Gregor Strniša and the Genres of Medieval Drama

Abstract

The essay explores connections between medieval drama and the dramatic work of Gregor Strniša. For the purposes of comparison, it first focuses on the problems of classifying medieval drama and outlines its various genres, at the same time drawing numerous parallels with Strniša’s plays. – It thus becomes apparent that the connections between Strniša’s dramas and miracle and mystery plays are weak, since none of Strniša’s plays combine all, or at least, the essential formal characteristics, motifs and thematic features of the miracle or mystery play. – The parallels between Strniša’s work and the morality play are much stronger. The essential characteristics of the morality play are present in The Unicorn (Samorog), The Cannibals (Ljudožerci), The Dryad (Driada), and, above all, in The Frogs (Žabe), which is a true contemporary remake of a late medieval morality play. The play embodies all four features of the genre in terms of content, including the principal one, the tripartite division of content. This characteristic of The Frogs, as well as all the other features – humorous morality, abstraction, non-bellicose characters, brevity – are, of course, adapted to contemporary circumstances, but less so than in Strniša’s other plays. Furthermore, formal parallels with the morality play can be established: using doubling as a staging technique; simple symbolic characters tied both to the present and the extra-temporal; the time of dramatic action – the extra-temporal present; the dialogue, which is often a commentary on the present, and is static and dynamic at the same time; the action itself, which is mostly dramatic. – An additional important influence on the works of Strniša is the danse macabre, a special form of liturgical play. In The Cannibals, Strniša takes and remodels numerous elements of the danse macabre: content (introduction and conclusion, an overview of life, dying) and formal elements (partly dialogue, action and time, but above all, character and place). Thus The Cannibals can be characterized as a modern remake, but above all a dramatization of this semi-dramatic genre.