Work on Myth, Work on the Institution

Mohr, Jan (2023): Work on Myth, Work on the Institution. On Narrating Oberammergau (19th–21st Centuries). In: Mohr, Jan und Stenzel, Julia (Hrsg.): Politics of the Oberammergau Passion Play : Tradition as Trademark. Routledge Advances in Theatre&Performance Studies, London ; New York: Routledge. S. 167-182

Abstract

From about 1880 on and until nowadays, the handed-down motifs of the Oberammergau Passion play (such as its legendary beginnings when the village was threatened by the plague) have constantly been taken up in fictional narratives. This chapter outlines four major modes in which the traditional motifs of the Oberammergau tradition are varied and combined. Based on German philosopher Hans Blumenberg’s study Work on myth, it interprets the fictional approaches to the Oberammergau theme as work on the unclarified origins and institutional tensions of the Passion play. A number of Oberammergau fictions cope with these tensions by inserting historical persons into fictional stories, thus making suggestions of ‘how it might have been’. Following Roland Barthes’ essay Mythologies, the chapter analyzes how the Oberammergau discourse can ideologically be instrumentalized. When the unity of village and Passion play already represents an established institution, it can be used for propagating restrictive family and social models.

• Dokumententyp: Buchbeitrag
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 1 > Germanistik > Literaturwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 800 Literatur > 830 Deutsche und verwandte Literaturen
• ISBN: 978-0-367-61744-8; 978-1-003-10631-9; 978-0-367-61740-0
• Ort: London ; New York
• Sprache: Englisch