Kierlighed uden Strømper
Title page of the first edition, 1772
Written byJohan Herman Wessel
CharactersJohan von Ehrenpreis
Grete
Mette
Mads
Jesper
Date premieredMarch 1773
Place premieredRoyal Danish Theater, Copenhagen, Denmark
Original languageDano-Norwegian
GenreComedy

Kierlighed uden Strømper: Et Sørge-Spil i Fem Optog (Love Without Stockings: A Tragedy in Five Acts) is a comedy by the Norwegian playwright Johan Herman Wessel, published in 1772.[1][2][3]

History

The play was published in September 1772 and it was performed in an amateur theater that same year. It had its official premier at the Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen in March 1773.[4][5]

Plot

The action takes place over the course of a day, and the main characters are all simple craftsmen. The heroine, Grete, is informed that she must get married during the day. As her beloved, Johan von Ehrenpreis, is away (he is a tailor, and has gone to mend a major's trousers), she turns to her former lover, Mads. Johan returns, but he has no stockings, and therefore he cannot marry. Johan steals Mads' stockings and is scolded by Mads—after which Johan takes his own life. Then everyone takes their own lives. In the play's epilogue, Mercury descends from the realm of the gods, bringing the characters back to life, after which they sing and dance.[6]

The play is a parody of classical drama's rules for the form and content of tragedy. The comic effect is particularly expressed in the mismatch between the high style of the lines and form, and the trivial content. The sumptuous music of the play, written in arias by the Italian composer Paolo Scalabrini, also helps create a comic effect when juxtaposed with the absurd and trivial action. Scalabrini himself was unaware of the play's content. The text is in Alexandrines.[2]

The name of the character Johan von Ehrenpreis can be seen as a jab at Johan Nordahl Brun, whose play Zarine (1772) won a tragedy competition.[7][8]

References

  1. ↑ "Kierlighed uden Strømper". Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. Retrieved November 15, 2022.
  2. 1 2 Naess, Harald S. (1993). A History of Norwegian Literature. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. p. 78.
  3. ↑ Rossel, Sven Hakon (1992). A History of Danish Literature. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. p. 151.
  4. ↑ Wessel, Caspar (1999). On the Analytical Representation of Direction. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. p. 23.
  5. ↑ Stecher, Marianne T. (2004). Danish Writers from the Reformation to Decadence, 1550–1900. Detroit: Gale. p. 480.
  6. ↑ Michelsen, Knud (2013). "Parodien som absurd farce – Kierlighed uden Strømper". Dansk litteraturs historie (in Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  7. ↑ Knud Michelsen (2007). "Det norske selskab og Johan Herman Wessel". In Pedersen, Vibeke A.; Michelsen, Knud; Sandstrøm, Bjarne; Mortensen, Lars Boje; Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen; Zeeberg, Peter; Zimmermann, Jan (eds.). Dansk litteraturs historie 1100-1800. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. p. 609.
  8. ↑ Baasland, Ernst (2014). Norge er større enn vi tror. Stavanger: Wigestrand.
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