CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Zaytseva, Arina |
|---|---|
| Title | Shaping the Literary Image of the Devil in Reformation Germany |
| Summary | The main questions that the present thesis is concerned with are connected to the development and functions of the devil’s image in the sixteenth-century literary tradition of the Devil’s Literature. How was this image shaped in the Late Middle Ages and in the Reformation times? How did it influence the readers? In order to answer these questions I compare the images of the devil presented in the late medieval treatise Satan’s Trial Against Humankind and a text of a Lutheran preacher Andreas Musculus On the Devil’s Tyranny, Power, and Might. In the assessment of these treatises I implement the methodology of theatricality. This notion connected visual and performative elements in literature and art by assessing the level of its engagement with the audience. It is useful in the analysis of the devil’s image, as it highlights the visual and performative properties of a written text as well as its emotional impact on the readers The devil’s image presented in On the Devil’s Tyranny was mainly influenced by the popular theater and Lutheran sermons. Luther’s ideas influenced the image of the devil presented in On the Devil’s Tyranny, as it became more frightening and tangible than the devil’s image of the Late Middle ages. This image evoked emotional response from the readers and thus was a useful instrument of moralization and installation of Lutheran ideas. |
| Supervisor | Klaniczay, Gábor; Jaritz, Gerhard |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/zaytseva_arina.pdf |
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