Courtly Theatricality

The research project will focus on the theatricality of courtly representation in the middle ages, the visualization and demonstration of political and religious constructions of order in the sphere of public acting. In a culture of gesture bearing privileges depends on permanently showing them in gesture and posture, appearance and outfit, in the choreography of the bodies in ritual and ceremony. The main fields of investigation - also connecting us to the other projects of the research program - are the agonistic acting in public sphere and the forms of representation as if in literature. Especially the scenic descriptions of the public and non-public realm, and the literary negotiations of their borders, their dramatic questioning and legitimating, is pointing to the theoretical texts of the later middle ages. After focussing on Moriz von Craun , in its second term the project will continue this work by concentrating on Ulrichs von Liechtensteins Frauendienst .