Copulative elements between the real and the unreal

Some non-allegorical elements, usually not in the framing scenes, are closely connected to the allegorical representation and interpretation:

these are dreams, comets, prophecies, omens and some special explainer, e.g. the astrologer. A dream – unrealistic as such – is a definite link or copula between earth and heaven, and predicts the positive turn of the action. It was most probably performed as a chorus or chorus-like panto-mime or tableau vivant with music.

5.1. The performance of Dobo’s triumph over the Turks must have been exciting with 15 scenes and many figures, fighters and traitors – without any break; thus the audience needed some rest from the ‘hectic’

plot. This is provided towards the end of the drama (in scene 12), when the distressed Dobó falls asleep and has a dream: he sees the signs of Strength and Perseverance. The ‘unrealistic’ dream scene is connected to the transcendental and belongs to the allegorical layer.

5.2. There is a dream in the drama about Calais, too: Johannes, the Captain of Calais sees lilies at arms (Joanni Oppidi Praefecto per somnum lilia armata obijiciuntur...) indicating the French help (cf. the lilies) in the next scene.

5.3. In the drama about Ladislaus, after his prayer for God’s help, a comet appears in the sky (in the last scene of the first act). In the opening scene of the second act, several courtiers try to interpret the comet and the enemy would give a false explanation. The right interpretation of the appearance of the comet is given only in the third scene of the act when the king has a dream. The dream predicts the hostile preparations of the Cumans, so Ladislaus is able to get ready for war. Here, we find both the topoi of a dream and a comet, now, interwoven in the main plot but with an important link to the transcendental, thus they are also connected to the allegorical story.

5.4. There is strange handling of the dream scenes in Svanvilda’s Danish story. In the last scene of the first act, the king has a dream (the content is unknown but he translates it as being against his wife) which is definitely connected to the following allegorical interlude (with Menda-cium wearing the mask of Diana). Within the second act there is a comet followed by another dream about two doves. Jarmericus misinterprets all three transcendental messages (the two dreams and the comet), which

shows that the messages are not to be passed to anyone, i.e. to disorderly kings.

5.5. Quite often, there are figures with allegorical allusions giving a personal link to the transcendental: prophets, astrologers and other ‘de-coders’ of the message. In the play about St. Ladislaus, four haruspices are listed among the dramatis personae; we suppose they were the ones giving the right explanation of the comet. (We should remember that the word Haruspex is translated as Diviner referring precisely to the transcen-dental.)

5.6. In several dramas, we have genuses in the framing scenes. Genus is the abstract idea (imago, essence, summary) of the allegorical properties of a dramatic character. (Thus, Calais and the fort of Eger against the Turks bear the allegorical notion of Christianity; the heraldic elements of Denmark and the three hills of Hungary represent the country.)

5.7. Due to the fact that mythology was taught in detail and well known in 17^th-18^th century schools, mythological figures, Graeco-Roman gods and goddesses were ‘automatic’ allegories with both ‘real’ and ‘un-real’ references.

5.8. Allegorical scenes use some typical props and objects, which were the most frequent items of the Baroque treasury, both written and engraved.⁴⁸ (On the other hand, the use of props also depended on the school’s props room.)

6. Conclusion

We found the tradition and methods of dramatic allegorical framing scenes of Jesuit theatre in the Italian and English court masques and fes-tivities. Ben Jonson defined the genre of masques as “the mirrors of man’s life”.⁴⁹ Behind the breath-taking spectacles, we find a definite ethos, a strong desire for harmony, stability, unchanging eternal values, a fight against time and the temporal. “The intertwining of time and eternity governs the universe of the Jacobean masque and accounts for that deli-cate sense of balance...”⁵⁰ In English court masques, experts discover a

48 Daly 1979a, 143-144, 152.

49 Lindley 1984, 8.

50 Kogan 1984, 50.

“quest for absolute poise and unity”: “Within this genre of superlatives, the masque presented its deepest Platonic allegories of world harmony in its most elaborate scenes and, paradoxically, expressed this taste for the extreme in the very balance of its structure, since the form attempted to bring its visual effects and its symbolic language into a state of perfect equilibrium.”⁵¹

The Baroque world of the Jesuit theatre was similar. Within an unpre-dictable, unsafe world, they also had a claim for stability and harmony;

one can see the typical Baroque uncertainty in these historical dramas, as if human fate as well as the fate of states were only at the mercy of the ca-pricious Fortuna. But school dramas wanted and had to give a different, a deeply religious answer or solution for the quest of stability: Fortuna as an actor of history had to be ‘Christianized’, hence she was considered just a tool in the hands of Providence.⁵² As a result of this change, the fragile world regained stability and unity. Thus nothing is accidental, though it seems to be, yet everything is wisely planned. Due to the allegorical framing scenes of the dramas, the accidental stories, earthly passions, unjust conclusions of the realistic main plot proved to be false and untrue:

their fragile, volatile reality was successfully overwritten by the message of eternal harmony and work of Providence.

51 Kogan 1984, 29.

52 Regarding the Christianization of Fortuna, the theorist Baltasar Gracián (1601–

1658) called Fortuna the maidservant (ancilla) of Providence. (Valentin 1978, 331-334)

Katalin Czibula