Images of Goethe Through Schiller's «Egmont»

David E. Kemp, a former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

This book presents an analysis of an unpublished performance script of
Friedrich Schiller’s adaptation of Goethe’s play Egmont (the
Mannheim manuscript). The author examines the collaboration between the
two playwrights as a means of addressing fundamental questions
concerning the roles of text and performance. John is among those
academics who believes that performance, not text, constitutes the
essence of dramatic and theatrical experience.

John argues that to fully appreciate the effectiveness of performance,
we need to broaden our concept of performance to include not only what
occurs on stage and its critical reception but also the daily life of
the society that provides its context. This all-encompassing semiotic
approach includes literary motifs, acting, staging, and social
role-playing, with particular reference to Goethe’s development as an
artist and cultural icon. The book includes a critically edited text of
the Mannheim manuscript, which is published as a performance text for
the first time.

John’s study of the semiology of Egmont theatre productions and of
the relationship between text, performance, audience, and critic is an
important contribution to the field of German literature and theatre.