Honourable one should be amused ...

The first total edition of the standard German comedies of P. Maurus Lindemayr (1723 - 83) wants to throw open to research so far unpublished plays in order to give a more differentiated picture of the famous author in Upperaustrian dialect. Although they belong aesthetically as literature-historically to the most remarkable works of the Austrian theatre life during the Maria Theresian-Josephian era, the standard German comedies of P. Maurus Lindemayr (1723 - 83), Benedictine monc of Lambach, received so far hardly attention in the research. Responsible for this neglect is among others the localistically motivated reduction of the versatile writer and translator to the `pithy P. Maurus`, who with his country comedies and dialect poems is considered as `father of literature in Upperaustrian dialect`. His standard German pieces were left out in the first compilations, since they did not correspond to this picture, and were dismissed in early scientific treatises as aesthetically insufficient; until today a majority of his plays, which are not written in dialect, is unpublished. Thus those comedies of Lindemayr were unknown for a long time, which not only are (partially) able to entertain the reader until today, but also can be read as documents of a global modernization process, which changed the Austrian theatre fundamentally. To throw open to the public this partly still unpublished standard German comedies of Lindemayr means to fulfil one of the substantial desiderata of literature- and theatre-scientific research within the area of the Austrian Enlightenment. Actually these comedies are high-quality vouchers for the attempt to reconcile the traditions of the Benedictine theatre with the modern trends of theatre life. Beyond that they try to find an own aesthetic way between the requirements of an educational theatre, which in this time was revalued as medium of didactics, and the needs of entertainment. This project should enable to draw a more differentiated picture of P. Maurus Lindemayr as well as of the Austrian theatre life outside of the literary centre Vienna.

The first whole edition of the nine comedies in standard German of P. Maurus Lindemayr (1723-83), which was prepared in this project, accesses to public - both to research as to an interested readership - this so far mostly unpublished plays and thus shows an almost un-known side of the famous author in Upperaustrian dialect. Although they belong aesthetically as well as literature-historically to the most remarkable works of the Austrian theatre life dur-ing the Maria Theresian-Josephian era, the standard German comedies of the Benedictine monc of Lambach received so far hardly attention in the research. Responsible for this ne-glect is among others the localistically motivated reduction of the versatile writer and transla-tor to the `pithy P. Maurus`, who with his country comedies and dialect poems is considered as `father of literature in Upperaustrian dialect`. His standard German pieces were left out in the first compilations, since they did not correspond to this picture, were dismissed in early scientific treatises as aesthetically insufficient, so that until today a majority of his plays, which are not written in dialect, is unpublished. Now with the critical edition it will be possible to read these comedies - which partly saved their entertainment quality up to now - as documents of an extensive modernization process which changed the Austrian theatre in these decades fundamentally. Assistances for this view are the critical compilation of the (detailed described) text variants, which points out the difficult state of tradition, the extensive comment of the texts as well as the reconstruction of the history of origins, performance and tradition. The concluding study outlines in the first part the writer`s personality with a lot of new biographic material, offers the first complete bibliography of his printed works and gives the first profound view about the sources of his dramatic work. The second part attempts a literature-scientific positioning of the edited come-dies, which try to reconcile the traditions of the Benedictine theatre with the modern trends of theatre life. At the same time this edition is a critical revision of the Lindemayr- research which has to fight with handed down mistakes and deficient study of sources. It remains to hope that with the edition a differentiated picture of the author as well as of the Austrian theatre life beyond the literary centre of Vienna can be drawn.