Janua to the stage was to treat it as a
dialogue.27 In his directions before the first scene of Pars I he
presents Plato as the inventor of the dialogue as a pedagogical method. Perhaps
he also considered himself as Plato’s heir. We should add that Comenius
succeeded quite well in his resolve, at the same time recognizing that the
Platonic dialogues exist on an intellectual and literary plane wholly different
from those found in the Schola ludus.
In comparison with that of Macer,
Comenius’ work betrays a further striking characteristic, a further aim: Most
of the scenes of the first play conclude with a fervent invocation to the God,
and they were more than a concession to the rector Tolnai. After all, in many
of his works Comenius expressed the idea, that the God created the world as a
theatre containing all of God’s creation which has been presented to mankind
for him to know.28 The means
of cognition of the world was a physica based on the description of the
Creation as given in Genesis (the first of the Books of Moses, hence, the physica
Mosaica). This governs the explanation of the physical world in the Janua.29 For Comenius, then, the Schola
ludus represented a further step in the exposition of the natural world,
God’s theatre of Creation. This world-theatre was being transferred to an
actual stage in order to present it the most evident way. Thus king Ptolomeus
and the pupils of the school at Sárospatak were treated to a view of the
theatre of the world in a real theatre, where they were also invited to play
their assigned roles. Along with the rest of the audience they were invited, in
the biblical words of the introduction to the first play: Venite, videte
opera Domini. The entire cycle Schola ludus was warmly accepted.
Consequently it is possible to say that this Comenius’ aim was fulfiled.
Performance. It
is difficult to know how Macer’s play would have appeared in performance, for
it entirely lacks stage directions, nor is there any indication of costumes,
properties or even actors entrances and exits. Finally we do not know whether
any interludes or musical presentations were intended for the entr’actes. Such
omissions suggest that the author was a theatre dilettante, but this is in
character with what has already been said about his work.
On the other hand, we have quite a
good idea of how Comenius’ plays were meant to appear. Nearly every scene of
the first play contains detailed directions concerning entrances and exits, as
well as appropriate movements and gestures. The properties are also described
in detail. This sort of commentary practically disappears in the second play,
probably because Comenius was convinced that his pupils had already learned how
to behave on the stage. The stage properties, as is well known, were either the
things under discussion themselves, or at least their images. Whenever the
subjects were minerals or plants (Pars I; A. III and IV), the human skeleton or
parts of the head, where the actors could merely point to whatever was
indicated (Pars II, A. I, sc. 4) there was no problem. More difficult would
have been the participation of living animals in the performance. This was
explicitly prescribed for Pars I; A.V, sc. 1, concerning worms, crustaceans,
clams and snakes and the direction was apparently valid also for the entire
Act. Some of the experiments in this direction, for example the imitation of
thunder and lightning using gunpowder and unloaded guns or simulation of the
origin of the wind with the help of jars filled with water and air, from which
the air would escape when heated, were perhaps not instructive enough (Pars I,
A. II, sc. 3 and 4). On the other hand, of course, such visualization of
instructive material could be highly theatrically impressive. The first of
Comenius’ plays also prescribes music for the entr’actes, while in the second
it is indicated only after the last act.
At the end of his preface addressed
to the authorities of the school at Sárospatak, Comenius left precise
directions for staging the play in eighteen paragraphs. The play was always to
be performed on Wednesday morning, the first part after the second Sunday of
Easter, and the second after Trinity Sunday, between the hours of seven and ten
or eleven o’clock. Bells were to be rung and music played before the
performance (9). The play was to be staged at the school quadrangle (1, 2). The
spectators were to sit on three sides of the “stage” and the actors on the
fourth, who would enter the scene at the appropriate time to play their part,
then return to their places. This arrangement (as well as the absence of a
curtain) was intended to minimize the outward signs of secular theatricality
(10), apparently in an effort to mollify János Tolnai and other conservative
masters, but it is also clear to us that in some ways it anticipates a modern
practice when the aim is to break down the barriers between performers and
audience. The actors were to come from the Janua and Atrium
classes (which also explains the use of part of the Atrium in the text
of the play). In case of need, parts could also be taken by pupils from the Vestibulum
class (3). Should there be too many pupils, the actors should be chosen by
audition (5), which should take place three days before the performance, while
a dress rehearsal should take place without an audience the day before (6).
King Ptolomaeus should be played by the most prominent of the noble pupils, in
order to ensure a sufficiently noble behavior (8). Sufficient funds should be
provided for procuring stage properties, pictures and models as needed.
Whatever could not be represented evidently, the actors should at least name
the item in their mother tongue (13-15). In subsequent years the Schola
ludus could be varied or augmented with citations or proverbs. Finally
those preparing the actors for the performance should not hesitate to implement
their own ideas and improvements (18).
Recapitulation. It
is clear that a great part of the text of Macer’s play is taken word for word
from Comenius’ Janua of 1649. However, it cannot be said that Comenius
borrowed nothing from his predecessor. After all, the whole idea of bringing
the Janua to the stage was Macer’s. In addition the figures of king
Ptolomeus Philadelphus, who intends to gain knowledge of the world, and his
advisers, who with the help of further characters satisfy his demands, were
invented by Macer. Comenius also took over some of Macer’s additions to the
material from the Janua. This, however, exhausts the similarities. Macer
wrote one play, Comenius two. Unlike Macer, Comenius used both editions of the Janua,
from 1649 and 1652, for his plays and radically reformulated the text. Macer
often preserved the text of the Janua as he found it. Both of Comenius’
plays demonstrate a precise internal logic, order and lucidity. Brief scenes
and succinct lines from frequently changing characters impart an impression of
lively action on the stage. Macer, on the other hand, burdened the play with
lengthy scenes containing material from two or more chapters of the Janua,
and did not always succeed in preserving the internal logic of the play. His
work called for far fewer characters than Comenius’, and their lines were
longer, with more monologues and stereotypical dialogues. Macer seriously
neglected the theatrical aspect of his project, while Comenius took care to
impart an enhanced interest by prescribing music for the entr’actes and
supplied precise instructions for the performance. Macer tried unsuccessfully
to make use of a number of devices characteristic of the theatre of the time,
while Comenius renounced any such pretension and chose to write a brisk,
naturally flowing dialogue with a didactic purpose. He employed all available
means to make his dialogue plausible on the stage. Even though material less
theatrical than that of the Janua can scarcely be imagined, Comenius’
treatment amply reveals him to have been (unlike Macer) a man of considerable
theatrical experience and feeling for the stage.
1. A. Kawecka-Gryczowa,
Z dziejów polskiej książki w okresie Renesansu, Wrocław 1975, Spis druków
numm. 58, 61, 66, 79, 80, 91, 95 etc. Cf. S. Tync, Szkoła w Lesznie w okresie
Renesansu, pp. 42, 54.
2. S. Tync, op. cit., pp.
38 – 47.
3. Ibidem. p. 60.
4. Ibidem, p. 61.
5. M. Klosová, Lešenské
hry a J. A. Komenský in: Studia Comeniana et historica 38, XIX, 1989
(Proceedings of XV. Colloquium Comenianum J. A. Comenius in context of the
language and literary development of his time, Uherský Brod 1988), p. 168.
6. Ibidem, pp. 169 – 171.
J. Lewański, Faust i Arlekin. Niezwykle przedstawienie na scenie leszczyńskiej
w roku 1647, Pamięntnik teatralny VI, 1957, pp. 78 – 81.
7. [S. Macer], Januae LL.
Comenianae ex primis XXX capitibus doctrinam physicam exhibentibus sub aestivi
tempus examinis in Illustri gymnasio Lesnensi certo explorata documento praxis
comica, Lesnae Anno MDCL
8. Cf. A.
Kawecka-Gryczowa, op. cit., numm. 128, 129. Ł. Kurdybacha, Působení Jana Amosa
Komenského v Polsku, Praha 1960, p. 212. Cf. et J. A. Komenský,
Continuatio admonitionis fraternae... ad S. Maresium, Amsterdami 1669, par.
111.
9. M. Blekastad, Comenius.
Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal
des Jan Amos
Komenský, Oslo – Praha [1969], pp. 483 – 485.
10. J. A. Komenský, Scholae
pansophicae delineatio, J. A. Comenii Opera omnia 15/III, Praha 1992, pp. 217, 218, 220, 221, 223,
225, 227.
11. M. Blekastad, op.
cit., pp. 503, 505.
12. J. A. Komenský,
Continuatio admonitionis fraternae... ad S. Maresium, Amsterdami 1669, par. 109
– 111.
13. J. A. Komenský, Schola ludus seu
encyclopaedia viva. Hoc est Januae lingvarum praxis scenica, Patakini MDCLVI.
14. Cuius praxis (=
comicae Maceri) partem primam mundum rerum naturalium repraesentantem cum sub
ingressum anni hujus in scenam produci et in conspectu vestro ludi curassem,
adeo placuit actio illa Vobis (= scholarchae) et spectantibus omnibus, ut
approbato publice hoc exrcitii genere totum rerum ambitum seu discendorum
encyclopaediam... deduci... a me peteretis..., ibidem, p. 3.
15. J. A. Komenský,
Continuatio admonitionis fraternae... ad S. Maresium, Amsterdami 1669, par.
111.
16. J. Hendrych,
Comeniana, Praha 1951, s. 8 – 11.
17. J. Beneš, M. Steiner,
Die Janua lingvarum reserata 1631 – 1657, Acta Comeniana 6 (XXX), Praha 1985,
pp. 185 – 199. Cf. E. Urbánková, Soupis děl J. A. Komenského, Praha 1959, pp.
103 – 105, 132 – 197.
18. J. Červenka, Johannis
A. Comenii Janua linguarum reserata. Editio synoptica et critica quinque
authenticos textus Latinos continens, Praha 1959, pp. V – XLIII.
19. De Januae denique
texto nostro hoc ultimo ne ignoraveris, primo meliores habere rerum
expressiones, quam hactenus. Secundo syntaxin vocum, phrasium, sententiarum
naturalem, sine trajectine ulla..., Eruditionis scholasticae pars II, Janua,
rerum et lingvarum structuram externam exhibens, [Patakini] MDCLII, p. [10].
20. Cf. Ł. Kurdybacha, op.
cit., pp. 214, 216.
21. M. Klosová, op. cit.,
p. 167.
22. [S. Macer], op. cit.,
p. [A 16]. J. A. Komenský, Schola ludus seu encyclopaedia viva. Hoc est Januae
lingvarum praxis scenica, Patakini MDCLVI, Pars I., p. 20, Pars II., p.
83.
23. Der kleine Pauly,
Lexikon der Antike..., Stuttgart, Bd. I., 1964, coll. 449-451 (Apollonios); Bd.
II., 1967, coll. 344-346 (Eratosthenes aus Kyrene); Bd. IV., 1972, coll.
894-905 (Platon), coll. 928-937 (Plinius), coll. 1218-1219 (Ptolemaios Philadelphos).
24. Der kleine
Pauly, op.cit., Bd. IV., 1972, coll. 1210-1211 (Psellos); Bd. I., 1964, coll.
644-648 (Asklepios). Lexicon fűr Theologie und Kirche, zweite Auflage,
Freiburg, s. a., Bd. I., col. 266 (Alanus); Bd.. V., coll. 1036 - 1037
(Johannes Charlier Gerson); Bd. VII, col. 1006. P. Vergilius Maro, Bucolica, I.
(Melibaeus), IX (Moeris).
25. Der kleine
Pauly, op.cit., Bd. III., 1969, col. 226 (Cleanthes aus Assos), Bd. IV., 1972,
coll. 1262- 1264 (Pyrrhos). Cf. not. 23.
26. [S. Macer], op. cit.,
pp. [A 4 – A 15]; Idea actus primi p. [A 4], Idea actus IV, p. [A 10].
27. Cf. M. Cesnaková-Michalcová, L’ éducation par le jeu théâtral
– Comenius auteur dramatique et theoricien du théâtre in: La
visualisation des choses et la conception philosophique du monde dans l’oeuvre
de Comenius, Actes du Colloque international des 18-20 mars 1992, Paris 1994,
p. 154ss.
28. Cf. J. A. Komenský, Janua rerum
reserata, hoc est sapientia prima, J. A. Comenii Opera omnia 18, Praha 1974,
pp. 166 - 168.
29. J. Červenka, Naturphilosophie des J. A. Comenius, Praha 1970, pp. 62 – 76.
© Markéta Klosová, 2002