Hanswurst or Hans Wurst (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for "Johnny Sausage") was a popular coarse-comic

stock character A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a type of character in a narrative (e.g. a novel, play, television show, or film) whom audiences recognize across many narratives or as part of a storytelling tradition or convention. Th ...

of German-speaking impromptu comedy. He is "a half doltish, half cunning, partly stupid, partly knowing, enterprising and cowardly, self indulgent and merry fellow, who, in accordance with circumstances, accentuated one or other of these characteristics." Through the 16th and 17th centuries, he was a buffoon character in rural carnival theaters and touring companies.

History

The name first appeared in a

Middle Low German Middle Low German is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225–34 (). During the Hanseatic period (from about 1300 to about 1600), Mid ...

version of

Sebastian Brant Sebastian Brant (also Brandt; 1457/1458 – 10 May 1521) was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire '' Das Narrenschiff'' (''The Ship of Fools''). Early life and education Brant was born in either 1457 or 1458 in Strasbo ...

's ''

Ship of Fools The ship of fools (Modern German: ; ), is an allegory, first appearing in Book VI of Plato's ''Republic'', about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system ...

'' (1494) (using the name Hans myst). "Hanswurst" was also a mockery and insult.

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

used it in his 1541 pamphlet (''Against Hanswurst''), when he railed against the Catholic Duke Henry of Brunswick. In 1712, Joseph Anton Stranitzky developed and popularized the role of Hanswurst. The theater historian

Otto Rommel Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded from ...

saw this as the beginning of the so-called Viennese popular theater. Stranitzky's Hanswurst wore the garb of a peasant from

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

, with a wide-brimmed hat on. His humor was often sexual and scatological. The character found numerous imitators. In the "Hanswurst dispute" of the 1730s the scholar

Johann Christoph Gottsched Johann Christoph Gottsched (2 February 1700 – 12 December 1766) was a German philosopher, author, critic and grammarian of the Enlightenment. Biography Early life He was born at Juditten (renamed Mendeleyevo in 1947) near Königsberg (K ...

and the actress

Friederike Caroline Neuber Friederike Caroline Neuber, née Friederike Caroline Weissenborn, also known as Friedericke Karoline Neuber, Frederika Neuber, Karoline Neuber, Carolina Neuber, Frau Neuber, and ''Die Neuberin'' (9 March 1697 – 30 November 1760), was a Germa ...

strove to banish the buffoon from the German-speaking stage, in order to improve the quality of German comedy and raise its social status, holding a public "banishing" of Hanswurst. This met with resistance, especially in Vienna. However, the staged banishment has generally been regarded as an emblematic moment in German theater history for the transition from popular, improvised, so-called to a modern bourgeois literary mode. The last notable Hanswurst was

Franz Schuch Franz may refer to: People * Franz (given name) * Franz (surname) Places * Franz (crater), a lunar crater * Franz, Ontario, a railway junction and unorganized town in Canada * Franz Lake, in the state of Washington, United States – see Fran ...

, who merged Hanswurst with the stock Harlequin character. The Italian-French Harlequin replaced Hanswurst. In the later 18th century Hanswurst was out of fashion and was only used in the puppet theater. Comical characters like Punch or Staberl replaced him for several decades. At the instigation of Joseph of Sonnenfels after the French Revolution (Memorandum for the future of theater censorship guidelines, 1790) the

Emperor Joseph II Joseph II (13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from 18 August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 29 November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor F ...

forbade improvised comedy and burlesque-like buffoon games. Due to authoritarian fear of political agitation, arts were directed towards fixed literary form theater (the "regular theater") and silent, music-accompanied pantomime. In 1775, a 26-year-old

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

wrote a farce entitled ''Hanswurst's Wedding''. In his 1797 comedy ''Puss in Boots'' (),

Ludwig Tieck Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romanticism, Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Tieck w ...

brought back the part of Hanswurst. For the Viennese Musical and Theatrical Exhibition of 1892, the actor

Ludwig Gottsleben Ludwig may refer to: People and fictional characters * Ludwig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Ludwig (surname), including a list of people * Ludwig von Koopa, a character in Mario (the game) Arts and entertai ...

played Hanswurst.

20th century to present

The German film comedy '' The Comedians'' (1941) by

GW Pabst Georg Wilhelm Pabst (25 August 1885 – 29 May 1967) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter. He started as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers during the Weimar Republic. ...

, which was marked by the ideology of the war, portrayed

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

, a German national poet, in a victorious battle against the foul-mouthed Hanswurst. The historical Lessing had written Hanswurst into the Hamburg Dramaturgy, and called the banishment "the biggest buffoonery of all" ().

References

{{Authority control Comedy theatre characters Male characters in theatre German humour