Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs (5 November 1494 – 19 January 1576) was a German Meistersinger ("mastersinger"), poet, playwright, and shoemaker.

[1] Over several years he worked at his craft in many towns, including Regensburg, Passau, Salzburg, Munich, Osnabrück, Lübeck, and Leipzig.

[1] The Emperor Maximilian I chanced to pass through this town with his dazzling retinue, and the young poet allowed himself to be carried away by the splendour of the court.

The great event of his intellectual life was the coming of the Reformation; he became an ardent adherent of Luther, and in 1523 wrote in Luther's honor the poem beginning “The nightingale of Wittenberg, which is heard everywhere” (German: Die wittenbergisch Nachtigall, Die man jetzt höret überall), and four remarkable dialogues in prose, in which his warm sympathy with the reformer was tempered by counsels of moderation.

In spite of this, his advocacy of the new faith earned him a reproof from the town council of Nuremberg, and he was forbidden to publish any more “pamphlets or rhymes” (German: Büchlein oder Reimen).

(1558)[5] In the first one, one of the best known pieces of Sachs, the caught horse thief defends himself by arguing that he is no more dishonest than the judges, who, he asserts would do the same, had they had an opportunity.

His “tragedies” and “comedies” are, however, little more than stories told in dialogue, and are divided by convenient pauses into a varying number of acts.

He succeeds best in the short anecdotal Fastnachtsspiel or Shrovetide play, where characterisation and humorous situation are of more importance than dramatic form or construction.