Theater as an educational tool in the humanistic pedagogy of the XV-XVI centuries

The article discusses the concept of theater and drama of the German humanists of the XV-XVI centuries. The author marks out the main stages of development of humanistic literature and highlights several key arguments for studying drama and organizing performances that could be found in texts of Christian humanists. Basically, the last were associated with methodology of teaching and moralizing. Both philological and pedagogical arguments, mainly of applied character, considering theater and drama as effective learning tools were reflected in works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, and later become a formula typical for statutes of the Protestant schools. However, it is the didactic concept of theater as a tool of preaching that is of the most importance. The author focuses on Philip Melanchthon, a reformer and a humanist, who in his comments on classical theater consistently developed the idea of the interpretation of dramatic texts through the light of Christian ethics and dogmatic. The most precious are his comments on Terence's comedies. The author shows, how the humanist ideas complemented ones of the late classical rhetorician Aelius Donat, who also had analyzed text of Roman comediograth in the light of Christian thought. In particular, Melanchthon's submission of dramatic genres, comedy and tragedy, is studied. It differed from one of Donat and reflected the influence of Aristotle. Despite certain internal contradictions and difficulties in matching pagan comedies with Christianity, his work is to be interpreted as the key theatrical concept of the period. It is the Melanchthon's comedies that formed the idea of the perfect theater, which found expression in the consistent Protestant drama of XVI century.