Jakob Ayrer

Ayrer, Jakob (Nuremberg, 1543-1605, Nuremberg), a prolific dramatist, lived in Bamberg from 1570 to 1593, when he returned to Nuremberg and was active as a notary and as public prosecutor (Stadtprokurator). He is the author of 106 plays, written between 1592 and 1602, of which 69 survive. The chief repository of his dramatic work is the posthumous Opus theatricum (6 vols., 1618; Dramen, 5 vols., ed. A. von Keller, 1864-5, repr. 1973), in which 66 of his plays are printed. They are divided in approximately equal numbers into serious and comic (see Fastnachtspiel). Ayrer, who drew on German sources and the Italian novelle, so popular in the 16th c., is said to have been influenced by travelling troupes of English actors (see Englische Komödianten). His earliest play is Die Erbauung der Stadt Bamberg, written c.1570. Among other titles are Tragedia von Erbauung der Stadt Rom, Tragedia von Keiser Otten dem dritten, Hug Dieterich, Ortnit, and Wolfdieterich, Julius Redivivus (a free translation of Frischlin's Latin play), Comedia vom König Edwarto, Comedia Vom König in Zypern, Comedia von der schönen Phaenica und Graf Tymbri von Golison aus Arragonien, which has the same source and action as the main plot of Much Ado About Nothing, and Comedia von der schönen Sidea, a play of magic and enchantment with an action resembling the episode of Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest. He also wrote Singspiele and, in his earlier years, a chronicle of Bamberg. His plays are all in verse, in the form known as Knittelverse. He is the first German dramatist to make extensive use of stage directions. Ayrer's resemblances to Shakespeare are superficial, his style is without distinction, and his characters do not carry conviction, though his didactic concern has been recognized.

Jakob Ayrer (ca. 1543-March 26, 1605) was a German playwright and author of Fastnachtsspiele (carnival or Shrovetide plays).

Little is known of Ayrer's living circumstances. He lived as an ironmonger in Nuremberg, probably studying theology and law in Bamberg before returning in 1593 to Nuremberg, where he was Imperial notary and legal prosecutor.

Ayrer was the last significant composer of Fastnachtsspiele and a very prolific author: of his 106 plays, sixty-nine survive. He took his material from Greek mythology, Roman fables and German chapbooks and stories: he also translated plays of Shakespeare. Ayrer died in 1605 in his birth city of Nuremberg. Opus Theatricum, a six-volume selection of his plays, Fastnachtsspiele and farces, appeared in 1618.

As a dramatist, Ayrer is virtually the successor of Hans Sachs, but he came under the influence of the so-called Englische Komodianten, that is, troupes of English actors, who, at the close of the 16th century and during the 17th, repeatedly visited the Continent, bringing with them the repertory of the Elizabethan theatre. From those actors Ayrer learned how to enliven his dramas with sensational incidents and spectacular effects, and from them he borrowed the character of the clown. Influence may have operated in the other direction as well; Comedia von der schönen Sidea (c. 1600; “Comedy of the Beautiful Sidea”) is often cited as the plot model used by William Shakespeare in The Tempest. His plays, however, are in spite of his foreign models, hardly more dramatic, in the true sense of the word, than those of Sachs, and they are inferior to the latter in poetic qualities.

Works

• Von der Erbauung Roms ("The Building of Rome"), 1595
• Von der schönen Melusina ("Fair Melusina"), 1598
• Von dreien bösen Weibern ("Three Bad Wives"), 1598
• Von zweien Brüdern aus Syragusa ("Two Brothers from Syracuse", after Shakespeare)
• Opus Theatricum, 1618

References

•  "Ayrer, Jakob". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

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