Ästhetik und Funktion des Passionsspiels

Abstract The article combines an analysis of the ›Egerer Passionsspiel‹ with the fundamental question of the aesthetics, textual economy and function of late medieval Passion plays; it includes references to other genres and media of the Passion. According to the thesis, the Passion plays are characterised by the contradictory structure of two opposing representational concepts which are to be distinguished: the textual staging of violence and the representation of suffering. Both, as well as the becoming of Jesus as object resp. subject, are closely linked as textual processes with the bringing forth of the body of Jesus in the text. In contrast to other genres and media of the Passion, Passion plays potentially aim at a ›de-automation‹ of the transformation of violent events in the sense of suffering that was automated in medieval Passion culture.