DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12793652
title: Joseph on stage: texts and performances of the biblical story of Joseph the patriarch (1500-1700)

description: This file contains two datasets. The first is a repertory of 118 texts of plays about the patriarch Joseph (Genesis 37; 39-50) from the period 1500-1700, with references to digital copies, editions, and/or locations in archives. The second assembles the data about performances and printings of Joseph plays as they can be gathered from these sources, and contains nearly 800 references to printings or performances of plays about Joseph. There is no geographical or linguistic limit: I have included all the plays in any language and from any region that I could find. The temporal cut-off point is the year 1700. 

These data were gathered within the scope of the Dutch Research Council (NWO)–funded project ‘TransLatin: The Transnational Impact of Latin Drama from the Early Modern Netherlands.’ This project ran between 2020-2024 at the Huygens Institute for Dutch History and Culture, with Jan Bloemendal as PI, Dinah Wouters as postdoctoral researcher and Andrea Peverelli as PhD researcher.

The data build on three previous studies on early modern drama about this biblical figure: 



Weilen, Alexander von, Der ägyptische Joseph im Drama des XVI. Jahrhundert: ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Litteraturgeschichte (Wien: A. Hölder, 1887). – sixteenth century, with a focus on Germany

 Jean Lebeau, Salvator mundi: l’ “exemple” de Joseph dans le théâtre allemand au XVIe siècle (Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1977). – 1533 to 1625, focusing on the Low Countries and Germany, excluding Jesuit theatre 

 Ruprecht Wimmer, Jesuitentheater: Didaktik und Fest: das Exemplum des ägyptischen Joseph auf den deutschen Bühnen der Gesellschaft Jesu (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1982). – sixteenth and seventeenth century, focus on Jesuit drama from German


I have gathered texts, summaries and data about performances of Joseph dramas between the end of the fifteenth century and 1700. I exclude dramas of which the story of Joseph is just a small part, for instance in Les mystères de la Procession de Lille, Le mistère du vieil testament, or the Heidelberger Passionsspiel. However, I do include translations and summaries from periochae (programme booklets with summaries). When one playwright has written two or three plays about Joseph, I include these separately. I have found 98 complete texts, including translations, and 15 summaries. The Latin plays form the biggest group, followed by German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and French.






Language



Texts



Translations



Summaries



Total





Latin



34



 



13



47





German



18



4



3



25





Spanish



12



 



 



12





Dutch



7



2



2



11





Italian



9



 



 



9





French



3



2



3



8





English



1



2



 



3





Polish



1



1



 



2





Ladin



1



 



 



1





Swedish



1



 



 



1





Catalan



1



 



 



1





Total



87



11



20



118





Figure 1. Total number of plays per language. The total of texts does not always equal the sum of totals per language because there is one bilingual Latin-Spanish play and one bilingual Latin-German summary. Moreover, note that the language of summaries is not necessarily the language in which the play was performed.

These datasets are applied and analysed in the following articles and chapters by Dinah Wouters:



“Adaptations of a Biblical Story on Early Modern Stages: A Transregional and Multilingual Account of Joseph Plays (1500-1700)”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes [2025];

"The Biblical History Play: Turning Seventeenth-Century Joseph Plays into Political Drama", Journal of the Bible and its Reception [2024];

“The Jesuit Monopoly on Revenge in Joseph Plays: Morals, Justice, and Atonement,” in Revisiting Revenge Tragedy, ed. Adam Hansen, Marco Prandoni, and Cornelis van der Haven (Leiden: Brill, 2024): 60-83;

“Comoedia Sacra and Comedia Nueva: Defending Innovation in Comedy from the Northern Humanists to Lope de Vega,” Medievalia et Humanistica 48 (2023): 19–39;

“Revisiting Potiphar’s Wife: A European Perspective on a Character in Early Modern Drama,” Medievalia et Humanistica 47 (2022): 81–106.