Bühnenfassung / Stage adaptation: Sebastian Wild, Tragedj
Sebastian Wild's stage adaptation of the Sieben weise Meister, titled Ein schoͤne Tragedj auß dem bůch der siben weysen Maister gezogen, was produced in the mid-sixteenth century. Wild's Tragedj is in verse, and is an adaptation of one of the German prose redactions of the Historia tradition; Gerdes posits that Wild's source was one of the Redaction G 'vulgate' texts (Gerdes 1992). A version of Wild's text, along with other popular Volksbuch narratives, was printed in Augsburg in 1566.
Told across twelve acts, the Tragedj follows the Version H narrative pattern relatively closely - perhaps too closely to be really successful as a dramatic work, Gerdes observes wryly (1992). The performance also includes some of the moralisations so popular in the prose Sieben wiese Meister texts, in the form of dramatic monologues offering spiritual interpretation at the end of the play. Apparently Wild's plays were composed for school performances; according to Brandl (1914), six (school) performances of a play titled Die Weisen Meister, presumably a version of Wild's Tragedj, were recorded in 1609.