AYRER, JAKOB

born , March? 1543, Franconia died March 26, 1605, Nrnberg dramatist who incorporated elements of Elizabethan plays (e.g., spectacular stage effects, violent action, histrionic bombast, the stock figure of the clown) into his own plays, particularly his Fastnachtsspiele, the farces performed at Shrovetide (the three days preceding Ash Wednesday). A lawyer by profession, Ayrer spent his last 12 years as a city council member and imperial notary in Nrnberg, where he witnessed the plays of the Englische Komdianten, English acting troupes that toured Germany in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Although not as talented as his master, Hans Sachs, Ayrer was very prolific. He wrote more than 100 comedies, tragedies, historical dramas, Fastnachtsspiele, and Singspiele. The lastvaudeville plays in which strophic texts are sung to traditional tunesis a genre he first popularized, and it represents his greatest artistic achievement. Sixty-six of his plays are preserved in his Opus Theatricum (1618; Works of the Theatre), of which Comedia von der schnen Sidea (c. 1600; Comedy of the Beautiful Sidea) is often cited for the affinities it bears to William Shakespeare's The Tempest.