Inproceedings,
Towards a Database of European Neo-Latin Theatre: The Database of Jesuit Theatrical Activities in Bohemia as a Test Case
XVIIIth International congress of the International association for Neo-Latin studies (IANLS): Half a Century of Neo-Latin Studies Leuven, 31 July – 5 August 2022. Abstracts, page 13. Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, (2022)
Abstract
The study of Neo-Latin drama faces two major obstacles: limited accessibility of text corpora as well as insufficient records of both surviving works, and direct and indirect evidence of their staging. We propose that digital editions and databases are well positioned to solve both interlinked problems. Research into theatrical activities in the Jesuits’ Bohemian Province enabled the creation of a database that provides the widest possible scope of information. The first part consists predominantly of metadata about preserved texts and synopses, organised in line with standards of manuscript and early print descriptions. Links to the digitized version – if one exists – are always included. The second part comprises information on performances on one hand, and on the plot of the play and its structure on the other. For data collection about theatrical events, a special form is used. While its standards are still being developed, one of the guiding principles is a strict differentiation between fields containing information drawn from the sources (always cited), and that inferred or interpreted by the author of the entry. The main goal of this paper is defining these fields in such a way that they enable efficient searches and facilitate comparative research.
