Hecastus
The Hecastus is the best-known piece by the neo-Latin playwright Georgius Macropedius , an adaptation of the Jedermann material in the tradition of the English Everyman and the Dutch Elckerlijc , but above all the Homulus by Christian Ischyrius (alias Christian Sterck) , published in 1536 .
action
The rich young man Hecastus (from Greek ἕκαστος "everyone"), an outspoken hedonist and sinful to the core , is suddenly confronted with death and suddenly finds himself abandoned by everything on which his previous life was based: friends, relatives and wealth . Nobody likes to accompany him on his way to God's judgment seat. Virtue and faith fight against the devil and death for the salvation of his soul. Finally, he is led back on the path of faith by the priest Hieronymus, so that death only receives his body, but his soul soars up to heaven.
The core message of the play remains that in order to attain salvation, it is not primarily the works of penance that are important, but faith in Jesus Christ , and indeed that this is even sufficient - quite remarkable for a play from the pen of a Catholic poet . Because of this fabula docet , the piece found many followers, especially in Protestant circles .
Macropedius responded to the criticism that was expressed of the supposedly Protestant basic tendency of the play by issuing a revised version in 1552, in which, in a new foreword, he acknowledged Catholicism on the one hand and justified the eventual rescue of the title character with special circumstances: Da Hecastus had no more time for good works in the face of imminent death, in his case faith alone would have to suffice.
Aftermath
The Hecastus quickly gained great popularity after its publication (first printed in Antwerp in 1539 by Michael Hillen). There is evidence of performances from at least fifteen cities in the German Empire.
Numerous reprints and translations appeared in the following years. Prints from Cologne, Antwerp, Basel, Dortmund, Utrecht, Frankfurt am Main and Strasbourg are known. A German adaptation was published by Hans Sachs in 1549 . Translations into Dutch and Danish appeared, and in 1681 into Swedish.
The Jedermann by Hugo von Hofmannsthal also follows this tradition .
literature
- Dammer, R./Jeßing, B., The Everyman in the 16th Century. The Hecastus dramas by Georgius Macropedius and Hans Sachs (= sources and research on literary and cultural history 42 [276]), Berlin - New-York 2007.
Web links
English (but not exactly flawless) translation: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/rnlp/hecastus.html