ABSTRACT
In Johann Goethe’s Italian Journey , the poet gives an account of a visit to the Jesuit College at Regensburg, where he was clearly impressed by the performance of the students’ annual play:
I saw the end of an opera and the beginning of a tragedy. The acting was no worse than that of any other group of inexperienced amateurs, and their costumes were beautiful indeed, almost too magnificent. Their performance reminded me once again of the worldly wisdom of the Jesuits. They rejected nothing which might produce an effect, and they knew how to use it with love and care. Their wisdom was no coldly impersonal calculation; they did everything with a gusto, a sympathy and personal pleasure in the doing, such as living itself gives.
