SOURCE: Wild, Christopher. “‘Weder mit worten noch rutten’: The Force of Gryphius's Examples.” Germanic Review 76, no. 2 (spring 2001): 99-118.

In the following essay, Wild focuses on how Gryphius relies mainly on dramatic examples rather than on linguistic articulation in Catharine of Georgia; or, Constancy Maintained in order to develop his theme of constancy.

I

Ruled by rhetoric's pervasive regime, Baroque authors drew on the persuasive force of examples to execute their didactic designs, and Andreas Gryphius was no exception when he introduced the heroine of his martyr drama Catharina von Georgien: “Die von mir begehrete Catharine trit nunmehr auff den Schauplatz vnsers Vaterlandes / vnd stellet dir dar in jhrem Leib und Leiden einein vor dieser Zeit kaum erhöretes Beyspiel vnaußsprechlicher Beständigkeit. …”¹ Exemplarity² constitutes not only the thematic core of this drama, as the double title Catharina von Georgien Oder Bewehrete Beständigkeit indicates, but this rhetorical...